 Yeah, we're back with another live J-Fight L. I'm think tech over here and we're talking about Coronaville. What's next? We're talking about the coronavirus with Stephanie Dalton and Winston Welsh as we do every Thursday at 11. Here we are. And so let's talk about what's going on this week. Let's talk about let's talk about his rose garden appearances first. So Winston, is it is it helping? Is it helping in dealing with the virus and helping politically now that he's back doing press conferences and political press conferences about the virus? I don't know. I mean, he did wear a mask and he said it's now patriotic instead of being anti-Trump to wear a mask. But I'm not sure that it's sunk down to his supporters yet. I was talking with a colleague of mine who lives in, whose brother lives in Georgia. And she said that wearing a mask there, that he wore a mask inside to a liquor store. I think she said, and the woman at the counter, nobody was wearing a mask. And the lady said, oh, honey, I, she said, like you had cancer, I hope you get better soon. And he's like, no, it's there's a pandemic going on, we're all supposed to be wearing masks. But for that, I'd say whatever Donald Trump is doing now, it's not about the public. It would be only because he thinks it's going to help his re-election chances that because he's losing so badly in the public perception as to how he's handling this and people were saying, okay, you got to wear a mask and maybe now he trumps out and he has speeches again. So we'll go from there. But no, I don't think there'll be any effect either way. I think it's clear that he diminished the importance and threat of the coronavirus from the outset. And he made all these ridiculous statements about how it was of no consequence. And even recently, it's just a sniffle, you know, and it's going to disappear a lot. And the question now is he's changing his tune. It's that alternative facts moving while you watch. And now he's saying it's serious. So the question, Stephanie, is that going to stick? Is he going to be able to convince people between now and the election that he's legit, that he's really fighting the good fight against coronavirus? Well, I mean, this tool of the daily briefing is not going to do it for him. And because he got the feedback all wrong. I mean, the people were unhappy about the program and the daily briefing. The feedback was get off the stage, Mr. President. He wasn't doing anything useful. They want the medical people. Those are useful now? Yes. I think so. We need to have, we need to have those charts up for people to understand what the strategies can be to understand how important, for instance, doing something as a nation simultaneously rather than waiting for each state to get to a certain place and then start being able to look at the data to see what a difference it makes. If, you know, if New York outbreaks again in a week or someplace does, you know, everybody should go down because it just, it gets everybody on the same timeline and it gets. You guys see the article in the New York Times where there was a, an affirmative strategy developed in the White House to lay it on the states in order to avoid accountability responsibility for him to see that article. It's very interesting. And I think that's, that strategy still exists, doesn't it? He's trying, he's still trying to lay it on the states. He's trying to get out of the way on being responsible for this. Yes. It's a masterful attempt to decoy and just, you know, deploy stuff to, you know, in other ways that don't come back on him. But the fact of the matter is, is it is because everybody understands that without a national policy, it's not going to work and the evidence is continued to accumulate that people do actually do what he says. And if he doesn't say wear a mask, they won't wear a mask. If he says drink the Kool-Aid, they'll drink the Kool-Aid. So that takes me to the lag effect, you know. If Donald Trump changes his view on day one yesterday, whatever this week, how long does it take for that to sink in? How long does it take for that to sink into the woman in the shop in Georgia where she begins to understand, you know, we have a pandemic? Or does she remain ignorant for the next X months, maybe through the election? She never really understands. She's getting all her signals from him, and it never catches up with her. I think there's a lag in terms of public opinion, public information. Well, I attribute that if I could go ahead and check. It's Fox News, because if that person is only watching, is watching one single station and not attending to any other input from media, then they're not going to get the information they need to make the best decisions about their own and their family's health. I mean, that is another accountability that that news station ought to take on. They are not keeping the data up. I've talked to people from Phoenix, Arizona here who didn't know that Phoenix, Arizona was a flame and had to share ICU beds. So, I mean, this is the problem of looking at one source. So, people are really, would you say, Winston, that it's a combination of things? What are the factors that make people so ignorant? Well, there's a willful ignorance inside of so much of the country and denial. I see this Stephen Miller's grandmother died of COVID and the son blame Donald Trump. These are people that are following it that says, maybe there is a connection between people getting sick and people dying. Now, I also read that the CDC said based on its testing that 10 times more people actually have gotten this virus than is being reported, which makes sense. You know, we're not testing most people in most people. We've heard that before. We heard that from Redfield a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, and that's what we're seeing. So, it may be that there's a lot more cases than, of course, then we thought that the people that are getting sick, that they're really getting sick. And we don't know what the long-term effects are of those. It's easier not to look at it. It's easier to put your head in the sand. And also, when you have been told for months and months and months that this is not a problem, it's going to go away miraculously. It's Chinese, so you're not even going to get it if you get it. And maybe we're going to sacrifice a few people. But when you're looking at this and you have a leader that says, don't wear this. If you wear a mask, you're going against me. I think all of that adds up to an atmosphere where people do not want to change their mind. Or if they do, the repeated exposure where they said, oh, well, now Donald Trump is saying we should wear a mask. So how many times do you have to watch, like Stephanie says, Fox News, to get that message? And maybe all of the Fox News people will start wearing a mask for one week if they're sitting on the stage together and say, hey, just to get the message out here, here it is. Oh, I think it's very well taken. And in fact, it leads to a question we just got. And when I say well taken, I mean that it's not only the mask issue. It's this momentum thing that if you say and he does, if you drill down on a lie over and over and over again, it's very hard to get people to get off that because they are blindly loyal to him. And that loyalty drives them to believe him about something he said before, even when he changes his position. And there's some kind of twisted thinking in there that says, well, I'm not accepting what he says now. I accept what he says before. Now, here's the question. Trump also said he was the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln. Do his supporters actually believe that? He's the greatest president of all time of the history of the universe and not even just since Abraham Lincoln. So, you know, don't even qualify it with saying 150 years ago. This he's obviously the best president and the smartest and the brightest. And he's passed his cognitive test of flying colors. Look, Jay, we can't go by really anything that's coming out of the White House. We have to there are signs that it's coming around it. It's Redfield. It's Fauci. It's even Deborah Birx now, although she's sort of on board with the messaging again. I think they're all trying in their own ways. But he's a leader of a movement of willful ignorance. You know, you have a governor camp in Georgia where he is suing Atlanta because Atlanta has a mask requirement. Now, the mayor of Atlanta is sick with COVID right now, but he's suing the city and saying, you know, you're violating people's rights by making them wear a mask. This is insanity. It is insanity. It's insanity. It's not just Donald Trump. And I'm asking the question is I want to know what is the mechanics behind people who seem to be insane, the people who reject the truth and the obvious evidence again and again and again. You know, and I think what what he has achieved, and I like your view of this, Stephanie, what he has achieved is complete confusion and in a pandemic, confusion has to be about the worst thing you can, you can have. But can we talk about that? You know, because can you lead, can you lead a nation in trying to survive a pandemic by confusing them? Yes, obviously, because he's done it to us. So that means you're asking, well, we need to think about why we're eligible for that. Why are we susceptible? And I have to submit that I believe we've got a chance to read to the education system for the reasons of the pandemic. But we need to do something about making sure we teach history, we teach civics, and we get critical thinking to levels that people must aspire to. In order to be be the democracy, the great democracy we claim to be. Otherwise, we're going to go right down the two. And as I read recently, you know, none of the democracies have lasted. I mean, Greece's went down, Rome's went down, they've all gone down. And so we're the ones that have the cross to bear now. If you want to consider that, if we have the privilege of carrying the cross of democracy forward. And if we really want to do that as a nation, if that's important to us, well, we've got to educate our citizenry and not to be ideological, but to be knowledgeable and know how to think about things that we're just not doing a good job. Well, I think a lot of people around, including here in Hawaii, don't even see this issue. They're not aware of it. They're interested in other issues. But the fact is that COVID is the most significant story of our time, of our lives. Maybe of the last few hundred years. I mean, since the, you know, the black plague of the 16th century, which killed half of Europe. And it's going to keep on going until we find a way to deal with it. So the question is, you know, what is the worst case analysis on this disease? We know we get all this confusion about what to do. People are really confused or ignorant or a combination of willfully ignorant and willfully confused. And we get no leadership of consequence. We get the states all in trouble. And then we get all these distractions like the Portland brown shirt experience on top of all of that, which will get worse. And meanwhile, the virus is relentless. What's going to happen here? I hate to ask you a question that calls for something other than optimism, Winston. But what is going to happen? Go, go, go. Well, you know, yeah, it's a two-way. You threw me off there, Jay. I do remain optimistic. You know, we're in tough times right now. I saw a funny posting that says, America closed for repairs. We'll reopen under new management in January. And I think there's something to be said for that, that we've just become so fractured and weirded out that if you're not sick of what's happened from any angle in the last four years, you haven't been paying attention. But we have a chance here to step back to look when this is done. And I think there is remarkable progress being made medically for all types of vaccines that are being tested. We'll come out of this on another end, but then you're going to have your anti-vaxxers. So what is that all going to mean? I don't know. But in the end, when we do the big debrief as part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, there's got to be sort of a Corona Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where we look at our systems, our structures, our responsibility and responsibilities. And we'll step back and we will come back so that when the real plague comes, this is just like a kindergarten version. I'm sad to say that's my unoptimistic voice. But you're making, Stephanie, he's making a lot of assumptions. For example, he's assuming that our democracy will remain viable. And the fact is that the COVID, we've had other shows on this question. COVID requires a global response. It requires a non-isolationist response in any event. It requires a collaboration among scientists all over the world, which we are actually standing in the way of. Closing down our relationship with China, not a good idea. Closing down our relationship with the United Nations and the World Health Organization. Not a good idea. We're not doing the kind of collaboration we have to do. It's this is what's going to happen here, and which may not be a perfect solution because you can have a vaccine and you can have a vaccine. They don't all work the same. They're not all as effective as the other ones. So I guess my question is, Stephanie, are you optimistic on this kind of thing? Do you think that the framework of the country, the democratic framework, which is right now failing us, and we'll see in November how much failure we're really dealing with, don't you need that democratic framework in order to solve this problem? And if you don't have that because you have an emerging tyrant going on here and a government that is miles away from what the founders contemplated, without a rule of law, can you solve it without and with isolationist policies? Can you solve COVID or is it going to be a struggle for hundreds of years? Well, I think that it's been unwise for the U.S. to operate as it is. Of course, because we're shortening ourselves on the benefits of our medical expertise. It's not engaged because we're not getting the synthesis of it, which is not just within the United States, but our collaboration, as you say, with all of the others. That's what we need to combat this virus. It's a bad one. It's a challenging one. It's a beast. So we need everybody. It's just like we need the whole world to get that meteorite not to come our way. And we need everybody. And now we've got the meteorite right here and we've decided, well, no, we're going to get all tied up and all this other stuff. And I'm really concerned about what we still have to go through because as these immunizations develop, it looks like we're on a fast track for something that's been publicized lately. And I'm very worried about that because it's going to raise up right away, as Winston said, the anti-vaxxers. And then we're going to have side effects unanticipated, perhaps. And it's a short, it's a rushed job and the fights over who's going to take it. So that's in addition to even if Trump loses the election officially and still has five more months to do damage. We still have so much to go through. It's like we still have the hardest part of this trial to pass through to get to the end. So the question is, will the Democratic framework hold? I mean, right now it's pretty wobbly. But will it hold? And will those Republicans who are conservative, but without authoritarianness trends in that they're not like the revolutionaries for an authoritarian situation really when they get down to it. Maybe they'll be able to step out, especially if he loses the election. But we're in terrible jeopardy. I think the worst part of it is yet to come. So hang on, Slupey. Yeah. And that's not even talking about Douglas, which is on the way to Hawaii. Well, exactly. Class three hurricane. Nobody cares about us out here over the weekend. Yeah. Anyway, after the show, go out and buy food and water. OK, so Winston, I want to drill down with you. I know you've been reading about the research in the vaccine, the research in the therapeutics. How are we doing really? Because, you know, there's a certain amount of confusion about that. You hear it from this guy and then from another guy. And you see an article about this, that and the other thing. It's hard to get your hands around what is really happening, who is doing it and how likely it is to succeed. I think that's an exact summation of where we're at in that. I read all types of things. So this one's in testing. This one's this one's we've just gotten this government funding. The Germans invested in the one that was going to be stolen, you know, earlier by the Americans. You know, we're forgetting, though. Yes, our Democrat democratic framework here is wobbly right now. But we're resilient people and we will come back. We just have had so many people that are, I don't know how we actually share common news and one plus one does actually equal one. And we've got to get back to what else equals, does two plus one equal three? And that's where we've got to go back as a nation and figure out those truths that are just true, whether you like them or not, that viruses are spread from droplets. It's not some conspiracy theory. So where are you vesting your confidence? Is it in Fauci because he's been sidelined? I think it's not clear what's going to happen in the election. I am just because I wanted to be so because the alternative is so dire. We also have to remember even though we may have pulled back from WHO or from, you know, actually, we can't leave the nation now. We can't go to Canada or Mexico. We can't go anywhere. We have giant pharmaceutical companies that are multinationals and they don't care who the president is. They care about the almighty dollar, euro, yuan. They will develop treatments and cures because it's in their best interest to do so. And it doesn't matter where their corporate headquarters are. The medicines will ultimately be distributed everywhere. So just based on the enlightened self-interest of these corporate entities, we will have these treatments. We will have these cures. They will come to us. They will be administered in different ways in different places. And the marketplace of sickness and ideas will bear fruit. You see when you open up cities and you say there's no requirement to wear masks, you have a certain level of infections. And when you have others that say we're wearing masks and we're going to vaccinate our population, you're going to have different results. So out of all of that in this sort of sad competition. But the best and brightest will result out of that. So I'm basing it in optimism of... The emerging truth is we have an economy that is totally falling apart while we speak. There's whole sectors of the economy are closed, going bankrupt. You're not in airlines. You're not in airlines. I just have to say that... Fires straights. And so my question to you, Stephanie, is A, do you agree that we have to solve COVID before we can really reopen? And in any event, what is the way we can reopen an economy that is in free fall? That every day while these briefings are made and all these alternative facts are presented to us and all this confusion in Georgia and so many other places about what we have at hand. How are we going to restore an economy that is being destroyed in front of us? Well, I believe that we haven't done all the things we could do as a nation, okay? We haven't done things simultaneously. We're not all wearing masks, blah, blah, the whole list. So could we try that first? If we do all of the things we know and we do them systematically, everywhere, altogether, it's a national objective, it's a plan, it's a policy. Let's try that. That would get us back in the game and maybe get us to open the economy more if we do the things we know to do. But do not think for a minute that if those pharmaceuticals, as you guys are saying, are going to put out all of this and are going to be making all the big bucks, you think our leader is not going to do something about that? Who's going to be in charge of where all of that benefit goes? Who's going to then use the act from the 50s to be able to direct things as the government wants them? That's when he's going to use it, is to be able to have a contingent thing to use. We're even in more jeopardy then as to who is going to get it and who's going to control and decide who gets it. This is why I'm saying we have ahead of us a lot more challenge than we've got behind us, if you can believe it, it's already so hard. But to answer your question, J, is that we need to do what we know to do and we need to do it willingly and voluntarily. We shouldn't even need to have legislation or policy. There should just be a call from our president who's as great as Abraham Lincoln. That's normative and very nice, but that's not happening and is not likely to happen. The reality is I told you about the people in the street in New York, we have some questions. Yes. Trump says to wear a mask, but then he turns around and threatens schools to reopen and is forcing them to reopen or trying. Why do you think Trump is pushing so hard to open the schools? You're the educator among us. Stephanie, what's your answer to that? Well, he wants the parents to go back to work and he thinks that the kids don't get it because he's not reading the studies. He thinks that the youngsters don't really get the virus or have no effects from it, but mostly he wants the structures back in place, the babysitting system of the schools to allow people to get back with the economic work. Right. His plan does not include solving the problem. Okay, let's go to another question. Everyone questions, oh, there's two questions. It's almost half the population of the United States believes that Trump is the greatest president we have ever known. How can this threat to democracy ever be resolved? And I suppose inherent in that Winston is how can COVID be dealt with if half the country believes whatever Trump tells them? Because then that means half of us are confused like the woman in Georgia or the people in Queens who went out and had street parties without masks last night and the Blasio was pulling his hair out because, remember, New York had a bad time. So how can we come together in a country that believes Trump? Half of the country believes Trump. I was reading something somewhere. It's about a third of the nation says Corona death rates have been underreported. This is sort of conspiracy theory. They've been underreported. Another third said they've been overreported. And then I guess the other third didn't really have an opinion. But this is quite interesting that that was broken into thirds instead of halves. But it's probably the question is right. Half of the nation believes in one way. Where do we find the truth with our fellow countrymen that one plus one equals two and one plus two equals three? I think after Donald Trump is out and Stephanie is right, our darker days are ahead. We're going to have a hell of a summer and fall here. And it will follow also hopefully when Joe Biden is in. But he will institute a national policy of directing resources that is appropriate by a leader of a civilized nation and confronting a major health threat like this. And getting people on board and educated and saying, look folks, we're not trying to infringe on your rights here. We're trying to save your life. And these are the facts. These are real facts are not alternative facts. And but we're not there and we're not going to be there. Even if Donald Trump. Changes his tune and says now it's patriotic to wear a mask. That would be like him saying now that voting by mail is, is safe and effective and, and good if he found out that that was going to be better for his outcome. When you got a train going down the tracks pretty fast or a big vote, you can't just put on the brakes and turn to starboard. Like that and expect the whole thing to move. It's a long process. And so we have to just rely as best as we can. As I've been saying for a couple of months on our local officials. On federal officials that are doing the best job they can under the circumstances on. And just your common sense, you've got to take your own individual responsibility here. So. You know, and, and, and pray and pray for the best. There it is. That's the takeaway from this show. So Stephanie, we've been into this for six months. And the results have been dire, both in public understanding in the, in the, in the infection of the pub of the public. And as you said, it's, we had five months, even if Biden wins the election, we got five months more Trump thereabouts, where that could be just like the six months we've just had. So, you know, this thing could spread far and wide much further, much wider, because it's right now, I think everyone agrees it's out of control. So what can we do, you know, to, to track on Winston's thought, what can we do individually? And in terms of, you know, the, our local government, what can we do in those five months to avoid a, a civilizational apocalypse? I mean, we're about to blow up further according to Berks and the kinds of secret conversations we've heard there are that there are more states ready to blast off, plus New York's going to come back if they were that silly to, to go out and do that. I think that all along here, we, Trump could have had a better opportunity to show his, his, his greatness. If the Senate had acted its role, if the Senate had done what its due diligence was, they had done nothing to, to help the house, even when it wasn't democratic. Is the Senate leaving him? Is there a certain indication that the Senate is not so enamored with him anymore? Rand Paul stepping up as a Republican. And I think we ought to send letters to the crazy to tell our senators, everybody across the nation. Get on with it and do just do your job because we're out of options for impeaching him again, or whatever, if only we could do something like that. If things are going to get so bad, maybe Andrew Cuomo needs to be run into the White House temporarily to run the show for the nation. I mean, his performance was so outstanding that, and then we're still stuck with Dumbo here on, on the virus actions. But anyway, the point is, would we just need to write our, get our representatives to do what they're supposed to do? So that's an optimistic point that maybe, maybe the Republican Party will stop supporting him because they'll realize that November will be judgment day on him and on the Republican Party. But the other factor, and this is my last question, Winston, I appreciate if you try to tackle this. Let's see if I got. Yeah. You know, we have violence going on in the streets. It started off innocently enough with the first amendment protest and then some people provocateurs made it violent. And then Trump stepped in, he's going to save us all by, by using these brown shirts. It all looks so much like 1933. And he's now threatening to go into various cities. And the people in the protests are reacting to that, including completely, you know, nonviolent protest. The mayor of Portland was in the protest group demonstrating where her head is that. So my question to you is how are we going to cope with the virus when we have the violence? I don't see an easy solution on the violence and Trump, you know, to satisfy his perception of what his base wants from him is going to go city after city. And the cities are going to respond. And before you know it, the whole country is going to be burning, not only in virus, but in violence. How does this, how does this play? It's my last question. It's not, not an easy question. Much more for me, much more worrisome. The virus we can deal with, we can understand. You wear a mask, you stay home, you wash your hands. You limit contact. We understand that part. But you know, the, the threat to. Our democracy. And when you have a stated goal of going into Democrat controlled cities to, to quench violence. You know, spray painting a building. Nobody's normal people don't want it. They're not participating in this violence, but when you're faced with a threat, then people coming in and trying to, you know, stop on your, stop on the streets. You're not going to be protesting a building. It's not your first amendment, right? But protesting. Legally or demonstrating legally. That's your right as an American citizen. Last time I checked. And when that is threatened, then you, then you stir up a whole bunch of emotions. You kick the hornet's nest when it doesn't need to be kicked. When things are just calming down actually. And people are starting to step back and say, Oh, what was that whole thing about last month? And how are we going to go from here? I think it's going to be, it's going to be something that I think would play to his, his base and, and he might get some traction out of it, but I do not expect the Senate Republicans to step up. The followers of, of the Republic former Republican party or in name of Republican party, they support Donald Trump. They do not support their individual Republican senators or colleagues. He is the leader of the party. That is who they support. We're going to have to figure out what it is that people actually support in Donald Trump's message. And how do we take that and understand that to be integrated into our society? What inside of there is a legitimate concern? And it's, it's very hard to solve a medical problem without medicine. You know, it's like I'm watching this lecture series about the, the black plague. And if you want to see it, you can see it on Amazon. The woman's name is Dorsey Armstrong. And she lectures about the black plague. And one of the things that made it so difficult and lethal was they had no medicine. But if you don't believe in the medicine you have, if you diminish, you know, the effective medicine and you don't use medicine, you lie about medicine. It's, it's taking us back to the 14th century, isn't it? That's where we are. That's where we are. We're in the 14th century. He's done that to us. Thank you, Dr. Trump. So, okay, 30 seconds, Stephanie, what's your, what's your expectation for this coming week? I think they just canceled the Jacksonville Republican convention site. So that, that's a positive thing, I suppose, but that might be the only positive thing that's lying ahead. And I think it's just going to get rougher and rougher. And he's going to, and then if it, just as I've already said, so I would love to see our Republicans get, get their groove on or whatever and get on with their job and that everybody write letters to their senators and reps that, you know, that's the government that's got to do the work here. And he's irredeemable. I'm sorry, Winston, read Mary Trump's book. It explains it all. You know what, I'm going to keep, I'm going to keep up the hope. I want our leaders to rise up to the occasion. Maybe Donald Trump will have a come to Jesus moment and realize, whoa, I've got to do something here because that's what I've got to do. And I am holding out hope beyond hope for that. That he just starts singing a different tune. It's probably not realistic, but let's, let's go, let's all go out on the lanai and smoke some of that stuff. Winston's been smoking. Thank you. Thank you very much, you guys. Thank you, Winston. Thank you, Stephanie. Aloha. We'll see you next week.