 Okay, we're back. We're live here on ThinkTech. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Trump week, the story of the king of chaos. To my left, Cynthia Sinclair and to her left, Tim Epicella. And we are going to talk about, as we do every Friday at 11 o'clock, we're going to talk about the connecting the dots for Trump. Okay, so one of the things that happened, one of the huge things that happened this week is his blatant violation of constitutional checks and balances on Monday, wasn't it? Yeah. Right. In the famous Rose Garden speech, which he was just about incoherent in that speech. Where he admitted that he didn't need to do it. Yeah. That was really silly to do that. I mean, he pulled the rug out from his own position that way. How can you not need to do it and also have an emergency? The lesser point was how do you have an emergency and fly off through play golf? I mean, surely in an emergency, the president is working doing something to solve the emergency. But the worst part of it is that it pulls the rug out from Congress. It pulls the rug out from the Constitution. And it's blatant. The worst part of all is that this is the kind of thing that happened in the thirties. This is the enabling act of 1933, where Hitler somehow managed to get through the Reichstag, both houses of the Reichstag in 1933, a bill that said he could make the laws, thereby completely terminating their legal effect. There was no Reichstag after that. And if he does this kind of thing in Congress, there is no Congress after that. By the Constitution, Congress has the power of the purse. And all of a sudden, he has the power of the purse. What happened to the Constitution? There's no excuse for this. I mean, ignorance is one thing, hubris is another thing. But what happened here was really criminal, was a criminal violation of the Constitution. Intentional, criminal, willful. I believe it was completely willful. And like you say, you know, with the enabling act, it's the same thing that I've been so afraid of from the beginning with this national emergency stuff. It gives him power over like 122 different laws. I was trying to look it up. It's really complicated, really long piece of you know, literature or whatever you want to call it to read, and to try to figure it out when you're not a lawyer. But it basically is the, yeah, the next step. I don't think it's complicated, Cynthia. Well, it's giving him all the power. I think he violated, he violated the letter in spirit of the Constitution. Absolutely. No, in that sense, yes. And where they completely bogus claim of national emergency, there is no emergency. There was no emergency. You know, there are so many things happening in the world that he should be spending his time on. This is the last thing. People don't care. Even the people in El Paso, El Paso. So what's happened in the suits that flowed out of that? There are 16 of them. Well, 17. Yeah, 17. Yeah. Where I'm disappointed is again, we can go down the judicial route through court challenges, be it in the ninth district or in the fifth district of the El Paso county. We can go that route. But where I'm really disappointed is where are the Republicans in the Senate? Where are the Republicans in the House to say he's taking away the authority of Congress? Why are they sitting idle? Why are they silent? That's what disappoints me. Do they not see the impact and the seriousness of this maneuver? And I don't have an answer. Well, you're right. And that was a point made in a letter that was sent to all the press and to a lot of officials this week by a group of 200 lawyers in the country emanating out of Washington, I think. I'm one of them. I'm one of the signatories on that letter. And the piece is what happened to the bar associations? What happened to the lawyers? What happened to the American Bar Association? What happened to all the professional organizations? What happened to all the lawyers in Congress? They should clearly see what's happening. The Constitution is being torn asunder. Trump has tried other things like this in the past. He's grabbed power like this, but this is the worst one yet. And the precedent is not, we don't have to worry about the Democrats doing that. Everybody says, oh, if you let Trump do this, the Democrats will do it. We have to worry about Trump doing it again and again and again. That's a good point. And he gets away with it and pressed it. Or being successful in it, right? Up till now, he is getting away with it. It's been five days Congress has done nothing. Congress could make a resolution to pull a rug out from under him. I thought they were trying to do that. I thought they are. Well, where is it? Well, the House will soon approve, as I said, it's a resolution. Because that's what's called for by the law. That's the remedy in the 1976 law that Congress can enact a resolution. And then the Senate would also enact that resolution and it would go to the president's desk for most likely a veto. And then, of course, it would be up to both Houses to override that veto. So the prescription is there in the 1976 law. But I guess what really the impact is for me. It's been five business days already, Tim, nothing. I know. But it takes time to get these, Congress is out of town right now, so it takes time to get them back in the town. It's going to take a while. I think Nancy Pelosi mentioned it's going to be ready by Tuesday. But the impact that I'm struggling with is Donald Trump was told, no, you're not getting your 5.7 billion explicitly. You're not getting it. You'll get 1.34 border measures and security, but not for specifically the wall. So this should be an easy resolution for Congress, shouldn't it? It should be. That's my point. That's the point I'm trying to make here is it should be black and white. And it's not. And what's going on? And it upsets me, to be honest with you, to see them sit on their thumbs and not, you know... Well, let's take a moment and talk about why the Republicans are not, you know, trying to curtail his power, limit his power, why they go along with him on everything, including some really cockamamie bills and confirmations. Why is that? What is happening with the Republicans? I think in the beginning it was they were going to get their way, they were going to get their agenda forward. And that's all they cared about. They put party over country and they didn't care about what was happening out in the world. Is this really parties in the end? Or is this just Trump loyalties? I think it's partly Trump loyalty, but I think it's more party loyalty. I think it's more agenda loyalty. They want those conservative judges, they want this, you know, they want to overturn rovers. Wait, that's what the conservative bunch wants to do. And they see the possibility of that happening. Some of these things are inexplicable on that basis. I think it's been clear since day one, and that they know there's a great deal of conservatives and of that base of whether you want to call it 30% or 35%. I don't know where you want to give that percentage, but they know there's a certain substantial percentage that no matter what Trump says, it's golden for that 30% to 35%. Now, the last thing they want to see is Donald Trump come out against them when it's time for reelection, be it in primaries or whatever. And they're worried that he's going to speak out against them during their reelection campaign. And they're going to lose their job. They're going to get self-interest, I'm going to lose my job. Therefore, I'm going to let the Constitution burn to the ground because I'm concerned about getting reelected. That's number one. Number two is there was a recent poll by Fox that 45% of all Republicans believe that Donald Trump was appointed by God, anointed by God, 45% of Republicans. That's a fact. Again, I'm not going to speak to the scientific gathering process of this particular poll, but this is on the heels of when Sarah Soder said to the Christian Broadcasting Network that we believe that Donald Trump was anointed and appointed by God to be the President of the United States at this time. I don't want to be pessimistic. Let me just move that forward and say, okay, so now you have this survey of Republicans think, yes, he is appointed by God. So you're not dealing with a belief system. And a belief system doesn't matter about rationality or it doesn't talk about the trashing of the Constitution. It's a belief that if you're appointed by God, then whatever you say goes. And I'm not saying that's what's happening here, but there's never one thing to a motivation. There's never one thing to a cause effect. It's usually multiple things, especially in politics, especially in this country with so many issues burning us. So I mean, a question, just to digress for a moment, this is all a digression. Just to digress for a moment, is this correctable? Is this going to be fixed? Or are these Republicans going to stay in office, not be thrown out of office and continue to do the same thing? We have a long way to go before we can recover our democracy. Because right now in Congress, well, in the relationship with Congress and the executive, we've lost it. So how do we get back? Can we get back? Can we get back and say it's a better question? Because I think we're now stepped over that line. I didn't think that was going to happen. And I think we've just recently crossed over that line, and particularly to the point where I've seen the Republicans not react the way they ought to have. Yeah, that's what God means. Yeah, it reminds me of a paragraph in this piece I wrote which will play on cable on Sunday. Really good. Thanks to you. Yeah. It's, it may be too late. It may be too late. For some things, I think it is too late. Sadly, we may have already passed the point of no return. See how much time we waste on Trump and his daily distractions, and how little time we have left to think together and save ourselves from what he's doing. It's not easy. As a country, we seem more and more unfocused, unable to deal with him. This makes him more powerful. There's so many distractions and fragmentation among the Democrats and the country that we can't focus on the real problem. And the real problem is Trump. Yeah. Well, let's, let's set aside the inaction or the apathy of the Republican party in the Senate and in the House. Let's go back to the judicial system. You know, one of the checks and balances of our government. And let's hope to God that they do their job as judges. He seems confident that they're going to uphold this national emergency. Once they get to this. In the Ninth District. But we don't know what that. In the Supreme Court. Oh, in the Supreme Court. We'll go to the Supreme Court. Right. And really the test, if you want to put a test at this late date to Kavanaugh is to see how Kavanaugh votes on that. Because it's, it's national emergency. Trump's national emergency is legally indefensible. And the Supreme Court votes for it. How can you have confidence in the Supreme Court? Again, you know, this is really. Well, it'll be interesting to see that to the Ninth Circuit, that will go to the Supreme Court, that decision, or from the Fifth Circuit, which is again, the lawsuit recently going to be filed on the El Paso, Texas. By Tribe and Gerson. Right. So now if, if it's that one, we'll see. Because then that's a real indicator of, of a slanted Supreme Court decision. Yeah. We'll see. So, you know, there's been indications this week. I mean, the letter from the lawyers is one, Adam Schiff's letter is another one. That maybe, you know, there are cracks in the, in the Trump wall, may I say. You know, do we have, I ask you guys this question every single week, do we have a fissure going on here? Is Trump losing his power, losing his mojo, losing his base, losing his moral suasion? What do we see here this week? Because this week, we really should see something like that. Are we seeing it? I don't know, but I have a joke. What do you call Trump supporters? Walnuts. Get it? Sorry. There's no drum. There's no snare in the background. That's okay. Oh, they can't all be gone. Sorry. No, you know, can I answer your question and say, can we wait till next week at the end of next week to see what, what goes on with this resolution within the House of Representatives? It's going to pass in the House, of course. But can we see what that resolution does in the Senate? Because that will be the tell-tale sign of what truly is going on. And can we see what Cohen says when he sits in front of the House Intelligence Committee? Isn't he sitting in two committees? Three. He'll be on Tuesday and Thursday is closed and the third and Wednesday is open to the public. Timing everything. Right? National TV is everything. National TV. You may have those Republicans in the Senate putting their finger in the wind to say, which way is the wind blowing? Maybe Cohen's comments and testimony, the public testimony, I think on Wednesday, they may just pay attention and go, time to shift my gears. I hope so. I hope they wake up and realize about their duty. And these days now, you know, you said before that, you know, they see their jobs is more important than their duty. Well, now there's a third thing in the pile and that's risk. They may see their risk is more important than their jobs. What's their risk? Oh, I don't know, being criticized or worse, being criticized for the rest of their careers. I mean, you know, the way the media works now, social media, if you get caught on something, anything, you know, you're going to be judged. And so I think that, you know, there are some of these guys have been involved in some unholy communications with the White House. Remember that Trump spends all this time talking to his friends in the Republican Party, trying to shore them up, keep them together. And that's what he does. And these communications, these statements, these manipulations, intimidation, threats and the like, I think they're going to come out ultimately. And those, those careers are going to be ruined, not just because there was a primary against them, but because of what comes out on it. You know, I, you know, there's been many, many articles about everything Trump touches. Tarnishes, you know, we had two fine generals that worked for him. And, you know, in some degree, their, you know, reputations have been tarnished. And everyone that came to the administration with, you know, to try to fulfill the mission of that agency, they've somehow been tarnished. And it's no different than politicians that put their arm around them and support them. Sure. I mean, it's all unholy. It's all corrupt. And so we have, we have Cohn coming up. We have Manafort coming up somehow. And of course, we have your friend, our friend. Our friend, who's my friend? Who's our friend? Oh, that's Cohn! This is the nutcase. He's one of those. All these guys, I mean, Cohn's performance with the judge was really amazing. I cannot believe that she didn't put him in jail. Of course not. Wow. I'm just shocked that she didn't put him in jail. You know, I think she did. She did a disservice to every judge that's practicing today, a disservice by not putting him in jail for at least a week. Exactly. Even at least a couple of days, something more than just you can't speak. And she will put him in jail. I hope. She's leaning over being fair and all that. Well, I think mostly one thing that I heard was that made sense to me is that she's being really, you know, a little careful in doing that so that he doesn't turn around and get her thrown out. Yeah, exactly. So if she's too hard on him, then he can say, oh, look, she's, you know, picking on me. I need a new judge. And so by dialing it back and showing that she's being overly fair, you can't do that. Okay, well, it's a one day. Maybe. Maybe. Well, it's not a week one day. Yeah, one day, okay. I mean, Stone's trial may outlast the report from Mueller. If you look at the timelines now, everybody expects Mueller in a few weeks. Stone's trial is not going to be in a few weeks. I don't know how that works. It could be that Stone's trial is later after the report. I'm sure Robert Mueller is going, can you stop breaking the law so I can get my report done? Well, you know, I keep telling him to put an end to it. But we've heard. We've heard. We've heard. He's been distracted, isn't he? Right. You know, all this time he's spent. Right. But he wants to be right. And he, you know, he wants to be. And of course the question is whether it's a tome or a few pages. And there's a speculation on it'll be just a few pages. Whether or not Barle even let us see. But I want to ask you about McCain because I'm sure that Mueller is listening to McCain. In fact, it occurred to me watching whoever I was watching last night that just maybe Mueller was talking to McCabe, not only the book, but other things not in the book. Absolutely. In fact, I would say the Mueller is talking to all the guys who wrote books about what was going on in the White House. I agree. But what do you think about Mueller? He is really an impressive character. I agree. I'm sorry. McCabe is really an impressive character. Well, the only thing. Gary articulate, he's been all over the media saying things that are devastating to Trump. Right. But sorry. Go ahead, please. Okay. The only thing that I was thinking about that is it seems to me that he kind of threw Rosenstein under the bus by saying stuff about him, that he was involved in it, that he was serious about wearing a wire into the White House. And then, of course, Rosenstein comes out and says, no, I didn't. He comes out and, you know. Well, Rosenstein said it was made in jest or jokingly. Right. But I mean he denies McCabe's claims. The wire. The wire to the White House. You know, I mean, I think that really happened. I do, too. And whether it's in jest or just a schmooze, you know, or real serious. Well, I think McCabe put it in proper context of the discussion. Right. I think they, you know, when you're brainstorming around a table and it's brainstorming, or the what is, and it's not a serious point, the bullet point by bullet point on an agenda. Those are two different things. Right. And that's what McCabe is saying that they did is they sat around the table just sort of trying to, you know. Imagine the leaders of the FBI sitting around the, and Justice sitting around a table talking about relieving the president. The leaders. What about the eight congressmen that were being briefed by McCabe? And, you know, he's telling them we need to investigate the president as a possible Russian agent. Right. The gang of agents. And yet they're kind of like, okay. The gang of agents just kind of didn't do anything about it. Well, what are you talking about? Because they know they can't, they can't, you know, don't intercede in this. Right. But to be silent, say, you know, to ask more follow-up questions or, you know, how serious that accusation is, you would think there'd be more than silence. They don't look so good. But you know, he looks good. He looks good. I mean, the attack on his credibility and misrepresenting to Congress and small stuff. I don't take that. What I do take is what he was saying. To me, he's totally credible. Me too. Just like the woman who attacked Cabinot was totally credible. I agree. You know, you've got to go on your gut, your life experience. Very credible. And make decisions on credibility. Was there a moment that something McCabe said that really just, you really caught your attention and knocked you off your chair? Because there was for me. Well, the Russian agent. Yes. Yeah. You know, I mean, imagine these guys all motivated by that possibility. They had data to suggest they had to take action on the basis that he was a Russian agent. That, yeah. What happens here also is that you get a picture as we have from all those books that have come out that Trump is a madman. And that's what that's what Cone is. That's what Cone calls him, yeah. He's a mad man. He's a mad king syndrome here. But I think what McCabe said that really just was a code shiver to my heart was that Trump said, I, you know, as far as the intelligent agencies, I don't believe you when it comes to whether or not North Korea has nukes or not or missiles ready to go and how they're, you know, whether that's possible or not. I believe Vladimir Putin. Yeah, I do too. I got to go. And how many times did we see that play out in Helsinki? Yes. All right, Helsinki. No, Warsaw. Where was it? We're used as a view. I think it was Helsinki. Helsinki, right. Helsinki, you were right the first time, yeah. Podium to podium. And then he reversed himself saying, I do believe the agencies and their reports. Then he said, I don't believe them and I do believe them. So that's the chilling thing for me that McCabe said is that how would you believe Russia and Vladimir Putin before you believed the CIA and this, you know, FBI. And all the times that he's repeated all those Vladimir Putin narratives that have been, you know, not revealed to the American public except through Trump. Trump knows more about what Putin is saying than anyone else. What are they doing in the telephone? So why aren't the Republicans in the Senate in the in the House saying this is really serious, guys? They should be getting nervous. They should be beyond nervous. But we don't, we don't see it yet. We don't see it yet. So let's talk about next week. Let's talk about what's likely to happen next week to follow up on some of this stuff. Well, he's going to be in North Korea at the same time that we've got all this other nuclear stuff going on. We've got Russia saying if you put these intermediate missiles, range missiles in anywhere in Europe, then we are going to retaliate. I have, you've got one too as you get your glasses out. Go ahead. I know. I'm going to go real quick. Come on. No, remember, people say here, the Russians are not a bad guy anymore. We, you know, we believe Trump that Russia is someone that we want to embrace. The NRA says that. Yes, okay. So here's what Putin said just recently that they, the tension are not a reason to ratchet up confrontation to the levels of the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 1960s. In any case, that's not what we want. If someone wants that, well, okay, they are welcome. I have set out today what that would mean and let them count. That means how fast it takes a missile, the new missile from Russia to hit Washington D.C. Within minutes. Russia is very advanced. Okay, so this is basically an endorsement that we can go back to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Now what Republican in the right mind should embrace Vladimir Putin after yesterday's statement? They shouldn't. Well, it's not that he's just going to Cuba now. He is already in Venezuela. He has already told what's his name, Maduro, that he gets $6 billion in aid from Russia if he gets this new place. He had two. This is Cuba. Yeah. It's Cuba. Only in Venezuela, but it's the exact same thing. This is the crisis we had in Kennedy then. And Kennedy could and did face him down. He faced Khrushchev down. Would our government now be able to face Putin down? Of course not. He's not going to. If there, to the extent there was an initial crisis and anywhere in the south of the border, okay, we would lose that game. Right. This is really bad. Yes, it is. We're a step away from war. That's what I thought. Okay, this is where... We need to go back to the Cold War and not trust Russia. And the Republicans need to understand that at this point. I agree. But that's what Putin is like. I have a quote about this war thing and how dangerous this is. From Putin, Russia will be forced to create and deploy new types of weapons that could be used not only against the territories where a direct threat to us comes from but also against the territories where decision making centers, okay, directing the use of missile systems threatening us are located. Guess where that is? He said the capability of such weapons, including the time to reach those centers, will be equivalent to the threats against Russia. I will say it directly and explicitly so that no one could reproach us about anything and so that everyone could understand what we are talking about here. He said Russia will be forced to create and deploy those types of weapons which could be used not only against those regions from where we will face a direct threat but also against those regions hosting the centers where decisions are taking on using those missile systems threatening us. The world is coming apart. Russia is moving into the vacuum created by Trump's Misha Goss. Right. Craziness. And China also is moving into that vacuum. Yes. And we are no longer in charge. We are no longer participating in the world order or in defending a good world order. This is really not a good sign because when this kind of fragmentation happens on a global basis and it is happening, what do you get? You get war. And I really worry about that and the Republicans don't understand that. You know, they may not understand the points that we are making here today, honestly. I mean, there's a flaw in having two senators from states that have minimal population and that's the way the founders set it up but the country did not develop, perhaps, as the way they saw it was going to develop. Right. So we're in deep trouble unless there's a wake-up call and McConnell's not about to make a wake-up call anytime soon and Trump is still in the same and the base is still in the same place whether they're bigger or smaller. So next week, what happens next week? We have Kohn's testimony. Kohn's testimony. We're just going to boil the lid off of everything. Well, I'm sure we'll see. I'm not mustered about that. I think it'll be more of the same. I don't think there'd be any terribly shocking new revelation, but we'll see. What else? Right. Well, he's limited because he can't talk about any ongoing investigation. So in that sense, whatever he says will be limited, right? What else? I mean, you know, Trump is... To the extent that Trump is attacked by anybody. I think the big thing is we're going to see what happens to that resolution from the House and the Senate to see if that goes to the President's desk about the national emergency. That's going to be a big development that we need to watch. Sorry, I'm a pessimist. And what about the press? You know, he's stepping up this war against the New York Times and the press. The New York Times, yeah. They, you know, I mean, the Washington Post found 7,500 lies. 7,500? Going up at a rapid rate. No, I... 7,500. I do too, but... Oh my gosh, I haven't heard that number yet. And then the New York Times found, you know, all the connection points with Russia. So then it's closing in. So this means it's time for Trump to do another distraction. Right. So I think, I mean, I can't tell you what it'll be. Venezuela. Or North Korea. I think it'll be North Korea. And I think it'll be his little peace prize that he wants. The point is where we live in a world of distraction now. It's so hard, hard to focus. And I want to read the last paragraph, my little piece, which was the challenge to everybody to take action. There might be two last pages. Ben Franklin said we can only have a republic if we're willing to keep it. Right now, this republic is in greater jeopardy than it has ever been. If we don't act together to restore a constitutional government in Washington, we will all be very sorry. To keep the republic, we must all pay the price, just as they did in 1789. Freedom doesn't come free. The price is eternal vigilance against the terrible Tom Fulery we are now seeing under Donald Trump. Time to stand up. And that's to everyone. Right. What were you doing when the country came apart, daddy? That's a good question. Yeah. So closing remarks, Cynthia? You know our last show, we got some comments. It's like you said, not everybody's going to listen to this. I know for me it's a bit of a risk to come out and talk about these things because some people don't agree with us. And I think we're just presenting the facts. And I think that if people can get past those emotional things and get, just look at the facts. Don't look at the person. Look at the facts. All right, Tim? Adam Schiff wrote an opinion letter employing Republicans in Congress to take action. It's a very good letter. Very good letter. He was almost pleading, but if you reread the words, he was pleading to the Republicans. Now's the time, as you just stated in your letter. I second that and I hope the Republicans do stand up and take action against this. Okay, remember what you guys predicted here? What were the issues you identified here? Because our job is to connect the dots. So we have to remember what we said this week so we can discuss how it went till next week. Right. To hang on to our notes, right? Cynthia Sinclair and Tim Affinchella. Thank you so much, you guys. Thank you very much. Trump week. Aloha. Trump week. Aloha.