 We are fortunate to have with us Retired Intermediate Court of Peels Judge Walter Kieromitsu, stellar constitutional attorney Jeff Portnoy, legal scholar, constitutional scholar Ben Davis from the University of Toledo Law School, and former Northern Illinois and Southern Texas dean Jim Alfini and professor. Gentlemen, welcome. Hopefully, this may be the beginning of a new age. We're looking at a timetable here that is coming right down on us. By spring and summer, the parties selected their electors, and we know that in 2016, there were seven electors who didn't follow the voters mandate, and so it's likely that the parties were pretty careful this time to choose people who would. On November 3rd, we had the vote. There are still things going on about that. By December 8th, all of the disputes regarding the electoral votes, courts, recounts, whatever are to be resolved, six days before the meeting of the electors on December 14th to cast their votes. The votes are to be received by December 23rd. Congress meets in joint session on January 6th to count the votes, and the inauguration is January 20th. That's our timetable. We know that Senator Rubio and a Republican representative have tried to get the Senate and the House to extend those deadlines to January 1st. We're not seeing support for that at this point, and we're seeing an increasing number of Republican leaders and office holders who are coming out saying, hey, let's follow the schedule. Let's see what happens. Gentlemen, where do you think we're headed? Well, I'll go first since everybody else is so reticent. I think this is much ado about nothing on a practical basis. On an institutional basis, I think it's a crisis, but I think this too shall pass. Biden has and is going to be confirmed to have in excess of 300 electoral votes. Even if seven or 10 renegade electors decide to go elsewhere, it makes no difference. The recounts statistically have no chance of success. I understand from people much more involved in history than I am, that in any recount in a statewide election in the United States, the most votes change were less than 1,000, and Biden's vote count in every one of the states at issue except Arizona continues to increase. In Arizona, he's up by way more than can possibly turn out from a recount. I think Trump, like every three-year-old, is going through a temper tantrum stage. And like any three-year-old, they eventually move on to play with a new toy. I'm going to guess that once the Georgia recount is over, he will not concede. I don't think he will ever quote concede, but I think all of this litigation and turmoil will be over as far as Biden. My last point, however, is I am fearful about what Trump and his people will do between now and January 20th as far as United States policies domestic and foreign. What do you think might happen? We've already seen Department of Defense basically gutted for lackeys. I think he will fire the CIA director. I think he will fire the FBI director. I think he will fire every single person he thinks has not been 100% loyal. And all it's going to mean is that Joe Biden is going to have a lot of positions to fill in the first couple of weeks as he fires all of these last-minute Trump replacements and replaces them with his people. Gentlemen, Brother Ben and... Yeah, one of the things is there was an order that was done to reclassify a bunch of people in the civil service so that they can be fired. So that order, he's going to try to do some stuff about it. I figure that kind of bloodletting, that's the kind of guy he is. Beyond that, the national security establishment is very worried about what's going on right now. They're really very worried about it. And not so much the uniform. The uniform, I think they feel comfortable that Millie has learned his lessons from that thing back in June. But the people in the suit, so to speak, about all this. I mean, when you think about it, with 70 days to go, you remember your first 70 days on a job, right? That's this new acting director of defense, right? Instead of just a smooth out with Esper, you have somebody who's kind of stuck again. That is a real worry. Hopefully this will hold together. But the other thing is that I just want to say is that I think one of the reasons the blocking of transition teams is that they don't want anybody to see what's under the hood, okay? And across the government, because there would be these professionals who come in and there have been pretty much a lot of... How can I say it? Incompetence, who have been running various parts of the government. And they'll come in and they'll see under the hood and they'll know what sort of administration looks like. And this is, by the way, not a Republican or Democrat thing. It's just incompetence thing in terms of the people who were there. So I would say that that's really a certain part of this. Trump's peak in silence for five days is pretty appalling, quite honestly. But what bothers me more than anything is that the people have voted. And there's this group of people who seem to be unable to just go along with the fact that the people have voted. For some reason, they have so much fear of Trump or their 2024 vision or whatever. And it's really pitiful to watch people who have grown men and women cower in this way in front of the way, you know, in reaction to what Trump is doing. I mean, it just really says a lot against them as people in that position, in their role that, you know, they keep dodging. We've been watching them for four years, kind of Hemenhall and all this. And you really say, you know, is this the best we can do? Is a country these kind of folks who like this, is this really the best we can do? And that's sad. I also would like to say that we need to do a stimulus, OK? All right, you had your Amy Barrett. That's fun. That's great. Now get some money to some people, OK? Because it's really people are desperate out here. And I think some of the voting is very desperate by people. And so all these people who are playing political games need to focus on getting money to people who are desperate. Getting health care to people who are desperate out here across this country. And it's it's fun in a way to watch all this nonsense. But, you know, there's a guy who's the lieutenant governor. I think of Pennsylvania, you said it's like, you know, if if something and something were were were food and and and nuts, we could all eat at Thanksgiving. Right? So it's like it's over. There's 10,000 votes that potentially could not be counted in Pennsylvania. And Biden is one, even even if that case went forward. There's the guy who presented one of the affidavits in Pennsylvania, who under questioning from the Postal Service, where he worked, recandidate. And then he went on YouTube to say he didn't recan it. Then I got the video of him recanning it. You know what I mean? This is just a lot of shenanigans that are pitiful. It's possibly a lot of it has to do with fundraising, because a lot of fundraising letters going out to retire, debt or whatever. You know, to set up some kind of new, maybe Trump radio station or Trump television or something. But that's all that's going on. It's, you know, in the background of this in terms of the legalities. But, but, but Ben, Ben, 70 million people voted for Trump. And you can't ignore that. I'm not almost, wait, wait, wait, wait, almost 50% of the people in the polls. I think it was 50, 51%, 49% thought that Trump had handled COVID better than anyone else would have handled it. Look, you're not going to get all this, Ben. I'm just telling you the reality. This country is bitter, wait, wait, is bitterly split, bitterly split. Half of this country voted for Donald Trump, almost half, got 48% or 49%. I think the Republicans know exactly what they're doing. And you look at Georgia and the races there and the two most vocal proponents of the recount are the two senators whose seats are at risk in Georgia. The Senate is very likely to remain in Republican hands. I mean, what's his name Purdue only missed by three tenths of a percentage point. I just think, you know, the Democratic Party, and I think this is said, it's going to be a very difficult four years to get any of this done. Frankly, we got rid of, we got rid of the Wizard of Oz, but Oz still exists. All right, I feel like I'm stepping in Walter's space here because I just wanted to say, Walter, I just wanted to say that, you know, I'm in Toledo, Ohio, right? We're in the middle of the whole thing, right? Biggest thing I think for a lot of those people who vote for Trump is that they're desperate economically. And they hope that a businessman would turn things around for them. And they're willing to give them a break on this and the other. There's been a lot of propaganda thrown at people for the last 10 months. It's been nonsense about this whole COVID thing. OK, so maybe I'm too charitable, but that's what I think a lot of these people are about. And so, yeah, they can play the political games that they want now and they will. But I really think that in the bottom line is that what people want is some money, some stimulus money, they want some health care to be taken care of. I just had one of my students, dad's, die of COVID down in Oklahoma. OK, he's the kid sick or he's not a kid anymore. The kid sick, his mom sick, his entire family sick, the dad got sick and the dad died. And, you know, that is reality that people are dealing with. OK, and I think that that getting that dealt with getting the health care dealt with getting some people some money will be something whatever they believe. I don't care if they love Trump, hate Trump or anything. That's what people are that's where we need to have the focus here. And all these side games by all these people are distracting from that, which I think is the crucial set of tasks that confront us right now. With 148,000 infections yesterday, 1500 people dead. This thing is going up at a pace that they're talking us to be a 300,000 infections a day and 240, 200,000 additional deaths between now and Christmas. OK, this is reality. The other stuff is always, excuse me for saying it, the BS and DC kind of stuff. But people need money and people need jobs and people need health care right now. And so it's like I'd like to get all of them to come back to DC and say, pass the stimulus right now. You wanted to play your Amy Barrett game for a while. Great. She's on the court now. Pass the stimulus right now. Go back to work because people need it out here. At least that's the way I see it so far. By the way, down here in Toledo, the state of Ohio has two billion dollars they got cares money. They've only spent 600,000 of it. Oh, sorry, 600 million of it is that's what I hear. One point three billion dollars worth of money that should be in people's pockets has been sitting around for months for some reason down in Columbus. You know, it's the kind of stuff that's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. People are desperate out here. I know and it's just trying to make sure that especially poor people, people are newly poor, low income, low wealth, got to do something for them. That's all I'm saying. You see. No, but I don't I don't disagree that that segment of the population agrees with you. I'm saying 70 million people don't. Seventy million 70 million concludes a lot of poor people like that. Well, anyway, we'll let the other guys we'll let the other guys jump in. But what I'm saying is Covid Covid Covid and we all agree it's been terribly mishandled. 50 percent of the people thought Trump did a great job on Covid. So that's what they're wrong, they're wrong, they're wrong. But that's what they say they're wrong. So there we go. We're at the point because they're wrong. OK, so we got it. Hey, Walter, sorry, Jim, you're Jim, Jeff and I are friends, by the way. Oh, yeah. So I agree with an amalgam of Jeff and Ben there. It's Trump versus democracy at this point. And I agree with Jeff that he's not going to concede. He's a narcissist and it's not in his DNA to concede defeat. So we we shouldn't be looking for that. We're going to have to wait him out to some extent. The issue is whether he does some major damage to our democracy in the interim while we're waiting him out. Indeed, he did. He does still have apparently a very strong base. And the Republican officials are largely unwilling to go to push him to concede or go against him anyway, because they're afraid of losing those Republican votes in his base. So that's a problem. There are some hopeful signs. I think the fact that the senator who is the Republican senator who is instrumental in the Intelligence Committee, I forget his name. I'm sorry, came out today saying that if by Friday he isn't let into the weekly or daily briefings, I guess, that he'll try to do something about that. So there's a good sort of transitional thing that may be going on with Republican support. Geraldo Rivera apparently tweeted today that he should graciously step down. I was very disappointed in Geraldo when he became the Trump addict, largely because I don't know, Jeff, if you know, he's a former reggie. He was a legal legal services lawyer. He had very liberal credentials. What what happened to Geraldo while he's coming around? Rupert Murdoch is coming around. It looks like Trump's pretty much lost that whole box news empire. That, you know, so things are slowly happening. It looks like democracy will win out over Trump. We just have to we have to wait him out. But the question is how much damage can he do in the interim? And that's that's troubling. It really is. Walter, can you unmute yourself and give us your take on this? Well, my take on this is pretty much the concern or the just the lack of respect for the rule of law. The the the the whole elect electorials college and the election system federally. Our matters of rule rule rules of law and the integrity of the whole election system and the electoral college are being just totally ignored by President Trump. That's my main concern is just he's just built a wall. Ignoring what has been tradition, what has been the respected rule of law to elect a presidential and vice presidential candidate. I'm very concerned about the fundamental crisis that we're facing because of Trump's ignorance. Now, the other concern I have is what I think Jim, as well as Jeff and Ben alluded to, is there are over 70 million voters that voted for Trump. We cannot ignore that and we cannot just push that aside. What concerns me is why aren't any portions of the 70 million people taking some stands to tell President Trump, you're wrong, you have to respect the tradition, the respect, the rule of law and you have to step aside. Now, I understand that some of the legislators or the elected officials are hesitant to do that because they don't want to lose his support. But there are some, like Ben said, there are some common folks there in that 70 million people. They should also have a high regard for tradition and the rule of law. Why aren't they stepping up? Perhaps Fox News did step up to the point where they backed off backing, blindly backing Trump in his world. Now, the key question now is, is this all going to stop? How long will it take to stop? And like everybody said, how much damage would be done to our democratic system after all of this is over? I'm very concerned about that because it doesn't look like there's any end to this for the present time. And like Chuck pointed out, there are deadlines that are coming up and a couple of the Republican legislators have filed an action to try to continue those deadlines. So hopefully by January 21, these issues will be resolved and there will be a beginning of a transition. But if that fails, Chuck, I'm very concerned how long this will last. And I'm also cognizant of the fact that there will continue to be undercurrents throughout the next few years, at least. But at least there should be a transition so that there will be a recognized leadership for the United States. Those are my main statements that I'm concerned about. Hey, listen, Walter, you talk about the rule of law when you have Jones Day, I think one of the top five in size and income law firms in the country. Fighting for Trump in many of these lawsuits that have been filed. You can't expect the farmer in Missouri to think that there's no validity. You've got one of the top law firms in the country. Filing litigation on behalf of Trump regarding the validity of the election. So that's scary. Let me just tell you the bottom line of that is that's scary. Yes, very scary. It just shows you what money can do. You said it. I thought it. You know, and it's important to pay attention to the money aspect, too, because all of these huge donation pushes that are going on by Trump and the GOP now. Hey, the press has already found out. Oh, the first chunk of those goes to the Trump campaign, which he can spend any way he wants in his view. Then the next chunk goes to the Republican National Committee. And if there is money left over, that might go to fight election results. So there's no question. This is a fundraising opportunity for Trump personally to try and get out of the hole and use it, is it? It's it's what it's always been. But let's see if Jones Day gets stiffed on its bill. That's all I'm going to say. Right. I hope they got it up front, right? There are no liens and mortgages. By the way, I think Jones Day started in Cleveland. Yeah, it did. I have some of my students are there. So I don't know if they're working on this, but I know some of my former students are there. Well, to be honest, I know worldwide they're great firm. There is there is some reaction. Negative reaction associates apparently at Jones Day and another very large firm. Some of them are up in arms. Of course, the senior white, you know, there's a. Yeah, there's a few Trumpians that are at Jones Day that were in his administration. Sure. And there are also a couple that Biden is appointing to his new administration team. So. Oh, yeah. I mean, Jones Day is, you know, they're the top five. You're going to find people in every administration from them. Right. But it plays out. I watched one of these Detroit cases and, you know, they got a long road to hold. They're trying to argue the case of their client. But they got nothing. So now we're down to our last couple of minutes. Gentlemen, give a little thought. What is the damage potential that most concerns you? And how do we stop that from happening? Last two minutes. That the people on both sides hate each other because I think that's just unfortunate to to to hate. I have students who voted all kinds of different ways, but we still get along and work with them and do everything we can to be, you know, be decent people to each other. That's the only thing I worry about is people get so hung up and somebody starts pulling out guns and shooting people because they get the crazies get going. I think the damage is immeasurable to our reputation around the world and at home. We've always been the ones to talk about the elections in Nicaragua or Africa. And now we have the president of the United States in his accolades constantly Twitter and otherwise talking about the election was a fraud. I think you cannot calculate the damage that's been done to the country around the world. As I agree, I think the basic concerns we have is in another civil war internally within the United States and also the reputation that we lose internationally. I think those are major concerns that we need to address very soon, if not tomorrow. I think we all sense that and my personal sense is that if there was anybody to bring the calm, the dignity, the humanity, the leadership and the strength, Joe and Kamala are pretty good choices. You're looking for a cabinet appointment? Are you looking for a cabinet appointment, Chuck, or what? No, just a countertop. So time to wrap up, guys. We'll be back in two weeks. Nice to see you, guys. Stick around for a little deeper. Nice to see you, Walter. All the best, guys. Thank you all. All right, thank you. Thank you.