 We're back. It's Wednesday. It's 11 o'clock. That could mean only one thing. It's Trump week. Well, this week is no no less more exciting than it was last week. And what we have is several states in the south, particularly that want to open up the economy and they want to open up certain businesses, essential services, I suspect, but they come in the form of tattoo parlors, massage salons, barbers, bowling alleys. And so the question is that I'm going to propose to our guests, which I'll introduce here in a second is to what degree are the essential services and to what degree will these opening up of these businesses create more problems as far as transmission for the COVID-19 virus. And without further ado, hello everyone. Winston. We have Winston Welts. We have Stephanie Dalton. Aloha. And we have Cynthia Sinclair. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. Aloha. Thank you. Wow. I have to figure out I need that second part again. All right, Winston. So given the fact that the Georgia governor, Brian Kemp, wants to open up the economy, we all understand the importance of economic viability in every state. To what degree does it make sense that tattoo parlors and massage salons and bowling alleys and gymnasiums are going to be opened up as essential services? What do you think? I mean, I guess it's up to every state to decide what's essential for it. You know, it does, we all need to be staying at home and a story. Bottom line, it doesn't matter where you live. At this point, if you live in the United States of America and a lot of the world, you just need to be, you know, staying at home and waiting to sing out until we get a better, all clear signal. I realize people want to get out and they want to be liberated and all of that. But at what cost is that going to come? If we've already gone through this so much, let's stick it out. Let's stay the core so that we don't have some real tragedies involved. So for me, an essential business is essential. It is what we've got here in Hawaii. It's the drug store. It's the supermarket. You know, but it's true that you can't buy something at home. You can't buy a, you know, molt at Home Depot, but you can buy your three scoops of Baskin Robbins. So it is, it does seem there are some arbitrary things and that's where the holes are being driven in and say, oh, well, you know, we have to have this and if we have this, we have to have the other. I think we just need to keep our focus here. Keep it essential for a while. We're very doing a great job here in Hawaii. We're down to no new cases on asylum for the third day in a row, I think. We're doing something right. You know, Winston, Paul Krugman, who does an editorial, I think it's for the Washington Post, the title of one of his opinion pieces was give me liberty and give me death. And the sense that we are opening up things for political reasons more so than what makes sense on a medical basis and it's unperplexed. And recently, I think Attorney General William Barr has thrown out the possibility that he may legally challenge some governors as to not only how businesses are opened up or how fast, but also the stay-at-home orders. Did you see William Barr coming up with that possibility? I didn't see that one, but our other guests can speak to that. It's just part of the bullying of this administration. They want all of the glory and the power, but none of the responsibility. So while they're still asking for masks and basic guidance, and this is also the real thing is here. These governors are going against the CDC, which is still under Donald Trump saying, don't be opening these things like this. It's dangerous to your population. You guys, I realize there's a jumpstart to the economy, but this thing has been made political. This is not a political thing. This is a public health crisis and we just need to keep our eye on the ball here. So whatever abiding that the Attorney General will do or the other folks working for Donald Trump, we have to just be cognizant that they are not necessarily working in the best interest. Maybe it's their perceived best interest, but from my perspective and a lot of folks' perspective, you may go out and get something and then bring it back to the rest of us. So at this point, we just need to do the public health, keep on message and keep what's right. And bullying the states is not the way to go about this for political points. Agreed. Stephanie, what do you think? I think I missed the class on what is an essential business. That's right. We all did. And I get to feeling like such a dumbo, especially with regard to the testing and every less than 1.3% of the U.S. population has been tested. Now, whatever that adds up to in numbers as our president has said, we've done the most tests is irrelevant to the per capita that we need. And in order to get there, we've got to do a lot more. So in these discussions that go on about the essential workers and about opening up these various small businesses, then all of a sudden it will come up that we need to have more testing. So I'm just perplexed at why that continues to be the caboose that comes into the conversation. Because everybody's life is at risk literally when these openings occur. And my belief is, and if people become users, they are risking their lives going in there. And I think that into those kinds of small businesses that are on the list, i.e. the hairdressing, the barbershops and the tattoo parlors and massage parlors, I mean, so these are very dangerous situations to be in. My belief is that the American people are going to demonstrate much greater wisdom than their leaders. I don't think they're going to go. Let me jump in here because I think it was yesterday or the day before yesterday at the task force briefing. Dr. Bricks, who I have great respect for, is trying to walk the tight wire of not offending her boss, Donald Trump, and trying to make sure that what she says isn't going to cause more spread of the virus. And she said, well, if you can go to these businesses and stay six feet away from each other, then I suppose that's okay. Well, someone tell me how I get a haircut from a six foot distance. Tell me how I get a massage from six feet away. Tell me how I get a tattoo from six feet away. I don't understand why she was so timid on just saying, no, this is not going to work. You recall in the Nick tapes, wasn't it the secretary Rosemary, whatever her last name was, I'm sorry. Rosemary Wood? Yeah, how she had to stretch herself into some kind of pretzel in order to make the excuse for some kind of gap on the tapes. I mean, it's the same thing again. So Dr. Bricks put herself into a pretzel that made absolutely no sense. I mean, I feel like she's been such a stalwart participant in these reports and has stayed on the course of medical advice that's useful and accurate. That was the first time I started to have my heart dropped to my stomach again because she's not playing her role, which she has so well so far. And I think people really depend on her. So she's showed herself to be much more sycophantic than I understood her to be. So what a disappointment. Cynthia, what's your read on all this? I don't have a lot of trust in anybody that stands up on the podium with Trump to tell us something. He was very clear about silencing people from the CDC. He doesn't give out, and Dr. Bricks does not give out the same kind of information that we get from the frontline doctors, the specialists, the epidemiologists, these guys, those are the people I want to listen to. And I wonder if anybody else has noticed that Dr. Fauci is nowhere to be seen on the podium anymore now. He hasn't actually been fired that any of us know about, but ever since he came out with saying on that one interview last Sunday that if we had acted sooner, we would have had a lower death count and a lower amount of cases, and then it would have made a difference. And so now, oh, he's gone. We don't even see him anymore up on the stage. And I think that's very telling. When someone speaks the truth, the ones that we need to hear, and Fauci has been very clear, very clear, we are not ready to open up yet. It is too soon. And yet to me, he was really the only true voice in the group up there on stage. Yeah, I would argue that if you looked at the numbers, the polling numbers on the credibility of Donald Trump talking about COVID-19 versus Dr. Fauci, it's a two-to-one credibility vote. And I don't think Donald Trump likes to be outvoted. I don't think he likes to come in second place when it comes to any kind of poll, especially about one that concerns the well-being of this nation. We also, Donald Trump, give a green light to Michigan when Donald Trump said, liberate Michigan. So to what degree, Cynthia, and then I'm going to go to Winston, to what degree do you think Donald Trump is inciting these freedom protesters, quote-unquote freedom protesters? And to what degree are they taking cues from Fox News to get out there and exercise their rights of the First Amendment, yet at the same time, putting other people in jeopardy and potentially spreading this virus back to where we were three weeks ago, four weeks ago? Well, there was an article in Newsweek that talked about this exactly and said that actually they've been able to research this back to, it was a GOP super PAC that's connected to Betsy DeVos that was putting out the let's all go and protest, you know. And so it was sort of a call. It wasn't an organic rising of people that came up and said, oh, let's go protest. It was a very specific, you know, triggered protest. And so, and then when, you know, Trump put his stamp on it, liberate Michigan. It wasn't just Michigan, it was Virginia and one other, Illinois, I think too. And with the Virginia one, he even added and watch out for your Second Amendment rights. They're trying to take them away, which is what really brought in all of these alt-right groups that are, you know, showing up fully armed and all their combat gear as if, you know, you can't shoot this virus with a gun, dude. It's not gonna work. Thank you, Cynthia. Winston, what were your thoughts on the, some of the video footage that we've seen out there with people shoulder to shoulder out there on the Capitol steps? And again, to some degree, that has been inspired by Donald Trump and Fox News. Well, definitely inspired by Fox News. I think there was a report that came up that said that Fox News talked about this. And then three minutes later, the first tweet went up. I think it's very dangerous to have a president doing that, countermanding the public health and safety orders that have been instituted by a governor that is, that arguably, as this administration has said, needs to be done at the local level. So if they need to make the decision as to close to stay down, then they should be the ones to make the decision to open it up. That said, there should be some nationwide guidelines that say, there are, the CDC has them that says, don't open up unless these circumstances are met. They're very clear, even from the CDC today, which is under Donald Trump that says, don't open up unless you have met these certain circumstances. Hawaii doesn't meet these right now. We're supposed to have a number of days where there's no declining or no new cases. It's maybe it's 14 days, 10 days, whatever it is. And it's, it's pretty clear. These states are not meeting that, but they're opening up anyway because of politics. And it's just not right to gamble with people's lives like this. I realize people want to get back to work. These are the same people, though, that we don't want to endanger their lives any more than we should endanger our lives, whether it's our hairdresser, our masseuse, as time and circumstances allow, this will naturally unfold, but there is no need to rush this and endanger people further. We can do this. We can do it in the same and calm manner. This is not the way to go about it. Winston, let's, let's move ahead in time and let's, and I'll just say hypothetically, I don't think it's hypothetical, but let's say hypothetically we start seeing a resurgence in not only COVID cases, but also COVID deaths. Will there be a political ramification for those that were promoting and encouraging freedom protests? Will Donald Trump take any kind of responsibility? Well, I know he won't take responsibility, but will he take any hits as far as polling numbers? No, I don't think so. He has shown throughout the entirety of his presidency that he has the approval ratings for the Republicans do not vary at all, very, very minorly. Whether there was a little bump a couple weeks ago or not, doesn't matter. He has fully, you know, about a half in the nation's support, and that is not going to change. And the other half is, you know, it's amazing because we're, we're the same people, but it's like we are absolutely getting our new sources from different places or our reality from different places. And that's, that's more concerning to me is how do we, how do we bridge this? How do we come back together again? So that when the CDC says something that we believe it, that we have trust in it, that we have trust in our leaders, that they're saying the right things for us rather than playing political games. And I suppose you could look at either side just being the devil's advocate. Either way, we need to come together on this and view this as a rational process that's based in science rather than political game. Do you think those states that are in the deep red states that we're very late about lockdowns at home and, and shut down of businesses. Do you think that if they start experiencing more cases, more deaths, that they'll finally get the picture? Or do you think, regardless of how many cases, how many deaths occur that that may not happen, even with expanded cases? The blame will be shuffled onto somebody else. It will never be the fault of this administration. That's not going to happen. And what we'll see is, as we have seen already, a disproportionate share of resources going to those states, whether it's emergency loans, SBA stuff, ventilators, masks, whatever it is. I mean, when you get Florida getting their request in three days after they put something in when other states are waiting, this cannot be dismissed in any other way. You can try and spin it how you want. But it's horrendous to think that politics is entering into this. And I guess what we need to do is, when it happens, we need to step up for our brothers and sisters in the states where they may make wrong decisions, just like we need to step up in the states that are more urban, like, that have an urban population like New York. So we need to be there for our fellow countrymen and women. But we also need to help them see that the truth, actually, is not as they want it to be. Okay. Stephanie, same question to you. And the question is, are there going to be any political ramifications down the line for either Donald Trump and or the GOP party by trying to encourage the freedom protests and the return to work prematurely and particularly return to work to those institutions that are not essential? I doubt it. It'll take the next investigation. I think that the basis for all of this is if you all remember, I remember fifth or sixth grade or something learning about the longest word in the English language and that it was anti-disestablishmentarianism. So I know we were fascinated by that and looked it up in the dictionary and how to spell it and all of that in those days, the dictionary. But anyway, I never, so we worked with it to understand it, but it was a huge concept to deal with at that point. But now that's what we're doing, in my opinion, is that that word anti-disestablishmentarianism is now marking my life as a project in my life because all that's been done to disestablish everything that are the institutions, disestablish institutions, information, dissemination sources that we've long respected and certainly the news media. And I don't think that we know how well to deal with this. I just know that little efforts are starting. For instance, there's a study out now that's circulating that hasn't been published in a medical journal yet, but it's a comparison between, and I'll be brief here, the Hannity show and the Tucker Carlson show. And so the point is, but anyway, the point is that Tucker Carlson was much more responsive to the notion of this virus emerging and of its danger. And Hannity was in the position of postponing dealing with it, if not trying to deflect and ignore it. So the very, very intense deep study. It's not a randomized trial, of course. It's not that kind of a study. But that's being circulated and is received with respect, and it probably will go to be published. And it shows that there's a huge effect, a standard deviations of fact difference between the viewers of the Carlson show and the viewers of the Hannity show as to their practices and as to the difference of their illness and death. I think Tucker Carlson may actually get some credit, believe it or not. Tucker Carlson actually got in his car and drove the Mar-a-Lago and pleaded with Donald Trump to please take this virus seriously. And so it wasn't just Tucker Carlson, it was others as well. But he certainly is one of them that basically shifted his position on Fox News and actually started speaking the truth about the virus. And sooner or later than when Donald Trump came out, people got more serious about it. But now we're going the other way. And so, you know, let me ask you this question because I'm hearing some rather horrible things. You know, Winston said, hey, you know, we got to even help out our brothers and sisters in some of these states that are kind of late coming to the party and help them out as we can because they're fellow Americans. I'm hearing some awful things out there. And I'll just put it out there of what I'm hearing. And it's like, well, you can't fix stupid. And if that's the way they want to be, and they get more cases and die off, well, maybe that's the way it should be. Have you heard any of those kind of comments? And if so, what's your thoughts about them? Well, no, I haven't. I don't think stupid is the problem. I think the issues are in the values, beliefs, and biases that people hold out of their own experience and background. So I think, yes, we can do a much better job in education of helping everybody become better critical thinkers. But I think that we've got some tectonic plates here of the mind that are very slow to move anywhere, even certainly in respect for this new article coming out or any other evidence including the increased death rates here or there, all the people that go out to protest as what's going to happen to them. So I think that we're going to have to go along, see what we can learn, how to handle that. But the good news is that given this disestablishment materialism and this, what, breaking up, desegregating of the nation's structure, i.e. the governors versus the president versus the mayors and all of that, the Rockefeller Foundation. Have you heard about this? They have established a national testing plan for the coronavirus. So what we need, which is what I believe the president and those in charge don't want, is a count of the virus, a real count. And that's been undergirding a lot of all this delay and everything. But now with the Rockefeller Foundation taking on this gigantic task, we might be able to get somewhere so that we'll be protected because the whole thing, let's not die. Where are the problems and let's deal with them. Well, we all know that testing is a big part of this and how we move forward safely and before the economy really does open up. So I'm going to jump here to Cynthia. Cynthia, you know, the last few days, last week, we have been bludgeoned over the head almost by Donald Trump himself about the effectiveness and the hope and promise of the chloroquine miracle drug. Well, as you know, the VA just did a very small sampling. It wasn't peer reviewed, but it was a small sampling and they've showed that of the study, we have almost 100% increase in deaths for those patients that were given chloroquine versus those patients who were not. Now, this hasn't hit too much on the airways from other reporters about, well, why is Donald Trump now not talking a lot about the promise of chloroquine? What do you thought about chloroquine and Donald Trump's now suddenly kind of mum to the whole idea? And Fox News as well, by the way, Fox News has definitely mooned walked away from the miracles of chloroquine. What do you think? He actually pushed it. What have you got to lose? Well, heart trouble, you know, increased death rate and absolutely no benefit at all. It showed in the little test that they did with that study that they did with the VA, there was absolutely no benefit at all. And so it was a small trial and all, but by the same token, it was reproduced in France when France did their trial. It showed no benefit at all. And Trump was still out there trying to push this medicine. Well, what about people like me? Okay, for lupus, we take hydroxychloroquine for lupus. Now there's this shortage. I just heard from my pharmacy that I'm going to have to wait for them to order it and it could be backlogged for three months. And I'm like, what? That's a medicine I take twice a day and it makes all the difference for me. And I'm not the only lupus, you know, patient out there. There's lots of us. And so what Trump did was a direct, a direct result of what he did is that now people who really need this medicine cannot get it because states were hoarding it. There's that one state was at South Dakota that refused to ever close, no matter how high their rate was. And then she decided she was going to do a statewide testing of it. And we already know it doesn't work. And yet she was going to do this big, and it was, I felt like it was just a sycopantic move to try to please Trump. And when I watched these lawmakers be so irresponsible with the choices that they make just so that they can kiss his butt, it just makes me realize how very, very dangerous our political climate is right now. All right. Winston, you certainly watched Donald Trump, basically, pedal, chloroquine. Do you have any thoughts on what you recently have seen as far as Fox News backing off of it, Donald Trump backing off it, and the VA, although a small study, the VA study? You know, they're never going to admit anything. Let's just hope they get the right information out there from now. I mean, at the bottom line, you never expect this administration for Fox. I mean, should accept any responsibility for misinformation out there. There's like we're saying, Tucker might be a little bit more aware than the others. And I can appreciate an ideological difference. That's not the question here. Like Stephanie said, it's a question of complete biases of an educational crisis and awareness crisis. So it's fair to have difference of opinion on how far our government should go and that sort of thing. But it's another thing when we're confronted with an epidemic of this proportion where we really have to rely on science, on facts, not on political gains. So hopefully when they make a mistake, I don't care if they say we were wrong at this point, just change pivot and make the right decision. Good point, Winston. We've run out of time and I want to thank all of you, Winston, Stephanie, Cynthia. Thank you very much for joining us at Trump Week. We hope to see you next week. And that's all for this week. And we'll see you again Wednesday, 11 o'clock for Trump Week. Much aloha to everyone. Aloha.