 Welcome to American Issues Take One. I'm Tim Appichell, your host. And today's title is Trump No Longer Than Kingmaker, MAGA GOP Denied. You know, for once we had a politician that spoke the truth. I know as strange as that may sound, but we did. And you'll never guess who it was. It's Mitch McConnell, minority leader of the Senate. Here's what he said. Basically he said, we failed. We failed the moderate Republicans. We failed the independents. They didn't swing our way because the membership and the leadership exhibited chaos, negativity, and strong attacks. And he said that made them scared. And therefore they didn't vote for the GOP. I think that's interesting. And by gosh, it's true. This red wave never occurred. And it's not going to occur as long as they have people in the party. I'll mention Donald Trump is the ringmaster of that, trying to create chaos, trying to create negativity, and attacking everybody and anyone. So without further ado, let me go to our guests. Today we have Jay Fidel, our co-host, and Cynthia Lee Sinclair, our contributor. Good morning, everyone. Morning, Tim. So, Jay, I just read Mitch McConnell's damning statement of why, number one, the GOP didn't take the Senate, and why the House is a razor-thin margin. They'll take the House, but it's a razor-thin margin. What do you think about that comment I just read? I don't care about McConnell. Yeah, I know. I don't like McConnell. I don't believe McConnell. But what about the statement? Well, you know, maybe his perception is right, and you can't really argue with that. However, the fundamental question, which he doesn't really address, is Trump a magician such that all of that doesn't matter, and they can recover anyway. And I think that's the fundamental question where we're here to talk about today and tomorrow and the American issues take two, because we're at another inflection point. Every week seems to be an inflection point, honestly. As to whether the damage that Trump took over these elections is gonna last beyond the news cycle. And I wanna full disclosure, I wanna tell you, it's not. He's gonna recover. He's a master. He's a master ringleader, as you said. And he's gonna find a way to distract us all from that, including the Republicans, including Mitch McConnell. Before you know it, we'll be back to Trump as we used to know him during his administration, creating chaos and then saying, I alone can fix the chaos. It's out of the autocorrect playbook and it's really scary. We'll be back to scaring him. Good news, you guys, there's gonna be plenty to talk about in the next couple of years. I promise you that. That's a guarantee and I wouldn't take your money on a pizza bet. Well, you don't get any more of those from me. I've lost too many times. So Jay, I mean, the title of the show is Donald Trump's No Longer the Kingmaker. Every candidate he endorsed anointed in a swing state, be it governor, be it senator, be it house representative, they all lost. Every swing state lost his recommended candidate. What does that say about his ability to sway the voters to his liking? Well, what does it say about his ability to pick good candidates? You know, he picked candidates that agreed with him on the big live. That's what he did. Right. And there's 300 of them, which is really scary. And the fact that only 150 of them got elected is also scary because that means that the people voted for 150, you know, a big live people. And that's very scary because that's anti-democratic. To vote for it, to be a big live ascriber is really to say, I don't believe in democracy or the peaceful transfer of power. I believe we have to have it out in the street. That's what these people are saying. And we don't need no stinking constitution anymore. So, you know, I think that Trump is a bad, he's bad on the big live, it's a mistake. You should have stopped all that already. And he shouldn't have picked candidates who ascribe to it. But, it's not the candidates that are gonna carry him home. It's the people, it's the base. And they still believe in the big live. They may not have pushed his candidates hard enough. Although that pushed 150 of them. But they will come around. He will make them come around. He will entertain them. He will create enough entertainment to have them support whatever he wants, yet again. So, I don't think that's actually- Doesn't he have to entertain the independents and the moderate GOP back into submission, which he had them before, but he didn't have them on the midterm election. Doesn't he have to get those two groups under his thumb? And how does he do that? He's working on it right now, Tim. He's working on it right now with whatever brain trust he has. And they're telling him how to do it. They're telling him how to distract everybody. I guarantee you guys, no bet, no bet. I guarantee you within a couple of weeks, you know, we're gonna see another last night. Or whenever, you know, made his speech through his hat and the ring. That was entertainment. That was distraction that took the heat off the question that you raise about, you know, what happened with him? What happened with election day? Why didn't he, you know, succeed better? He took the edge off it by making that announcement. I guarantee in the next two weeks, we're gonna see something else that comes from him or one of his acolytes that likewise distracts us and takes us off the truth and into another Netherlands kind of reality. I guarantee it's gonna happen again and again and again. He will control the agenda. He will control it between now and 2024. And that's what it's about, you know? And these people, you know, the independents, the ones who are not necessarily committed to him, they will also be distracted. They will be distracted by the criticism of Biden. Anything goes wrong in the Biden administration. He will attack Biden and they will come along on the attack. So I have no level of optimism about this. And I think actually the media was much too, much, much too supportive of the Democratic quote, win, which was what was predicted anyway. We predicted that the Democrats would take the Senate and lose the House. Isn't that we said for months already, we're saying that. The actual numbers don't make that much difference. We can talk about that, but they don't make that much difference. And the reality is Trump is going to be back. Okay. I'd like to bet a pizza with you some days soon. Anytime. Cynthia, what do you think of all this? What, why did Donald, I mean, it's the earliest in history that a candidate has thrown his hat in the ring for the next presidential election. We're two years away from November, where a year and a half from where the real heat of the election is roaring through things. That's why, in your opinion, why so early? Other, and well, I'll let you answer. Greed. Greed. He can grift all of his followers in a much stronger way now. And I think he's hoping that it will affect Merrick Garland, his, you know, weighing of whether or not to charge him or indict him, or just what he should do. Cynthia, can you explain how that works? Why would Merrick Garland not be as inclined? I know there was an article about this in The Times yesterday. Why would Merrick Garland not be inclined to indict because Donald Trump has thrown his hat in the ring? How does that work? Well, partly I think, and I'm not an expert on all this, but partly I think it's because of the different, you know, once you start going after candidates, then it's like, you know, a slippery slope till everybody's going after the other candidate, and then it's this whole big, you know, free-for-all going after the candidates. And the Federalist Society has a really odd, I don't know if it's odd, it's the right term, a very severe, that's not the right word either, they're very strong on protecting presidential everything, presidential secrecy, presidential authority, presidential everything. And so Harry's gonna be going for presidents, right? Well, you know, so I have a couple of quotes from... Well, hang on, before you get to the quotes, I wanna address that. What's to prevent any senator or any house representative or any governor who's being investigated for federal crimes? What's to prevent anyone in the future to say, oh, they're hot on my trail, I'm about ready to be indicted and I don't care what season it is, I'm throwing my hat in the ring for President of the United States. It's a $250 filing fee. Come on, do we really wanna go down that road with the Department of Justice to say hands-off? No, we don't. Because anyone could just say I'm gonna run for president. You're talking about the Federalist Society, that's not the law. You know, as I recall, the only place this comes up is in Bill Barr's memo that's an internal DOJ memo that says we don't have investigations of people who are running for office. And it's very vague and just as easily as it was adopted in the first place internally by the stroke of a pen in the Department of Justice, it can be unadopted. We've talked about this before. So as a matter of policy, if the Attorney General had the chutzpah to say, I don't care about that, I see, you know, I'm going to follow the facts wherever they lead me, didn't he say that? And he didn't condition that on whether they were candidates or not. He could do it. And really the question is not so much a question of law or even policy. The question is, does he have the chutzpah? Well, I said last show, it's gonna be within 30 days. So that was a week ago, guess what? It's three and a half, three weeks. And I think he does get indicted by one entity or another. And there was no excuse for throwing your hat in the ring and having that as an excuse, not to follow the rule of law. And if the evidence leads it to Donald Trump, so be it. I don't think- I say in response to that, double cheese breast. I say pepperonis, but we'll get past that. Okay, so- A little more positive note. So we interrupted you, Cynthia. What about what we just said? What do you think about it? Positive note. Here's what a few GOP lawmakers have said over the last just 24 hours. Mitt Romney says, it's like the aging pitcher who keeps losing games. Representative Mo Brooks says, it would be a bad mistake for the Republicans. These are all in regards to Trump. Cynthia Loomis says, Senator Cynthia Loomis says, Ron DeSantis is the leader of the Republican Party. And Shelley Moore Capito said, looking back on 2020, obviously didn't work out. We ought to look forward. And then we've got, one of the big giant donors for Blackstone has removed, he's not, came out publicly today saying he's not gonna support Trump. But does it really matter? Donald Trump has $100 million in his war chest. That's a lot of money. That's a thing. Now I wondered about, once you're a candidate, don't you have more restrictions on reporting what you get and how you spend what you get? And so I don't know if that's gonna be in his favor, money-wise, if his war chest and war chest, you know? My sense is that he treats it as his own money. He's probably violated the Federal Elections Commission a thousand times, like everything else. And nobody's taking him to task about it. But I think one thing you said to him, really important Cynthia, is that DeSantis, okay, is a kind of, what do you call it, entertainment leader? May I say that? He didn't have the apprentice to help him out, but he is an entertainment leader. And if you get by the problem of, shipping everybody to Martha's Vineyard, is that where they went? Martha's Vineyard? The whole country wind up on buses to Martha's Vineyard. And I happen to like Martha's Vineyard, so I'm not personally concerned about that. In any event, DeSantis is an entertainment feature. And he's a strong voice. And he is the one thing. All these guys making these anti-crump statements, doesn't mean much. It's the base that counts. The ones who are devoted to the cows come home to him. But DeSantis could give him a run. DeSantis could occupy the media. And what I wanna say, and I hope we can cover this, is it's the media. It's the media. The media leads to money. The media satisfies his base. And the media loves his machinations. And the machinations is what keeps him on the headlines. Every single day. If I asked you guys to cover an insurrection in Bogota, Columbia, you would say, no, no, no, it's not news. We have to cover the news. What's the news? It's every day. Well, how come Fox and CNN and MSNBC did not cover the entirety of his announcement campaign? My God, no one covered it. That's very, very fine thinking, Tim. The fact is they cover him all the time. He loves to be the bad guy. This was a pivotal moment, and they covered snippets of it. They didn't cover it. Yes, but they covered them. They cover them over and over and over. So every single new show, every single new journalist show, they show more clips. At least twice during each segment of the show. Every hour. So we still see it. Every hour. There's a few of them that won't, right? Ari Melber, he won't show him. He'd talk about him, buddy. Won't show him. Nicole Wallace won't show him. She'll talk about him, but she won't talk. It's not enough though. Let me give you another one. Well, look at the Wall Street Journal. Look at the New York Post. My God, Murdoch put on the front page, a man in Florida announces his run at Sea Page 26. I mean, it was hilarious to see the New York Post cover Donald Trump's announcement for 2024 presidency. And this says a man in Florida puts his hat in the ring, Sea Page 26. Now that was funny. I gotta say something about Florida, you guys, if it's okay. We have to remember Florida is one of the six states that already has voter interference laws on the books that are legal. So the legislature and good old Ron DeSantis put all of his own people that were in there in the election offices. So, and then on top of it, the legislature can override anything that the voters say. And isn't it just amazing that Florida is the only state that went all red, right? So some of these other election deniers that won, I can't help but notice that they're all in those six states. Let me ask you a question. Well, again, the election deniers, I'm sorry, go ahead, Jay. If for every time that there was a clip or some fleeting footage on Trump, there was a clip or some fleeting footage on DeSantis. Likewise, doing something outrageous that catches your attention, you know, that, you know, a magnetic event of one kind or another. For everything about Trump is the same, you know, call it balanced reporting, although that's not really appropriate for DeSantis. Wouldn't that help get the attention off Trump? But they're talking about Trump because he knows how to manipulate the press. And- Well, is that why he ran as of yesterday? To reign on Ron DeSantis' parade? Cause Ron DeSantis pulled a rabbit out of the hat with Florida. So my- My second rhetorical is, shouldn't DeSantis do the same thing right now? Shouldn't he reign on Trump's parade? Shouldn't he declare right now? Wouldn't that help? No. You don't think so? Oh, I do. You know, I'm sorry, but 24 months is a long time and the American public gets very fatigued, very quick. And so you don't wanna, you gotta fire when you see the whites of their eyes, so to speak. And 24 months in advance is really, it's just foolish. I mean, I don't know. They tried to tell Donald Trump, don't do it, don't do it. But, you know, he can't help himself to stay out of the limelight and out of the media spotlight. So this is my fear. My biggest fear is that Ron DeSantis is actually much worse than Trump. As much as we all can't stand Trump and think he is dangerous- Would you say why, Cynthia? I will say why, because he's smarter. He is an Ivy League educated man with a brain. And even though Trump- Why is he more dangerous? Because he's smarter. Because he's smart enough to not do the stupid things that derailed Trump in the process. He won't do- Well, what were those stupid things? Breaking the law, overtly? Yeah, running is not- Ron DeSantis is an attorney three times over. Exactly. So why is he gonna break the law? He probably won't break the law. He knows the law. He will break the law, right? For one thing. And then he's not gonna admit in public everything he does, like Trump does, right? What is he gonna do that's bad that makes him more dangerous, worse than Trump? With the book burning, that I have no proof, but believe that the partisan legislatures swoop of the red wave that only happened in Florida. No, you said that. You know, so it's- I don't really have a handle on what he would do that is as threatening as the things that Trump would do. We know that Trump is all about bigotry, racism, supremacy. We know that he's all about retaining power. And we know that he doesn't really believe in the constitution or the transfer of power. So I mean, that's really, really totally bad. And if we let that happen, this country is finished. Finished, you can quote me. I don't know that I fear the same things from DeSantis because there's no real evidence of that. What do you think, Tim? Is there evidence that DeSantis- I already said it. I mean, he's trained as an attorney. He knows the law. And he probably, like Richard Nixon, believe it or not, Richard Nixon ultimately respected the law and followed the duty of law. And that's why he didn't put up a fight. He didn't have a constitutional crisis, the Saturday Night Massacre. He basically gave up after that. You could have fought it. You could have had a huge mess back there. But he didn't- You're saying that DeSantis would make a mistake if he threw his hat in the ring right now. Yes, I definitely think it would be a big huge mistake. But that leaves Trump in charge of the ring. He was a mistake. No, it's not the best approach, but it leaves Trump in charge of the ring. Trump runs the circus for the next year or two. And DeSantis is relatively quiet. Does he run the circus? Or do we have people like Governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, Trump has cost us the GOP, the last three elections. If enough leaders of the Republican party start calling out Trump as basically a loser, maybe that puts him in his cage for three or four months and then maybe it's time to throw your hat in the ring come March, come February of next year. We're only talking about three or four months. I personally think that we always underestimate all of our new Gen Zers and the millennials. They turned out in force this last election and they're gonna continue to keep coming up. But wait, wait, wait, they may have turned out in force and a lot of people are saying they are the future and they're smarter and more engaged. I'm not sure that's true, but assuming it's true, they don't get to vote, which is their only option for the next couple of years. They can't do anything for the next couple of years. Well, you mean in two years when we vote next time, they will be 18 and able to vote is what I'm trying to say. What I'm saying is that Trump will have the control of the circus for two years more. And it's kind of a contention as to whether the young people will see through that or not. Well, we're forgetting something, Jay. We're forgetting about indictments. He's gonna be swatting those things away like they were flies on honey. He won't have time to have all the time like he did last time in 2015 to control the airwaves. He's gonna be on the news, but it's gonna be all the legal entanglements that he's involved with. What you think? It's a good point, but in my heart, in my heart, may not be rational, but in my heart, I don't think he's gonna get indicted. I think he's gonna find a way out of that. He's done it before a number of times. He's pulled levers here and there and everywhere and he's found a way out. And I agree with you because, you know, there are some in the Democratic Party, we want Donald Trump to run in 2024. Are you kidding me? Just as you said, Jay, he could pull a rabbit out of the hat and he usually does some way somehow. And God forbid he would be elected again in 2024. So be careful, Democrats, when you say such things because you underestimate Donald Trump's ability to stay in the media and stay on top of things for two years. So if you ever hear a Democrat say, yeah, we want Trump to be the candidate, the nominee for the Republican Party, guide him elsewhere. So it goes to, again, the question of DeSantis. Let's assume DeSantis is the other front runner. And let me agree with you that now may not be the best time for him to throw his hat in the ring. But if now is not the best time, when is the best time? Well, probably April 2023 because you really wanna get on a fundraising campaign, you know, somewhere between April and May. I mean, you're still one full year away from the heat of the 2024 election and I wouldn't think anything other than April time period. If I were DeSantis, do you think, Cynthia? Oh, sorry. I have a question, guys. What about what Merrick Garland said about appointing a special master or not a special master? An overseer for Donald Trump's, someone that oversees- Special prosecutor. Yeah, that's it, a special prosecutor that oversees Donald Trump's campaign. That's an interesting factoid, I think. Well, we already had one of those and both sides ate them up. What was his name? Mueller. Yes. You're a pro, I'm telling you. You're a special prosecutor and you was chewed up and spit out. What, that's not particular. You say a special prosecutor to oversee his campaign. That doesn't sound very democratic to me. No, the investigation for the DOJ. That would be more appropriate. Yeah, that's what she's referring to, I think. Yeah. Did I get the right to- The Department of Justice has virtually tens of thousands of lawyers around the country. He doesn't have anybody. He needs to appoint somebody special. They're all busy. What is it? Well, I mean, why would you do it? Just to give the appearance that you're neutral and you're not going to have to Donald Trump personally. But if anyone's neutral, it's Merrick Garland. My God, he's milk toast. And I don't think he should do it. I think he should proceed. Because look at how the delay of things to come by putting a new person in and starting really from square one. That's a bad move. I think. Well, it's a delay move. Yeah, it's a delay. Trump would love it because what would Trump do? Delay that. He would attack the guy. Yes. He wasn't really impartial and he hoped to get him either out of office or embarrassed or criticized and then followed the whole thing because of that. I mean, that's out of his playbook. Who came up with that idea? Wasn't you Cynthia, was it? No, it wasn't me. I heard it on the news that they said Merrick Garland was thinking about if he runs that he would put some sort of a special prosecutor to follow the campaign and make sure it stays on the up and up. I don't know. Like all good sources, Jay, we heard it through the grapevine. And speaking of the grapevine, I heard that we've run out of time. Oh, dear. So guess what we get to do? Cynthia, why don't you start with your last thoughts about either Donald Trump throwing his hat in the ring or the fact of whether or not you think he's a kingmaker still? I don't think he's a kingmaker still. I think that he always only had a third of the Republican party and the rest of them sort of held their nose and voted for him, but they didn't this time. And I don't think they will again. And like, who is it? Mo Brooks that said, you know, no, we weren't run the Santas now. So Mo Brooks of all people, right? Isn't that, I think he's coming out against Trump because he was wearing, he's the one wearing the flak jacket, right? At the rally before the insurrection. It's not the same Mo Brooks, right? So now he doesn't like Trump. Before he was ready to put on a flak jacket for him, but now he doesn't. So I think like what you said earlier is that will he be just as ready to pull that flak jacket back off and say, okay, I'm all yours, buddy. You know what I mean? I don't know, but we can only hope- And that's a good answer. I don't know. That's fair. I think what we need to do is hold the media accountable for giving him airtime. I think we need to keep the media accountable for not giving him the benefit of the doubt or making him being labeled the de facto leader of the Republican party. That's what they keep saying over and over and over. And if you say something enough times, you can count on it probably gonna happen. So I think that's the biggest thing. We need to start, you know, Twitter, Facebook, whatever way we can start calling the media out for what they're doing and how they have to just stop. Alrighty, thank you. Thank you very much, Cynthia. Jay, final word. I'm gonna think Trump is- Something sage I know. He's gonna see opportunities here. First, he makes himself a victim. I mean, that's the first thing. Oh, they're all attacking me. Oh, it's so bad. It's graceful how they attack me in a free society. And then he's going to try to repair the damage and he's gonna try to distract everyone. And he's gonna attack anyone who attacks him and little by little, as he did before. Remember, they all criticized him after, they all criticized him after January 6th and then they turned around. All these big names, they all turned around. In theory, will they turn around again? I think he's got a plan. We can't count him out here. He's down, but not out. And I think at the end of the day, he has a fairly good chance of coming back. And I think if nobody services to put him down as an alternative, as an adversary in the campaign, he will stand a good chance of keeping people's attention and thus rebuilding his following and his possibilities. So I'm not optimistic about this. I think that unless somebody surfaces from the Democratic Party or even from the Republican Party to be a counterweight on him, he is gonna have the floor. Alrighty, I asked for Sage's comment and I got it. Thank you, Jay, very much. That's all for our show today. We've run out of time. I'd like to thank my co-host, Jay Fiedel and of course, Cynthia, Lisa and Claire, as always. Cynthia, I know we won't see you next week, so I wish you a very festive and warm Thanksgiving. Thank you, same to you guys. Alrighty, I'm Tim Apachele, your host. Thank you for tuning in for American Issues, Take One. Join Jay Fiedel for American Issues, Take Two. And until then, aloha.