 It's the 12th, it's Wednesday, it's 11 o'clock. That can mean only one thing, it's Trump week. I'm Tim Apachele, your host, and this week with us we have Stephanie Dalton, Winston Welch, and Cynthia Lee Sinclair. Welcome everybody, aloha. Aloha. So guess what the title of this show is today? We're gonna just spend a very little bit of time on it because as usual, the week was news filled, action packed, and it's a fire hydrant of information and it never ends. Every week is the same way, each and every week. So the title to this show is My Dream, My Face on Mount Rushmore. Actually the quote was, spoken to Republican governor of South Dakota, Christy Noam, and that quote was from Donald Trump, do you know it's been my dream to have my face on Mount Rushmore? Wow, I mean, what hubris? I mean, let's think of the existing presidents on Mount Rushmore. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt. And Donald Trump thinks his face should be on Mount Rushmore. Is there a different adjective or a different word than hubris? Winston, let me go to you because I can't believe this one. It's just, it's astounding, but with all the other noise news, that one sort of got like, that was just like humorous insanity on the side because there's so many other things going on. Like you said, it's a fire hydrant of information every week. And so that one, I just, that gets tucked somewhere between humor and sad and also what's our mental state going on here that someone would even say something like that. You might, who wouldn't want to be on Mount Rushmore but that's something that happens after your, well, yeah. After you turn eight years old. I'm not thinking about those things after you turn eight years old. You just say it anyway. You don't say it anyway, but we're used to the no filter presidency. We are used to, well, we're almost used to it. And we only have 80 some odd days left to hopefully not get used to it any further. It is interesting that the South Dakota governor said, I started laughing when he said that, you know, again, the quote is, do you know it's been my dream to have my face on Mount Rushmore? The governor was interviewed and I saw the video and she goes, I started laughing. And then I noticed Donald Trump wasn't laughing. He was serious. And so, and so we later saw tweets of Donald Trump putting his face next to Abraham Lincoln on the mountain and oh, I don't know. And you got to have some levity in this whole mix of this last, this administration because if you don't laugh a little, you're going to cry a lot. So, hey, Stephanie, what do you think? Oh, I think you, you put your finger on it. You pinned it just right. I think that he doesn't understand again that you get up there through accomplishment and achievement and exemplary modeling of American values. And these are the kinds of things that he is not thinking about if I may surmise that. And it comes across as a fairly pitiful. However, I wanted to point out that your comment about he wasn't laughing or you're quoting a comment about how he wasn't laughing when he made that suggestion which anybody can joke about that. That's a fun thing to joke about for any major award or, you know, medal or anything like that. But you said he wasn't laughing. And that was one thing that Bill Maher pointed out in his eulogy for Donald Trump's funeral. He made the point that Donald Trump does not laugh. And of course that would be important to Bill Maher, a comedian, a major American comedian. And I thought that was insightful. I mean, maybe obvious. And I hadn't really thought about that. He doesn't laugh. No, I think he really, really shrinks when there's any kind of humorous jab at him. And I think he acts the tough guy because that's how he's built. That's how he's designed. Never to accept criticism, never to accept any kind of jab. And I think really one of the major reasons why he's gone after Obama. Remember that media award ceremony years ago? I think, I forget what the formal name is. And this is when President Obama was at the podium and kind of poking fun at him. And the whole audience was laughing at him at this award ceremony. It was the news media. The White Journalist. The House Correspondents Award. Thank you. Thank you, Wista. House Correspondents. And I really think that set the stage. I think that he took that, he internalized that. He saw it as a national insult to him, exposed on millions of people watching that and he never forgot it. And that's the way he is. He doesn't like any kind of humor directed at him because his ego just can't handle it. And that's just the way it is. Cynthia, your thoughts about Donald Trump putting his face. By the way, there's not enough rock to carve his face even if he were to pay for it. I guess his age actually asked for what the process is of getting one's face on Mount Rushmore and there is no process. Namely because number one, he wouldn't qualify even if he could. And number two is there's not enough rock space to be chiseled out. It's an illusion that there might be space next to Abraham Lincoln, but there isn't. Your thoughts, your impressions of Donald Trump face on Mount Rushmore, please. I have been to Mount Rushmore many times. I took my kids to Mount Rushmore. It is a beautiful model of our democracy. It is a beautiful tribute, the inside, in the museum part and the interaction part where you can play different things and learn about how America was founded. The idea of a man like this being even in the inside history part of it, except for the joke section is just to me or the warning section I should say of what not to do, the idea of it just shrinks me in. And yes, it's funny, but it's so indicative of him. He doesn't really, I mean, and that'd be like Nixon wanting to get up there, right? He wasn't, does he forget that? We're gonna put an impeached president up on our monument to democracy as he whittles away at democracy every day. It just- Good point, good point. I think even as loyal followers probably were taken back a little bit by the concept of his face on Mount Rushmore. Okay, switching gears, I'm gonna go ahead with this. Also, you're forgetting, we could just remove the other presidents, just make Donald Trump as Mount Rushmore. You know, I mean, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, just get rid of them. And I just mentioned that the indigenous people there have never given permission for that, their sacred mountain to be part of it. I don't think anything's going up there. Correct. No, I totally- Good point. Now, I heard though that he gave the governor a four foot replica of Mount Rushmore with his face on it. Just to appease him. And his infantile dreams and his aspirations. Just to appease him only. This is what it would look like. Yeah, it's just- Yeah, there you go. Okay, I'm gonna switch gears. We're gonna go to the bottom of the list of, now is the top of the list. And that is Joe Biden's VP pick, Kamala Harris. Cynthia, what are you, what's your thinking about that pick and how well will Joe Biden be served by it? I think he'll be served very well by it. I think it was the right pick to make. I think she's ready for the campaign trail. I think she's ready to take on Mike Pence. I can't wait to see that one. Oh boy, that's gonna be a debate for the records. So I- You think it might be a Senator Benson moment with Dan Quayle about his comments about President Kennedy. It was his friend and you're no John Kennedy. I didn't hear that. I didn't see it. Oh yeah, it's a very famous Vice President debate moment. And I think there's gonna be a lot of those kind of moments. And hey, Winston, you think, and I've always actually heard a hint of it that Donald Trump and his loyal acolytes are saying that, well, Joe Biden can't fight for himself. So he needs a scrapper on the ticket to do the fighting for Joe Biden. Have you heard that comment? But to some degree, she is a scrapper and I think she will do well to foil for Joe Biden. Well, you know, she's a strong candidate. She was a strong candidate for the president and I think it's, this is a wise move for him because he's, and it's not about her being a woman or being a half Indian and half African-American. That's not even it. She's just an accomplished person who is not afraid to take on a challenge. She'll be strong in her own right and just able to, she doesn't have any problems speaking her mind. I think she will be an excellent vice president and also the fact that she did stand up to Joe Biden on the stage, she's gonna hold him to task too and represent a larger constituency if he starts straying off the path and he can count on her for wise loyal opposition inside of his own cabinet if the time comes and need be. So she was an excellent choice but honestly, I would have been happy with any of his top choices that he was looking at at least that we were thinking of but Kamala Harris will be fine and Joe Biden is a one-term president and he decides that's what he wants to be. She will be an excellent president after him. You know, that's a good point. I wanna tag onto that comment yet you made that she will stand up to Joe Biden if need be and I think that's the problem with this current administration. No one is willing to say what's the obvious, what's on their mind and what's the obvious truth about how Donald Trump is acting and how it's getting in the way of his governing this country and particularly in the case of COVID. He has demolished his country and the deaths of 162,000 Americans now is something that could have been easily avoided early on had someone had the Hutzpah to stand up to him and say, no, Mr. President, we need to move in this particular direction. And I think Dr. Fauci and Dr. Bricks, I think they gave it their shot, they gave it their best and they were, as we now know by history, shoved aside. But I think it's important that any vice president be able to stand up and say, time out. And I don't think this administration has had those in Mike Pence. Well, in Mike Pence, or I mean, from what we're hearing that Jared Kushner was directing that we don't have a response because they weren't Donald Trump supporters. I mean, there were so many instances here where we're thinking, why was this going on and who's really benefiting from this? And I think Cynthia's had some really good points in the past shows that we've had about follow the trails here of who's benefiting from this. And it certainly has been. No, I think I read that article and I don't know if it was The New York Times or I can't remember what the publication was, but if you think about how ghoulish, a planned blue state mortality, what goes into thinking of that? Ghoulish is the only word that comes to my mind. And the people that have stood up have all been fired. If they're speaking the truth and they have the audacity to speak the truth, they've been sidelined, marginalized, and then denigrated and demolished after they've left office disgraced. And if I'm going to the best, my general to the worst, not my general or whatever person or position it was. Okay. Hey, Stephanie, your thoughts about Kamala Harris and as the VP pick. Outstanding. She's so competent and articulate and it's not aggressive, but assertive in her manner in a way that they, I think they are criticizing as being ambitious, nasty woman, but she's assertive in the way of a competent professional. And that's what she is. And she models that way of being in the world as a woman and a woman of color. I'm a model for all of the nation's young girls. It just couldn't be better at any level. You look at- From a political standpoint, I think there's a lot of people are thinking that the VP nominee pick was gonna come from a swing state that was badly needed. Obviously she is from California. So that was a little bit of a surprise that it wasn't from a swing state, but at the same time, I would tend to agree with you. She's a very, very hard hitting, very fast thinking on her feet. And that's exactly what is needed to between now and the election. And I think your comments are spot on. Well, I think that she can, yes, she's coming from a blue state, right? So there's no benefit. She's not bringing in people on coach house, but the fact that we've got a lot of states in play, Arizona and Georgia, especially that they're already in play and also certainly Georgia and some of these states will, if they're pleased with this pick and they see her as representing everybody, which I think is what Kamala also does is she's not about the black African-American agenda, it predominantly. I think it certainly needs predominance, but we're getting a lot of heads, getting a lot of heft from a number of sources and efforts and it has momentum. And I think that she comes in and stands there as a unifier because she is so serious and represents everybody. Let me follow up on that comment because I think in previous shows I said the VP pick is going to be paramount for to win this election as it was with John McCain. And unfortunately, his pick basically lost him in the presidency and that was the pick of Sarah Palin. Why was that the case? Because no one knew how John McCain's health was going to be in a four year term. He was on a little bit on the older side and so that was in the back of a lot of voters' minds is whoever the VP pick is a heartbeat or two away from being the president of the United States. Well, Joe Biden is 77 years old and does that mentality, does that thinking still apply to Joe Biden? And will the public be able to say, okay, if Kamala Harris became president of the United States for whatever reason, because maybe President Biden couldn't be able to finish his term, would that be acceptable? Would people buy off on that? And I say the answer is yes. I agree with you. I think the answer is yes because it's so clear that Kamala Harris has worked her way into this potential and she's done it in a way that is her own effort as a woman and she postponed marriage. She did real clear themes to make her the best she could be professionally. So I think that deserves a lot of respect and I think that has put her in position to be trusted and to be seen as the unifier that she can be. Okay, great. Moving along, as I said, there's a lot of items on the list here. The, Cynthia, I'm coming to you on the faux executive order, the fake executive order that Donald Trump portrayed on Friday and the executive order that was going to be the magic bullet to help those that are unemployed with being out of work because of COVID. We all saw what he said and you know, you just had to kind of go, is he kidding me? Number one is, does he even have the authority to try to pull this off and rip that away from Congress? Which, you know, like, remember, if you remember the wall between Mexico and the United States, he declared a national emergency and used that as a means to rip away the authority from Congress to find four, I believe it was $4 million or so to try to do that wall. And here we go again. So, you know, part of this, his proclamation on this executive order was, hey, I'm gonna have, we're gonna give each family $300 a week that are unemployed and you states come up with an extra hundred. Yeah, you don't have any budget for it, we know that, but you're gonna come up with $100 matching dollars anyway and they'll get $400 a week. Now, since that proposal, they have backed off that, that the states will not be required to come in with that $100. But your thoughts and general perceptions of Donald Trump and this whole debacle of executive order? It was all about having his base. I think he's doing good to the American people, right? So that's why he did it. It was basically just a big show. He went through the motions of giving people $400 a month, I mean, a week. You know, the thing that gets me is that he would do that and put the states in a position like that when the states are dying right now because of all the medical costs and equipment that they've had to buy and they are dying, their budgets are under, you know, are way, way in the red right now anyway, just trying to fund their response to the COVID relief. And for him to do that again, throw the states under the bus like that is indicative of how nasty he is. And, you know, he uses that term for all the big women, it seems like. That's his one adjective that he describes. Well, he described Kamala Harris that way. He described Hillary Clinton that way. He described Nancy Pelosi that way. He likes to use that nasty term, right? And at any rate, so we know he can't do it. The power of the purse belongs to the Congress. And the only way he was able to get that money for the wall was he stole it from military projects, schools and housing rebuilt and things like that. So where is he gonna steal this money from, you know? When Nancy Pelosi was asked, are you gonna challenge this immediately in court? She basically did not agree to that. She goes, well, we have bigger things to worry about. And that is the American public that's unemployed. That's my priority. And I think that was a good answer. Although there's a part of me that says, yeah, challenge them immediately. Do not let something like this stand. Also, I wanna ask you, what do you think the political intelligence that it took to announce to those retirees in Florida, Arizona and the rest of the country that are already receiving their social security checks that he's gonna suspend the payroll tax which funds social security and Medicare. He was gonna temporarily suspend that and then make that permanent in January. Should he be reelected? I'm sorry, but if you're receiving your social security checks or about two in the next year or so, I'm not sure that's one of the things you wanna hear is that you have a guaranteed funding mechanism that now is gonna be thrown to the winds of the general budget. And you don't know whether there's gonna be enough money in that going forward or not. But also it's a corporate gift. The money would have been a gift to the corporation because those employees that are laid off aren't receiving a paycheck. So the 50% that corporations fund for that payroll tax for social security and Medicare, they're suspended of having to pay it. So yet again, Donald Trump's attempt to give and reward corporations, particularly during the time during the COVID debacle, this COVID nightmare that we're facing, your thoughts about Donald Trump and this maneuver. I think that everything he did in this executive order was a mess and it was done strictly as a big show. I don't think he'll be able to actually achieve any of the things that he signed. And I think it's important too to look at the setting where he did it at his Bedminster golf course with all of his little sycophants, the millionaire people that belong to his club, standing there to support him is just, I think that's important. And none of them- I think the visual was very, very jaw-dropping on that and I agree. Thank you, Cynthia. Winston, your thoughts? You know, it was just show. He doesn't have the power of the purse. And so I think what you saw from the, both the Republicans and the Democrats was we're working together on crafting a bill that's actually going to be workable because I don't see where he's gonna get the money for this or how this happens. Like we heard the states are broke. They don't have $100 to chip in for this. They need to be bailed out on their own. I think more important is it says if he gets reelected then he's effectively going to end social security. This is just part of deconstructing a federal system as we understand it, except when it comes to the point when shipping in troops into democratic cities. I gotta ask you this question. We have 80 some days left before the election. Where is the political wisdom of scaring seniors who get their social security checks that it's my intent to defund social security or at least a dedicated mechanism for social security and Medicare? He's not gonna say that. I mean, people don't understand that the payroll tax is social security. So I think there's a cognitive disconnect there. And then people will say he wouldn't do that anyway. And so even if he did do it, he wouldn't do it anyway. But I think more important is that we've had some events happen like with the post office where you have the postal union leader warning that the assault on the Postal Service and mail-in voting puts the nation on a dangerous path towards dictatorship. I thought it was also interesting, following the Axios interview, we had Chris Wallace come about and say, this is the worst-sustained attack on the media ever. And even Neil Cavuto and these Wealth Fox News fellows say that we are not here to do your bidding. He said, oh, it's not my news station anymore. Something through that effect. So I think we're starting to see some awareness in at least on the fringes and the edge of people waking up a little bit more, but we have to also look that 538 and Neil Nate Silver still predicts that there's a, I think it was a 28, 29% chance that Donald Trump will be reelected. And if we doubt that, that's the same percentage at the same time four years ago compared to Hillary Clinton that they said he has a 29% chance of being reelected. So I saw that article, yeah. And I think Nate Silver was, I remember reading something as it got closer and everybody was like, you were good Silver, but now you're just insane, but he was right, sadly. And we cannot afford to be complacent. We need to keep reaching out and let Donald Trump talk as much as he can. He needs to be in front of the media as much as possible because hopefully people will start seeing it for what it is. And it's sad, but this is, I still have faith in America that we will come back, that we will see what's out there and then we will rehabilitate ourselves and find out what, get back to real human traditional values in this nation that we care about and support each other. All right, thank you, Winston. Stephanie, what part of those points during his discussion about the executive order what part, if any of it made sense to you now, I will say one thing, he does have the authority to defer student loans. That authority has been given to the president of the United States. I think Bill Clinton did it way back in the day. Was there any parts of his executive order that made sense to you? Only that I don't understand if he can actually postpone those FICA payments. So I don't, but I was, so I mean, I hope he can't do that as Winston said, says he doesn't have the power of the purse. So maybe they can go in and do something about that. But the whole point here is, as I've been saying over this time, it doesn't, all of that doesn't matter. I'm glad that the student loans can be halted. That's super good. But the point is we've got to make the election work. That is all that counts now. And if it requires crawling through glass to get to the box to put the ballot in, we've got to be able to do that. So I know that I don't know what we can do. I mean, Maisie Hirono and our other Senator, Shatz, what's with calling them? Then what can they do? They're Democrats, they're in the Senate. Are they gonna be able to move anything? Where are the levers that the population can push to stop his destroying the post office or in some way limit his attack on it? What can you- Very good question. I mean, where is the authority to jump in and say, we're taking over the post office to ensure the delivery of mail and a timely delivery of mail? Where is the, I don't know the answer to that. And I think that's a very good question. I'm terrified that it's because it's in the executive branch, it's another agency, sorta quasi, there is a little bit of a dog leg with the post office compared to like the Department of Commerce. But what is Donald Trump, is the president able to do whatever he wants to them? With absolutely no approval or any consequences to him. So let's see if we can find out about that. I'm gonna really watch for that because I'm just- I think it's paramount because there's a note stolen as saying, the voters do their thing, but it's the people who count the votes. That's what really matters. And the bottom line is if those ballots don't even get to where they're supposed to be because of this overt attempt to slow the mail down, here we are in the Stalinist Russian environment. All right, we're gonna have to wrap this up. We're out of time. Stephanie, your thoughts for next week as briefly as possible. We need to know how to influence the, or stop the attack on the post office. Okay, good. I'm glad you said that. Winston, your prediction for next week? Educate yourselves, be gentle when educating your family and friend members, but send them things that they can digest in small bits. All right, thank you. And Cynthia? I've been crying election security from the roof tops, from two kids and all. And it's more important now than ever. We need paper balance, we've got to have paper balance. And people need to start talking about the fact that Russia is involved in our election. And what can we do to stop them? Well, turn off the mic when Donald Trump says the Democrats are responsible for meddling in the election. All right, I'll leave it at that. Thank you very much, Cynthia, Winston, Stephanie. Again, another rough and tumble week at Trump week. I'm Tim Appichell, your host. Join us next week, Wednesday, 11 o'clock. Aloha, everyone. Aloha.