 If we're here on a given Friday afternoon, Tim Epicella and me, Cynthia is on assignment on the mainland. How do you like that? I like that. And this is Trump Week, in case you were wondering. And before we tell you the title of the show, which will resonate, I just want to tell you something we discussed a minute ago, is what is the connected dots thing, and we can hang our ornaments off this. He's ignoring Congress. He's marginalizing Congress. He's making believe that Congress doesn't exist. They subpoena his people, tells him not to show up. They ask for documents. He says he's not going to do it. Whatever they ask for, he's not going to do it. And he says everything they ask for is politicized, of course, all his answers are politicized, too. So he's insinuated politicization into everything. At the same time, him and McConnell have neutralized the Senate. And that's really frightening. So what you have is one branch of government is like, you know, neutralized. And then you think about all the judges he's appointed, including the judge who ruled last week that Congress did not have standing to question his emergency declaration of the border issue. That judge was a Republican appointed by Trump. He's stocked the courts. They said that FDR stocked the courts, too, back in the 30s, but there's nothing compared to what Trump has done, hundreds of judges. And still today, you don't see it in the newspaper, but he's still appointing hundreds of federal judges who are conservative right-wing judges every day. He's appointing you on the basis of loyalty to him, like Kavanaugh, loyalty to him. Result is that he's essentially neutralized in the judiciary, too. So you have three branches of government in the Constitution. This guy has disqualified two of the branches, or is in the process of disqualifying them. Leaving one branch of government, him. He's running the country. Clearly, that's what he wants to do. That's really unconstitutional and profoundly damaging to our republic. Okay, now let's get to the show. Hi, Tim. Good morning, Jay. That's a neutral. Yeah. You're talking about waking me up. So we're talking about, today we're talking about something called, yes, I would take help from a foreign nation. And the tagline is, doesn't that show what he was doing before? Of course it does. Absolutely. Why don't you tell us what happened this week? Well, what happened this week, he was in an interview with ABC with George Stephanopoulos. And the conversation was taking place in the Oval Office. We talked about a backdrop. And the question just basically came up, what about information you receive from foreign countries and isn't that something you should do something about? And he was about to blatant as blatant get. He said, nah, I'd like to listen to it. I would want to listen to it. And I wouldn't necessarily call the FBI. Why would I call the FBI? I've never called the FBI in my entire life. He marginalizes the FBI. He marginalized it. And then he kind of... He's investigating the FBI. He said, well, I might do a couple things. I'd listen to it and maybe call the FBI. Okay. So today he has moonwalked away from this like you wouldn't believe. Well, what's he do? He chips at something. He sees what the reaction is. If it's strong enough, then he moonwalks or he back walks to talk. And then he keeps chipping at it again. And then he backs up again. He'll be back. You know, the other thing is that he knows, as anyone who does the media knows, that's the first statement, the first imprimatur that counts for a lot of people. They never hear the back walk. They only hear the first statement. Well, and the first statement was, it knocked me out of my chair. I said, what did he just say? And then I said, okay, I know what he just said. He basically put out a yard sign saying, this election 2020 is open for business. I'm looking for anyone who wants to help me. That's what he said. You know, Russia, if you're listening, remember that? In Hillary Clinton, yeah. If you're listening, I'd like the dirt on Hillary and five hours later, they gave him the dirt on Hillary. They gave him the dirt. They hacked in. Was it Podesta? They hit that, his computer? Or I can't remember who exactly they got, but five hours later, they were at it. Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah. They were at it. So what we have here is a complete breach of the norm that you don't ask foreign, you don't want foreign governments to come in and affect the election. You know, this happened, gee, in the time of Thomas Jefferson, and some guy was trying to bring the French in to affect the election back in the early 19th century. And as a result, there was some action taken against the person who did it. I don't remember what it was, but he was criticized and worse for having done that. And they were trying to use the information they got from the French to beat up on Thomas Jefferson. That's what it was. Yeah. It's been going on a long time. But, I mean, you can't assume that Trump knows the history. I don't think he knows any history, or economics for that matter. Either he is, you know, a master chess strategist, and he plays his chess game like no one's business, or he just doesn't know anything. And then he just blunders into it. And then he realizes, oh, I've blundered into it because now I have Lindsey Graham or maybe Mitch McConnell saying, well, maybe I shouldn't have said that, so let me back up a little bit and say, I saw he, as a six-year-old would, gets away with it. And gets away with it. And there's no consequences. You know, yesterday I was watching C-SPAN. I'm watching it more these days because I think there's a lot of value on there. And a Buddha judge was on speaking. And I hadn't really listened to his substantive position up to this spot. Seeing sound bites, you know, you can quote me on this, sound bites are not enough. You have to listen for a while, 15, 20 minutes at least, half an hour better. And he was talking about the country under him, if he won. And it was really encouraging. It was what I've been waiting for. And he was modest about it. He wasn't just doing, you know, these kind of whip up the audience kind of statements, although the audience was applauding him. And I said to myself, gee, this is a real president here. This guy could actually help us. And the comparison, inevitably, that you make listening to Buddha judge and maybe some of the others is that, you know, Trump isn't the president. He's just looking for the headlines. He has he does not have the best interests of this nation at heart. He simply doesn't. He wouldn't know if it had socked him in the nose. I think the thing that strikes me the most is the lack of policy that he's doesn't have. He is making it up on the fly. I mean, he's a counterpuncher. We hear that all the time, but he makes this stuff up on the fly. And, you know, maybe his staff has a policy in mind, but, you know, you're taking the left turn or the right turn on any given day. And whether you're following a policy procedure or not is irrelevant to Donald Trump. And I think that is unsettling for a lot of people. Maybe that's why they voted for him. Maybe that's what they want. They want to see the whole government come apart. You know, maybe that's why he got the votes that he did. So the Hatch Act says you follow this action this week. The Hatch Act says you're not supposed to campaign or do political things on on government time, and that is specially directed. As a former government employee, I was very much that was drummed into our heads. So Kellyanne Conway, for me, she's special because I remember the first time I saw her on the tube, it was during his campaign back when. And I said to myself, I don't know who this woman is, but she's lying. And she's lied consistently since then. Well, and so it's really remarkable. But beyond that, now she's, you know, acting as his mouthpiece in beating up the Democratic candidates. And so there's an office of the Special Counsel, not Mueller's office, but another office established by law that's supposed to look and see who's who's, you know, complying with and who's not complying with the Hatch Act. Follow what happened? Yeah. Well, they said she needs to go. And Donald Trump said it looks to me like they're trying to take away her right of free speech. And that's just not fair. So laws be damned. I mean, Donald Trump thinks, you know, the First Amendment applies to everything and everybody at all times for Donald Trump. That probably means screaming fire in a crowded theater, because that's my free right. But if you criticize him, then you don't have First Amendment. Then you don't have First Amendment. And the press certainly doesn't have First Amendment. The press is at war with him. You know, he called Sarah Saunders a warrior. You say a warrior, a warrior is in a war. What war? The war on the press. Yeah. Well, let's go back to Kelly on Conway, because if you saw the interview that she did a couple of days ago, she said, if you think you're going to sign us me with the Hatch Act, it's not going to work. Let me know when the jail sentence starts. Let me talk about taunting the law and throwing the law in the face of in the mud. It's a law. Well, it's regrettable that the Hatch Act does not have a criminal penalty. So it goes back to Donald Trump to decide whether or not it's enforceable. Right. Because he says, how silly is that? How silly is that? And the public, you know, makes no judgment about this. Yeah. In fact, I would say the press makes no judgment. They report the facts for the most part as is. So you never hear anybody saying, wait a minute, that's completely wrong. It's a violation of, you know, the essence of our government to have somebody use the bully pulpit who advanced his or her own political position and to and to criticize the other guy. That's not First Amendment at all. That's the Hatch Act. Well, it's it's an obligation of office, of holding office. Yeah, I understand. Believe me, every government worker knows that you do not engage on time, political and political campaigns. But, you know, let's look at what Kellyanne Conway is really famous for. And it's not the violation of the Hatch Act. You remember what she's ultimately infamous for? And it happened on the second day of office. She coined the term alternative facts. OK, so it wasn't a lie. It wasn't a half truth. It wasn't, you know, it was an alternative fact. And that will go in history as her coin term. I don't know if the base, you know, accepts the craziness, understands the craziness of that term. It means lies is what it means. Light of the public and demagoguery, by the way, not to go back to Sarah Saunders. But here we go. Here we go. And her special term is gaslighting. Yeah, because, you know, she lies. She lied every time she got up there in one of these press conferences. And you say, my God, where is she getting that from? She makes it up. Well, I think she makes it up because he tells her she's an extension of his own his own narcissism and his inability to tell the truth. What I find interesting is is that she resigned after 91 days, 91 days without a press conference. So what he's doing, you know, as I said before, two branches of government are being neutralized. You only have the president speaking on the newspaper and in Twitter all day long. OK, but conferences, press conferences, where the press can express its job, do its job and ask him questions and test him on some of these things. No press conference. This is very, this is very unsettling to me, a great concern. I mean, we're moving in exactly the wrong direction and inexorably so. And if Cynthia Sinclair was here, she'd be jumping up and down about the election and the lack of protections for the 2020 election. And these news stories today really kind of highlight what she's been talking about. What are they? Well, the bottom line is I'm going to, by hook and crook, I'm going to become the second term president. And if a foreign power wants to help me, so be it. And well, as of today, he said, well, of course, I'd call the FBI. Well, of course, he wouldn't. You know, I mean, you only had a back track because one FBI was attacking the FBI right out of the box in 2017. Well, what did he say here on the other day? He said, the FBI director is wrong. When when George Stephanopoulos said, well, you realize that the FBI director said that you ought to, everyone ought to contact the FBI immediately. Donald Trump looked at George and goes, the FBI director is wrong. Direct quote. OK, so not only does he bypassing Congress and not only has he, you know, with multitude of distractions has been able to place judges where he wanted them place, but he's also now compromising our law enforcement agencies, you know, and he's compromised the Justice Department with William Barr as his, you know, faithful lackey. At some point, when do you have control of the complete government? Coming soon. Coming soon to a theater near you. Now, what troubles me is that I don't think people fully recognize it. They don't see it. The thing is, yeah, they don't see it coming. And, you know, it's coming faster all the time. Governments is dysfunctional. It's a WIM government. And if he wins the second term, it'll be far worse than that, Tim. You know, you mentioned FDR and back in the day, FDR was perceived as more or less a dictator. But, you know, what did we have going on back then? We had, you know, one of the greatest wars that we'll ever experience. World War Two. We had the depression, one of the worst depressions and the impact of, you know, the economic behavior and the poor people that were affected by it. So in some ways, maybe he was a dictator. But guess what? He did it for the benefit of the public and country and the good of all Americans. Donald Trump is not FDR. Oh, he just did it for the benefit of anyone but himself. And if I can get power and consolidate my power, that, by God, that's good for me. Oh, it's scaring me again. Now, let's just move on to to the outside world. Let's talk about foreign policy. Let's just see, just sort of take stock of his foreign policy, which is punctuated this week by the attack on those two oil tankers and the Gulf of Ramuz. It's very scary because the Gulf of Ramuz, you know, 30 percent of the world's oil passes through there. And these oil tankers are out of commission and the oil that was on them is out of commission. Oh, what's going to happen here? Iran is taking increasingly aggressive steps against him. The war of words now becomes a war of deeds. Well, a miscalculation of deeds. Yes, because miscalculation of words and deeds leads to real war. Yes, it does. And we are heightening, you know, the risk every day with this. What kind of foreign policy is that? If you answer that. Well, I've already answered it. He doesn't have a foreign policy. Why is he doing this? Maybe Bolton does. But guess what? Bolton has only paid attention to when Donald Trump wants to hear from him. You know, and I think part of this this Gulf of Ramuz, these tanker attacks, we're spending too much time on who's doing it. Was, you know, was was the assessment from Pompeo correct? Is it do we have the right actors? Or are we in a, you know, a make believe pretend scenario as we were with the weapons of mass destruction for the Iraq attack? The question is not who is what you said is what? What is the what is the policy here? Why are we even involved with Iran? And why are we ginning up a conflict needlessly? We're ginning up a conflict in the same way as we ginned up a national emergency. And a war is a national emergency. And then you take, you know, take very aggressive steps domestically when you have a war. So I think he's enhancing his power. Let's connect the dots. Let's connect the dots. What what motivation for what goal does it does it help Donald Trump to gin up a war with Iran? What does he get out of it? First of all, he gets more geography in the newspapers. That's what he gets first. And that's what he really loves most. Secondly, I think that the, you know, the ultimate effect is it increases his power and power of, you know, commanding the military, making all those guys go this way and that way. And and and ramp up for a war and you're going to spend more money. You're going to get more money in the military. Congress, or at least the Senate, not the House, but the Senate may go along with it. Or he'll find a way to squeeze the money out of some other pocket. So you're you're saying national emergency, right? Cheney got with Blackwater when we had the Iraq conflict. Those contracts with the Blackwater and Cheney became, you know, a very, very rich man. Yeah, and Dick Cheney was always looking for power. On a smaller scale than Trump, of course. But I think that's what's happening here. And you know, we could sit here for hours and try to think of what the legitimate reason for, you know, escalating this war of words and deeds with Iran is that it's very hard to find that. I mean, he created this all by himself. Everything was doing fine. The world was happy with the results of Obama created. And now look what we have. We have an incipient war in the Middle East. A war in the Middle East is more than an ordinary war, you know, because it never ends. It goes on for generations. And we I don't think we stand a good chance of winning a war with Iran. Do you? Well, here's the question. What's Europe going to do? Is Iran going to convince Europe that we're just mining our own business here and this president named Donald Trump, you know, created and gin this thing up and are you going to go along with that? And Europe may crack on this one. Europe may say, you know what? Donald Trump has created a conflict out of thin air and wouldn't Vladimir Putin just love that to see now Europe break away from the United States and how they approach Iran? Now, I'm not saying Europe is going to go in this direction, but Iran has an argument to make. Right. We haven't been fair. We haven't been fair. We haven't made significant efforts to talk to them. Well, we've pulled out the commitment of the nuclear treaty. And you pull out, you know, I mean, anyone will tell you, you go back and you try to renegotiate it. Maybe if you really don't like it because of changing circumstances, but you don't pull out and say, you know, take a walk, you guys, we're going to start from scratch. We're going to disregard the whole thing. What's it say to Iran where, you know, you've been treated so badly by this and plus insulted. And then then obviously he says, I want to talk to you guys. Come on over. Come on over. Let's have some tea. He's not saying that. Well, he did. He said, I want to talk to Iran. Oh, yeah. Call me. Call me. Okay. So talk about, you know, a schizophrenic response to foreign policy. To answer your question, it's a schizophrenic response to foreign policy. That's how you get into wars. Iran is not without weapons and friends and friends. And to go back to your point about Europe. Yeah, I think Europe is sympathetic with Iran now. Some of Europe has buckled under and trumps the man's that did not buy oil from Iran. But I think that might change because he's being so unreasonable now. And, you know, and the thing with the Queen last week, I'm sorry to say, but I think what I saw there is that they were laughing at him, that the UK was laughing at him, including in her own way, the Queen. By giving him a book? Yeah, a book of signals. Author by Winston Churchill. And you'll never read it. And the countries on the continent, Germany and France, they laugh at him. It's visible they're laughing at him. When they get a chance to rule for him or against him on some request he makes, like for an alliance and dealing with Iran, they're gonna find another way. They're not gonna agree with him. You know, it was hard enough for them to agree to join the alliance that Bush created in weapons of mass destruction, which is also ridiculous. But now this will be harder. He won't be able to get him to come along. We will be alone in a war with Iran. Months and months and months ago, we talked about this very thing. We were talking about how he's insulting NATO and things of that nature. And one comment I made was nations are not unlike people. They are, a nation is people. And a leader is no different. And we have this thing called passive aggressive behavior that sometimes we employ. And that is, when you need my help the most, I may not be there for you. Because you've insulted me. You've threatened, you know, tariff wars against me or, you know, trade policies against me. Immigration policies. Immigration policies. And maybe that, as an ally, I'm not gonna come out against you directly. But maybe I'm a little slow on the move on intelligence information that you may need or, you know, siding with what you want against a certain nation, maybe Iran. Well, I agree with you. Yeah, set the stage so many years ago now. It's easy to see this is what's gonna happen. And my question to you, this is a hard one, Tim. You know, we have enjoyed with Europe, with NATO, a wonderful relationship, wonderful in every sense, you know, back from the war on. We're buddies, we've been buddies all these years and he has undermined that, dramatically undermined it. And now it's going on, it's two years already. He's been undermining it. And doing things that, you know, that make you do deep breathing about how gross they are. Mis-treatment of Europe, insulting the leaders and so forth. Can his successor, hopefully his successor will come soon. Fix that, because these are relationships that are very important, critically important to us in the world, that he has critically undermined. Can we fix it or is it long term now? I think Europe, like maybe many people in this country see Donald Trump as an aberration, an anomaly. And they would hope a one-term anomaly and things will be set right with a different president. When I heard Buttigieg, talking about how he would fix up the relationship with NATO, I was really impressed. He understands, he understands the history. He understands, you know, the diplomacy. He understands the need for world collaboration. It's so different, it was so refreshing actually to hear anybody say that and he said it so well. But let's look at South America for a minute. What a mess Trump has made of South America. Instead of giving them more money so they can clear up their internal problems, he takes the money away and their problems get worse. Is anybody surprised? And then in terms of Mexico, beating up Mexico, horribly beating up our next neighbor, of a buffer at our border. Remember, like we saw in Russia, it's the Ukraine. You know, you want to have friendly buffers you can control that you have. You have buffers. You have buffers, buffers are important for national defense, for security. He's making Mexico an enemy. He's beating them up and using them every day. What was the needlessly? Okay, remember, we're not gonna call it a Mexican tariff. We're gonna call it a Mexican tax because ultimately consumers pay that tax. Okay, so he's threatening the tariffs. Guess what? Mexico had already agreed to do everything that they said they were gonna do and Donald Trump made it seem like, well, they responded to my tariffs. Well, guess what? Mexico had already committed to putting on sick, I can't remember the number now, border troops and let people who are waiting for asylum to reside in Mexico. Those things had already been decided months and months ago. So why did Donald Trump throw this Mexican tariff tax on the table and embarrass the president and make it seem like Mexican kowtow to the great Donald Trump when Mexico had already agreed to these provisions long before? But I'll go one step further. Three weeks ago, he announced that he had struck a deal on tariffs with Mexico and Canada. No problem boys, I struck a deal. We made an agreement, we're tight, we're friends. And then all of a sudden that went away. It's like it never happened, it was double think. And I don't understand this, you know, you make history disappear, they do that in China but apparently we do it here in the US too. So instead of having the agreement he spoke of two weeks earlier, now he has no agreement that he's throwing it out and he's making new demands and the whole thing is bizarre. But let me shift, let me shift to Venezuela in terms of double think. So he wants to support, what was his name, the protest president, the one who was outside. Sorry, he's talking about committing troops and money and all this stuff and making a big hubbub and making public statements about it and nothing happened, zero. He didn't do anything. And the fellow, I can't remember his name, is all of a sudden off the screen and Trump is off the screen and in fact the Russians and the Chinese are digging in Venezuela and supporting Maduro. Maduro, yeah. So what has happened here? It's a completely failed initiative and he would like us to just forget about it. I'm not forgetting about it and I hope his base doesn't forget about it. Well, I guarantee you the people that are starving and have nothing, they're not forgetting about it and that's why they're trying to get asylum here in the United States or many of them are trying to make that trip. What a tragedy. Central and South America is a tragedy, really, I think. But all those generals and hunters, what? But also now in Mexico, he's making Mexico a tragedy because Mexico is fragile in its own way and we need to support them. We need to be there for them. I can't think of how many allies he's, basically he's insulted and how many times he wants to snuggle up to North Korea and all the other death spots in this world. I can't explain it. I don't want to explain it. Donald Trump's an anomaly and I think it's time to impeach him. And Nancy Pelosi needs to get off the stick. Well, yes, I agree. He's got to stop. He's waiting for Gordau and Gordau's not coming so fast. He's waiting for Gordau. Yes, I remember that play. He was Mexican, by the way. I remember that play. But you know, one thing I find very interesting about all of that with Nancy and impeachment is that, you know, we're not there yet and it's not gonna happen and he still has his base and his Senate. They're not gonna let it happen. So, I mean, I think that we should do the right thing. I can agree with you more now. That's what Buttigieg was saying. Do the right thing. Stand for something. Yeah, stand for something. And if you stand for something, it's sort of like, you know, he doubles down. Well, we ought to double down. We do the rest of us. In the nature of the Democratic Party, though, they don't have the spine to double down or triple down. Stand for something or you'll fall for anything as the old lyric goes. And Nancy's Pelosi knows what they're worried about. They're worried about the Republicans getting all riled up and showing up at the polls and at the voting booths in 2020. Well, guess what? They're already riled up. They're gonna show up no matter what. So you might as well plan for it and stand for something and do something that protects the rule of law, protects the Constitution, and by gosh, stop playing this Mamby Pamby play out the clock game. And that's what she's trying to do. She needs to get behind more senators and more House representatives to say, we are going to go through the process. Get it done by this fall. You can start it, get it done, and say, now we're gonna focus. It's gonna hang after that. It's gonna hang in the center. But we know the statement will be, yes, we have courage. Yes, we have principles, and we're not gonna stand by and let him wreck the country and the world. Because that's what he's doing. And sometimes I think that you and me, we find truths that maybe are not otherwise visible. And I think it's very important we keep on doing this show, Tim. Why do we have to? For no other reason, just to keep from going insane. Yeah. Well, we should all be worried. You know, I wanna make one thing clear, is that we have notes that could go on for another two hours here. We do. But Tim and I have a kind of an approach to let it fly and we just connect the dots as we seek to connect the dots on Trump. So next week, we'll continue our discussion. You got it, Tim. Thanks for having me. Aloha, Jay. Aloha. See you next week.