 interesting show for all of you today. As my guest, I have my famed leader, Jay Fidel. He's here. Now, I've got to give you the backstory to today's program. And that is that Jay was sitting there at lunch one day, quietly eating his sandwich, I believe it was. And I happened to walk by and ended up being a guest on his show. And Jay has this passion right now for talking about our current so-called President, President Trump. And I ended up being on his show. And I thought, I would love to carry that conversation on further today on my show. Now, when we were together the last time, we talked about Donald Trump and the use of executive orders. Now, that's been around for a while, Jay. So there's been some reaction to those executive orders. So what's your favorite president up to now? I heard he just got overruled by the United States Supreme Court. Oh. You know that? Oh. Yeah. Well, no, no, not the Supreme Court. Ninth Circuit. The Ninth Circuit. Yeah. The Ninth Circuit with our own Judge Clifton. Right. In that panel, the three-man panel. Wasn't that something? It was incredible. You know, I thought it was a great Twitter exchange, as there is whenever the president does something. And he immediately Twittered something about so-called judges, you know, see you in court or something. And the governor of Washington state twitted us back. And he said, you just did and you lost. That's great. I thought that would make you happy. He does. Well, today's subject is politics of the absurd or something like that, which is, me, a lot of people think that's where we are today, that things are going badly. Now, give me a grade. A, B, C, D, D minus. How's our president doing? Oh, F. Sorry. Really? F. Not even. And why? Why? Not even a D minus. Because he's A, he's separating himself from the public, from those in government who might serve him. I mean, he's even alienating his own bureaucracy. That's clear. He's alienated the press. He's alienated foreign leaders. He's alienated business. I can't think of anyone he hasn't alienated, except maybe some of the constituents who voted for him in the red states. But most B-bend him. He hasn't alienated his B-bend. Yeah, but I don't think that matters. I don't know. The guy's pretty close to him. And he wrote a lot of articles about how we ought to be friends with Russia and do all of this stuff. Seems to be well-received at dinners. It all seems so absurd, John. It does, doesn't it? I mean, this is the kind of politics we're talking about. There's an absurdity to it. But it's interesting to me that people who speak for him, that go to his defense, many, many of who, those talking heads that we see on the media and so forth, are actually paid for by the Trump organization, somehow. But they're up there talking about the biggest defense of this president is that he's carrying out his campaign promises now. And people say, yeah, okay, he is. So what, is he, or what? I suppose you could say that some of the things he said, which we're outrageous to start with, he's attempting to carry on in a completely klutzy way. I mean, you don't have to do klutzy things. You could do more sophisticated things. You could back off on some promises that were outrageous. But I think he sees this as, what's the word I'm looking for? That he made these promises and that when they voted for him, they gave him authority. No, they gave him a mandate. A mandate. So I'm good. They gave him a mandate to do what he promised. And that mandate concept he has is really troublesome because then he gets to interpret what the promise was. And as we know, he changes about things and sometimes he doesn't tell the truth. Well, he seems like he constantly lies. That too. In fact, I saw one of the, like a guest editorialist, I guess it was, who said that all presidents lie. All presidents lie. Even if you say that's true. Right. That it is true in politics. This is special what's happening here. So I think that all presidents may have lied, but occasionally, some will tell the truth. And I can't remember what the truth is that this president talked about. I think he brings with him the same things that he showed us in the campaign. And I think if we had to think about it, we would not have voted for him, any of us. And the people who, we have people here in the studio who say some, we asked them, what do you think about how Trump is doing this thing? He's doing great. He's doing exactly what I would want to do. But I think that's weakening, that's softening. And there are fewer people who are saying that. Well, there are people who are saying that, which I think underscores the point of this particular program. And that is, politics becoming absurd. Are we entering an era where this president is really manifesting the truth? Or is it really manifestation of what's going on in general? I mean, where are the, on the Republican side of the fence? Where are the Everett Dirksons? Where are the great Republican leaders who would stand for their country first? Now, hopefully they will surface. Hopefully they will come out. Hopefully the Republican party will see better of it. And those who have been following Trump mindlessly will start to do a little thought about it and change their way of dealing. Maybe even Paul Ryan. If that happens, we're going to see a whole change in the way this administration is operating. Well, hopefully. Hopefully, because somebody needs to stand up. I mean, okay, what he did that might have been, might have been a little bit better than an F in terms of keeping his promises, was he immediately went after the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Mistake, mistake, mistake. Which, by the way, was actually formulated as a kind of a conservative program. All kinds of ripple effects. That's the interesting thing. To go back to the point, which we were discussing before the show, you know, that Donald Trump is ignorant. His education is not up to the job, not even close. Okay. But he may think it is, it's not. But so it reminds me of all the anti-lawyering jokes that we've heard, anti-lawyered jokes we've heard over our lifetime. Over our lifetimes, yeah. Over our lifetime. It came with my degree. People. But the fact is that in an office where you need to enforce laws, make laws, appreciate laws, retain the Constitution with some semblance of order, a lawyer has an advantage. A lawyer understands these things, understands the Constitution, and checks and balances, balance of power and all that, understands the way Congress, the President, and the Executive... I mean, it really, it took the position in the Ninth Circuit case. His attorney general, who presumably did go to law school, but works for a guy who didn't, right, said that the federal courts do not have the power to review the actions of the President. That's really poppycock. Who? How could they have said that? Well, I mean, it just creates a different kind of environment. I mean, people are doing things and saying things that just don't make any kind of sense. This is a nation of laws. Right. And it's really important. I mean, more than any other country on Earth, this is a nation of laws and President, the rule of law. And here's the President who doesn't have a clue about the rule of law. This is very scary, John. And even there are reports that his own Supreme Court nominee, who is no liberal by any stretch of the imagination, even his own Supreme Court nominee has told various senators that he does not appreciate President Trump's attack on the judiciary. Now, Trump called that poppycock and all of this stuff, but apparently he said it. And it's wonderful, which is a good thing. But it shows that even those people who may on various policies be in sync with some of the things that Trump has proposed realize that what he's doing is not necessarily policy-driven but actually destroying the institutional fabrics of democracy. Back to the point about the mandate. So I believe that Trump thinks that by being elected he can do any bloody thing he wants, and it's personal. It's a personal presidency. Whenever he wakes up at 2 o'clock in the morning with, he can do that. And he has the power, and there's a lot of power, the power of the presidency to do whatever strikes him. And this is a real problem. Well, I'm going to take that problem father. Maybe even take it to its absurd conclusion. But recently I've been re-reading some history books that, you know, I love history, so I've been re-reading some of that. And there are parallels that I find fascinating with our current state of affairs. And that is starting off with the Roman Republic, which was a republic. And then it became kind of an oligarchy where you had, they actually called them plebeians, which were the poor people, poor citizens, and patricians, which were the rich people, and blah, blah, blah, and how that all evolved over time and how various patricians, rich people would end up heroes of the rest of the thing and become tyrants, eventually evolving into empress. Now, that's also, by the way, if you want a really ugly example how Adolf Hitler got to be where he was in Germany, that same kind of process. And I just wonder whether or not, whether it's intentional or not, whether America would be maybe slipping into that same kind of situation. A lot of people feel that way, John. I mean, that it is happening, that it is slipping and that he is haunting similarity to Hitler because he's not into the rule of law. He's into a personal presidency and he uses these, he uses divisive techniques to divide us. And we are being divided and there are unpleasant confrontations happening now, and I'll bet you five, that next six months we'll see a lot more of that. We will probably see violence in the country and I put it right at his doorstep. He has created this environment with his style. It's very regrettable and I think he uses it to exceed to more power. I mean, you notice the old thing about just spell my name right? Well, he has the first 20 articles in the New York Times every day and in most other publications every day. There's hardly room for anything else. He's doing the apprentice in spades now. He's seeking the best ratings possible, everybody's attention all day long. You know what's so funny was that he doesn't seem to be able to rein his ego in because, you know, he has refused to give up his, I guess his relationship to the TV show The Apprenticeship. Well, at least he, as far as I know, he has it, right? Putting down Arnold Schwarzenegger. But then he puts down Schwarzenegger. He can't have Schwarzenegger be popular. So he keeps his own show to criticize it, to say that I'm better than this new guy. You know? And I don't know. You know, I took a freshman course in psychology, but somebody out there that's done more studies than I have must recognize something about all of this. You know, we've seen a lot of bashing in the newspapers and certainly the New York Times has no slouch on that. They have something, you know, to be more than once. But one article that really struck me was Marine Dowd. She's one of those op-ed writers in the New York Times. And her piece was, thank you, thank you, Mr. Trump, you're doing a great job by activating people who up to this point were not active by having people come out and express their views about the government and about issues and about your presidency who before would not have done that. And sort of making America a great democracy again. I mean, she used the term like that. Well, you know, it's interesting because here's our president and even the leaders, the leader of Hamas, which is one of these terrorist organizations, you know? I mean, these are not good people. Hamas calls him a clown. Now, how much respect do you have when you go around the world doing things like he did with the Australian prime minister and he cuts him off? That's our number one ally. So the big thing is to try to figure out what the jury is. And I think more people are going to call him a clown. I think there'll be more nasty articles about him criticizing everything he does, looking at every movie mix. But the question in my mind, John, and I wonder what you thought is about this, is the public going to get tired of this? Well, I hope so. I think it's going to be more commercial at this time. And we'll be right back with this most interesting conversation about politics and of the absurd. Hello. Thank you for watching Think Tech, Planet of the Courageous. I'm Dr. Dean Nelson, host of Planet of the Courageous. In Tibetan mythology, it's said that you pick this planet to learn something. You picked your birth on this planet to learn something. This planet is spinning through space at 67,000 miles up per hour, and it takes courage to not slip into fear and collapse into anxiety. One can find so many justifications for selfishness and prejudice. But we have two ears to listen to one another and one heart that can provide a common ground. But this takes courage to stay in that space. We've chosen the right planet for the opportunity to learn courage and try to solve so many challenges. Aloha. Thank you for watching. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii, Hawaii's leading digital media platform for civic engagement, raising public awareness on tech, energy, diversification, and globalism. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. Welcome back to Talk Story with John Wahee and with our guests, my boss, in a way, J.P. Dell, who, as you know, has this passion for talking about the current state of national politics under our president. And we have been just discussing various absurdities of the situation. And I want to ask you to invite you, actually, to ask me questions. And by the way, folks, if you want to call in our number is 415-871-2474. But meanwhile, you'll get a chance to do some cross-examination. But I do have a question for you. And that is, whether or not instead of creating of a revitalization of our politics, as suggested by the writer of the Washington Maureen Dowd, an article. You're right. What if this becomes the new normal? What if people start to expect that you can do things? I mean, look at this presidency. He refuses to release his business information and tax returns. So we don't have any real idea what his financial holdings are. His daughter who is in a business gets replaced because her goods are not selling as much as it should. He tweets that that was an unjust decision. This is the president of the United States now, tweeting to an American business that you got to buy her goods almost, you know? And you keep going on and on. I mean, look at the fact that we are talking about his constant lying instead of judging what he did. The one thing he did is commander and chief that actually we used those powers to prove an military operation in Yemen where children were killed and American lives were lost and where the country itself said, don't ever come back into our country anymore. I mean, this is the guy's first test. That's a definite F. But he did it, by the way, without any briefings. He did it with sitting on a dinner table chatting with his boys. And then, boom, boom, people die. And he comes back and he said, that's a victory. And then he calls John McCain. You know, whatever you think of his politics, he is still an American hero. And he calls him a loser because McCain says that was wrong. You never do that with a military operation. Isn't it? So, is this going to be the new normal? So, why? And if not, why not? Well, I think things are dynamic and they're always changing and they're changing now because he's very disruptive. And he's ignorant. He doesn't understand the law or his role. He's shooting from the hip on everything. And if you ask me the trajectory about whether this becomes a new normal, I'll say for a short time because it can't be the new normal. It's not sustainable, right? Unless we end up like Rome did and like Germany. Which means you enforce it as the new normal. You actually know a lie is a lie and you just enforce it as the truth. Big question, yeah. So the Times is trying to hold his feet to the fire. A good part of the American press is trying to hold his feet to the fire. This is a test, the courts as a Ninth Circuit trying to hold his feet to the fire. And the question is whether this will continue, whether it will continue to hold his feet to the fire. Well, how do you hold somebody's feet to the fire where he directly threatens you as a United States citizen? He doesn't, you know, he starts off by saying the media is against us, you know. Or as Banyan said, the media is the opposition. Well, there's supposed to be the opposition. That's what you have. That's their estate, right? But then this guy will tweet about you personally. Waiting by intimidation. Right. At which point do you have people start to cave? I think we're treating them with kid-goves now. I agree. This is relatively speaking a honeymoon. Yeah. Relatively speaking. But you know, I think there are processes there. One is his credibility is being undermined. Because the press is going to continue, at least for a while, to knock him off the pedestal. And we will hear about the lies. I mean, it really interests me that The New York Times writes an article and they say, they don't say Donald Trump said, they say Donald Trump falsely said, they tell you right up front that they can say the lie. I think that's our salvation. This is going to be one time when maybe Jeff Portnoy, the lawyer for the media, actually, we will be in sync. Because our salvation, in my opinion, is the strength of the press, where they keep doing that despite this direct personal intimidation. I have talked to business people that have told me that they won't challenge him because they're afraid of a tax audit. And they should be. They never, where they actually threaten, no. They just have this ambiotic look what he did with the 600 people were arrested by immigration officials in the last week. And are in jail waiting deportation. I mean, he's following through with some of that stuff and it's awful. And there are people by the way, I find hope with the press personally. I find hope with those that protest all these marches and things and I find the hope or the glimmer of this is that the country will rise up and reject it. But the other side of this is that a lot of people may start to copy this kind of behavior. Kind of bullying behavior. I agree that's happening. I mean, people ordinary people take the negative atmosphere and do the same kinds of things themselves. They go into racial prejudice. They're really nasty. There are more racial instances since he became president than ever before. What do you do when you tell police, for example, that have a tough enough job as it is, but they know that they are some rogues within their own ranks and all of a sudden it seems like the rogues are being called heroes. What do you do to the honest guy? What does he do? Does he go along to get along or what? Well, with all the confluence of all these different sea changes, the sea changes that he's going to continue to do it maybe in a more sophisticated way like we expected another executive order today, maybe that happened or will happen. One that will cure the problems, purportedly cure the problems in the last executive order on immigration. We have people who may get tired of protest. You can't keep on doing that on a sustainable basis. We get the press and maybe the press gets intimidated, maybe some of the press fades from their campaigns. Some of the people start to copy his behavior too. All these vectors and the role dynamic and role change is sort of a porridge of change, a soup of change. You have a question for you. I have two questions. When you put it all together, honestly from all of these various factors including international ones, where are we going on this? Are we going to be okay? Is it safe? I am extremely worried. First of all, I am extremely worried and yet I have great hope for history. I am extremely worried because, for example, and I will give you a specific example, for example, his constant attacks on the independent judiciary, you know, so-called judges. This judge can't decide my case. Now the attacks on the Ninth Circuit, there is even a bill being introduced and it's not on its own merits and they may be something that needs to be done, but it's been introduced in the context of the President Trump's reaction to the Ninth Circuit reintroduced to divide the circuit up to split it all up. Punitive. Now, at the Hawaii State Legislature, at the Hawaii State Legislature, we now take a look at the effect of Donald Trump's actions, maybe, on whether consciously or unconsciously on the effect on our own political system here. Now, this is a state that voted 67% for his opponent, has a Democratic Senate that has no Republicans in it, and I think that you would think if anybody would be standing up for an independent judiciary in these times it ought to be Hawaii, yet what are our legislators actually doing? They're taking a page from this month's absurdity, this monstrosity and bringing it to Hawaii. Now, there may be merits on what they're doing, but they cannot deny that the motivation for what is going on is punitive. As a result of their dissatisfaction with the holdings, the decisions of an independent judiciary, the legislature is proposing, for example, a constitutional amendment to make sure that politicians get to check your judges right after they make decisions. Now for confirmation number one, they are hearing bills that are threatening the pensions of judges. Now, you cannot tell me that somebody sitting on the bench knowing that his decision may affect whether or not he's going to be able to send his kids to college won't at least have a moment of thought. So it's not this pervasiveness that I'm talking about is not just for the Republican states what is it doing to us? It's infectious. It's infectious. Now I'm hoping that sanity grabs all of this and that as a result of people marching talking and you know, saying no, no, no, not me some of this will change but that's to be seen.