 You bet, we're live at 11 o'clock, block on J5L here on Think Tech, and this is Trump Week! Trump Week! You know, through rain and hail and old men or bad weather, even having a little cold now and then. Don't worry, it's not catchable over the streaming. We continue to do our thing. We continue to do Trump Week every Friday at 11. We consider it an important engagement and obligation. It's about Donald J. Trump and how is Donald J. Trump doing. It's a most important discussion in our favorite show, and there's Tim Appichella with me agreeing with everything I said. It's like a postal carrier, I'm here. Alright. Go and sleep. Okay, we're calling this show this week, a week of continuing distraction. But first, what do we mean by distraction, Tim? Well, what we mean by distraction is what we witnessed for the last two years as president in his presidency, and certainly the distraction, the circus, as a candidate. So we've seen three solid years of distraction. And distraction is, you know, distraction is not a method without, a madness without a method. There's a method in distraction. You know, why are we concerned about distraction? What does distraction do? What is it intended to do? Take away the interest and attention of a item that you don't want the public to see. You called it... Simple as that. You called distraction in our conversations, you called distraction a throwing down a shiny object. What do you mean by that? Well, like a magician. It's a sleight of hand. Let me show you something over to my left when I'm really on my right hand, but in the fix. Yeah. And the other part of it is distraction, I hate to refer it back to a reality show, but that's what we got, that's what we had, that's what we have now, and that's what we will have for this administration. In a reality show, the mission is to keep them glued to the tube, to keep their attention, no matter how low you go, you know, to do that. And I think that's part of distraction, don't you? You distract them from the real news by focusing their attention on a continuing basis on things that are capitalistic, meaning that they have no real substance they're only intended for some other purpose. Well, that's plus the quantity of distractions, because as we always say each and every week, we're drinking out a fire hose of distraction and news. Some of it's news, some of it's just pure distractions. And each day or each week, he just throws out handfuls of distractions. And unfortunately, and I thought the media was getting a little bit better about this, but they're like lemmings, and they just follow the distractions, and they're not looking... Lemmings or lemon? It probably came out as lemon, but I met lemmings. Okay, well the news this week then, maybe every week, is distraction itself. But in order to demonstrate our, you know, our sea change conclusion on this, we need to talk about some of the things that the shiny objects that have been cast in our path this week. I know you have some in mind. Well, I think the big one, it's gotten a lot of airtime. Let's not dive too far in it, because then we'll be guilty of what we said. We don't want to be guilty of what we're trying to say. Well said. Let's avoid it. Well said. John McCain and the George Conway tit for tat, kind of Twitter, Twitter Wars about, you know, degrading a war hero, a veteran, a senator for many, many years, and certainly George Conway who's the husband of Kellyanne Conway. Who's a favorite alternative truth person? Alternative facts. Yeah. A coin term that I use daily. Yeah. Yeah. Not daily, but you know, I use it. The thing is that both of these distractions have happened essentially in the same week. And neither of them have any substance. We already know how he feels about McCain. We know how McCain's family feels about him. We know how John McCain felt about him. So why now? This is like going back against Obama. Why now? Or Hillary Clinton. Why now? There's a reason. There's an underscore reason, a fundamental reason, and it's distraction. Distraction. Neither one of those make a hell of a difference. And you can only, if you reel the tape back on him and say, hmm, why did he do that? It's not that he woke up in the morning with a bad hair day. It's not that. Because actually, for him, every day, it's more that he woke up in the morning and said, I guess I need to distract them from the real news, whatever it may be, because we don't get the real news from this administration. They haven't had press conferences. They haven't told us. The press has to go out and root it out. Sometimes that's very hard, when the government is all closed in, where it circles the wagons on important facts. We don't hear about them. And the poor press is at a huge disadvantage that way. So when he comes out with this, he's really trying to distract us from something else. It's never because he had a bad hair day. It's never because he really believes this stuff. It's never because he really cares to go after Conway or after McCain's family. It's because he's doing that magic trick you talked about. Well also, we hear a lot of the media saying, well, he's running the presidency like a reality show. And that's why he's come out against McCain and he's come out against Conway. But I don't think it is that. I mean, that's the convenient obvious. That's the shiny obvious object. What's coming out here on the horizon that he doesn't want us to pay attention to, and that's the last thing he wants people really to pay attention to? Three guesses in the first two don't count. Right. Right. We don't really know. Well, yes, we do. Because he is a magician. He's got it behind his back. We do know. We do know. Tell me what it is. It has to be the Mueller report. It has to be. It has to be all these indictments and all the things that shine a light on his bad deeds, either before he got in office or during office. He wants the public attention to go away from that. Of course. And thus, you know, pull the rug out from under it. He wants to have the headlines. Yeah, I would agree with that. So, you know, we have any other indications this week of distractions? Well, let me just, George Conway made a very, very comment. Very good, I thought. He said, Trump needs a 2020 victory or else he will be, to avoid indictment. And you think about it, he has to be president for at least another term, because unless he gets a pardon for something he may have done or may come out here shortly, it may not be from, you know, Mueller's team, it could be from the New York team, the state. That could be a real reason for distraction. You know, he doesn't want us to see that he's really guilty of a crime or certainly worthy of being charged. So he wants to push all that down the road. And of course, he wants to win for any number of reasons. One of them is power. I mean, isn't it clear that what this man is about is grandizing his own power. And that's why he's got this guy, his name is Scarsdale, I think, who is the bearded Smith brothers looking fellow who did his internet and social media programs in the last election and who is now his overall campaign share as far there. And that's what this is going to be like. And he's raised over a hundred million dollars and he's already rolling in everything he does is calculated to win that election and to make fun of the Democrats. And that also tends to, you know, help him. So I think what we're seeing is an ongoing four-year campaign by him. And so he wants all the good news or the meaningless news to come out, but not the bad news. It's almost like watching a football game is running out the clock, but the clock in this case is two years and potentially another four years on that. That's a long running out the clock. That's a good sea change to identify, Tim. I really agree with that. But you know, the other thing is that he's campaigning left and right, but no press releases. He has all these people, these stooges standing behind him in these strange red state appearances he makes. He's campaigning. And at the same time, the Democrats are populating the field with too many candidates. I shouldn't say that, but there are a lot of candidates. And some of them are very good. Some of them I root for. I'm not sure I settled on anybody yet. But you know, bottom line is when you have a field so big like that, A, you open their flank to Trump's criticism, he's already doing that. And his people are already doing that. They're attacking Beto. I'm just waiting for the nicknames to be assigned. They're coming. They're coming. You know, we've got Pocahontas already. And you know, and we got, he's doing things on Beto too. I think he's threatened by both Warren and Beto. But he's threatened by the others. And so we're going to see him poking at them. The problem I see is that they're going to poke at each other. If not expressly, then by implication, I'm better than the guy next to me here on the stage. And they're not really agreeing. I mean, I don't know how they can. They're opposing each other in public. Short is we're going to have a two-year campaign season, longest in the world, in the country. It's kind of like the holiday Christmas season in August. It's painful. Yeah. We're going to be facing it. That's how it is. So we're going to have the Democrats do it to themselves. We're going to have him do it to the Democrats. And no Republicans are going to argue with him. And the people who don't make this distinction. I think we might see a candidate come out. I do. I don't know who it's going to be. Okay. I would love to see it as, oh, I don't know, Kasich from Ohio, come out as an alternative candidate. Oh, Republican? Yeah, Romney. Yeah. I don't think Romney would do it. But I could see Kasich or... Yeah. Well, I'd like to see that. Pushback in the convention or in the primaries. That would be great. That would put it in relief. And it would have another hand clapping during this time. You know, I'm thinking about, you know, not only the Mueller report. That's the obvious of what he's trying to distract from. But let's talk about the budget. Remember, his campaign promises, I won't touch Social Security. I won't touch Medicare. I won't touch Medicaid. It is proposed budget. He's touching it. He's undermining all three of them. Huge cuts. In fact, I have a correction. I think of the last show, we said 842 million cut in Medicare. You were correct. It was $84 billion. That's a huge, huge swipe at Medicare. You know what they say. That's everyone over 65. 842 billion here, 842 billion there. After a while, it makes real money. So I think that's a bad... Yeah. That's a bad news story that he just doesn't want the public to really glom onto. Yeah. And I think that's certainly one of his distractions. Well, the House isn't going to go along with that sort of thing. And the House does have control over that. I'm not sure where this is going to end up. I think he's setting it up as a contention, as a controversy. Maybe there'll be another emergency or a shutdown. And I think he's leading in that direction. You govern by shutdown. This is how you govern. Right. Or by national emergency. Well, I think there's some other stagecraft. It's serving as... Or it's going to serve as more distraction. And that's the stagecraft of Venezuela. We know we have a humanitarian disaster. Not in the making. It's there. If you remember on March the 12th, Secretary of State Pompeo said, the U.S. presence, meaning the diplomats, are being a constraint on U.S. policy. Now, that wasn't by accident. That was a plant. That was to imply that maybe one wants to send in troops. We want to get our diplomats out of there before we send in any military confrontation. Definitely an implication. And then, of course, we have the... Remember Michael Bolton went on the stage and he had his yellow notepad. And it said, 5,000 troops, Venezuela. Okay. That was clumsy stagecraft. Stagecraft. Stagecraft. That's all it was. Not an unintentional error. So we know we're not going to be able to do anything in there right now because now we have Russia and China kind of polarizing behind Maduro. So we know we're not going to have a confrontation there. So let's just create some psychological disturbance for the current administration in Venezuela. I'm reminded of a movie by the name of the tail that wagged the dog. It wags the dog. You make it up as you go and then you have all these little indicators that suggest the fiction. And there for a while people begin to buy the fiction, especially Maduro. And what you're doing is you're heightening the stakes. You're heightening the threat. And you're heightening the possibility of war. Was it by coincidence that the president of Brazil happened to be in Washington, D.C. this week? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'm just saying. Wasn't by coincidence. Well, who knows? That's a border right on Venezuela. Well, the thing is this is not a transparent government. You don't know what's going on and he doesn't tell you. As a matter of fact, let me go further. It's not that he doesn't tell you, not only that he doesn't tell you, he lies to you. So you can never believe the pad under Bolton's arm. You can never believe anything he says about his intentions or about what's happening. Our last defense here is the press. The press is consolidating. Some of the press belongs to him. That's terrible. Some news journalists are leaving the profession and he's trying to injure, damage the reputation of the press. I mean, this is really the first bastion of defense to have the press find out what's going on. What is he doing with the environment to add things? I mean, we could probably find some examples. They'd be on page 39, though. Right. What's he doing with social services? Well, we know from the budget he's doing horrendous things, but the press ought to really focus more on that. We ought to know more about that. This is what he'd like us to report about. This is what we should report about. And ignore those first 20 articles you see in all the newspapers about his machinations on a given day. But this takes us to Korea. I didn't see it, but you told me this morning about the change in position on Korea all of a sudden. Well, yesterday sanctions were placed on two China-based shipping companies. And these two shipping companies were accused of slipping past and basically evading the economic sanctions against North Korea. This was placed yesterday. This afternoon, Washington, D.C. time, Trump lifted the sanctions, gave no real reason why he did it. So what's going on? Well, I don't think it was a bad hair day. But on the other hand... He said it no real reason for it. He said it was a reason why they put the sanctions in place. But he didn't say any reason. Is there a comprehensive plan here? No. Well, by the way, this was announced via his tweet. So there was no State Department announcement. It could be nobody else was involved. I mean, so many decisions are being made, you know, on the cuff. When he gets up in the morning, he has a hamburger. You know, these are not valid decisions. They're not staffed properly. He still hasn't staffed the State Department. He's got, you know, a secretary of state who... He's like the only guy in town. They don't have the desks. They don't have the desks. Well, and that's why they didn't do their homework on North Korea before they sat down with them in Vietnam. They just didn't do their homework. Let's talk more about North Korea when we come back from this break, Tim, it deserves further comment as other things do too. Right. We'll be right back. That's Tim Apachele. Aloha. I'm Wendy Lo, and I'm coming to you every other Tuesday at 2 o'clock. Live from Think Tech, Hawaii. And on our show, we talk about taking your health back. And what does that mean? It means mind, body and soul. Anything you can do that makes your body healthier and happier is what we're going to be talking about. Whether it's spiritual health, mental health, fascia health, beautiful smile health, whatever it means, let's take healthy back. Aloha. Aloha. My name is Andrew Lening. I'm the host of Security Matters Hawaii, airing every Wednesday here on Think Tech, Hawaii, live from the studios. I'll bring you guests. I'll bring you information about the things in security that matter to keeping you safe, your co-workers safe, your family safe, to keep our community safe. We want to teach you about those things in our industry that may be a little outside of your experience. So please join me because Security Matters. Aloha. I told you it was Tim Apachele. And it is Tim Apachele. Let's talk some more about Korea. Let's talk about what this all means. I didn't understand that back away meeting they had in Singapore or rather in Vietnam. I didn't understand what that went all about. I think he got outfoxed. I think he went in there with certain expectations and demands and Kim Jong-un is no stoop. And he said, I'm not going to do that. Yeah, I'm not dismantling. I'm not going to do that. And nothing happened. But a couple of days later, and this has been relentless, Kim Jong-un is still building his nuclear facilities. And so I always ask the diplomatic guys who come down, are we safer? It's like that line out of the movie about the dentist. What was it? Is it safe? Is it safe? Hold on. I don't know this movie. Dustin Hoffman movie. The marathon. Oh, the marathon. The marathon. Right. Is it safe? Right. So I ask, is it safe now? Is it safer now than it was before? And they say, well, at least we're not screaming at each other. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's safe. And what kind of concessions have we given up for that? Military exercises with South Korea, right? That's a big deal. That's, you know, being prepared to engage should that ever happen. And that's been taken out the table. You know, it's like any disaster plan. It's only as good as you're practicing for it. Yep. And military, you know, war games, that's quite important for everyone to know what to do, when to do it and how to do it. It sounds to me like our North Korea policy is in shambles because it isn't a policy. It's not a policy. It isn't a plan. It doesn't have any depth to it. It doesn't have any cohesive reasoning to it. I'm willing to guess you're absolutely correct about the fact that the State Department and no one else knew that he was going to reverse the sanctions that he just placed on, or they just placed on the day before. It only takes a few fingers to type out a tweet. That's all. We're having global events determined by a few fingers and a hamburger. So this is really not working. I mean, and you can take the same thing about dealing with China, which is much more, a much greater moment. They're really smart. They have all kinds of resources and power and plans and aspirations and people who follow them. So I think we don't have a plan about China either. Don't forget the tariffs, right? Maybe that's one of the things he wants to distract us from. What about the tariffs? They haven't worked, Tim. Well, if you're a farmer in the Midwest, not only the tariffs that are knocking you down, it's all the horrible flooding. Thousands and thousands and thousands of acres. These poor farmers now have to endure 95% of their properties are covered underwater and they can't even get in. And he hasn't said much about it. So if you're a farmer, if you're a farmer and you're underwater, you're not going to replant for quite a while. So all the subsidies in the world are going to replace the fact that you can't replant. They don't want the subsidies. They want the market. Absolutely. So we're losing ground. And worse, it's like when we can't sell to the Chinese, the Chinese will find other markets. And they are. And so when it's all over, I hope it'll be over sometime, they may not come back to the same degree they were with us before. No, you've lost your... You've got out of line, and now two days later you want your spot back in. It doesn't work that way. People don't let you back in. They won't? Why would they? Because I'm getting the business, you're not. So I mean the Chinese are pressing ahead. They're not without creative business initiatives. And they have the One Belt One Road initiative going great guns. They're raising all kinds of money. Not only Chinese money, but money from all kinds of investment organizations in the world. And they're building out the world. And we're not involved. Well they're building out the world and they've been building out the world. They've been, like I said, in places in the continent of Africa since the early 1990s. They have strategically placed themselves all over the world. What happened without being checked? We go isolationists. We're not involved. We're not part of any of the agreements or treaties. We demonstrate no leadership. At the end of the day, when you're a leader, you have an advantage by being a leader. That's an economic advantage. And all kinds of other geopolitical advantages you have out of being a leader. We're not a leader anymore. We have stopped being a leader. Willfully, intentionally stopped. Well, that's going to cost us. And it's going to cost us something in Europe. It already is costing us something in Europe. Correct. I think Europe is fragmented. Brexit is an example of that. It was a great program, by the way, in a week or two about Brexit here in Honolulu by some experts. Well, remember in the budget what he wants to do with our allies, be it NATO or in the Pacific is wherever our troops are at. He wants to charge them the cost of that plus another 50%. It's called the cost. The cost plus 50. You think we're going to have friends after that? No, I think we're losing friends everywhere. We're making all these mistakes. We're making mistakes in Israel. Maybe we're propping up the wrong government there. Well, let's talk about that. We're propping up the wrong positions and I think the world sees that and this country sees it and it divides this country. The bottom line on that is I think that wherever he goes he creates, and we don't realize it, he creates, you know, dissension, hostility, hatred. He is an example of that and to go to your main point that's another way of distracting us to create hatred, to have this kind of hostile backfeed. People don't realize, maybe he does, but people don't realize how much holy pulp that a president has. If he wants to say something stupid or a lie Did you say F? When he said something stupid or a lie. You know what the problem then is that a lot of people believe it and it has an effect in any event either because you're outraged that he said or you agree with it. Anyway, you were talking about the Middle East. Well, I think we have to look at, you know, a monumental change after over five decades after 1967 war in Israel. The Golan Heights has now been declared sovereignty for Israel. You know, it's been officially declared by the United States for 52 years and all of a sudden, lo and behold, a couple weeks before the election in Israel here's the ground announcement. Well, that's Trump operating. Trump is having a big effect on that and it's not a positive effect in the sense that he's getting everyone excited. He's lining it up for hostilities. You're going to see more terrorism. You're going to see more hostile activity there. I don't understand why he does and I do understand why he does this because a president is more powerful if there's trouble going on in the world. He becomes more necessary. Why is a wartime president or a hostility time president more powerful because people think he needs to stay there. He needs to be there. You know, the worst thing of all is the day before the election, in 2020, there's some sort of international eruption and then the argument is, oh, we better leave him there. He's a president in place. I don't want to lose him. It's a crisis. He's like FDR. We can't have. He needs a third term and then a fourth term. I liked FDR. Me too. Before he went to Mar-a-Lago today, he got in front of the cameras and he said this because of the announcement of the Golan Heights sovereignty issue. He said that Democrats have very much proven to be anti-Israel. There's no question about that and it's a disgrace. I mean, I don't know what has happened to them, but they are totally anti-Israel. Frankly, I think they're anti-Jewish. So once again, he's setting... An incredible lie. Exactly. So once again... Anybody who buys that is such a total fool and yet there will be people who will buy that. Because he has the bully pulpit. And huge extension because of the office and he knows how to play that game. So, I mean, okay, sir, there's a claim. If you look at argumentation, you have a claim, you have a warrant on how you get to that claim and you have your data evidence to back up that claim. Where is it? He just shoots from the hip. He throws it against the wall and he says, see if it sticks. But this is, you know, this is really serious stuff. So now he's going to everybody chasing around about what a big lie is it? How much is it true? How much is it a lie? And that is a distraction. It is. It is a distraction. You had one other thing and that is about Fox News. I don't think... I don't think we can afford to, you know, close the show until we discuss the status of Fox News. Well, they're under heat and the Jeanine Pierrot, she did her commentary a couple weeks ago or a week and a half ago and it was pretty shameful. Basically saying that when the newer members of Congress, because she's a Muslim, she questioned her patriotism based on her being a Muslim. And so she's been suspended. It's going to go on the second week now and Donald Trump, of course, you know, he had something to say about it. He said, bring back Judge Jeanine. Bring her back. So now, remember, this is on the heels of the New Zealand attack on the mosque. 50 people were murdered. What was his response to that? Pretty lukewarm. I mean, I've seen presidents... Even white supremacists have a point, don't they? In Trump's world, absolutely. So, you know, here we have someone who's basically been put in the back corner and she'll make it back on in a couple weeks. They got lots of protest from the loyal Fox viewers that this was an outrage that she was let go. Actually, some people at Fox did feel that she went way over the line and she did. She did. What was his statement yesterday? I don't have a whole context on it. This is about free speech on campuses. And his comment was everybody should have free speech. Well, even the First Amendment is limited in some presidents. You can't call fire in crowded movies. And it really is to protect you from government. And to hate speech. I can't go to my employer and say what I think because, guess what? The First Amendment doesn't apply. Well, not in practical terms. The problem is that what he's really saying is the same thing he said after Charlottesville. He's saying everybody has a position or even white supremacists have a point to make. You can say anything you want even if you're a white supremacist or you're espousing hate speech. And thus, further fomenting the problem on American campuses. I don't know what it is. It's a psychological thing or maybe it's a long-term distraction thing. We don't know what's going on in this government. We have no idea how he's making decisions. But we have all this hostility coming out on everything. And he's so divisive to everybody about everything. It's almost as if he's playing Putin's role. Putin loves to see this happen. Absolutely. You couldn't wish for a better thing. Just one minor point is Trump said everyone should be able to say what they wish, right? Except for against me. Because then you're fake news, you're, you know, you can say anything you want, but not against me. And I'll try to bring you down with the power of my office. And I'll try to bring your media down with the power. You're a nickname. That bad words. Thank you, Tim. It's great to talk to you next week, right? You got it. We'll be here. Thank you, Tim Epichella. Aloha. Trump week.