 Thank you for joining us. We have with us this morning our fearless leader Jake Fidel, entrepreneur, spokesperson, videographer, and podcaster, and man of bumble, recognized by many. We also have with us Jeff Portnoy, our leading First Amendment lawyer, senior partner in one of our most respected law firms, and himself also a very articulate sportscaster, as well as Man About Town. And, Jay, Jeff, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you, Jeff. Okay, we're 75 days from the election. We're in the middle of the Democratic National Convention being done virtually, with highlights each evening. Jay, what do you see affecting our rule of law systems, our government systems, our electoral systems, that fuels you the most concern right now? The ballot selection is a threat on our democracy. Even before Louis D. Joy and the sabotage of the post office, you know, there have been a lot of suits about mail-in ballots started by, started by the administration in various states. Aside from all the suppression issues, that's been threatening in the sense that all this litigation, it sounds like Florida and the hanging chads all over again, but worse. So you get all this confusion about, you know, whether it was done right, whether it was rigged, whether he should leave the White House or not. There was a peace in the Atlantic a couple of weeks ago, you know, giving you a timeline between November 3rd and January 20th, where they identified all of their reflection points in making a decision with the counting of the ballots and the Electoral College and all that. And they pointed out that actually Trump had a lot of opportunities between those states, you know, between November 3rd and January 20th to screw it up and create issues that would be litigated. And then, of course, you have, you know, will he leave voluntarily? And most recently, his communications spokesman yesterday said it's not clear that he will leave voluntarily, even if he loses the election. So I'm very worried about the election and I'm a good company. So, so, so does Barack Obama is very worried about the election. And I wonder, Jeff, if you're worried about the election. Well, you mean about whether it'll be challenged? We first have to, Democrats first have to win. And I think the plan is that they win, hopefully, by so much that any challenge would be totally futile. Obviously, if they win in states by five or six or 10,000 votes, I think you're right. I think he's going to challenge. I mean, his whole life has been lawsuits. The attempts to intimidate. He grew up under Roy Cohn and many of us lawyers know what that means. And I think you're right. The signals that are coming from the White House, from his spokespeople are that it's going to be a fraudulent election. He's already made that clear even before he loses, which, by the way, I think is a good sign because I think it means his people know it's very likely he won't be president after January 20th. But I do think it'll get tied up. I'm not sure about this post office thing. I think it was a convenient political. The Democrats were handled, handed a very nice political issue. I think most of that has now already been allegedly remedied, except for the post office boxes that are sitting in a warehouse somewhere. But yeah, I think the selection will get challenged. I give it a unless the Democrats went overwhelmingly. I'd give it a 90 percent chance of being challenged. And I know Trump has groups of lawyers already around the country getting ready to file lawsuits, as the Democrats have already done, by the way, to try to increase access. So it's not a pretty time in America. I think Obama yesterday was brutally frank if people didn't already believe that we're in a very perilous time. And the next 75 days are not going to get any easier. But let's let's go to the post office for a minute. So he appoints a guy who appears to be in conflict because he's a major stockholder in UPS, which if the post office fails, UPS will be a beneficiary. Does that bother you? The post office failing, yes. No, that the fact that he's a major stockholder and Trump appointed him. Are you are you no longer remune to knowing that happens in this administration on a weekly basis? Look what happened to Steve Banyan today. And look what happened to Steve Banyan and million dollars allegedly going to fund the wall, at least a million. And it went to this cohort of his three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in personal expenses, trips, jewelry. It is the most corrupt administration. It makes Calvin Coolidge look like Mother Teresa. You know, that's quotable. Let's let's go to the let's go to the sorting machines. You know, to me, it's so obvious what he did and it may have an effect. I think it will have an effect on a number of levels. One is that they can't do it fast enough. And that'll that'll add, you know, issues to all this litigation that Trump will mount about the election. And a lot of people won't have a chance to vote. It's it's already slow now. I've heard from people here in Hawaii that it takes 10 days for a letter to get to you now. So whatever has happened, it changes things. And I think the other, you know, you can say that the the blue boxes can be returned to the street corners. A lot of them were damaged when they were pulled up. I'm not sure all of them can be returned. But the sorting machines cost millions and they process millions of mail objects every day. And they've been removed without any reason. It's kind of gross. And and now the postal workers have to sort the mail by hand. So one hand, these machines, and there is something like 600 of them have been removed and they're offline. They're not going to be able to put them back in time for the election. And he never promised they would put them back. He just said he was going to stop. This is the joy. He's going to stop what he was doing. But he didn't say that he was going to return them. There'll be some testimony about this what on Saturday in the house. And so, you know, I think the the election has already been wounded. And it's it's caused for great concern because it may have a substantive effect. And even if it doesn't have a substantive effect, it's confusing. It's a loss of public confidence in the system. It's chaos. You know, you don't know whether your vote's going to going to count. This is a great concern. And it goes to the, you know, the identity of the show. Chuck, rule of law. What rule of law? How can you be confident in a system which can be crashed for no good reason by the president and query? What can happen about it? What's the remedy? Congress cannot act. It doesn't act anymore. The Republicans are not going to get behind a solution. For example, one solution would be to, you know, give the post office some money. That's not going to happen. And Nancy Pelosi may not be able to do anything just alone in the house. I hope you guys brought your checkbooks. I feel that we ought to tip the postal service worker who appears at our doorstep as much as we can to make him feel that we care about them and we're giving him some money to work overtime because nobody else is going to pay him for the overtime. Anyway, but, you know, my my concern about this is that he has he has violated the law as far as I'm concerned. And at the same time, we don't have a remedy. You're going to go to court to somebody trying to get an injunction on him. I don't think that's going to happen fast enough. So whatever damage has been done, even if DeJoy says, I'm going to stop what I was doing, that damage is already wounded. The system of the confidence, the post office is just one impediment. There's a there's an equally significant problem. And that is the lack of personnel in all of the county offices to count these ballots. I mean, that's the other issue. Mail got delivered in the primaries in most of these states. I know there's, you know, instances in which mail got delivered a day later, something even in New York, there are still two elections they haven't figured out yet. They have to count every one of these mail in ballots. Now, all you have to do is look at our wonderful state of Hawaii and particularly our state election administrator who hasn't gotten it right yet. What they find 15,000 ballots the day after here is not what I read or something like that. It didn't make much difference, except potentially in a couple of races. Four years ago, they ran out of ballots. I mean, you know, so let's not just blame Trump and the post office. There's plenty of blame to go around even in our home state. We were going to file a lawsuit. We decided not to on behalf of Common Cause because of the time problem in trying to get the state to fund more in person voting locations in November. Do you know how many in person voting locations there are? On a Wahoo for this upcoming election for people who don't have a post office address or living on the street or moved. Guess how many, Jay? There are in November to two. 500,000 people per voting location. There's a million people on a Wahoo to voting locations. Our legislature would got millions of dollars from the government to help make sure that access to voting would be improved. We have two locations on Election Day. So if you live in Kailua, you got a choice or Kaniyoi or all the way out on the North Shore in Haleva. You can drive to Kakaako on November 3rd, or you can come downtown. So there's plenty of blame going around about ways to restrict access to voting. I wouldn't argue that. I agree with you. And when they say here in another states, they're going to put voting, voting boxes where you can drop your ballot in a box on the street. I don't think it's enough time for that either. They can't get it together and they don't they don't know how to do it. The state does not know how to do it. And I suspect that'll be the same in other states. So what you have is a cumulative effect of all these things. If I'm John Q. Voter, I'm saying, oh, my God, is this really going to work? Or is this going to be a complete chaos chaos? Well, I guarantee you, Jay, there will be. And, you know, I think most people, except those who are. Very right wing politically. There are 30 to 35 percent of the United States population that already agree that this will be a fraudulent vote in November already. That's really talk about the rule of law, what it's done to democracy. Forget about the practical issue, which I know you're concerned about and you should be and others are to that a vote may not be counted. Think about what it's done to people's perceptions of America's voting. Up until recently, we thought about that in Russia, in China, in Belarus. Now we got 30 to 40 percent of the population, who if your poll tomorrow will say they believe this will be a fraudulent dishonest election in a democracy. That's really the sad thing about all of this. Well, yes. And the question is, I know this is beyond the title of the show, but what what happens then? What happens? That claim will be made. I think we can agree 100 percent that claim will be made. And what's ironic about it is that most most of the fraud, if not all of the fraud, is on the part of the people who would claim that it was a fraudulent election. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Anyway, let me ask you guys a practical question. Generally, in all the elections before this, we've seen elections handled by localities, by the states, administered pretty much locally with, as far as we could see, very little federal intervention or interference. Right now, we have an administration which is exercising all of the interference it possibly can to try and limit opposition voting to try and control and suppress voting to engage in gerrymandering, voter suppression, taking voters off the rolls, all of the measures that can possibly think of what's the risk of federal interference in or affect on state and local management of elections this time? Well, I think that's an interesting question. I mean, obviously, if there are going to be challenges, the challenges will be made by the political party. Right? It'll be the Republican Party that's hired all of these lawyers and will challenge. But as we've talked about on prior shows, the one thing that still seems to be holding steady, even though there have been dramatic attempts by the Republicans, particularly in the Senate, to change the playing field are the courts. And every day, we still see the court standing up for the rule of law. Today, the federal judge just ripped Trump apart on his refusal to or his efforts to stop his accounting firm and others from turning over his tax returns. He's just said, enough of this BS. I'm not putting up with your attempts to delay anymore. You've got a week to produce it. And an hour later, they went to the Second Circuit. We'll see what happens. You know, we had a court today. You know, we've had courts in the last several weeks try to stop various things. And sometimes the courts don't rule the way we want. Right, Jay and Chuck. I mean, sometimes like, you know, the court rules that felons can't vote until they pay their fines or they elect Bush over Gore. But at least we have the courts, which ninety nine point nine percent are still free of direct political interference, even though we have the Justice Department that's doing everything it can to interfere. Well, you know, I I I keep thinking, what is what would be a good solution? All this kind of moves that if you're in Canada, Canada, Jay, I was thinking of Tasmania myself, Jeff. The you know, what who could you know? One thing is clear. And that is if you if you are the president and you want to create chaos, it's not hard to do that. I mean, remember, not too long ago, he said he was going to postpone the election. And that turned out to be a tribal loon, and he backed down on it. But that would that would be completely illegal. Talk about the rule of law. So I mean, my point is I got I got interrupted because this is perfect Trump. You see what he said when New Zealand's Prime Minister postponed the election in New Zealand for two months because they've had this little mini outbreak. He ripped her apart, saying, oh, you were telling the world how you were so much better than the United States. And now you've had to postpone the election, which is which is legal, by the way, under New Zealand law, because it's a parliamentary thing where they call elections. The guy has no credibility at all. It's amazing. No shame. You know, if you were the president, you wouldn't have let this happen. And the question now is, you know, what do we do? Is this correctable? Can this, you know, be avoided? You talked about, you know, considering a suit on behalf of Common Cause or, you know, trying to do something in the next less than 90 days. What is it, 75 days? It's getting real close now. Is there anything anybody can do, practically speaking, to fix the post office, to get it straightened out, to give public confidence, which to me is so critical to, you know, to minimize the risk of crazy litigation after November 3rd. And I don't think, I don't think, the answer is no. Right. Thank you. The answer is no. So we can say to ourselves, you know, this is going to be a real mess. So then the question is, how do you correct the mess? How do we come out of this deal because we're going to have crisis between November 3rd and January 20th? How do we fix it? How do we apply it to the UN for the impartial election observers? Those of us who are old enough, we might have seven days in May. You know, it's really funny that that that movie has applicability these people should be watching it these days. Yeah, they should. It was Kirk Douglas and Bert Lancaster. The military might take on a role it never wanted to take over. In this country, right? Yeah, it might become under even more political than Trump has tried to make it. And thank God, these former chief of staffs and four star generals are standing up, you know, to Trump. Even the president chief of staff knew to get out of the way of the post, the church photo op as he started down the road with Trump. You know, it's crazy to say that, right? Because we're one country that's always said the military should be totally apolitical. But they may be the ones that have to go in and invite Mr. Trump to leave on January. I think he's don't you think he said talk about the rule of law? Don't you think he's setting it up? I mean, for example, the last rumor was that he was going to fire Mark Esper and find somebody else to run the Defense Department. Somebody who would be perhaps more loyal than Esper has been Esper has made comments that are negative. Is Steve Banyan available? Well, maybe he'd be in jail by then. Who knows? Yeah, but I really think that Trump thinks about that. He thinks about who will circle the White House and protect me. Maybe the brown shirts that went to Portland, he would use them. But there's going to be a showdown here and it'll be the people who were loyal in uniform, the people who'll be loyal and the ones who think clearly, this is a tremendous ethical moral choice that the leaders of these organizations will have to make. Because I think he will call on them in a matter of loyalty and have them defend him on some ridiculous claim that he's entitled to stay. Do you remember that case in law school? It was the Montgomery Ward and the guy's name was Avery and he was the president of the Montgomery Ward. And the board of directors voted to remove him. And he said the board hadn't done it right and he was staying in his office and the sheriffs came and he wouldn't leave his office. They lifted his chair and carried him and the chair out. I'll never forget that case. We need that case now. You know, I'm a little bit more optimistic than maybe you guys are about the future though. You know, it's not the first time the country's had turmoil. I mean, we lived through the 60s and you know, everybody said the country was finished, you know, riding in the streets every day and national guards being called out and students and others being killed, you know. And that was, you know, 40 years ago and we thought then country's over, assassinations of presidents and presidential candidates and civil rights leaders and attempted assassinations of others in high office. We survived. I'm somewhat optimistic. It won't happen a year or two into the next administration but it'll happen that even though they'll always, we'll go back to the 10 or 15% crazies that we've always had. You know, the Nazis and the anti-Semites and you know. But I think some of the Trumpers will be reborn and that the country will move forward the way it was for 40 years until four years ago. So I could be wrong, but I'm optimistic. Reborn, that's, you know, I've been waiting for the Senate to be reborn for three years now. They haven't even come. Well, maybe some of them are breaking ranks but mostly they haven't come close. You know, I worry about, you know, you talk about the tipping point back in the 60s and I think every time or any time you have people out in the streets in large numbers complaining and protesting and the like. The larger the numbers, the more risky it is and see how easy it is to turn from a peaceful protest to a violent protest. That's easy. You can predict that. And I think, yes, we will have protests. The question, we will have protests on either side. If Trump wins, you'll have those kids in the street protesting and some of them will be violent and they will foment more violence. If Trump loses, the skinheads will be in the streets and they believe in the second amendment in the streets. So we'll have that. And, you know, so anytime you get people in the streets in significant number with significant animus, you run the risk of having a violent experience that could change the way the country work. But we survived. We survived. I mean, look at 1968, the Democratic Convention and you know, I mean, I think what you're pointing out is a real problem. And that goes to the legitimacy of the election and where people are being led to even now. You know, even the Democrats, and let's be honest about this, in countering what they claim or the Republicans' efforts to de-legitimize the election are enforcing, you know, reinforcing people's beliefs that it's not gonna be a legitimate election. You know what I mean? I mean, it's a terrible conundrum because even reacting to what the Republicans are doing what Trump is saying just adds credibility to it. I don't blame them. I don't blame them. But you and I, the three of us are talking about, it's not gonna be a legitimate election. And we're talking about that. And we think, you know, we're worried about it not being a legitimate election is what I mean. So it's kind of sad. And by the way, a little political note here from me, these protests are not doing the Democrats any good. I mean, these people are just playing into Trump's hands. And if they keep this up in New York, in Portland, in Chicago, they are just increasing the chance that Trump gets enough votes to win. You know, it's done. It's over. The point's been made. Let's get through the election without giving Trump more talking points. Yeah, or brown shirt points. But let me accept everything you said and for argument only. Of course. I wouldn't expect anything else. Let's assume that Trump, one thing or another, through the vote, through a whole group of possibilities that he actually stays in power for another four years, arguably longer than that. Okay. Do you think, and I'm addressing this to you Chuck, because you're the rule of law man, do you think that Trump is gonna be a better president, more dutiful in his compliance with the rule of law in a second plus term? Or will he be worse? Cause it seems to me he's gotten worse. Will, as a pathological individual, what'll he be like in the second term? Your question answers itself, Jay. We're in our last minute. So let's each wrap up with a little 30 second shots. Biden and Harris offer a team of people who at the very least are decent, honest, integrity-based people historically. They are not tainted by corruption. They are not tainted by the kind of behavior, the kind of personal attacks Trump has. That's our choice. Jay, Jeff, what do you see the choice? I'll answer the question. If you think Trump has been a despot or attempted despot so far, four more years, you ain't seen nothing yet, as Yogi Berra would say. Agreed. Agreed. Agreed. Wow, there it is. That's flat out. Gentlemen, thank you. We are in agreement. We've reached our consensus. We'll see you all again in two weeks. 10 a.m., Thursday, September 3rd. Jeff and Jay, thanks so much. We'll have Walter back with us then. Aloha. Thank you guys. Aloha.