 It's Wednesday. It's 11 o'clock. It's November the 10th, 2021. Welcome to What Now America. My name is Tim Apachele and I'm your host for today. Today's title is infrastructure bills won't save Biden. Right now, the infrastructure bills sitting on President Biden's desk. He's not going to sign it immediately. He's waiting for the House to reconvene. He said he wanted to make sure certain members that worked hard on these bills are going to be back in Washington, D.C., so that they will be present for the signing ceremony. So he's holding off on signature of that $1.2 trillion bill. But he's not wasting time. He's actually in Baltimore right now, extolling the virtues of the bill. He's also going to have his agency heads out in the marketplace traveling to different parts of the country. He's going to have the EPA out there and they're going to talk about how they're going to replace all the lead pipes. That's part of that infrastructure bill. He has the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg. He's going to talk about roads, bridges, rails and the airports and how those are going to be improved. He'll have the commerce secretary out there and she's going to talk about internet access and coverage around those areas in the United States where internet is a problem and people can't get it. The Energy Department will be talking about electrical grid and improvement to the electrical grid. I think Texas might be interested in that. And the Department of Interior will be talking to Native American communities talking about the benefits that will hopefully come their way once this bill is starting to be implemented. So with that, that sounds great. But guess what? As the title indicates, I don't think it's enough and maybe I'm a cynic. But I don't think talking about these bills and selling these bills is going to help Joe Biden in the Democratic Party in 2022. So to discuss why I'm a cynic, I have my fellow guests here, Jay Fidel and Cynthia Lee Sinclair. Good morning. Good morning, Tim. You know, Jay, we look at Virginia. We look at how Terry McAuliffe lost Virginia. One of his mistakes was he tried to tie his candidate or his opposing candidate to Donald Trump. And he lost sight of those things, be it true or not true, those issues that his opponent brought up, that was detrimental that McAuliffe didn't address. And those would be those things I call cultural wedge issues, or sometimes alternative facts, or sometimes just issues that are contrived out of nothing, but they stick. Just to go through a few of them, defund the police, the critical race theory in schools, being taught in schools, which, by the way, they're not. The border insecurity. Again, we had massive influx of people from Haiti, and that was a bad visual. So that's being used right now to bludgeon the Democrats. Inflation, that's a real deal. Fear and anxiety is being sold everything on socialism programs, particularly infrastructure bill, how that's a socialist communist takeover of the United States. Deficit buster, the vaccine regulatory abuse that certain Republicans had to comply with. So these are all what I call wedge issues. And the question is, how successful will Democrats be to address these issues? And what happens if they don't? What happens if they just focus on infrastructure and selling infrastructure and the social infrastructure package? And how will that play out in 2022? Infrastructure has been discussed so much for so long. It's like old news. It's happening. You can put some benefits and compliments toward Biden and his administration about that. But that's not what turns the public on. The public is always interested in right now and forward promises, aspirations. Now, I was telling you, Tim, that I got an email this morning from the Republican Party, I guess, and it was written in Times Roman. There were no bright colors. There were no bold, outrageous statements such as I get 500 times a day. There was no pitch for money. It was very well written. And it was those same kind of elegant presentations that you were talking about. I think the Republicans are together on this, and they have achieved a way to talk to the country that will appeal even to Democrats. They are taking positions that are, I don't want to say defensible, but better than they were. And they're not linking it to Trump. They're not linking it to the outrageous things that Trump and his friends have done. They're talking their own kind of ideology policy. And this email, not that it persuaded me in any way, but this email was an example of what happened in Virginia happening here, happening everywhere. I'm sure that you would find many emails go to many people, including Democrats like me, right along the same line. So that's where we're living now. And so the answer is that all these trillions of dollars are soon going to be old news, and Biden can get them both passed, and I'm still a little skeptical about the second one. And he can go around the country and sell it and spend the money, but that's not necessarily going to help him election day. Here's what Tom Perez says. Tom Perez is the former Democratic National Committee chairperson. And he said the following, we need to be implementers in election. We need to be implementers in chief on how we sell and succeed. So obviously he's pertaining to selling and new messaging for the infrastructure bills. But I agree with you, that's not enough. I like to see the weak and timid Democrats stand up to misinformation that's being hurled at them by the Republicans. Things that aren't true, but things that stick. And why do they stick? They stick because they don't stand up and immediately defend it. And is that what you're referring to? Soup ladle to a knife fight. You know, it's all that. Better bring a sledgehammer than a soup ladle. But you know, what is interesting, too, is that there's an undercurrent of incompetence, inability of the Biden administration to get things done. Okay, so okay, maybe, you know, the big money infrastructure bill passes and we have roads and bridges and whatnot. But you know, what about all those other initiatives that the Democrats promised? You know, what about voting rights? That's as dead as a doornail. What about immigration reform? Not a chance. What about, you know, all the other gun control? What about all those issues? And I think, you know, what the public, if you just stop the man on the street including the Democrat, you say, well, Biden can't get that through. He can't seem to get these things through. And he's having so much trouble that I don't believe in anymore. So, I mean, I don't think that's top of mind, but I think it's in the ether now, the way people perceive it. At the same moment, all the bad stuff that Trump did is fading, you know, the public always operates at a level of amnesia. They can't remember, you know, what happened last week, much less a year ago or two. So what Trump did, the bad stuff, it does not live on with him. It doesn't. It's out of Shakespeare, you know, the good that men do often, you know, what is it the good, the evil that men do lives on or something. And the evil that Trump has done is not necessarily living on. People forget how bad he was and they cannot, you know, see, I mean, you know, we go on through kind of thought generations and we can't see what would happen if he or anybody like him were elected president again in 2024. It would be a flaming disaster for the country permanently, permanently. It'd be a looting of the treasury, a destruction of democracy, the destruction of the social fabric in the country. All of those things, people do not see that. They are more, you know, they're looking more, they're focused more on other things like, you know, the economy. And your point about inflation is going to be really important. It was reported at 6.2 for the past year. That's a lot. And although we may not feel it right away because we're discombobulated because of COVID, it will take a toll. It'll take a toll on disposable income and it will take a toll politically, believe me, and people will blame Biden. It happened on his watch. Well, kudos to the federal government proactively addressing inflation because those are on a fixed income, specifically Social Security. Next year, Social Security will have the largest increase of 5.9 percent unheard of. But kudos to the agency, the Social Security Administration for properly addressing something they saw on the horizon and actually was able to respond to it. So, but you're right, that 5.9 probably won't keep up with the 6.2 and potentially a higher rate of inflation. So, okay, Cynthia. 5.9 may exhaust the funding in the Social Security funding. So, very nice, but the horizon is ever closer when we won't have Social Security. Good point. Cynthia, is it a matter of messaging and selling the infrastructure bills, assuming the second one gets passed? Is it a matter of messaging that's going to win the day for the Democrats or they're going to have to do basically have multi-ball juggling in the air to not only sell the infrastructure bills, but also address and take on Republican definitions and, you know, very successful tags that are placed around the Democrats' necks. And your thoughts about that? I think messaging is paramount. And I'm glad that Biden is out there with the people. You know, we see him behind the pulpit and he doesn't always do so good at the lectern because he kind of stumbles over words. And so, people that want to pick on him, he kind of gives them a platform to do it. Yet, when he's with people, boy, he is, he's in his element. So, I'm glad to see him go out on the road. I think the Vice President should be out on the road. I think they should all be out on the road. So, it's no longer just the media saying what's going to happen. It's these people in person saying what's going to happen. And I think that will make a difference for people. And then I think he needs to implement this within a month to at the most. People need to see jobs start now. They need to start, you know, picking up bids for some of the jobs and giving people jobs that aren't even college degree jobs. You know, you can be a flagger or whatever. And so, I think that's really important. And then I think the most important thing is to come against this misinformation. And we talk about this a lot. And it's not just the tags of, you know, critical race theory or whatever. It is an intentional approach to misinform the public. And I have a little something here about Rupert Murdoch. Okay. After being in the United States for only one year, Ronald Reagan made this Australian a citizen. Then he had his FCC chairman scrap the fairness doctrine, which is what kept newspapers and television programs from lying to the American people. And ever since Rupert Murdoch has been brainwashing Americans into believing our legitimate press is lying like he lies. Fox News is not news. It is propaganda that the older garks are using to poison the minds of Americans. And it is time that we treat it as such. And boy, you're singing, you're singing my song sheet about FCC regular regulatory action to stop, stop this, what you described. I want to address something you said, you said, the Biden administration needs action now. This year, if you remember, the COVID stimulus called the American Rescue Plan, $900 billion. By the way, that was action. That was $1,200 per person in their pocket. That was immediate action. As soon as the bill was signed, people were getting checks sent. But if you remember, Joe Biden's favorability numbers were in the mid fifties at that time. And now they're the low forties. So that bill did nothing for his favorability ratings. What happened? Well, we're still talking about all the misinformation. And that's probably why that's what I think is why. Anyway, all this misinformation that is flooding the airways. Now, Fox News, anybody can get that. That's basically on your regular cable, right? But if you want to get the OAN or the Newsmax, you actually have to pay for those other channels. So the people that aren't paying that extra money are just listening to Fox News. So I think that's why his approval rating is down. And I think the media is partly why his approval rating is down. Media has been picking on him and going on and on and on and on. Well, didn't the media pick on Donald Trump? Didn't the media pick on Donald Trump? I certainly did. Oh, we did. Yes. I don't think they did. It took them until his third year to really start calling lies lies. They didn't, they gave him so much slack. When he said, oh, I was just joking. They didn't say, no, you weren't, you were lying. They didn't push him, press him on the things that he was doing wrong. All of that, you really had to search if you wanted to find out about all the things that he was doing in regards to the emollience clause and the Hatch Act and some of these Logan Act and some of these other things that he was doing. We barely heard about them on 24 seven news, even on MSNBC and CNN. We did not hear about those things. Okay. The big pass. So, okay. So last question on this topic for you and Jay, I'll ask you the same thing. What should the Democrats do? Not only, well, we know that they're going to do better job probably in selling the infrastructure. What should they do to foil the misinformation from the Republicans, the tags, all the things that are successful in doing to make the Democrats look bad? How should the Democrats address that other than using the Lincoln project? Well, the Lincoln project is great. And I really like what they do. Why can't the media do that stuff? You know, the truth from the media. Cynthia, the media's job is not to defend the Biden administration. It's the Democrats that have to stand up for themselves. Right. But it is the media's job to tell the truth. So when there's lies, they need to be telling the truth. That's need to talk 24 seven. They need to appoint at least three people, maybe even a whole committee to do nothing but take on misinformation. Right now, there is no real intentional formal approach to it. And until they do that, they're going to be in trouble and they will always be coming up short. Okay. Great points. Thank you. Jay, to you. Same question. I'm developing a perception of this. And my perception tentatively is this. The Democrats look to politics locally. And they're all focused on local politics. I suppose Republicans do that too. But the Democrats are not, you know, in a cohesive mode nationally. So you can go, for example, to a Democratic event, a gathering of the party, so to speak, even here in Hawaii. And you don't hear them all ticked off about what's going on in Washington. It's too far away. It's too hard to understand. They're not really vocal about it. They think more at the local level. Somebody has got to get in there. You can say Joe Biden, but you know, it's not in the cards that he would do this. Somebody has got to get in there and do the Republicans with the Republicans to reach out to every single Democrat in the country. Get them together, galvanize them, have them take action. You know, I know a guy who goes with his wife, they go to the mainland and they go talk to voters who have been suppressed. And they advise them and consult with them and explain to them how they can get around the suppression and nevertheless vote. Now that's action. But that has to be on a national scale. So it's not only the media talking to the media. It's not only writing op-ed pieces every single day. It's not only talking to your friends and sending email around. It's taking action like that. It's taking action with a national approach, a national mentality, a national concern. And I don't think the Democrats are doing that. They have to get together. I think it's clear the Republicans are doing it. And there's a big difference. Yeah, I want to read Sean Patrick Mahone, I think. Maybe it's Mahoney. Yeah, Mahoney. And he said the following, Democrats need to stop talking like a bunch of lawyers and eggheads and start talking like you need to take a shower after you've had a long day at work. So it's not the fact that they can talk. It's just the impression is that citizens are being talked down to by the Democrats rather than spoken with the Democrats. So I thought that was interesting. And we'll see if the Democratic Party can shift gears on their messaging and try to relate more on an elbow to elbow basis versus a platform down to the floor basis. I want to talk about a little bit what happened here on the passage of the infrastructure bill. We had 13 GOP House members come over to the Democrat side and voted for it. Those Republicans are being chastised. In fact, some of them, it hasn't happened yet, but some of them may be stripped of their committee duties. And we just have this horrible thing that says if a Republican dare votes for anything that's on a Democrat bill or the improvement of the American, the Americans way of life, particularly on infrastructure, then they're going to be ostracized or isolated from the main branch of the party. Jay, is this insanity? Yes, but you know, I hate to tell you this, I'm a little optimistic. I believe it represents a kind of change and then on an important bill, you're going to find Republicans voting for, you know, rational results. And although they may be punished by, you know, the Lurites, that's a new political party. It's otherwise known as a Republican party. They may be punished, you know, but I think that punishment is getting old too. You know, remember, we are always in change. We are always evolving and this is evolving too. And so those guys, you know, who voted for the bill may represent a trend. I would like to think so. But of course, we will have to see what happens there. You know, the problem is there are still some real Lurites, you know, I want to say Cretans, but I'll hold back on that, in the Congress, you know, parading around as Republicans and making us think they are part of a legitimate Republican party. And one of them is this guy, Gosar, and I know you wanted to talk about that. I want to mention that, you know, there was a discussion at an event I recently attended about the non-year-old girl who was handcuffed because she made a drawing in class of some violence of her killing a classmate or something like that. Meanwhile, Gosar in Congress actually goes to trouble of making a movie of the killing of AOC, which, you know, a Congress person and say to yourself, well, the little girl, nine years old, she got arrested with handcuffs, which didn't seem appropriate. I don't think anybody would agree. I mean, that it was appropriate. But what happened to Gosar? Nothing. Zero zippity, do nothing. No criticism, really, to speak of by the Republicans, certainly, and no action taken against him. Well, you know, I guess we didn't listen close enough to what Gosar had to say. He said, oh, it was a symbolic visualization of the horrible infrastructure programs and Communist incentive packages that are coming the American way. He said, relax, it was a cartoon. Don't forget that he also portrayed a sword coming for Joe Biden's head. I want to add something is that he did it in public. Okay. Yes. And we have seen enough of these what you call it, dog whistles. It is a dog whistle. I suggest he intended it to be a dog whistle. But whether he intended it or not, it was a dog whistle appealing to people who might actually act on that. He's in a position of national leadership. He shouldn't be, but he is. And if you're in a position of national leadership, you do not suggest murder to people because they will do it. This is what Trump was doing. Haven't we learned about that? If you want to incite violence, send dog whistles. That's what Gosar was doing. Well, good point. And I'll bring up two incidents. Remember Gabby Gifford? Remember she was shot at a political meet and greet in Arizona? Horrible traumatic brain injury. It's a miracle she's alive. And then of course, remember the baseball game? Steve Solis, he was shot and critically, or not critically, but horribly wounded. And these things can happen. And they can happen rather easily. And it doesn't take much of a wing nut to load up the AR-15 and hit a political bent. So I agree that it's been crickets, especially Kevin McCarthy. And Cynthia, I like your thoughts about what should be done if the GOP won't say anything about what has transpired here from Gosar? What should they do? What should be done? Well, I don't understand why Nancy Pelosi can't do something if he won't. She can refer to the division of ethics. And she could do that. She could do a lot of things. Yeah, exactly. And I think that she absolutely should have already done it. It should already be happening. I think she said something to that effect she's going to. I didn't hear that. Okay. Just to go back about the dog whistle thing. Do you know that Marjorie Taylor Greene, actually right after the 13 representatives of Republicans voted for the infrastructure, she tweeted out all their names and their phone numbers. And I saw a couple of them being interviewed this morning. And they're getting death threats on their phone. People are just following up, threatening them all day long. They finally had to shut everything down in order to do it. So I got a couple of quotes about this whole Gosar thing. One is from Jamie Raskin. And he says, Representative Gosar's conduct is grotesque, dangerous and utterly disgraceful to the United States House of Representatives. We must address his intolerable assaults on the dignity of our body and safety of our colleagues. Now I want to say something else that I think is super important. This is what Twitter, this is how Twitter handled this. Because, you know, you see people that just say something threatening and they get cut, right? Nothing has happened. And they didn't even take the tweet down. That's what gets me. And this was their comment under their statement. This tweet violated the Twitter rules about hateful conduct, reads the label. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public's interest for the tweet to remain accessible. How do you possibly justify that? So now Twitter, as far as I'm concerned, I don't trust them for anything. And I thought they were doing fairly well compared to Facebook, as far as policing this kind of hate speech. But obviously, not at all, we find out. Because this shows exactly where Twitter stands. All right, well, hopefully this isn't just a 12-hour news cycle item that this discussion goes on. And certainly, be it a referral to the Ethics Committee or not. I mean, I'm surprised we haven't heard from a GOP on that. Oh, actually, we did. Correction, Liz Cheney castigated this particular individual. And Gosar has not responded to Liz Cheney's criticism. And I think he'd be smart not to, because Liz Cheney put him correctly as a sick individual. Even his own sister came out and said that he's a sick individual. So there we go. We've run out of time. So I'd like to ask, Cynthia, if you have closing remarks regarding either how the Democrats sell the infrastructure bill or how they stand up to Republicans, or anything else that's on your mind about things to come in the next week. Well, I think I already said how I think they needed, what they need to do as far as getting that message out. They need to be out there in the streets, pressing palms, patting people on the shoulder. And then they need to hurry up and get money in their pockets. And that's really what speaks to all Americans, Republican or Democrat. I think his Biden's approval rating was a little bit higher in the beginning, because he did put money in people's pockets. He didn't care if you're Republican or Democrat, he put money in your bank. And he gave you a $300 per child tax credit, which is huge. So I think once people start seeing tangible evidence of this, his approval rating is going to go through the roof. So I don't think we need to worry about that anymore. I have two quotes to finish today. One is from Barack Obama. And he said, quote, I don't know what happened to our culture. I don't know when we began to celebrate bullies instead of looking out for people who care for other people. When did that happen? That's such a great question that we all need to really look at, because I think when we can answer that, we can start to really deal with all these bullies. And my last quote is from Robert F. Kennedy. And I love this one. Let's dedicate ourselves to what the ancient Greeks wrote so many years ago, to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that. Wonderful. Thank you. What a great way to end the program. Thank you, Cynthia. Jay, your last thoughts. I'm not as optimistic about the human spirit. I believe that there are always evil doers. There are always criminals among us. It's the nature of the species. And so in the civilized society, you have to judge those people, and you have to apply sanctions where necessary. Not that I have any regard for him now, but when Rudy Giuliani was mayor of the city of New York, his whole philosophy was, we don't permit any crime here at all. You Jaywalk, you're going to be prosecuted, anything. And if I prosecute Jaywalkers, then the murderers will take note and they won't be murdering so much. You have to have sanctions for bad conduct. And we don't because the rule of law has slid down the slope on this. The Supreme Court no longer reliable. The Attorney General, not reliable. He's AWOL right now needs to be replaced in my opinion. When the country figures out how to apply sanctions to bad conduct to discourage that bad conduct, to discourage violation of norms will be better off. All right, Jay, great points. Cynthia, great points. Great points from great people. Thank you very much for participating on What Now America. Join us next week, Wednesday at 11 o'clock. I'm Tim Appichot, your host, and I hope to see you then. Aloha.