 It's Wednesday. It's 11 o'clock. It's November the 17th, 2021. Welcome to What Now America. I'm Tim Apachele, your host. Today's title, if I can get it out, today's title is Ex-Governor Christie Cross Trump to Rescue the GOP. You know, in the time of Donald Trump's administration, we had very few Republicans who are willing to speak out against policies or things Donald Trump said or did, fearing that the worst would happen that Donald Trump would retaliate against him. We had a couple brave souls in the name of Jeff Flake from Arizona and Bob Corker from Tennessee, but that was about it. Fast forward to today, who speaks out against Trump, particularly about the January 6th insurrection and his involvement in that. We have Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and recently Anthony Gonzalez. Kinzinger and Gonzalez have decided not to run again because they probably did some polling and Donald Trump's influence may still be very strong and very alive. But recently, as of yesterday, a book has been put out by ex-governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie. The title of the book is Republican Rescue, Saving the Party from Truth Deniers, Conspiracy Theorists, and Dangerous Policies of Joe Biden. We're going to talk about that book, and I'd like to go to my guests right now. Today we have Jay Fidel, Cynthia Leeson-Claire, and Winston Welch. Hey, it's good to see everyone here together again, and welcome back everyone. Thank you too. Yeah. Jay, to you, Chris Christie was at a recent GOP Jewish coalition conference in Las Vegas, and at this conference, he said the following. The party needs to plan for tomorrow, not a grievance about yesterday. A shot right across Donald Trump's bow about the election stolen from him. He also said, winning campaigns is always about campaigns that look forward, not backward. So here we have Chris Christie coming to our book saying that the Republicans will not survive and certainly may not even take 2022 midterm elections if they follow Donald Trump and his grievance with the 2020 election stolen from him, quote unquote. When Donald Trump lost and Joe Biden became the new president, there was many of us, and I was one of them, and maybe you Jay, we said that Donald Trump's his energy, his influence on the GOP was going to diminish, and soon he would be relegated to a name that is seldom seen or heard from. Are we still in that phase? Do we still believe that or has Donald Trump revived himself and he is still very influential and the party's standard bearer? We still believe it, but it's a question of time. That's a question of certainty also. I mean, remember that, yes, there are some defectors that are speaking and writing against him, but the base is still probably pretty constant. And the QAnon people are raising their heads more and more. And you know, the militia raising its heads more and more. At the same time, Joe Biden is being pasted and everything he does is treated as a mistake by a lot of the Republican legislators and public officials. And remember too that, you know, in the various Republican states, we have travesties going on all day long, which are going to affect, you know, the vote in 2022. However, I think it's still alive as far as I'm concerned, Tim. I think that Trump in some ways must be losing power because the QAnon crowd with which he freely and closely connects is out of their minds. You've seen the footage of them waiting in Dallas at the grassy knoll, waiting for John F. Kennedy to drive by and he's going to be the vice presidential candidate for Trump. That is so absolutely out of this world. It's hard to describe. And so, you know, to the extent today that people have some rationality left, they will probably reject that QAnon kind of thing. The other thing I want to mention is that don't be sure of Christie. I mean, yes, he's defected. That's clear. He's invited Trump to punish him. But, you know, on a credibility scale, I give him a one out of 10. Remember what happened in New Jersey? Remember that maneuver he played with the tunnel to Manhattan, where he stopped the traffic for his own personal ridiculous reasons? That was really mean and arrogant. And that's what he is. And right now, you know, I guess he's saying to himself, I'm going to desert the sinking ship. But he's also making some money with his book. You know, he's all over the networks with that book. So it's not clear to me what his exact motivation is. I think one thing... Well, let me interject something, if I could, Jay. You know, he's a former prosecutor. And it just seems to me that the Republican Party has lost its way as far as trying to follow the rule of law and preserve the principles of the Constitution of fair and free elections. And they've abandoned that. I mean, 74% of the or 78% of the Republicans cited that Joe Biden was an illegitimate president as a result of the lead election. So doesn't Chris Christie represent a little bit of the old Republican Party that at least believes in the rule of law and is not trying to overthrow our democracy? Well, belief is a hard word when you're talking about Chris Christie. I think it's pragmatism. He knows there are a lot of voters out there who may be Republican voters, may be disenchanted. And he wants to try to bring him together and he wants to be the guy in the front of the parade. Understandable. And maybe it's a very practical, maybe even has the badge of possible success on it. And you mentioned Las Vegas. You know, what is in Las Vegas? A lot of money. That's that's what's in Las Vegas. He's there raising money. He's going to run for office. So, you know, not to say that he should win office, but I think I think he's got a plan. And it isn't all about the ideology or belief in the rule of law. Okay. Thank you, Jay. Winston. Chris Christie recently was interviewed him yesterday by Nicole Wallace. And she really took him to task based on the fact that in his book, the part the second half of the title is saving the party from truth deniers and conspiracy theorists. She said, Why didn't you take on Fox News? And he, you know, Chris Christie is pretty good at standing up to media personalities. And he said, Well, I didn't feel like writing it in my book. That wasn't my that wasn't my thing. He said, I in the book, he said I did expose the the fallacy of pizza gate and Q non groups and how the Republican Party has shifted to conspiracy theorists. But is that something we should believe that Chris Christie really does believe that gone are the days where we can start believing in conspiracy theories. And that should be abandoned if the Republican Republican Party wants to win in 2022. Your thoughts. It's a complicated question. But like Jay said, it's all about belief, isn't it? When Chris Christie is writing something, we have to remember he's a politician and he still feel like he's got some some room to run in this. And maybe he's envisioning himself as a cabinet member in the next administration, or even vice president Canada, he was running for president, we have to remember. And he is maybe positioning himself as a at least a thought leader, if nothing else, and realizes that maybe he can or can't get elected. But he seems like actually, if if we're looking at a field, and you strip away his involvement with Donald Trump, then he presents himself as a reasonably conservative candidate. But like Jay pointed out, he shut down the the bridge into New York for I can't remember what the particular scandal was. But as yes, so I mean, we're going to we're going to be seeing a lot of more of these tell-alls and it's coming out slowly. As far as not adding in Fox News, it was an interesting one, because we have to remember Fox News, you talked about we talked in the past about should the FCC come in? No, we don't have that in this country, we have freedom of speech. What it should be properly labeled as is entertainment, or even a horror show, because it's designed to scare and and provoke fear in the American public. And if you watch Fox News, and I do encourage all viewers to watch all of these, I would consider Fox to be mainstream media, because it's in on in half the countries in this in this half the TVs in this country. So we need to understand what it is. It is entertainment. It is it has a fiduciary responsibility not to tell the truth, not to give the news, but to make money for its shareholders. If it doesn't, it will be sued. So it's goal is to have eyes in front of the TV that are buying soap or whatever they're selling. That's what Fox News is. But I think for a gentle viewer, we should remind everyone that this TV that's in our house, or the internet for that matter, or talk radio, what we're doing is we're inviting this into our mental, social, spiritual, psychological space. And when we're inviting in the anger and the rage and the chaos, that's what we're going to be spewing more of. And when that's all you're hearing, that's what you're going to get. I recommend that people cover their TV if they have one, that they turn it on very deliberately when they want to watch something, that they curate their news, stick to PBS and, you know, nature shows or something like that. But Fox is, it's certainly the mouthpiece of so many people in America who are angry and it's giving them a voice. I don't, it's pointing them in the directions. I was appalled last week when I was watching, I think it was Laura Ingram, and she says that the president hated America and that Democrats hate America. And I'm thinking about that. Here's this lady on the TV who has a prime time channel saying that the president of the United States hates America or that the Democrats hate America. And I'm sure that's what I heard and I was thinking, how, why would anybody, why are we watching, why are people watching this? Of course the president doesn't hate America, the Democrats. Let me kind of address that point. Is Chris Christie naive or any politician that's to follow in his footsteps, are they naive to try to redirect the trajectory of the GOP away from conspiracy theories, away from the truth deniers? Are they naive without addressing the messenger? That is Fox News and Newsmax. Don't they have to address those sources before the transformation of the GOP can occur? Well, I was Chris Christie featured on Fox News when his book came out. You know, the messages do get through on Fox. They carry, it's an interesting mix of what they've got on there. But, you know, it's the same thing, if you turn on MSNBC, you're going to get a lot of ranting and raving on the other side. Now, whether you believe it or not, it's a lot of same thing, anger and fear and what our president's trying to do. What I've said is that Joe Biden needs to just pour baking soda on everything. And unfortunately, he's the tortoise in the race. And we don't know if the tortoise will make it to the finish line because we're used to something every five minutes, shiny object, distracting our attention. You know, we saw Liz Cheney get kicked out of the Wyoming Republican Party, was it yesterday or the day before, and saying that she wasn't conservative enough. When Liz Cheney has one of the most conservative voting records in Congress. So, you know, I think that being carried, Chris Christie's message being carried, that you're going to see these cracks and dribs and drabs all over the place of people saying, hey folks, actually, you know, we've been under the spell. We know you're angry. Let's give it a proper voice where we can channel it back into our legitimate institutions where we reasonably deal in good faith with the other party, which we should both be moving towards the center vision rather than polarizing ourselves. I think that people will hopefully see through that. But the average Joe, I'm afraid, doesn't have the time or interest or ability to go deeper than what is being beamed in his or her living room. Okay. Hey, Cynthia, Winston just made a very good point, and that is, there are cracks. Now, we've been talking about cracks in the Trump dam for a long time. And keep thinking that some of those cracks were going to widen and the dam would break, but it never did. Chris Christie may be yet again a new crack. But isn't it, do you agree with his statement that it's best to channel their grievance to take on policies versus conspiracies? And, you know, Joe Biden certainly can be taking the task for policies because that's what Republicans do to Democrats, and that's what Democrats do to Republicans. But it's gotten personal the last five years. Should Chris Christie direct that grievance, direct that energy to take on the policies of Joe Biden? Will that get them further than the path that they're currently on? Well, going after policies will definitely get them farther because the path they're on is pure propaganda and conspiracy theories. And, you know, I watched that interview with Nicole Wallace the other day with Chris Christie, and when she pressed him on the Fox News issue, she pressed him a little further and said, well, do you watch Fox News? And, well, without naming Tucker Carlson, he says, well, I don't listen to that guy, but we all know who he's talking about. And then he goes on to say that every night he watches sports, but he tunes into Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity as if somehow those two are not as full of propaganda as Tucker Carlson. They're all three opinion shows. So he showed his hypocrisy there. He showed his hypocrisy in a number of ways throughout that interview. And I suggest everyone go find it and watch it because you really kind of see through him as she's pressing him on certain issues. He is using all of that political, you know, mumbo jumbo. I'm a prosecutor language to just pull right over the top of her and not answer any of the questions. So I don't trust Christie for his record. Remember, right after all the beaches were closed, he was and his family were the only ones out there. It was a bad visual. I do remember that. That visual that will never leave my mind. You know, last week we talked about Fox News and Rupert Murdoch and how it is just a propaganda lie spewing machine that is a profit maker. And I think that we need to expand a little bit in the way we look at Fox News. It's not just having effects here in America. This is a world problem. You know, Murdoch has his hands and fingers in a lot of pies. And as we watch all these, you know, crazy dictators rising up and autocrats rising up all over the world right now, one of the ways that they're able to bind their power together is through these kinds of propaganda machines. So I think this is much more dangerous than the Republican Party is spewing lies. I think this is a very serious, dangerous problem that we need to do something about. And I think it has to go a little further than just the FCC. Well, that's interesting. That takes me, well, before I go on to the next topic, I do want to mention something. Donald Trump did respond to Chris Christie's statements, and he said the following. He said, Chris Christie, who just made a speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas, just massacred by his statements that Republicans have to move on from the past, meaning the 2020 election fraud. So Donald Trump has basically once again put a stamp that the number one platform for 2022 midterm elections is to reverse a 2020 election, I guess. Your comments, your thoughts about Donald Trump's inability to move on to the issues and policies that are facing 2022 versus his quote unquote stolen election of 2020. Well, I think that's all he's going to run on because that's all he has. He has it. Let me start you there there. How can the Republican Party follow that in lockstep and not say unless Chris he does it or Liz Cheney says it, that this is a wrong path to follow? How does that happen? Well, I don't think it does happen without Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. And I think Adam Kinzinger, even though he has said he's not going to run again, I think and he but he did in his statement say that he is not stopping his political ambitions. He's just not going to run there again. So, you know, running the house. So I think he might be I and a spot maybe in the president's chair also. And I tell you right now, my Republican dream team is Liz Cheney as president and Adam Kinzinger as vice president. And I think I might even vote for him depending on who's running as a Democrat because we've heard it here. And I think they have credibility with a lot of Republicans, not the crazy QAnon ones and the Trumpers. But I think mainstream Republicans would turn out in droves for those too. Alright, switching gears Jay and Applebaum in the Atlantic wrote a really nice article called autocracy is winning. If you will, a 30,000 foot view of how worldwide dictators, if you will, are kind of in the big cabal and they're helping one another to defeat democracies. And, you know, Cynthia just mentioned that they seem to be using media as its main thrust. How is this kind of concept any different than what we were dealing with back in the the 60s and 70s in the Cold War? Couple of thoughts. One is that before we leave the topic we've been discussing, although there may be cracks in the armor of the Trump Republican Party, if you look down the pike and you see them with the opportunity and continued opportunity of criticizing Biden, you know, to follow up on what Cynthia was saying. They don't have a policy, they just have criticism. And they'll use criticism against Biden, you know, as their policy tool. As a result, I think they stand a fairly good chance of taking Congress in 2022, and that will be terrible for all of us. It will be a pathway toward Trump. And to say also that the country is divided. You know, Vladimir Putin must be doing the Kossacka. And, you know, and really, and I think, you know, if it isn't him, I mean, I'm not sure I assume it's him, but there's a fair chance it's him sending out emails as he did all through the Trump administration, through the Trump election in 2018-2016, through divide people. It's other mechanisms that divide people. It's the notion of Facebook, for example, and to some extent Twitter dividing the country. The country is so well and fully divided now. I don't know if a comeback on the Republican Party is going to save it. Okay. Then you go to Ann Appelbaum. Ann Appelbaum talked about the acolytes who made it possible for the communists to take over. This isn't an article about a year ago. The communists to take over Eastern Europe after the war. And she spoke of a number of reasons why the acolytes would migrate to the dictators. And it was a very frightening discussion because the acolytes then and the acolytes that Trump had around him followed the same rules. So what do you get? You know, you get a country where a president who's a nutcase like Trump, you know, can garner all these acolytes around him to do his bidding. You know, we've seen books and discussions recently about what happened in the last days of Trump and how he manipulated everything, including the military for his coup. I mean, it wasn't just at the Willard Hotel. This was going on from even before the election. And so what you have is a would-be dictator with a country that is fertile ground for a would-be dictator. That's what you have. And you still have that. So the question is, what is happening in other countries? Ann Appelbaum, who is brilliant. I don't know if you guys saw her recently on MSNBC somewhere. And she's brilliant beyond brilliant. And she knows the story. And it's not just a familiarity with Eastern Europe. She's spent a lot of time in Eastern Europe. Her husband is Polish, as I remember. And it's a matter of being familiar with global trends and issues and political science. And in this article that appeared last week in The Atlantic, which is the same journal that the previous article appeared in, she tells you about the club. It's a club of propagandists. It's a club of dictators, all who like each other. And the cold, chilling thing she points out is that when Trump was in office, he was like sidling up to Putin, sidling up in his own way to Xi Jinping, even to Kim in North Korea. The more of a dictator the guy was in South America, Venezuela, the more of a dictator guy was, the more Trump was sidling up to him. So what is this? That's not America. Why would you do that? Well, the bottom line, which the press covered at the time, is he likes dictators. He's in the club, or he wants to be in the club. At the same time, she points in the article to the fact that Trump was dumping on democracies. He was dumping on the EU and every democracy, every single democracy in the EU. So he said, what is going on here? Well, the club has one common denominator. It's dictatorship. It's controlling the population with propaganda. It's staying in power for as long as you can for life, if possible. And the third thing is getting rich beyond your wildest imagination. And all that rings true. That's what Trump wants. And that's what we will have if he wins again or anyone like him wins again. To Cynthia's point, do these dictators have the influence, if Fox was somehow regulated, to verify disinformation before they report it? Or to eliminate disinformation before they report it? Do these dictators have a leg to stand on if they still have the media and what's to spew their propaganda? It's part of her article. In fact, both articles that I mentioned is that if people criticize you, you get rid of them. You do away with them. And in the 21st century, this seems to be getting easier and easier. There was a really frightening article this morning, I think in the New York Times, about how people in China, celebrities, movie actresses and the like, who have a substantial following and their influencers to the public because of that are disappearing. And what are you going to do about it? And so newspaper editor likewise, in a dictatorship, can disappear. He had the rug pulled out from under him. And I think that, I don't think you can make the assumption that the press remains free in these places. The press is under tremendous pressure and threat right now. And the next phase of this club we're talking about, called at the end Applebaum Club, is that the editors begin to get death threats. They are already getting death. We know that from what we're watching now. And they disappear. So do not assume that the level of freedom of speech that we have now in this country will continue. It's not at all clear. Okay. Winston, the Aspen Institute of Commission of Information Disorder, so that's a mouthful for an organization, they would argue that disinformation has less to do with the expanding technologies of social media and cable news, and more to do with the deep seated social issues that we've always wrestled with and have never resolved the issues of income and inequity, racism, corruption. Do they have a point? Because we seem to blame social media and Fox News for all the things that we are now experiencing, all the dissension and polarization of American citizens. But does the Aspen Institute have a point that we're not addressing the core issues that we've struggled with for so long? Without knowing that the particular organization, I would say that it's not either or, it's both and. People in this nation, a number of decades ago, we sort of made a decision that we were going to have a divide and allow for a very super rich class. This is an enormously wealthy country, but we also made that decision that we're essentially going to let people live on the streets. And we see that in many of all of our major cities, except the ones that have actually done some, I think Salt Lake City might be one exception there. And we seem to sort of finally be grappling with this. But the fact that we have that is a shock to me in this rich era. Now, Facebook or Instagram or TikTok, whatever media that we're using or the traditional media of TV and talk radio, they certainly play a part in it. It's just like the idea of Donald Trump versus Trumpism. Many people support the concepts and Trumpism, whatever that means to them. And that's just sort of a big stew of discontent, I think, where they're voting for change or voting for something that they don't even know what they're voting for. They're angry. They want someone to blame. They have a savior who comes and says, I alone can fix this vote for me. Now, it's just like I've said in the past, we may come back and long for the days when we had someone as innocuous as Donald Trump in office, where someone who's smart and diligent and really has his levers on the hands of maybe someone who's even more photogenic or doesn't have such a checkered past could really come in here and do some damage. Hopefully, our president and our institutions are being fortified as we speak. I think it's a hope of mine. But Joe Biden hasn't been taking the bait and saying, this is who's to blame. This is your problem. He's working on solutions. He is the slow, steady. He's not a glamorous president. He doesn't make headlines except to say how terribly is when I'm watching when I've turned on the media. That's not a universally held opinion. I think people in this country are probably relieved not to have the tension and stress and chaos thrown at them every hour, every tweet. That's something that we can't underestimate. I noticed recently in a few airports, they don't have any more TVs. Before, they always used to be filled with TVs. Now, they may be in many airports, but I've been in three that were newish and they had no TV blaring that voice. I think because people are so agitated already and they don't want them to get agitated and then go on a plane and have more shenanigans. Especially without alcohol. Well, or with alcohol, both of them. I think that people, when we're getting together now, probably a lot of people, even though we are in the middle of a pandemic folks, if you haven't been vaccinated, although I'm sure the intelligent viewers of ThinkTech are triple vaccinated by now. A lot of people are coming together for the first time to see their families since the election, since Joe Biden took over and they don't want to go back there. They don't want to have the acrimony. They don't want to have Fox News on or MSNBC for that matter. Leave it off. Talk about the dogs. Go for a walk. Remeete your neighbors. Give them a casserole. At the end of the day, as I've said many times, what are we doing individually to promote, protect, and strengthen our own communities, our own democracy, when we don't like something we write a respectful letter that says, this is how I'm feeling about this, Mr. Congressman, Mr. City Councilor, Mr. Mayor, etc. What are we doing individually that makes the difference besides ranting and raving or stewing or worrying? I think this show is part of the solution. Other shows on ThinkTech, there is a lot of hope in this country. We have a great experiment. It continues to go. I have faith in people in this nation. The alternative isn't pretty. We all need to wake up and say, wow, that was like a crazy bad dream, what we experienced. I kind of like a slow, steady eddy here and non-chaos. Thank you. Cynthia, we have to go to closing comments, but before I do, I do have to recognize the fact that Winston has gone from golden toilets in West Virginia to casserole. I'm very happy to see that it will cost a lot less to deliver casserole. Cynthia, we've gone over our time, but could you give me your last thoughts for the show? Okay. I'll end with a really great quote from John F. Kennedy, but I just want to address one little thing we kind of missed in all of this great article that was written by Ann Alpabomb, and that she points out, you know, this is the reason behind why it's happening and why it's progressing so bad. The Belarusian dictator hijacked a Ryanair plane flying from Greece to Lithuania. The Russians have murdered people in the United Kingdom and Germany, and yet they pay no price. Our old diplomatic tools, sanctions, and human rights investigations now seem weak and ineffective. We are still reacting to each outrage as if it were a separate event, and until we put them all together, I don't think we're going to make any progress at all. Okay, good point. Great quote from John F. Kennedy. Go for it. Of all those crazy QAnon people that were out in Dallas this weekend looking for them. Oh, and they were in July, they were looking for them too. But okay, so he says the great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived, and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. It's powerful. Thank you, Cynthia. I love that. Jay, last thoughts on this topic or any topic? Two thoughts. One is, I hope you guys remember, it's been a long time. JFK was a Democrat. Can you just see him as Vice President of Trump? The other thing I want to mention is that the article from Ann Applebaum, as Cynthia has mentioned, is it's not just happening out there. We are involved. We are part of this global phenomenon, and Trump has already demonstrated. He wants to be part of this. He wants to be in the club. And maybe his Republican QAnon successor, if there is one, would want the same thing. So what's happening in this country, it's not only a coincidental parallel to what's happening in other countries with other autocrats. It's that certain elements in this country talk to them, and they talk to us, and they teach each other, and they cooperate. Regardless, as she says, of ideology. Their ideology is to stay in power. Their ideology is to make money individually and screw the people. And we have to keep that in mind, not only in the larger sense, but in the smaller sense, in all senses, because that arguably is where the world is going. Sorry. Thank you, Jay. Winston? Last comment, please. Oh, well, thanks for your show, Tim. I think that, you know, again, what Jay brought up some really important points, and it's not to put our head in the sands. It's to look at them, to acknowledge them, to address them, and to look for solutions. And I think the solutions are large and they're small. So do what you can, where you can, when you can, as best as you can, and continue educating yourself, informing yourself, but not to a toxic level. Move to solutions. We all need to do it. Okay, great. Well, we've run out of time, but before we leave, I want to write the time and date of this show. And as a reminder, that Cynthia, Lisa and Claire is okay with Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. We'll refer to this in the future, Cynthia. So with that, I'd like to say thank you one and all for joining us for What Now America. Join us next week, Wednesday at 11 o'clock. And I'm Tim Apachele, your host. And I hope to see you then. Aloha.