 Okay, we're back with Trump. We're going to give him Wednesday. I'm here with Tim Appichella, Cynthia Sinclair. We're talking about, I guess, mainly, we're talking about what's going on in Congress right now, right now. And we have to cover that. We were all watching it to some extent. So let me ask you, Cynthia, how do you feel about this? You watched it, you absorbed it, you let it flow. How do you react to it? Well, I'll tell you when I first read the title that we chose for today's show, I went, wait, this isn't a game. Hold on, let the games begin. And I thought, but this isn't a game. And then as I listened to the Republicans questioning with these just leading horrible questions that were obviously trying to set this picture up, and I thought, it is a game to these guys. I don't think it is a game to the Democrats. And I think it is like it's a game for the Republicans. And that just infuriates me. And the whole thing also terrifies me, because I really have a feeling that he will get off on this. If not, there will be no consequence. And how that sets up for the rest of our country and for the rest of our democracy is terrifying to me. Feelings. First off, good morning. Feelings. I think there's a part of me that's kind of relieved, because we've been talking about this president who largely runs a foul of the rule of law in the Constitution. This was now a time to make an accounting of that. And we were talking about it in the context of the Mueller investigation months and months ago, felt very strongly that he should be held accountable for those activities which never happened. So here is something else that he's done not soon after the Mueller report. He comes out and does those with Ukraine. It was like a day or two after. Day or two after. So there is a sense of, I guess, relief that finally he's going to be held accountable by historical standards. I agree with you as whether or not this will have an impact on whether he stays or leaves office, I guess that's to be determined. But at least there's going to be a historical accounting of what and how he's been operating as president of the United States. So I feel relieved. You just made me think that yeah, this call, this perfect call was like a day or two after the Mueller report, which means that Trump has spent his entire time in office running for 2020. He's been fascinated and focused and totally into his next campaign. The whole thing three years has been his campaign. And he plays dirty tricks. So he's been playing dirty tricks for three years. Obstruction all along the way. That's one thing that catches me. And I don't know if the public is aware. That's my second reaction. Is the public of the public in the red states, they watch this, they got it live. Just the way we got it live, right? And they got the commentary, which I don't know what commentary there are, multiple commentaries on what's happening here. But, you know, I mean, I spent a lot of time in court in my legal career. And I know how you can try to affect a jury. And the juries are not all that sophisticated, sorry. And the people in the red states are not all that sophisticated either. And they may be buying some of the very sharp questioning. I say sharp, I mean, clever questioning that's going on. You know, you comment on that in a minute. I'll comment on it now. You know, a lot of this would not be permitted in a court of law. Because they're making speeches, especially Republicans making speeches. And they're insinuating all these things. And they're trying to do trick questions, trick questions on the witnesses. And the witnesses are reasonably well prepared. You know, it's all, you know, it's really, it's a function of how will you prepare a witness. I don't know who's preparing them. I don't know if they're being prepared. Sometimes when they say, you know, that's not what I said, or you misstated what I said before, then that reflects a certain amount of, you know, crisp response. And maybe even they've been prepared. But a lot of the times they haven't been prepared. And they're trying to do the right thing. But I don't know if the people in the red states fully appreciate the process. And I share your concern, Cynthia, that this is not going to be successful if you want to look at it from a democratic point of view, because the Republicans are going to mess it up. They're not messing it up in the way I thought. Maybe it's room for that yet. You know, with a food fight, not a food fight. Everybody is very loyal for the Roy about this. But at least most people. But, you know, what I get is that the Republicans intellectually are trying to mess up the thinking of the people who are not so sophisticated about this and watching. They're handing them defenses. Okay. And my third reaction, if you don't mind, just one more reaction. When we get into the detail is this. You know, Trump has not only abused power. He's abused us as a country. He's abusing us for as long as he's been in office. Just the way he abused people in the apprentice years ago, when I first saw that show, I said, this isn't abuse. And he abuses people. He's bullying the whole country. In fact, arguably he's bullying the whole world. He's clearly bullied, bullied Ukraine with the benefit of Russia. He hasn't bullied Russia. Just a little point. But what my reaction is, how dare he put us all, all 300 million of us through this. He is totally at fault for everything that has happened. And now for this, this is one great big reality show. He has not achieved anything in his time in office. He has broken and destroyed and divided everything. You know, you can't point to a single success in any initiative in anything that he has done. There is not even the tax reform act, which was not a tax reform act at all. None of the deals he was talking about, none of the scrapes that he made in arguably to achieve a deal, none of them have resulted in any benefit to the country at all. How dare he do this? And the last thing is, how dare we let him do this all this time? This is the worst president ever. The founders must be watching too. They must be spinning in their graves, all of them, every single one. That's my reaction. But Tim, let's go to the technical on it. What do you think was happening today? Well, I think the witnesses, very credible. They I think well prepared to answer the questions. I think their background spoke for themselves. They are dedicated Americans who are not of any particular political affiliation. They just, they're their career service employees. And now they're here to basically provide testimony of something that they were gravely concerned about. And that's where concern was used multiple times. I think Adam Schiff did a nice job of trying to summarize and lay out what is before us. And believe it or not, the Republicans did a fairly effective job of trying to basically dismantle this. Specifically, if you wish, I can mention a few things where I think they they made their points, or they certainly tried to make their points. One is, first off, Ukraine was never pressured. The president of Ukraine has admitted that he was never pressured. So they drove that home. And then they said, okay, so, so what? The aid was held up for 55 days. Eventually they got it. Where's the crime? Okay, so they keep counting on that point that where's the damage? Where's the harm? Because they actually got their money. And the investigation was never started. That's correct. And then, of course, is really ultimately, so what's the big deal? What's the big deal? Now remember, we called it like we saw it, is that on and on, they're going no quid pro quo, you know, that didn't happen. Now they're saying, okay, so it happened big deal. Where's the crime in this? Well, you could use the bank robbery analogy. And just because I come up to a teller's window and I have my gun, and I show it, and I should give them a note, and they have the money ready to give me, and I change my mind, and I put the gun away, and I put my note back in my pocket, and I walk out the bank. The question is, did I commit a crime? No money was taken. Where's the harm? Well, a crime was committed. Yeah, I mean, a footnote to that is not the conspiracy involved here, although I think, in fact, it is involved. But in attempts, there was some discussion, some questioning by one of the Democrats about, isn't attempted murder a crime? And the witness said, yes. Isn't attempted robbery a crime? And the witness says, yes. You know, I mean, the guy was going to go soft on the answer, but the questioner said, everybody in this room knows that attempted murder and attempted robbery or whatever is a crime. And then the witness said, yeah, it is a crime. And then he said, and what about attempted financial crimes? Are they crimes? And then the witness punted. And he said, I don't really know. The rule of law is an attempt as just as much a crime as the crime is a crime. That is the rule of law. That is the rule of law. But this guy, I forget which one of them said it. I'm not a lawyer. I can't tell you the answer to that. The right answer would have been, that's a crime. Attempts are crimes. And remember, a conspiracy is when two or more plan and conspire to commit a crime. Whether the crime took place or not isn't the point. So if a lot of the Republicans are putting, you know, their weight and measure on saying, well, there's no harm. There's really no crime. That's not I don't think that's going to work. Now work with people who don't understand this concept and who are suggestible lack of that's a lack of civics 101 class in high school. Yes. And a lot of people haven't gone through those classes. Yes. And that's a problem. Yes. Let's give Cynthia a turn. What is your reaction on the technical, you know, procedure, the technical advance of information? Well, I like I want to read this quote really quick first to start with that. This is from Adam Schiff and it was in the very beginning. It's this impeachment inquiry aims to answer a simple yet deeply troubling question. Did the president invite or course a foreign nation to interfere in our election for his own political gain? The answer is yes. What we do now will have a lasting impact on our democracy. And I think that's just a really, and I really like the way he has held all of the Republicans sort of in check as I watch them try to feed information to the witnesses, right? Trick questions and all these things, right? And so, and they're trying to introduce evidence into the proceedings that hasn't been introduced yet and they can't do that. He stopped it cold. He stopped it cold. He's like, no, and they tried to fight back with him. And he's like, no, I answered that. And newness is over. They're going, you didn't answer the question. And and Schiff is just very calm, very cool and collected. I really like his attitude and the way he's handling the whole thing. I think he's keeping a little bit of a cap on the emotions. Of course, you know, then Jim Jordan or Jordan, yeah, when he opens his mouth, he's just like this rabid dog. I don't even know how to describe him. And he has this smug look on his face. And he's the one who infuriates me. That's why he's there. And that's exact. And I think, you know, what I'd like is for every single person before they answer one of his questions, say, I don't know, I might have to take a shower first or something, because we've got all this stuff coming out about Jordan. And we know that he kept his mouth shut during a lot of sexual abuse that was happening at Ohio State. And the fact that he's just getting a walk on it. Well, he says, oh, I didn't know. Well, there are so many witnesses that say he did know that I go, the guy's credibility is gone. And then I see that smug look on his face. And I just okay, okay. So, you know, the, the other thing that came out is that they kept on beating up Adam Schiff about, oh, when did you meet with the whistleblower? And what did he tell you? And, and, you know, did you have earlier conversations with him and all this? At the end, I don't know if you heard this, but when they were going into recess, Schiff said, well, you know, questions have been raised. And I'd like to tell you right now, I never met with him and then put the end to it. For the 46th time today, I said, no, I didn't meet with him. And for the last time today, I didn't meet with him. Yeah. Well, they did that. Trying to insinuate. Yeah, that he has the inside info. Right. And it was the law. It's their lives. They're trying to insinuate lies into the proceedings. Yeah. By repeating it. It's called leading, leading the witness. And that's what they were trying to do with Taylor when they were saying, or Taylor got Taylor. When they were talking to him and they were trying to just put words into his mouth. And they kept talking about the three meetings that he had had with President Zelensky and how in each one of the meetings that this whole pressure campaign was never even brought up. And, and he's like, wait a minute. And I like the way he's sort of keeping his calm. He seems like he stumbles a little bit on some of his answers. But for the most part, he kind of really thinks about it. He goes, wait a minute. No. The first one, no. The second one, no. But they didn't even know that it was being held up yet. So the third one, they did talk about it because they did know by then. So then they're like, you can see the Republicans kind of trying to scramble around like, uh-oh, we didn't expect that answer. Wait a minute. I don't know what we do. Trying to adjust, you know, to whatever their response is. Makes me uncomfortable is that these questions are, a lot of them are unfair and they're speech-defined, which you see in Congress. And the lawyers are very good. The lawyers are very, very super articulate and they know the material. But the Republican lawyers are taking advantage. They're insinuating things that are not true. Trying to get the witness to agree. You watch them in the future in the next few days. They'll ask a question, which is easy. I say, do you agree? Am I right? Okay, very quickly. High pace. And then the witness will say, yeah, okay, you're right. And it'll go like that for like five questions. And the sixth question will be a clunker. It's not true. A clunker, yes. And the guy is in this rhythm, right? It's an old litigation trick. He's in a rhythm of saying yes, and he says yes to the wrong question. How are you seeing that here? These guys are good lawyers. They're good litigators. And you got to give them credit for that. I was impressed with both sides. I was. They're very good litigators. One thing that's of interest is this whole hearsay question. What do you have as hearsay? And then somebody spoke up and said, well, hearsay is sometimes better than direct. If you have a lot of hearsay, that really is persuasive. The point that I think Schiff made, somebody made at the end there, was that the only people who have direct information about what Trump said is Trump and the people who are refusing to abide by the subpoenas. So, I mean, these are the ones who could tell us, but they're not telling us. Because Trump is controlling that. Correct. And I hope that people in the red states get this. We may have one. I think it was Taylor Staffperson who overheard the conversation between Sonlin and Trump, overheard that conversation. So, there might be some direct witness testimony. And I think they're bringing this individual on, I don't know, tomorrow or this weekend, that he may be able to provide some testimony as a first-hand witness, rather than a second-hand witness. They did keep harping about that that you weren't first-hand. You didn't hear this first-hand. So, you mentioned this morning there was some statement by a staffer in the White House that Trump had indicated he was not watching this. Yes. Oh, very specifically, the press secretary. Not, yeah, the press, the girl, and I can't remember her name, she's, but yeah, she made an official statement that he was not going to be watching the hearings today because he's in the Oval Office working, working, and I thought he hasn't worked in days since he got there. Turkey is visiting the White House today, are they not? Oh, I don't know. So, it could be true. He may be engaged in conversation with Irwin. Right. He's got a DVR. I'm sure he'll watch it later if he didn't see it today. Well, on that note, just to digress for a moment, looking back at his three years of presidency, what has he achieved? What work, quote, has he done, aside from the golf course, what benefits have we achieved? As I said before, the Tax Reform Act is a joke. It doesn't reform anything and it feeds benefits to the rich and it screws the poor and the middle class. So, what exactly, what kind of work has he done? He hasn't made any deals. Of all the deals that he has told us about, of all the hot spots around the world, he hasn't made a single deal. The world is not a better place. He's alienated our allies everywhere. And he's, you know, he's promised, yeah, he's promised deals with North Korea, Nara. He's promised deals with China. Nara can wait for you all blue in the face. And then he screwed up the deal with Iran and he hasn't, he hasn't patched it up. Now they're making bombs. So, you know, have I got it wrong? Is he doing anything? Yes. Just during climate change. Well, you said, well, unfortunately, aside from his golf courses, because there was a court decision that Donald Trump was going to have to pay $2 million back from stealing from charities and he was stealing from charities to benefit his campaign and his golf courses, specifically a portrait of himself for $10,000 that's sitting in one of his golf courses. Tim Tebow Helmet that he paid for in an auction that came out of this charity. Now, yes, he's doing something. He's doing something for himself as we all know. But here's the bottom line. He's got to pay back $2 million. He's admitted to it. His children, all three of them who are officers of this charity, are now having to go to remedial education about what, how not to steal from charities. How sad is that? He'll appeal it. He's not going to pay the $2 million. He'll appeal it. No, he's going to pay it. I think they finally did say, fine, we're going to settle this out. I doubt they're going to appeal this. Okay. So here's a case where, and one of those was a veteran's benefit in Iowa. And the bottom line is you don't raise money for veterans and take money away from the veterans and put it into your golf course or a Tim Tebow, a football helmet for Jersey. These are silly things. Then you're lying about it. Well, and here's a court that has now come out against him on this. Maybe it'll catch up. I know people who tell me that, who console me, and they tell me it'll all catch up and we'll have justice here. But I don't know if we'll have justice with DACA for the dreamers. I think that Obama made an executive order out of it. Trump made an executive order repealing the earlier executive order. The argument is he did it for a bad reason, but I'm not sure that works. And the Supreme Court is way more conservative now than it was. I think 700 kids, I call them kids, are going to be out of luck. What do you think about that? What is that? What do you think is going to happen? And what kind of stain, a brand, does that leave on him? On one hand, appointing all the conservative judges, and on the other hand, withdrawing DACA lets these people swing. I think that it's not just him that needs to hold the responsibility for this. I think it's the Senate, specifically our wonderful Moscow Mitch out there, just letting every bill that comes before him die refuses to vote on it, won't let it go through. So it had no choice but to go to the court because it should have been handled in Congress. Should not have even ever had to go to the courts. That's true. Well, I think if you look at the world either in black or white, and you do acknowledge there's no gray in this world, those who are vehemently anti-immigrant, they're going to like that. And there are those that say, well, I think there's middle ground, or they were brought to this country under no fault of their own as children. You're going to say, I want a little bit of a compassion for these individuals, and I'd like to see a path forward for them. So it depends on how you view the world. The argument they make, the dreamers, is that they relied on this. I'm not sure that's what we are. Well, you were brought forth to self-identify. Now that you've identified, but you were lured in by the federal government, and now that's going to be worked against you, I don't think that's legal. Basically unfair. Yes, I don't think it's legal. Inequitable. There's a term for it, and you can't lure someone in with a promise and then use that act of luring them in to now be used against them. It's almost like a trapment. What about the Remington case where these parents of the victims of Sandy Hook who were killed go to court to sue Remington? And I don't think they would have had to sue Remington if we had a gun control in this country. We don't have gun control in this country, and the NRA fights it even now. So the Supreme Court, that's the very top line, has said that that suit can proceed. It's an issue, I suppose, as to what happens in that suit, because if the families of the children win a big verdict that can go on appeal and there can be some technicality going forward. What it tells me, and I mentioned to you guys, is that the lack of action by Congress, this is going to have to be resolved by lawsuits by the parents in court, and that's going to have to be the way in which we discourage people from allowing these weapons on the streets. But I plant that firmly. You can say it's Congress's fault, but I planted firmly on Trump. Trump said after so many of these incidents that he was going to do something about gun control, but each time the NRA came around and changed his mind. And knuckles him under. So I mean, I don't think we can forget his record here for the past three years. And I think we forget that what happened was some reference to this was oblique this morning. What happened in his communications and in the affair in Ukraine was that Ukraine got screwed, and our interests in protecting Ukraine got screwed. The only one who benefited was Russia because of that delay, because of the undermining of Zelensky's credibility, which I'm sure it's still undermined. And so there we go again. The strange relationship with Russia, with Putin, keeps on surfacing all through these three years of his administration. What does Putin have on this man? It must be huge. Everything that happens favors Putin. And we don't know. All I know is Zelensky was elected president to stamp out corruption. And that was his platform, and that's why he won. And now he's embroiled in corruption. That's a sad comment right there. Well, the claim of the Republicans this morning was that he was stamping out corruption by asking Zelensky to have an investigation about corruption. But that's not corruption. It's not corruption in the context of Biden and his son. What's interesting, too, is that the transcript shows no reference to the word corruption or corrupt. The only thing it shows is, can you do me a favor? 2016 and the Bidens. That is a Republican's defense is that he was just merely calling to stamp out corruption. As you said just now, no mention of corruption in that transcript. There was something else that I have been looking up over this last week that I read a few news articles about. And the New York Times put this out in 2018. And it was an interesting bunch of information about how they were doing it. Ukraine was doing an investigation into Manafort, right? Because that's where Manafort's all of his oligarch connections were with the Russian-backed Ukrainian. Well, so right about the same time, and they don't have proof, right? But this is like one of those. When enough hypotheticals start to build up, you go, wait a minute, something's wrong here. There's definitely a red flag on the play. But at any rate, they dropped the investigation into Manafort at the same time, almost identically the same time that they got the first order of Java missiles. That's just too much of a coincidence, if you ask me. Suddenly it's dropped and they had already said yes, we will. They had agreed to cooperate with the Mueller investigation. Then suddenly they changed their minds. Well, you said it this morning and I think clearly he doesn't tell us everything. Not only does Trump lie and provide disinformation, but he doesn't tell us everything. So many things are happening or not happening in the country. So many destructive actions that he's been taking or not taking in the country. And I don't know if we'll ever find out what is really going on in this presidency so much as under the hood. And he takes such steps to keep it secret. Well, there's staff people that know. There's cabinet members that know. And someday their books will be published. Yeah, we got a lot of books already. We have a lot of books. The cells in my library are tilting to one side. One bright thing happened. A national public radio went into the south and they interviewed the members of an evangelical church to see if the evangelicals were as firm on Trump as they had been before. And they found that a good percentage of them, maybe half, had turned and were no longer supporting Trump, especially the African American members of these evangelical churches. So maybe there's a process happening here. Maybe it's eroding. Was this a survey? I'm sorry? Interviews. Interviews. Right. Ad hoc interviews. Anyway, so we're almost out of time. I'm going to ask you guys, you know, what's going to happen with this hearing? We have the smell of it now. There'll be more wrinkles and maybe there'll be some chills and spills and shrills. But we we're in the crucible with them. We can see how it's going on. We can feel how the country is interested. What's going to happen here? Be honest. Well, you know, I don't know. And that's what makes me so afraid because unfortunately, because the Republicans are so entrenched in their thoughts of protecting this man. And I think maybe protecting their own reputations also because they've been so complicit for so long. So now they're lying, their stuff is on the line. That's a good point. And so I'm thinking kind of they're, you know, I don't know what's going to happen. And I'm worried. I'm worried that the Democrats will be too nice. I don't want to see politically correct. I want to see them get right into it with these guys and not, you know, blow for blow, because I don't want to see the very thing that Right now, do you think that the House will vote to impeach? Oh, yes, I do believe that. Okay. And this trial, if you will, it's a trial, even though Trump's not there, and the people around him don't, you know, reject the subpoenas, is kind of a trial, advanced trial for the Senate. So by the time it gets to the Senate, if it ever does, when it ever does, you know, what's going to happen there? What does this mean, you know, to the larger process that we're seeing this? It's a strange thing. It hasn't happened in the past. They've done it in secret. And then they pass it off to the Senate. Senate has a trial. We're having a trial in the House. They're going to have the same trial again. People are going to be really tired. And maybe, you know, they're making such a case that if they wind up making the case again, yet again, you know, I mean, the defense, it's going to rule the day. I think there's going to be some poll taking. And after the House hearings, there'll be some poll taking. And if numbers are shifting away from President Trump, then they're going to do their better effort in the Senate for the trial. If the numbers aren't shifting, this Senate trial may be very quick, very quick matter of fact, and we're done. Because I think it comes down to the constituent. And if the constituent is bothered by this, you know, getting something from the Ukrainians to do his political bidding, his political favor, then that will mean something. If they see this as a break of the rule of law, then that that will be something. If they don't, then this matter is going to be swept under the carpet and it's 2020 election. And it comes down to the constituent. Mandate election. And he's going to feel if he gets through this and gets reelected, he's going to feel that he can claw on any foreign power to get involved in American politics and do really horrendous things. And his successors will have an open channel on that too. So bottom line, I'm concerned too. I'm concerned the country is in trouble. The country has been in trouble for the last three years, but right now it's not working well for the country and I'm hoping that people will see that, that the base will see that, hopefully Congress will see that. Yeah. I'm hoping that they see the difference between the law and breaking the rule of law. And for me, it just comes down to that. And if it means something to them, then they'll spark up to their senators and the senators may shift. Okay. We'll have to keep following this exciting, scary, very Cynthia Sinclair, Tim Epichella. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Jay. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. See you this morning. We'll see you next week. Yes. All right. Aloha.