 For the 10th, 2021, it's Wednesday, it's 11 o'clock. Give me only one thing. Time for Rediscovering America. I'm Tim Appichelle, your host. And the title of today's show is Trump's Second Impeachment Trial, that speaks for itself. With me today is Jay Fiedel, Stephanie Dalton, Winston Welch, and Cynthia Lee Sinclair. Good morning, one and all. Good morning. Thank you for joining us at Rediscovering America. Aloha. Good morning, Tim. Well, if you've been watching the last two days, what really comes to mind is front and center is the difference between looking at something in context versus something out of context. And if you're the GOP and you're looking strictly at the video, and that's the only thing you're really considering as a basis for impeachment and conviction of impeachment of Donald Trump, you're looking at things out of context. If you're looking at the evidence today and things that transpired before January the 6th, and certainly things that Donald Trump said after January 6th, you're looking at things in context and it's a completely different show. Jay, to you, different show or not a different show, in context or out of context? Well, that was my reaction this morning listening on HPR. It was really amazing. I was just blown away by the presentations of the Democrat managers. They were just fabulous. They were completely prepared and they were completely brilliant. And you're right. It was all about context. We may have heard a certain percentage of these facts before, but we never heard them lined up this way. And it shows you that a presentation by somebody who is well-prepared and has his bucks in a row can explain this to you in context is so much more important. The press goes day to day. It's ad hoc. It's like what's happened today. And rarely except maybe in the best media in the country where you find a story which tries to put it together. But they did that this morning and it was shocking. It was way beyond my understanding of this point. And my reaction was, my God, this was much, much worse than I thought. I thought it was pretty bad, but it was much, much worse when you hear it. And it's all authoritative. They're not just blown smoke here. This is what happened. This is really what happened. And what struck me is that I'm listening and maybe 74 million people in the country are listening and would convict Trump in a nanosecond. But what about the Trumpers? Are they listening? And more directly, what about the Republican senators? Are they listening? And the sad part, and we'll see what happens here in a few days. The really sad part of this, the tragic part, it's out of an opera, so tragic, is that those Republican senators are likely not to vote to convict him. And that is disgusting, but that is the light. And under this presentation this morning, I asked myself, could it be that they will change their minds, but then my other self said to me, self, don't abuse yourself, they're not gonna change their mind. Yeah. You know, two things come into my mind is, one is, again, how I forgot so many things that transpired. You just, you know, because day after day for four years, we've just exposed to, you know, tons of information about Donald Trump and the things he says and does and you just can't absorb it all. So I forgot a lot about him, but you're right. The presentation of the evidence was in logical, chronological order. What really kind of got me is, I forgot about Gilbert Sterling. He was the manager of Georgia. He's a general manager. And remember, he got up to the microphones and implored Donald Trump to stop his rhetoric that someone was gonna get hurt, someone was going to die. How prophetic was that? And that's exactly what happened. And then, of course, the story about the school bus and how they tried to chase off the bus and how Donald Trump the next day applauded it with, you know, music and applauded the video of someone trying to run that bus down. So, you know, these things add up and if you forgot about them. Well, you know, one thing about it is we thought, based on the reporting over the article of impeachment, that the case that Democrats were gonna make was essentially limited to what happened on the day of the insurrection. And we didn't think that, you know, Democrats would bring in other things, but they did, and brilliantly. And it fits. It is part of the continuum of what he was doing. It is totally relevant. That's the point of what happened on January 6th. And so they could and should and would, you know, it was absolutely necessary for us to understand what happened. The context, as you say, on January 6th, to understand all these things that led up and all these things afterward, it's a kind of an inquiry into his state of mind. He says, oh, I didn't mean it. I didn't mean to have these people ride on the Capitol. Well, that's a crock. When you start looking at all the things he said to lead up and all the things he approved afterward, he meant it, every bit of it. And he's personally, completely responsible and that is so clear. And the Republicans who vote for him now are really distinguishing themselves in history. Let me go to Mitch McConnell's late night statement yesterday that he is releasing the GOP senators to vote their conscience, regardless if they voted against the constitutionality of this impeachment trial. What do you think, Jay? What do you think is behind that? Is there a political motive or is Mitch McConnell trying to really say it's okay to impeach Donald Trump? I think it's a caricature. I think he wants to straddle the issue. For him, it's not about the right thing and it's not about encouraging them to do the right thing. It's about staying out of harm's way politically for him. He doesn't wanna be the guy who led the charge for Trump, so he backs away. But at the same time, I wouldn't count on him voting against Trump in that vote. I think he's given us lies and misdirection many times and I can't believe all of a sudden he's found honesty. Well, I have to agree with you. Thank you, Jay. Hey, Winston, I'm gonna go to you on something. Bruce Casper is one of the first defense attorney for Donald Trump and not to be an attorney or anything but if you watched his defense of Donald Trump, your job must have hit the table. He meandered, he brought up irrelevant things and then the points that he did try to make that would basically say that this trial was non-constitutional were silly. And one of them being that this was gonna create a division of Americans and it was only gonna add fuel to the fire by impeaching Donald Trump. Why don't we call that being in the constitution as a basis for not proceeding with a trial? He also said that if you were going to impeach Trump, you should have done something when he was in office. Well, that did actually occur. He wasn't impeached as a sitting president. Is this that the trial is taking place later? But also he said that you should have convicted him of a crime while he was president. Well, I guess the thing that it comes to my mind is we've been operating for four years under the DOJ opinion that no sitting president can be charged with a crime. So here he is saying that you should have charged him with a crime. Am I missing something or is Bruce Castor kind of out there on a limb by himself? Yeah, I'm not sure what is, I think it really doesn't honestly, it doesn't matter what he says. It didn't he say he should be arrested too? You know, the arguments were incoherent from all reports, but the reality is this. Stephanie asked last week, who is the base? The base is the half of the nation that voted for Donald Trump. The base is the 70% of Republicans who say they would consider joining the Donald Trump party. The base that was in Newsweek and Vox had a similar one that said something to that effect. Donald Trump apparently has been sitting back and just enjoying this because he knows he's gonna come out of it stronger. Emboldened and just with no rules and no guardrails because the Republican party as we have understood it or that we've been talking about doesn't exist anymore. And I think we need to disabuse ourselves of the notion that it does. That idea that maybe- Well, let me chime in on that point. I mean, what I'm hearing is something very disconcerting that is Donald Trump comes out of this stronger after the evidence of this deplorable insurrection on the government and the democracy of the United States and he comes out stronger. Yes, and that's just it. So there was an interesting article and as regular viewers to this show would know I have encouraged people to tune in to Fox News and give yourself 48 hours watching Fox. Now I would say you gotta move over to one American network or something else because as in Politico came out yesterday I spent 11 hours inside the MAGA bubble. It came out, it was the one American network and it was to show how the completely different source of news that might as well be in another language. This is fueling the 70%. This is fueling the conspiracy theories. The Republican party has decided it's like, what we've heard is that it's decided it's the big tent. It can have Q and on conspiracy theorists and people calling for the murder of Nancy Pelosi inside of the same room as people calling for fiscal conservatism. That doesn't work. And so the Republicans now, the olden days Republicans that we used to understand a principal conservative party, it may be down to 30% of people right now but honestly in the heart of hearts of Americans I think they might just be saying that yeah, it's just still the thumbing of the nose at the system for those 70% who said they would join Trump's party but I think we also have to take it seriously and whatever is gonna remain of the Republican party if it's a rump party or if Donald Trump actually splits the Republican party which is a very real possibility coming out of this. I think we need to plan on it and that this is impeachment theater on some level and I don't disagree with Jay that the Democrats have laid out a brilliant strategy or that this is vital for the nation but it's not the reckoning that we need. It's not accountability. We're not going to get the addressing of the near overthrow of the government that we had a month ago. You know your comment a little while ago Winston was really interesting that you said and I've seen this elsewhere too that this is all, he's gonna be acquitted, okay? This is all gonna make him more powerful. Well, I like to go to the road of the problem that is the message and the messenger. And two weeks ago I would have said, you know it's high time that Joe Biden points someone at the FCC that's gonna crack down on false reporting and basically conspiracy as far as its news format and then something happened. Dominion or I forget the name of the parent company of Dominion Voting Machines started suing Fox News and individual news hosts. And I thought, well, gee, what's more effective either FCC trying to slap you on the hands that you're just putting out false information or is a $2.9 billion lawsuit more effective? And I'm starting to think that a punitive lawsuit maybe is the way that we square things around with those media agencies that are totally irresponsible. So this food for thought, Stephanie may go to you. Can I respond to that food? That you're playing fiscal? I think that is such a good point, Tim. It's so important to see the consequences that can be brought to these people to get them rethinking their situations or preparing to defend them if they can. But I was watching the Fed this morning on Boomburg and Larry Summers, the chief was on talking about our situation and where we are with data and unemployment and all the other factors of the economy. But my point is that the Biden proposal for the stimulus for the new CARES Act is gonna have a major impact on the economy in a positive direction as have had the other stimuli. And so it makes the point that bringing the fiscal data and actions to bear on what's going on in this country. And we need to pay attention to those because those have and the corporate concerns they have more impact now than our politics. Our politicians are just toothless, it's useless. So I'm so excited because that's why I understand better now why the Republicans are pushing back on Biden's package. And of course they want it smaller because this sucker package is gonna hit the rails here and it's gonna be a charge forward for this economy in a way because it's so huge. And it's gonna be- Well, I might take issue with that statement because if Americans are gonna get their $1,400, I'm sorry, but that's maybe a month and a half worth of rent. I don't see how that propels the economy. It's not gonna matter whether it's a thousand or two. That is the minimum, I mean, yes, that's 300 billion or something, but that is just one little part of it. That all of the other support to all of the other topics in that bill are just gonna kick this economy back going. So I'm very hopeful with this fiscal really taking us over the top based on the effects of- Well, if you're a consumer economy, if you're a consumer economy, which we are, I suppose that some of this being an introduction of these funds back into the economy on a consumer basis, you're probably right. However, until we get our manufacturing sector back and the things that make an economy stable and has longevity, that's where it's really at. Your gross national product, low unemployment, those are the staples of a strong economy, not consumer spending. But that's what his point was. And he went over the 20.9 billion or trillion of the GNP last year and the year before was just a little under that. And that this year with the stimulus package, we're gonna do that and better and it's gonna make a really big difference. All right. And it's not just as far as people are concerned individually. And I am so concerned about them, but then we're also not gonna have a bunch of homeless people on the street increased by having our renters kicked out or having property owners go bankrupt because they can't pay their mortgages because their renters aren't there. I mean, that thing was gonna cascade on us. So I can understand better. Yeah, those are two very good points. You're right, because that would trickle that would actually trickle into Wall Street too. Because that means the banks aren't getting paid. So that's why the Republicans are just stop this package and or make it a lot smaller even here. Yeah, no, good point, good point. Hey, Cynthia, good morning. So tell me, how is Donald Trump's defense doing? How are the defense attorneys taking care of Donald Trump because the rumor is Donald Trump was fuming mad last night after he listened to Bruce Caster. What do you think? What is his appointment? But oh my goodness, what? I kept saying, who's side are you on, buddy? Yeah, he's very close to me, but who's side are you on? Because he was saying things that the whole part about arresting him and I knew where he was trying to go, but he sure didn't go there. And then, you know, Shown, he looked like he was on drugs. I honestly, he was making fun. At first I thought maybe he was just nervous. And then you could tell when he wasn't shaking quite so much that he was still, you could hardly follow what he was saying. He was talking so fast. And that's what made me think, dude, lay off the water all. Oh my gosh. And then to make this big show about how we had to pause for the Sabbath for a show, right? And then, so they decide to give in to this big demand that he has made. And then he says, oh, nevermind. What's wrong? Yeah, do you have an explanation for that? Cause I certainly don't either. I mean, I thought it was very, they accommodated his request and then he said, forget it. I don't, I'm not sure I understand that. I don't either. I'll give you a theory on that. Go ahead, Jay. Yeah, Trump told them to reverse himself. Why? But whatever, you know, whatever Trump was ailing Trump, he had his own strategy and he dictates what the lawyers do. And he tries to get these stuges to speak for him. And both of those guys were stuges. It was clear. Did you see Donald Trump's strategy in play yesterday? I think God gave him a special dispensation to skip the Sabbath. You know, he's probably got a hotline. Well, I thought- I think he had a hotline to Trump. And the reality is that both of those guys were hired, you know, like hours before the trial began, they had no preparation. They didn't have command of the law, the facts or the arguments that Democrats are going to put forward. They were a complete disaster by any means. Let me go to that point with you, Cynthia. I want to go to Jay's point. Is there due process? That was one of the criticisms by I think Caster was, hey, we're not getting due process here. Is that a process or a problem of the process or no one wants to work for Donald Trump and he can't get an attorney well in advance and so they can prepare for a case? That's what's happened. He's lost. How many attorneys already that he hired and then they quit because they wouldn't do what he wanted them to do? Well, not only that, but he won't pay him if he doesn't like him. Who would want to work for you? You know, he does like them. He likes Rudy Giuliani. He hasn't paid Rudy Giuliani either. So, you know, and this whole thing about Kevin McCarthy going down to kiss the ring of trying, I don't think he went down there to kiss the ring. I think he went down there to get the story straight before the trial started in ways that weren't going to be over the air since people might be listening. So he just- Well, let me, I don't understand. What story is straight? What do you mean? They were all in this together, all of them. And it was for quite a while. And, you know, watching this again as I watched the guys, the Capitol Police just get massacred, they were hung out to dry. Well, are you alleging that this is a full, a full throated conspiracy? That many of the senators and members of the house were all conspiring for this event to happen? That's a big, that's a bold statement, Cynthia. I know. I've always been making bold statements. And I might be making some sense by now. But, you know, and these are some of the things that make me think that, okay? Not just what's happened in the past, but what's happening now, okay? There are senators, the Republican senators, rude as you can be sitting there, going, reading the newspaper, going through papers like there's something more important than what's happening right now, you know? Not paying attention while they were showing the video. Not paying attention through most of it. I understand they were nonchalant and ignoring it basically, but I'm gonna go back to your point because you raise a good point. Now, this is not just an insurrection of our government, the Capitol and democracy, it's a crime scene. Yes. So if you are correcting it, if it would be proven that there was a conspiracy for this to happen and people died, we're now talking about a criminal conspiracy, not a civil one. Yes, exactly. That's a pretty big deal. So one of the things that makes me think that is that they showed, okay, during the attack, there was people, okay, sorry, they showed pictures of the senators dueling and whatnot during the impeachment, but they were talking about this during the break. And one of the people were talking about it, said they were doing the same thing on January 6th. Okay, that's what, it was Claire McCaskill, that's who it was that said it. So these same senators that, okay, there's a giant mob that's attacking the Capitol, everybody's terrified, except these Republicans who are just sitting there like it's a regular day. Not the one- Okay, all right. They were almost eating something else. Why weren't they scared? That was my big question. Why weren't they scared? Now, if you can answer that for me and it doesn't have anything to do with conspiracy, good on you. But for me, that's, okay. So Jay, you alluded to something on your first comment and that was the effect that this trial will have with all the evidence that's now being presented, a clear case of what happened and who was responsible, yet the impact to the country will be what? I'm not talking about the 74 million Trump followers, Trump voters, but what about the other half of the country? What impacts will this trial have upon them and will it change things more dramatically? Well, there's so many questions built into that, but let me try to go to it directly. Okay, he's going to be acquitted. That's the great likelihood. I mean, it's pie in the sky to think maybe they'll all cross the aisle, but there's no basis for that conclusion. So what happens if he's acquitted is he's emboldened and his base is emboldened. You know, he said that if he was convicted, his base would rise up and there'd be more violence. But we've seen that in the social media also. But likewise, if he's acquitted, his base would be emboldened and he will be emboldened. He'll do the same kinds of thing again. And he will cause them to insurrections and violence and state capitals, what have you, the kinds of things they've been doing all along, but there'll be worse. And I think in 2024, he will run and he'll be president if he keeps on doing all the things he was trying in the past election. And if he wins in 2024, I think we all have to look at foreign countries because it's a statement of, it's an analysis, an examination of how to hold onto power regardless of what the rule of law is. If he wins and there's a chance he would if he's acquitted. In 2024, the country's in the same kind of risk of worse than it was before the election. So I don't know if that answers your question, but I feel I'm not. Let me actually counterpoint on that one that he may be president in 2024 because my theory is the house and the Senate and the president will sign a law that says, before you become a presidential candidate, you'll have to go through a full mental evaluation, Donald Trump will fail. I'm not gonna do that. I said it was a theory. I said it was a theory. I didn't say it was a fact. Well, I think he's gonna begin his campaign against Congress almost immediately. You don't have to wait very long. And there'll be death threats to the Democrats and all the stunts he's built so far to be right back on it. And the proud boys will be right back on it. And you'll have the sporadic violence around the country if he wins. If he loses, there's also a chance that exact same thing will happen. He is the most disruptive, gosh, the worst president imaginable. The founders could never have imagined. Well, maybe Mitch McConnell finally realizes that. Maybe that finally sunk into Mitch McConnell. Who knows? Maybe you're getting too much credit. I think I do. Okay, Jay, thank you. Hey, Winston, same question to you is what is the impact of this trial not only to the 74 million GOP voters that voted for Trump, but also those that didn't vote for the Democrats? What impact will this have on them? And how does that move forward with changes in either how we elect a president or the requirements that we demand from a president? Great question. Look, we've got a sane adult in the White House today. You didn't wake up and check his Twitter feed or anything else. You just knew that you got a man getting the job done, repairing the enormous damage and task reform that this nation faces. The reality is the nation is still entranced by Donald Trump for whatever reasons. Scary article that came out, Washington Post said Republicans came with the 90,000 votes of controlling all of Washington. And I think we need to, they're not Republicans. That's the party, but it's the vehicle of Donald Trump. It's re-trumplicans or it's something else. 90,000 votes, just 43,000 max on some sides in the right counties. We would have ended up with very different results. Christian Science Monitor has, and that one on Washington Post was yesterday, I believe. Christian Science Monitor comes out, was January 6th the end of an era or the start of a new dangerous one. Radical extremism has been rising and has deep roots. This is really important. I think people should read up on that, which leads to the Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin, signing a military stand down memo to address extremism on February 6th. This is in the United States military. And as I thought Slate had an interesting very short article by Fred Kaplan on February 3rd, which called this the GOP's Bolshevik moment, comparing it, which in an unfair way, but it said that the party's no enemies to the right strategy could destroy it from within. Of course, the Bolsheviks had no enemies from the left. I think that what we have to do is realize this is just gonna happen. This trial's a sham. We already know the conclusion. We will have facts for historians, assuming that they aren't purged in some future dystopia. But right now we have to focus on getting the country back into shape. Hopefully that will wake up people. And the people like Mitch McConnell, he may be running under a Democratic ticket in four years or six years because his party doesn't exist anymore. So we don't know what the future will look like, but I think we have to just buckle down, do the work that we can, rebuild the nation and just pray that people wake up and understand the damage that has been done to our nation and that it cannot be repeated again. Well, there's nothing wrong with prayer. Thank you very much, Winston. Hey, we're out of time, but I wanna go around for last comments. Stephanie, I'm sorry that we've run out of time here. Cynthia, same as for you. But last comment, please. Well, yeah, thank you, Tim. It's been a great program. Thanks everybody, I just agree with you. But I think Winston's points are very good and how can we support our leaders to rebuild our structures? I mean, we've got all this gerrymandering. We've got to get the DC in as a state. We've got to change things. That's got to be taken on by Biden once he gets this package through. Certainly he must see that. Maybe it's our responsibility to remind the people that represent us, there's Maisie and Shad. So I mean, we need to work on getting information forward from citizens, yes. All right, okay. Thank you very much. Cynthia, last words. There was an opinion piece in the Washington Post by Adam Kinzinger. And I want to pull a quote out of that for you guys that said, my fellow Republicans, convicting Trump is necessary to save America. That's my closing thought. Thank you very much. Yeah, well put. And he really is an American hero. He knows he's going to bear the slings and arrows of GOP wrath and he doesn't care. He's out for America first, not his party. Thank you. Jay, last words. Yeah, I think that some Republicans will come over, but not 17. So I think we'll have an acquittal. I also think that the notion of conciliation that Joe Biden has been trying to advocate for in the past few weeks, there's a chance of greater conciliation going forward because of this trial. And he may have greater control of the Senate and therefore a lot of the things that happen in the Senate. But on balance, my prediction is that Biden is going to have to get tougher and that's too bad because it would have been better if this had been done on a completely conciliatory basis. And I think we're going to see some bisticuffs from him. And I welcome that because that's the only way you deal with a pathological party. Could agree with you more. Thank you, Jay. Winston, last word. President's Day, 15th. I'm really looking forward to celebrating the current president of the United States and other great presidents who've come before him. But he is our man of the hour. He is leading us out of this morass. And we each have to look within and work with our family and friends on having them understand what we need to do together to recover our nation. Alrighty, I want to thank you, Winston. Winston Welch, Jay Fiedel, Stephanie Dalton, Cynthia Leeson-Claire. Thank you very much again for joining Rediscovering America. I'm Tim Apachele, your host, and we'll see you again Wednesday at 11 o'clock. Aloha and be well.