 It's December the 16th. It's Wednesday. It's 11 o'clock. It's time for Rediscovering America. I'm Tim Apachele, your host. And the title of this show is Trump Winning Big. His pack scores $225 million. You know, a lot has happened since just last week from our last show. A number of signals that would say the party's over for Donald Trump. So, but the moniker that he's losing isn't really, he's not really losing. And the proof is that when you can earn $225 million in less than five weeks, I don't know if that's losing. In my world, I can't make $225 million in a month and one week. So, what's really occurred since the last, our last show? Well, first off, we know that all 50 states have certified the vote. Then what we saw was the Supreme Court finally said no to the challenge of Texas. They said no, we're not even going to entertain the case. It was without standing, without merit. And then we saw the Electoral College as of Monday, excuse me, Electoral College. We saw them vote and confirm that Joe Biden will be the next president. And then, lo and behold, yesterday, Mitch McConnell finally accepted that fact and, you know, acknowledged that Joe Biden will be the president. And last but not least, it probably more important to Donald Trump than anything is his old buddy, Vladimir Putin, acknowledged that Joe Biden will be the next president. So, in this last week, have we heard anything from Donald Trump to address COVID and now the over 300,000 deaths that we have of Americans? Have we heard anything about the horrific hacking of multiple government agencies and standing up to Vladimir Putin and saying, what do you think you're doing? We haven't heard any of that. What have we heard? The election was stolen from me. It was fraudulent. And we will fight on. And in that statement, fighting on means we're going to keep gathering and collecting money from our would-be followers. And so, without further ado, I'd like to introduce our guests. Good morning, everyone. We have Jay Fidel, Winston Welch, Stephanie Dalton, Cynthia Lee Sinclair. Good morning, everyone. Morning, Tim. Morning, Tim. So, JDU, we just had a major break in of all our many, many government computers. They're not necessarily stealing something, but they're up to something and not a word from the president about this. All he's concerned about is we will fight on. And I think the end's coming near to him. He's going, how can I continue to get donations from my followers when all the indications that as I have lost the election and I'm not going to overturn this, and so I can't convince them to keep giving me money? Where does this end for Donald Trump? P.S., just last hour, we had a show on the technical side of that thing with Andrew Lanning, our host on security matters, to examine what happened here. It's not entirely totally clear that Russia did it, but it's likely. And Russia has been doing it for a while. So on the one hand, as you say, Putin is admitting that Biden won the election, but on the other hand, behind his back, he's got legions of programmers and hackers that are attacking American business and especially government. And you know, remember two, three weeks ago, the press was saying, watch out. If you have a sloppy transition, national security takes a hit and people that is nation states like China, Russia take advantage and Russia is taking advantage. And in the meantime, Trump is doing nothing. How do we say nothing? I think nada, ryan, anybody got another word for nothing? Nada, nada, nada, nada, nada. Do you know, do you know that Trump has not had a cabinet meeting since May? The cabinet of the administration of the United States has not met since May. In answering your question, he hasn't done anything about COVID. He hasn't done anything about anything, zero. It's like he's not in office anymore. And meanwhile, the country is suffering for it. I think it's heinous, what's happening now. And Biden is, you know, talking a good game and you know, giving us confidence and hope and all that reality is we have no government now, zero government. How do you say zero, zero government? Nada, nada. All right, thank you, Jay, for your comments. And Winston to you, what do you think more can happen between now and January 20th to further erode our government and set us up for either more computer hacking from our, you know, from foreign, foreign countries or what else could go wrong in the next, you know, 30 days? Well, yeah, I mean, the universe of what if, I think as New Yorkers put out an article recently called Trump's cool attempt isn't over. There's still, this is going to go on after he's out of office. He's said he's going to, he should run a shadow. Someone suggests he run a shadow presidency after he's out and every time that Biden gives that presidential press conference, he'll have his own and blah, blah. And you know, touting that one American network or Newsmax are one of a beat Fox News. And so this is not going away, but hopefully he'll be minimized as time goes by. I'm not sure it will work, but who knows, maybe as the media finds something else to latch onto. What I was heartened about was Mitch McConnell, although I thought Anderson Cooper giving his talk about the slow clap award for him finally acknowledging reality. How Mitch McConnell, like all the Republicans was running scared. And rightly so, their lives have been threatened, literally threatened about a holding rule of law in the Constitution of the United States that supersedes their party. That's the more scary part and things splintering. And if Donald Trump gives some coded or not so coded tweet out, that's a little bit scary too, but the rats are fleeing from the from the ship. Mike Pompeo is now quarantine because his party of 900 last night, I guess they didn't wear masks and he didn't even go. So I'm glad I'm sure his guests were happy that they didn't go either. As we attempt to understand what we've just been through, I think there's a couple of articles that I felt were really interesting. Slate had one called America's Attempting to Exit an Abusive Relationship on December 15. I thought it was quite interesting. And another one that's similar is in Politico came out what the science of addiction tells us about Trump and that your brain on grievances looks like a lot like your brain on drugs. And it's not just a problem for the outgoing president or all of us. And that was came out on the 12. I thought these will be helpful as we move forward to understand what we have just been through, what we are currently going through. It gives us language, it gives us structure, it gives us parallels in other areas of life. So I'm encouraged by these types of articles and new understanding for people that realize that they may have been held hostage to ideas that are utterly insane. And at some point, they will give it up or they won't. But the rest of us got to move on. And I was heartened to see that the Senate leadership is moving forward that indeed they're putting out bills that Donald Trump specifically said he would veto. He's not going to veto them in the end or they will be overridden. So he has asked specifically the senators, he says it would be a nightmare if you sign on to challenge this vote on January 6 because we will all have to go down and say we are voting against Trumpism and if they don't have to do it, they don't have to do it. But in some way, it might just expose things for what they are. But I think at this point, we need more baking soda poured on everything in our nation just to calm everyone down, get behind Biden and Kamala Harris who gave, who were very magnanimous towards McConnell, I have to say. Yeah, I think they left the door open. I don't think they were at all taking them on and criticizing them harshly for being mum for the last five weeks. Okay, thank you, Winston. Hey, Stephanie, I noticed that Donald Trump did pivot a little bit. He shifted. He's now asking his loyal followers whether or not it's a good idea for him to run in 2024. And that pivot then is now shifting from we're going to reverse the vote. I'm going to be retain my presidency and I'm going to be serving two terms. He's pivoting in on that because he's earned his $225 million. And he knows that that message isn't going to sell anymore. So now he can pivot and say, why don't you donate for my 2024 campaign and that inevitability that I'm going to run and be your next president come around 2024. Is that a winning strategy? Will that work? Thank you, Tim. I think, yeah, that's a great question. I believe that it will work for a while. But I think that as the media has mentioned, he will no longer be in what's called the A1 block. A1 block of topics is evidently something they have to run or obligated to run. Well, he's always in it. So he's going to not be in that any longer. And he's going to have to do stuff to get there. So I think that that's a very good sign because it should drop the exposure of him. Meanwhile, as Jay has pointed out, the not a gig is almost over. And I'd like to call that the dereliction of duty gig. Because since, as Jay mentioned, do no cabinet meetings for six months, not to mention other oversight that didn't occur. And now we've had this hack. Gosh knows what it is that they've all got now six months of not of them in our stuff that we didn't do anything to block or even know it was happening. That is such a swipe at US expertise on this. And all having to do with leadership. Certainly, you know, everybody needs to ramp up the game here. But the leadership was not there. No oversight. And especially by him, he's made nothing attention to anything except his own. What point does the lack of leadership be overruled for national security? I mean, just because you don't feel like doing your job doesn't mean you're going to allow our national security to fall by the way, you know, the waste. And you do nothing and to defend not only the Constitution, but defend the security of the nation and its people. At what point is there a Constitution provision to say we're stepping in if you're not willing to do your job? We should well, well, we need to search. Well, let's review that's a very good point. I mean, that's another one to go on the list of after we're passed and into the next administration, things to think about to strengthen our democracy. And I think that his those consequences, I believe, you know, I felt like could be there the whole time, because anytime you're not paying attention. And I don't think he was much paying attention through the whole four years, except on the stuff that he was immediately knee jerking and attending to. And so that's going to have an effect as we all know. I mean, that's not any big surprise to anybody's if you're not paying attention, you're going to get consequences. And here we go. And these are pretty major. And I think that to finish up that this is going to roll out in answer to your first question, this is going to continue to roll out what else has happened that he has no awareness of and had hollowed out agencies and work that didn't get done. And heaven only knows what is going to be presented as undone and left unattended and a mess. And that should help with his later trying to get attention when he's seen as derelict in his right. I see I see one option for him and I'm going to go to Cynthia with this one. Thank you very much, Stephanie. Cynthia, let's play what if let's let's pretend or not pretend, but it could be a reality. Let's say that the two senators in Florida are checkmarked in the Democrat column. And now Joe Biden will enjoy the luxury of a Senate control and a House of Representative control. Does that help Donald Trump? Even more Georgia, don't you? Yes. And what did I say? Florida. Oh, yeah, Georgia. Does that help Donald Trump raise even more money? As he now is going to become the Superman of candidates to right the wrong that took place in Georgia? Oh, I think that's exactly what he's going to do. He's going to use every little nuance that he can to twist this and to keep the narrative going that he was robbed. And that the only way to get America back is through his own machinations. Everyone must follow him. It's the only way to get it back. Where, you know, some people are saying the only way to get it back is through revolution. Now, does he support that? Oh, yes. Do we hear lots of talk of civil war? Oh, yes. Do we need lots of baking soda like Winston says? Oh, yes, we do. You know, even if it's just to talk to one person, to reach out to one person that you know thinks opposite of you and just try to have a discourse with them. Don't expect them to be nice because they won't be. But it's like that, you know, do pull the whole, you know, Michelle Obama thing where when they go low, you go high. And that's what we're going to have to do in order to get the baking soda needed to connect with other people, I think. Okay. Thank you. I think that leads me, your last point leads me to the next question, Jay. We had 126 GOP representatives signed on to overthrow this election in four different states, representing over 20 million voters in their votes. We had 17 other state attorney generals contesting the elections in those four states. What are the ramifications for these people that signed on to that? Other than a letter of chastise from Nancy Pelosi to them, what other provisions are available to say that this was deplorable behavior on their part and it won't be tolerated in the future? And we don't want to see again something like this in the future. What can be done about that? I think we should criticize them right here on Think Tech and continue to do that. I think the media should criticize them forever and ever, especially when it comes time that they're running again. A lot of them will be running in two years. But I think it opens a whole discussion, Tim, that a discussion you and I have had offline. It's about, you know, so Trump will be gone soon. And there'll be more trouble, but ultimately, you know, in January 20th, he'll be gone. And the Trump swamp will have been drained. And what have we got down there? What have we got at the bottom of that swamp? We have, you know, the reveal of some really bad problems in this country. This country is screwed up to a fairly well that 70 million people could vote for an open despot that people would oppose masks, you know, when it saves their lives. They could go to parties when it threatens their health. I was mentioning before the show that the mayor of Dodge City, Kansas, did you say Winston Kansas, resigned today because she had an initiative about encouraging people to wear masks in Dodge City. And they threatened her over it. The skinheads threatened her over it. She said to hell with this, I resign. And so, I mean, we have a real breakdown in this country of rationality, of civic engagement, if you will. Nice idea, Cynthia, that we should all try to talk to the other guy, but lots of luck. We have 70 million people who believe they're right and we're wrong and won't hear any of it. Where do we get to a place like this? We have hundreds of legislators who have their heads in very dark places. How did they get there? That goes to my point, Jay, and that is to coin, you know, Michelle Obama's and Cynthia's point. When they go low, we go high. How high should we go? Because without consequences, what's to prevent the next party from, you know, the next person from doing the exact same thing, but even more destructive. So how high do we go? Well, the first thing is to recognize the problem. And the problem is not just Trump. With Trump's departure, we find the reality. The reality of the country is all screwed up. People are ill-educated. They have no sense of duty to the country. They couldn't care. They think the country doesn't need them and they don't need the country, which is totally wrong. And we have a major problem. It's not just a few Republicans here and there. It's 70 million people. How do you start that? I mean, if we talk about education, as Stephanie often does, we're talking about a generation of kids. We're going to have to retrain against the wishes of some of their families who tell them, no, no, no, you don't need to be retrained. You have to listen to people like Trump. We have to change our mindset for at least 70 million people. Just because he's gone doesn't mean we don't have this problem. We have this problem. And I have confidence in Biden that he will appreciate the problem. I'm not sure how much he can do. The Secretary of Education is a very important pick, but also it's the leadership we've all been talking about for months and years here on this show. And that is somebody's got to get up and say, wait a minute, let's get rational because the alternative is really bleak. Reality is what we have now is going to continue after Trump. And further, the last point I want to make is that 225 million I actually think is significantly more than that. Thank you to the Supreme Court for Citizens United making that all possible. He's got a slush fund as big as your arm. And yeah, he'll use it to pay off Deutsche Bank. He'll use it for all kinds of personal transactional things. No question about that. But he'll also use it to primary Republicans who don't go along with him in the next couple years. And he'll try to set the tone. He'll try to keep them crazy. He'll try to develop leadership by using money. And in this country, money really talks. Money talks politically. Money is power. He'll try to use that to continue his power. And what we've got to do, the media, especially the media is free in that regard. And Biden and any right thinking Democrat, we've got to go high. As you say, we've got to protect our democracy. We cannot be complacent in any way. Trump is there. He'll continue to be there. And even if he drops dead, the fact is you got 70 million people who are also cockamamie. So what are we going to do? We have to preserve this country. It's our collective duty, but it ain't easy. And that's why we have to keep on doing the show. Thank you, Jay. Winston, on the same topic, are there any remedies available to Nancy Pelosi if she wanted to somehow point out these 126 GOP representatives other than a letter of chastisement? Are there any sanctions that could be implemented? Or is there anything that anyone can do to really, other than a news story, is there anything that anything could be done to say that that was not a right thing to do? As I look at how Kamala Harris and Joe Biden and McConnell and what did they call them, the Four Corners got together and sent it majority minority and House majority minority leaders. They're coming together on some sort of COVID relief bill, whether it includes waivers for businesses or whatnot. They know that the entire system is in jeopardy. They know that one man has been driving it and that he is fueling just pouring pumping gasoline on folks and that they're biting. You got 126 representatives who signed on to this. Fortunately, no senators have signed on to this. So that tells you something a little bit that they are sober to some degree and that they have been held hostage by this man as much as anybody else, as much as the Democrats or anyone else. And they are happy to see him go. Mitch McConnell is not stupid. He's stayed in power. He preceded the Donald Hill. He'll survive him too. He is a wily old Kentuckian and he realizes that his party is in mortal danger at this point because it is not it's seen. I saw there was a on Joy, the lady on him, this NBC. She had Steve Schmidt on. Yes, and she had Steve Schmidt on and he was a Republican strategist. Now he's quit the party. He says, I am a Democrat now because I am a single issue voter. And that is, I believe in democracy. And this is the only party of democracy now. And when you get enough people like that, who are Republican strategists saying this party of authoritarianism is not American anymore. New Yorker had a really good article on that call. That's not just Trump's war on democracy anymore. And another one in Washington Post on how the stolen election myth will swallow the GOP. Mitch McConnell and other leaders realized that and they need to reign back. They need to reclaim their party as much as we may disagree with some of the fundamental ideas there. They need to reclaim the American-ness of their party and get back to sanity where we are not held by, I think there's very good parallels to what happened in the Cultural Revolution in China. There was a really interesting piece about the French Revolution and how people tried to deflect blame and how that didn't go well. I am hopeful that at the top we're seeing these adult moves where they're just sidelining and marginalizing Donald Trump and eventually the noise will dry out. And I think that is Cynthia's suggestion writ large. It's our individual outreach to somebody but at that level it's very symbolic when they're sitting down and they're not saying, hey, you guys have been totally screwing with this all along. They're just saying, what are we going to get together, done together right now that we can all agree on and put the other stuff aside in literally another bill or whatever it is. So I'm remaining hopeful but we have serious work to do. Educational, moral, cultural. Stephanie's right. It begins with education. It begins with civics classes. It begins with every ninth grader volunteering to walk little old ladies across the street. Boy scouts picking up trash and all the whole nine yards and us getting back involved. It gets us back to the social contract with America and what this is all about. And you're right. That's right. That's been noticeably absent not only for the last five years but certainly even before then. So good point Winston. I thank you very much. Switching gears slightly. Stephanie, our friend William Barr, well your friend William Barr, he's not our man. You know at the very end he kind of pulled it out of a nosedive. He did two very important things is he didn't announce the investigation of Hunter Biden before the election. He didn't announce that which I think Trump is very, very upset about because that would have helped him. And then the second and the more important thing is he basically, he didn't basically, he said there was no reason to suspect that fraud was evident in this election. And he found no credible evidence of fraud that would make any change in how the election went. So these two items, does he get a pass on those two things that he did? Does that redeem William Barr, the Roy Cohen for the president of the United States? Does that somehow redeem him? That is really an interesting question. And I think, you know, they're looking at it and the major programs and they've also compared his day-no-maw period for from Trump now as with what he did with Bush, President, Dad Bush, Dad Bush. So he stayed with Dad Bush right to the end of the administration and was right there with him the whole time and doing all kinds of things. And evidently, Dad Bush also did some questionable pardoning too. So he's got the goods and the experience to do that. So it's questionable. You're raising all those issues. I mean, what they actually mean is he fired, is he resigning, is he actually getting consequences for not doing Trump's bidding, even though a pro-magnon can understand that Hunter Biden is a kid and not a White House employee or elected to office. So why do we care about him anyway? And then the other one is certainly concerning too. So we'll know more about that. And I think that my understanding is, now that he's gone, we've got very weakened institutions, as my understanding of it, all of our institutions are really down and they're scrambling at the Attorney General's Department of Justice because that's been so hollowed out, except for now they've got somebody stepping up to take Barr's place, which I think might really be Trump's interest, is having the man come up behind Barr because he is even more dire in his purposes than Barr was. And he will be more Roy Cohen for Trump. And the background that he has is really chilling in what he has managed to put through and supported over time. What can we say until we know more, right? We will know more, unfortunately, not to live through the rest of this. Thank you for your perspective. We're running out of time. Cynthia, same question to you. We've got less in a minute. Okay. Well, I don't think he resigned. I don't even think he wrote that effusive letter either in his letter of resignation. I think he was fired. I think that was a very carefully crafted letter of resignation to hide the fact that he was fired because Trump doesn't want it to be known that he was fired because he didn't do the things he wanted him to. At least that's my thought on the whole thing. I'd like to speak to one thing really fast because I know we're almost out of time. We are out of time, but go ahead. Can you mention something about this whole thing with Russia? While this whole new breach into our grid, which is just crazy with all of the state departments, the Treasury, Finance, HHS, I mean, these are big, Forbes 500 people. We don't even have any idea how extensive it is yet, but these are some of the things that Trump has done or not done, but these are the things that he has done that are good for Russia. He sided with Russia over American intel on Russian meddling in the 2016 election, never talked to Putin about reported bounties on US troops, publicly says Russia is part of Crimea, withdrew troops from Syria, fought implementation of Congress-approved sanctions, fought with Western allies and attacked the EU, invited Putin to the G7 and never ever once criticized Putin. Well, Putin got the best deal he could possibly get with Donald Trump. You get the last word on that. This is our last show until 2021. Very in a couple of words. Any wishes to our audience and any wise words for this end of this year? Well, your head down, wear your mask, wash your hands, don't touch your face. Pray for our country, pray for glory, pray for peace, pray for healing and unity to come back to our country. Thank you. Jay, you're next. Any last words for this year and for 2021? Thank you very much, Cynthia. Watch out. Watch out the next few weeks. He's got other things up his sleeve and watch out even after that because he'll do things that will try to bring Biden down. So we have to be strong and we shouldn't be surprised with what kinds of things happen. We have to maintain our vigilance at all times now. Wise words. Thank you, Jay. Winston. You know, I'm hopeful for 2021. The nation stood. The Supreme Court voted unanimously to not even hear the case. There are institutions that have withstood this unprecedented assault and we will show up and repair the other ones over the next four years and rediscover, as per the title of our show, America and what it means to step up the civic duty and find the goodness within each of us and collectively. Thank you. Stephanie? Mahalo, everyone for watching this show, which to us is a joy and hopefully you get some pleasure and information from it. Thank you very much. Don't forget to talk about Coronaville tomorrow, Tim. Tomorrow, 11 o'clock, Thursday, Coronaville. Be there and be informed. I'm Tim Appichella, your host. I'd like to just say have a blessed holiday between now and the end of the year. Be safe, be healthy, and count your blessings because we all have many times we don't take to acknowledge it or even recognize it. So God bless everyone. We'll see you next year, rediscovering America. I'd like to thank Jay Fidale, Winston Welch, Stephanie Dalton, and Cynthia Leeson-Claire. Aloha, everyone. See you next year.