 Well, here we are at Monday Morning Manow. You may say to yourself, it's Tuesday, why are we calling it Monday Morning Manow? Well, it takes a couple of days to catch up with Mondays these days. So by the time we get our heads screwed on, right, it's Tuesday, at least, maybe Wednesday. And this was especially the case this week, because Monday morning was really out of this world. I, myself, was in the Big Island. And I'll tell you my story right after you meet Arby Kelly, who is also a participant in this great effort of ours to bring some kind of commentary to the events of our time. Hi, Jay. It's great to be here. Super excited to be here with you today. Yeah. By the way, we have a lot of shows going on about politicians running for office here in Hawaii. And I think they all ought to be, all these, you know, campaigners ought to be asked, you know, how do you feel about what's going on in Washington and the country? Because I think everybody ought to talk about it. Yeah, they should, and not only be asked peripherally, but they should also be kind of stuck to the answers, because a lot of people will just gloss over, oh, I think we live in interesting times. But when you dig into how they are reacting to immigration issues, how they're reacting to foreign policy issues, how they're reacting to any of the hot topic issues that we're dealing with, that's how you really find out where they lean on the political spectrum and how you can rely on them or not. Yeah, because if you know where somebody stands, fair, you know, it's full disclosure kind of thing, then you can, you know, assign a certain level of credibility or acceptance to what they're saying, or at least understand the context of what they're saying, because everything, everybody is so polarized these days. Not us, though. We're great. We may not agree on everything, but we are not polarized. And at the end of the day, we're still friends, right? Yeah, a civil conversation. That's really all you can ask for. Okay, let's talk about the big one. So there I am. I went to a wedding on the Big Island, and on Monday morning, my wife and I were ready to come back, but I turned on the television after having avoided, you know, this kind of television news over the weekend, and there it was on MSNBC, which is the only news channel in that hotel. And boy, it was hot. And these various commentators and, you know, experts and participants, they were screaming about what happened in Helsinki. And of course, that was followed by a lot of stuff in the press and other television all day long, and he was basically held, you know, held to the fire on that, roasted by every news media that I could find, even by Fox News. Yeah, yeah. And I think the essence of it was that, you know, he didn't seem to acknowledge what his own intelligence agency has found. He didn't seem to acknowledge what seems to be generally understood, namely, the Russia, you know, attempted to meddle in our election, did meddle in our election process, which is sacred under the Constitution. How did they meddle? But the question is whether Trump, you know, admitted that, and he didn't. He didn't admit that at all. He brushed the question aside and began talking about Hillary Clinton and where the emails go. And then he made these statements in favor of Putin, saying he was a nice guy, and painting him in a very positive way. And he made these statements against the, not only against the intelligent community, but against the country, against the country. Tell me more about what he said there. He said it's our fault. Our fault, that. That the relationship with Russia has degraded. And it's our fault, and we have to make up for this. And, you know, but nobody has ever said that we meddled in Russian elections. Nobody has said that. That doesn't mean we haven't. It just means it hasn't been said. Nobody has said it. But I can see where he's coming from on one issue, on the other. Nobody has said it, not a single soul has said it. All right, that's fine. I would say there's zero evidence for that proposition. Well, we spy on our allies. So really. That's not the same thing. This is affirmative meddling. You know, and this is all on the heels of the 12 people who were indicted as agents. And the woman, Maria, I forget the last name, the woman who was indicted as an agent just that same day. It was a big day. So, yeah, I mean, I know we're not going to disagree on exactly the import of this. And Trump himself, after being roasted and toasted by the media around the world, around the world, on everybody, every country, every continent, he said, no, I was a good meeting. And we lived in alternative universes. You could see what kind of meeting it was. It was all on video. And you could make your own mind up about that. But his view of it was different than really everyone else's. And I don't fully understand that. Do you have some kind of analysis to justify how he could find that it was a good meeting when he had taken a position against the United States, blaming the United States? Yeah, absolutely. So we don't know exactly his agenda. So this meeting would have gone exactly according to plan, exactly the way he wanted to. And so for him, it would have been exactly what he wanted to happen. What did he want, do you think? I don't know. What do you think he wanted? Well, I think it was an article recently that he wanted, that every opportunity for him is an opportunity to aggrandize his own power. And somehow this was that, because he dumps on his own agencies. So he belittles them. And in the process increases his own view, his own image in the world. He dumps on Europe. And the same thing increases his own image in the world. I mean, that's an arguable position. That resonates with me. All he wants to do is increase his own power. Well, along with that, I think you also have to keep in mind, we haven't died from nuclear war yet. So it can seem really bad. But I think people are used to just him making an idiot of himself. So I don't think we're going, well, I think for one, like him and Russia, I think that may yet work in our favor. Like, we may all be lambasting him now for appearing to be too friendly. But if, as long as he's on good relationships with Putin, then Putin is less likely to, we instinctively like people who like us. And I don't know if Trump consciously knows this, or if he's just subconsciously knowing it. But if Trump shows that he really, really likes Putin, Putin is more inclined to like him back. Which is actually kind of good news for us. I don't want the KGB to like me. And I don't want Putin to like me. I wouldn't trust him for one nanosecond. Well, you don't have to trust him. Well, I think he's the kind of guy that would stab you in the back, or worse yet, he would put radioactive poison in your cup of tea. He's an assassin. And they're, you know, in my view, my view is that there are very few people in the world who are more monstrous than Putin. So to make him your friend, what do they say, bring your enemies close and make, you know, I don't think that's really going to help us. How you see him as a monster, I think the personality of Putin and the personality of Trump, they are like just slightly offset mirrors on each other. Maybe they're equally monstrous. I think it's possible. Well, I think there's always a monster inside of every one of us. It's just some people stuff that monster down, some people let it free. I want to be clear, I'm not a monster. And I don't think you're a monster either. But I know we each have a monster. I have to dig very deep to find that. There, but you would have to dig deep to find it, but you would eventually find it. I would roll mammals, you know, the mammal theory, you know. Yeah. But there are some mammals that are psychopathic mammals, it's different. That's true. There are some mammals who are psychopathic, but I don't think we'd find Putin as being psychopathic, simply because psychopaths create so much destruction wherever they go, they have to keep moving, because eventually the way they use and abuse people really comes back to them. So I think there's definitely issues going on with these world power leaders. I don't think we can say it's specifically psychopath. This country has had a remarkable history. Many people have died of fighting wars. What they thought the proposition was saving democracy. And they have, at least in two world wars, they have saved democracy. And myself, I'm very patriotic. I can't even explain to you how patriotic. I was in the service and I saw and felt that. And when a guy gets up, tells me the country is wrong, I really get a bad reaction, especially when he tells it to sidle up to our known enemy, an enemy who has done incredible things in Crimea. As I said before, a murderer, and taking advantage of us and meddling in our elections. Our most sacred thing in the world is our elections. That's democracy. Democracy is all about voting. Democracy is all about electing leaders. But I am with you so far. Especially if you're the leader of a country, you shouldn't be apologizing for it. But I'm curious exactly how they meddled. Can we kind of find, how do you feel that Russia meddled specifically? Okay, just talk about the indictments that were brought out a few days ago. And talk about this agent, this woman who was trying to set up meetings with Trump. The indictments, the indictments have been reported in the press verbatim. I mean, you can go read the indictments. And you can see the scenario that the justice or that Mueller has laid out in great detail about they were doing. There were Russian agents with that organization. I forget the acronym for it. KGB? KGB? Or is that not school? G-U-R-L, like that. It sounds like a girl. No, it's not that. And, you know, systematic. It was intentional. It was an official Russian attack on the U.S. and on democracy. And they show you person by person, keyboard by keyboard, official by official. Who did what in order to subvert American voting? And it's really hideous what they did. And the justice or rather Mueller has the goods. He has the names and times. He knows what programs were used. Who sat at the keyboards? It's amazing. You know, it's a tremendous success for American intelligence that we have so much information. Let me also tell you that, theoretically, from a professional point of view, you don't seek an indictment and you don't get an indictment unless you believe and the grand jury believes that you have admissible evidence sufficient to prove that case, that crime, beyond the preponderance of evidence. There's a whole bunch of people out there that believe that this evidence that, you know, feel under oath, I suppose, that this evidence is true and provable and would result, you know, in convictions for all the people involved. Now, just taking that, and it's been in the press in some detail about exactly what has been alleged in these indictments, those guys were working to bring us down. They were working to manipulate our electoral process and debase our electoral process. And it was really bad, really bad. It's, this is the worst statement of what they have done. And it was the official Russian government that did it. I believe all of that. And I think that a lot of people have made important, refined, and professional decisions before that indictment was handed down. So I think it's insidious, nefarious. I think it's criminal. And I think Putin is right in the middle of it. Do you think he would not be, one country attacks another using all those weapons and all that money that he had to be spending in order to attack us? It's not an accident. It's definitely not an accident. I don't know that we can pin it on him, specifically just because... You think it was somebody, a, a runaway, a runaway guy that felt so strong? When we were spying on our allies, we didn't say, oh yes, I, the president, decided to spy on you. It was like... They never admitted. They never admitted. And Putin would never admit it. Exactly. But the fact is that the president is always going to be consulted with something like this. If you want to go make an attempt, I mean, it's got huge diplomatic implications, huge national security implications. The president, in both cases, would know about it. And by the same token, all this about Trump and the meeting and the Maria girl and all that, you think he didn't know what was going on? I think there's another shoe to drop here, and it's very clear that that shoe is that Trump knew. He knew he went out there. He had his family seeking, arranging these meetings, responding to Russian agents who try to make these meetings. Maybe he did make them, did make them with some of his family, right? So, you know, what happens, you think that this happened underfoot and he didn't know that his own campaign was dealing with a foreign nation which had essentially unlimited resources to fight Hillary Clinton? Do you think that Trump didn't know? That's the shoe that's going to drop. And when that shoe drops, we're talking about some serious criminal charges, including treason against your friend, your friend, not my friend. Your friend. Why would you say my friend? Okay, well, I'm not my friend. You believe him. Do I? Do you believe him? Or am I playing devil's advocate? All right, I happen to think there is a lot going on that we don't know. We can connect certain dots, but there are a lot of dots. And so, I think one can easily take the view, oh, it's all just a big misunderstanding. You can also take the view, this is a big conspiracy. And I think there's a lot of room between that spread of dots that we're not going to see how this plays out for a while yet. We're going to take a break. And during the break, we're going to read the indictment. All right, let's do that. And we'll come back and tell you what we found. See you in 10 minutes. Are you tired of sleepwalking through life? Are you dreaming of a healthier, wealthier, happier you? You're not alone. And that's why thousands of people tune in each week to watch RB Kelly on Out of the Comfort Zone Tuesdays at 1 p.m. Make a change. Get the help you need. And stop sucking at life. The Army, we're going to go live. Hello, it's 1 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon, and I'm your host, RB Kelly. Welcome to Out of the Comfort Zone. I'm Jay Fidel, ThinkTech. ThinkTech loves energy. I'm the host of Mina, Marco, and Me, which is Mina Morita, former chair of the PUC, former legislator, and Energy Dynamics, a consulting organization in energy. Marco Mangostorf is the CEO of Provision Solar in Hilo. Every two weeks, we talk about energy, everything about energy. Come around and watch us. We're on at noon on Mondays, every two weeks on ThinkTech. Aloha. You're probably not surprised with this, but RB and I did not finish reading the indictment. But we will. There's more to fall, more shoes to fall on this thing, both on the Maria Agent Woman, who was revealed later, and then the 12 defendants. Chuck Schumer got up in Congress and made a very passionate—that same day. And one of the things that he recommended was that the Russian government, if it was really sincere, would send those people over here, the 12 of them, over here for trial, because this is a real problem. You can't try somebody in absentia so easily. So just as the last set of indictments that was handled down, handed down, you really can't do much with it unless you can set up a trial and find them and introduce that evidence. Right now, it's questionable. In fact, it's unlikely that any of those defendants are going to come here. But Maria is in jail right now. And others—there are quite a few others that Mother has found and indicted and maybe made deals with. The thing is beginning to unravel, you know? Well, and I tell you, we are going to see a giant, fascinating, gripping edge-of-your-seat blockbuster to come, showing this tale and telling all about it. I feel we're going to see several Trump movies. This is Trump's ultimate reality show. And it's every day, all day. But at this time, it's in reality instead of just on TV. You know, if you listen to NPR News and I do, every newscast, every hour and a half hour begins with the same two words— President Trump. And if you look at The New York Times, the first 20 articles are about President Trump. Well, I'm just wondering, what is he going to do after he gets out? I mean, really, what is there— Out of jail, you mean? Out of the president—well, jail may be presidency also. But what is there after that? You know, he's going to be out of the camera's eye unless he either dies in office or does something like consistently crazier, crazier, crazier in the years after his presidency. Montgomery Ward was a big mail-order store back years ago. And in the 50s, it was the guy named Averill, who was the president of Montgomery Ward. And he had done some bad things, and the board of directors relieved him. They fired him as a CEO, and he wouldn't leave. And the news was that the police and the law enforcement agencies came into his office, the CEO's office, and they lifted up his chair and physically carried him out of the building in the chair because he wouldn't leave. I suggest to you, we're going to have the same thing here. Trump loses. He's going to say it was rigged, and he really should have won. Well, what's gotten me really kind of uncertain about what's going on is that I remember when President Obama was president, any time he had any sort of conference with any foreign power, the conservative, all the news I would be hearing would be going on and on about how he was such a bad president, how what he was doing was treasonous to America, how he was letting the country down, apologizing for us. And I heard that in the conservative news over and over and over, which, considering I'm sure you disagree with that, conclusion makes me uncertain about trusting the mainstream view of what's going on with Trump now. I think when people criticized Obama on a regular basis, I thought a lot of the criticism against Obama was because he was black, I think was racial. I don't think you can really bring it down to that. I think when people in Congress that never gave him a moment's peace, he couldn't, you know, it's interesting how this worked out. He couldn't get anything through Congress. So he resorted to executive orders. And that same pattern, you know, that was, in a way, you know, unfortunate because the same pattern as what Trump is doing, you know, rolling the executive orders back and making his own really wild executive order. But if you look at it from a moral point of view, and I'll stop here, there's no equivalency at all. I thought that Obama was not a perfect president. He made some, you know, really gross mistakes. But he was a moral man. And it troubles me that anyone would compare. I mean, between what Obama did and what Trump is doing, Trump doesn't tell the truth. He's not moral. And he attempts every day to confuse us and misalign us and create polarization. And, you know, I tell you, if you talk to anybody looking at the national picture, they will say the country has changed simply for his lack of goodwill, his lack of good faith, his lack of morality. And the country follows that. It's the strangest thing. The country follows the president. Even if he's dead wrong about so many things, he's changing us, RB. Well, I happen to agree, our president does leave the country. But what you were saying about how he's not moral, how he's lying, how he's trying to, like, divide the country, all of that, I was hearing and seeing on a daily basis during the Obama presidency, which is why, even if I happen to agree on a lot of these things, it's hard for me to take it seriously. Because one side of the country gave Obama a really hard time as president. You think it was a good meeting? I haven't done a lot of research about that meeting, so I cannot say whether it was a good meeting or not. Do you find these indictments probative? I haven't done a lot of research on the indictments, because we didn't know what we were talking about. You haven't made up your mind on that. I haven't made up my mind. But you couldn't say that we're right or wrong right now. I couldn't say that. But seeing, knowing what the research I've done on Trump issues in the media in the past, and my own experience, like seeing the controversy for President Obama makes, I'm seeing a lot of parallels about how one side of the political spectrum reacted to President Obama, and now how the other side of the political spectrum is reacting to President Trump. I'm seeing a lot of parallels, and seeing the conservatives like forecasted the end of the world with President Obama, and it didn't happen. So it's hard for me to take seriously this almost forecast. Well, let's look at that. I mean, I think, I just agree with completely, but that's okay. We're still friends. Fact is that Trump is ripping up the world with these tariff wars. He's taking huge risks on our behalf with China. He was doing incredible things by calling Kim Jong-un, Rocket Man, and all that, risking nuclear war. Now he's effectively destroying the EU and our relations with every country there. A lot of people have been effective for a long time. These are our allies. We went through two wars with them, especially the Second World War. We have been there friends and they're trading partners for way beyond my life and yours, and he's ripping it up. He's alienating them left and right. Now, he's getting in bed with Putin, who is their enemy and our enemy. He's ripping up the world. He is denouncing all the relationships you can think of. And there will be a price to pay. We will have to pay for it. We are isolated. We are now being hated by some people and countries. We always have been. Even under Obama, even under Bush. We were loved in Europe. We go to Europe, talk to anybody, how they love Americans. I've heard the opposite story about how Americans have basically always been the joke of Europe. I've heard that from almost every American I've talked to. I've never found that. I've found that they loved Americans. I don't think they love Americans so much anymore because we're unpredictable and we elected Trump or arguably we elected Trump. So, I mean, they're talking him down. Asia is making plans, Xi Jinping's making plans to pull the rug out from under him is doing that right now. The trade wars are ridiculous. They could have been done in some, you know, we could have equalized trade or tried to equalize trade in ways. We're not nearly so aggressive and stupid. And now we are destroying our position as the world leader. We're no longer the world leader. We haven't been a world leader for a... A lot of people say we haven't been a world leader for a long time. Yes, we have. I haven't to agree. We are one of the best countries in the world. I think our... We've been a world leader for a long time. And until his administration started with this, we were the world leader. Now, I suspect we are not. And I, you know, the American dollar has been the reserve currency for the world. With nothing to back it for a long time. And China has been coming for the currency for a long time. A matter of confidence, world confidence in the American dollar. Now, I don't think that confidence exists. And we run the risk of losing the reserve currency. Some other currency will emerge. The world will gravitate to that. This will have a huge effect on our economy. Watch out for our economy. I mean, he's dumping on everybody. And why? I mean, we said power. And we said, you know, distract the public. It runs a parallel to Germany in the 30s. So what you have on Monday is condemnation by people on actually both sides of the aisle, from people in Europe who are grossly affected. I mean, hugely affected by what happened in Helsinki. And we are, now we are the laughing stock, for sure, that we have this albatross hanging around our necks. You know, you go down a list of what people said. The Democrats condemned him. Many Republicans condemned him. Articles that I've seen, one by a fellow named James Farrow in the Atlantic, saying it's time for them to fish and cut bait. If they're, you know, going to support the country or support Trump, because he's made that, he made that the requirement. And the base, that's the most interesting thing. The base says, well, no, we still think he's great. And if he says this was a great meeting, it must have been a great meeting. Well, the base says that, I think, in a lot of reasons, because there's been a lot, there's a lack of trust in the media. So when the media comes in and says, Trump did a bad thing, people look at that and they're like, did Trump do a bad thing, or is the media just causing trouble again? And since they already like Trump, since they already have some evidence in their minds that the media is just doing a bad thing, it's, they're more likely to believe, I'm just going to like, I'm just not going to do anything about it. Because I think the media has done a very, very excellent job of destroying his own reputation, playing Trump's game, and playing into this divisiveness. And I think if our country is not careful, we could easily move into a more Nazi Germany or stylistic era of tragedy and of horror and of pain. And I think the only way that won't happen is if, even as we disagree, we remember to watch out for each other, to be kind to each other and to listen to each other. Because if we do that, if we refuse to let the media, the president, the politics divide us, then we stand a chance no matter what games they're playing. I'm not afraid of you. I'm not afraid of you either. I think you're fabulous. We can get along together. I'm sure we can have this conversation, you know, on an ongoing basis. But I'm really afraid of him. And I think he's doing things as president. He's so much power and he's doing things to scotch the whole Constitution. Our form of government is at risk here. It's always been at risk. This is the biggest daily constitutional crisis imaginable. I never thought this before him. And many, many people, all the people that I know, every lawyer that I know, for example, I can't say everyone, but most of them, 99% of them, are really threatened by the fact that this man is undermining our Constitution on a daily basis. But I heard that about Obama. And our democracy. I heard that about Obama. There's no indication of that whatsoever. I happen to believe we need to get back to the Constitution. I don't think Trump is a good president. I don't think President Obama was a good president. I expect better. And I hope this coming cycle, we get better, better options. We need them. I'm not going to respond to that now. I'm still trying to react to it. Next time we talk, I'll tell you more. That's Arby Kelly. We don't necessarily, we don't agree on everything and we disagree on many things, but we still talk. We'll be back for more.