 It's May the 10th, it's Friday, 11 o'clock, that could mean only one thing. It's Trump week. I'm Tim Apachella. And I'm Cynthia Sinclair. Well, here it is. The title of this show is The Real Constitutional Crisis. And what we want to do is discuss where we are this week with, as you've been watching the news, just a whole host of things that people would say that constitutes a crisis within our Constitution. So without further ado, let's hit it. All right, why don't you give us some of your first points, man? Well, first off, before we go down the points, know that Nancy Pelosi actually said it. He said, I believe we're in a constitutional crisis. Now, Jerry Nadler, who's the chair of the judicial committee, he was the first one to say it. OK, so what leads us to this point? What leads us to this statement? It's a very dramatic statement. We've heard it before. We heard it in 2000 when we had the hanging chads in Florida. And it wasn't clear how this election was going to be resolved. And I distinctly remember the comments about we're in a constitutional crisis. They certainly said it when Richard Nixon didn't want to turn over the tapes. And yet he was being asked to do so. So we've heard it through history. We heard it during the Clinton impeachment. But what makes this one a little more serious and different? There's four actors involved, for one. Well, that's a good point. Yeah. OK, well, let's talk about where it is. Remember, we had a definitive statement that Don McGahn, the attorney for Donald Trump, was not going to be allowed to answer the subpoena to testify in front of Congress. And that's still kind of up in the air because he's no longer working at the White House. So he's a private citizen now. So there's a bit of dialogue and debate going on back and forth if he can even do that, if he even can do that. And he has already waived privilege in the beginning. So I think that's the substantial argument that has to be played out. And that is, at what point does executive privilege begin and stop? So we know that if you talk to the media, we know if you talk to friends. We know you talk to, if you've been called in to testify and you testify about certain things, you have basically waived executive privilege. But now the legal team for Donald Trump says, no, that's not the case. Well, they say, no, that's not the case for everything, which is how we got through this crisis. That's how we got here. I mean, you can come up with the absurd, my new reason why something I won't answer a subpoena or we won't supply someone to testify in front of the committees. And as bizarre as they are, they still have to be challenged legally. Well, and here he claims I have been the most transparent president that ever was. And I think, oh, you lying sack of it. OK, we can't say no six on there. Can't say no six on there, but I understand. I can't do call them a liar. We've got how many? 10,000. Over 10,000, yeah. Over 10,000 lies. And before this show is over, I want to talk about the whopper of the week. OK. But that's later after the end of it. We probably won't have time for it. OK, no, we should make time for a whopper. We should make it. This was a whopper. Well, what else? He doesn't want Barr to testify. He's saying that Barr is the one in charge of whether or not Mueller will testify. That's correct. Well, Barr is already on record as saying, I don't mind letting him testify. That's correct. Now they're trying to walk it all back. Correct. You can't take back video footage. No, you cannot. Just like you can't take back executive, I mean, a waived privilege. You cannot take that back. He's already done it, and it's too late. So they're just stalling for time is my thought. Because the more they can stall, the closer we get to 2020. And the more likely people are not going to be swayed against him unless they see the evidence that's there. Well, and remember, in previous shows, we've said the following. As long as he can tie this issue up and let the Democrats spend all their energy, all their synergy, that's less time for passing bills or getting things done in the house. And at least saying, we did this, and now we're going to send to the Senate, now if it dies in the Senate, we have something to point a finger at. But the question is, can they walk and shoot gum at the same time? Well, they're trying all hard. They can. The problem is, but is the media going to cover both sides of it? I don't know about that. And the media only has enough time and enough, where's the hot story? Is it the bill passage about the Affordable Care Act? Is it the bill about a portion of immigration law that gets passed in the house? Probably not. The relief efforts that just got voted on today, right? Just this morning? Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I thought I'd throw another one in there. You know, that relief one is amazingly important to people. There was a gal from Ohio that stood up and talked about how half of her state is underwater. Is underwater, right? And it won't ever be able to, some stuff, schools won't open, hospitals won't open. They need that money. But because Puerto Rico's in there, not one single Republican voted for it. I understand. But the point I'm trying to make is the media, no. No, but that's exactly the stuff that is getting looked at and getting done. But are we hearing that much about it? No, because all the oxygen in the room is being sucked out about the term of impeachment or the term of constitutional crisis. Or, you know, what constitutes this obstinance to following the rule of law? So all the media attention's on that, and Donald Trump loves that. Because that's this less time spent on informing the American public that things actually are getting done. Well, this morning, the only reason I got to see that is because I go to C-SPAN, and they actually show the House of Representatives and what they're doing. So that's how I see it. Because, yeah, the news does, they have one little ticker tape thing across the bottom, and that's it. They're all talking about this contempt. And so they've charged Barr with contempt of Congress. But it's not the official vote yet, because it hasn't been the whole House voted on it. Just the committee voted on it. But now all the opponents, all they're talking about is what are they going to do about it? Now they've got this contempt. What are they going to do? It's fines or jail. I mean, they were even talking about some jail room or something that's in the basement of the Capitol building. And there is one that used to be there. It's supposed to hold Washington's casket and corpse and stuff. But they've changed it, of course, over the years since then, and it turned into a jail for a little while. And now it just sits empty. So let's ask this question. OK, well, let's do another item. Is the refusal or basically the orders to Mnuchin not to release my IRS returns to anyone? Even though the language looks pretty resolute, absolute, shall doesn't mean maybe or possibly shall mean shall. So the bottom line is, so we have a number of these things that are just carte blanche refusals to comply. To me, it looks like obstruction of justice. It is obstruction of justice. And Nancy Pelosi even said he's self. He is self-deceiving. Owing himself into this whole impeachment thing, self-improvement. Self-improvement was the term. That was the term she used, right? And he is because he's thinking about how, when Clinton was under impeachment, his approval ratings went up. So that's what he's thinking will happen for him. Well, we have some numbers about that. We'll share that in a bit. But the question is, are we truly in a constitutional crisis? Oh, gosh, yes. Because there is no doubt in my mind anyway. And most of the people that are professionals that do that for a living, I'm just a citizen journalist. But in my mind, absolutely it is. And then when all the experts say the same thing, then I say, yes, it's true. We are. Well, let's look at over 800 experts. 800 of them. Yeah, it was 700. Now it's over 800 that have signed the letter. These are former prosecuting attorneys. Oh, I have one of their statements. And you can come up with a statement. But isn't it amazing that just two weeks ago, Jay Fidel was sitting in this chair talking about the lack of how attorneys were not getting engaged with some of the obstruction of justice, ignoring the rule of law that gets us to this constitutional crisis. Only two weeks ago, Jay was very, very adamant that they needed to stand up. And two weeks later, we have 800 former prosecuting attorneys. And this is not something they wanted to do. This makes them very uncomfortable. Some of them still have future careers in various agencies. And so they took it upon themselves. They stood up. They stood tall. They signed a letter basically saying if this was an individual citizen, they would have been incarcerated by now. That's the quote I have. OK, please go ahead. It says, each of us believes, each of us, all 800 of them, each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in special counsel Robert Mueller's report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel Policy against inditing a sitting president, would result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice end quote. So that says it all right there. If he wasn't the president, and I have an issue with this, the only reason they can't indict a sitting president is because somebody wrote a memo. An opinion. A memo. That's an opinion. So why are we stuck by that dumb memo? That just really bothers me a lot. That should come up in part of the court hearings coming up. I don't think so. I'll go rail at the judge, no, I'm kidding. Yeah. No, 800, you know, there it is. 800 of them, yeah. Yeah. I don't know if the Bar Association was part of that, letter writing campaign or not, but. It's an official DOJ alumni statement is what that is too. So it's not just lawyers. It's alumni, Department of Justice alumni. So this gets at the point of people being frayed to stand up and testify about things. They're afraid to basically call the emperor's clothes. The emperor is naked. This is happening. Now, the question is, is there enough behind this where citizens start to realize it's time to call my senator, and it's time to call my house representative, and more importantly, not in the blue states, but people in the red states, because that's where it makes a difference. And so this question is, will this be the first crack, if you will, in the vase and to what degree does that crack get a little bit wider? I hope so. We make jokes about people drinking the Kool-Aid. It's like, wow, they drank the Kool-Aid, because you can tell they're so far down that road. And I was watching an interview of Comey, James Comey last night on CNN. And it was just so eloquent, and reserved, and relatable. And he talks about how it's such a subtle shift. I can't remember. Was it Anderson Cooper, I think, that was doing the interview? And he asked him, you know how? You were there. You stayed for a little while, even. And he goes, you know, and he described that first dinner. And there was a lie. And he knew it was a lie. And he didn't say anything. And then by the end of the dinner, there was a couple more lives that had come out. And he didn't say anything. So then after the dinner, he's feeling like, oh my gosh, now I'm kind of complicit to those lies, because I didn't say something. I had to go and write a memo about it. That's why he wrote it down, exactly. And so it continued that way until he could take no more. So it was interesting that he more or less implied that he also was going to complicit. Yes, he was getting there. He was going down that same road that he has watched all the other Republicans in the Senate and in the House do, and people that are Trump supporters. And so pretty soon, you no longer, you know, you kind of like gloss it over. You gloss over the lies. And then this was the most dramatic thing that he says. And then Trump eats your soul. That's what he said. Because you're so invested now, you're so far down, you've compromised all of your moral, you know, everything's, and that's it. You're done. Well, let's talk about a little poll that was taken here recently. I believe this was on April 26th. This was the ABC Washington Post survey. Let's just talk about approval levels. 39% approve of Donald Trump right now. 54% are disapproving of his work. Clinton at the time was 59% approval, 38% disapproval. So quite a shift there. But if you look at that approval number, it's always between 38 and 41, 42. Right, he has never been up to 4. He has even been to 45. Never shifts. The question was asked, the question was asked, did Trump interfere in this investigation? 47% said yes, 41% said no. Now remember, every survey poll, you're probably plus or minus one or 2%, maybe sometimes high as 3%, either way. Right. You're like margin of error. Right. Let's look at the question about impeachment. For Donald Trump, 37% yes, 56% no. That number is actually changing though. That was much lower before. Now that's for impeachment. Right. With Republicans, you mean? This was just general, not just Republicans, this general nationwide type survey. Only 37, because yeah, I thought it was up to 40 something and it seemed like it was pretty balanced. That it's about half and half. Kind of like we've been looking at half and half. You know, I just did a paper for school. I was taking a class in communications and technology. And I did a whole thing on algorithms and polls is where the main place where these algorithms are being used, Cambridge Analytica and all of these guys and the polls and how they feed the information into the algorithm is really kind of scary. They're not just looking at people, what they like, what you like to buy, what you like to eat, where you go. They're pinpointing your personality even. They know if you're an introvert or an extrovert. They can with 89% accuracy, they can tell if you're a Democrat or a Republican without knowing that. Well, let's do this. It's time for a break. Let's come back to this topic. I'm Tim Apachele with Cynthia Sinclair and we'll be right back. Aloha, I'm Wendy Lowe and I'm coming to you every other Tuesday at two o'clock live from Think Tech Hawaii. And on our show, we talk about taking your health back. And what does that mean? It means mind, body, and soul. Anything you can do that makes your body healthier and happier is what we're gonna be talking about. Whether it's spiritual health, mental health, fascia health, beautiful smile health, whatever it means, let's take healthy back. Aloha. Hey, Aloha, my name is Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of Security Matters Hawaii airing every Wednesday here on Think Tech Hawaii live from the studios. I'll bring you guests. I'll bring you information about the things in security that matter to keeping you safe, your coworkers safe, your family safe, to keep our community safe. We wanna teach you about those things in our industry that may be a little outside of your experience. So please join me because Security Matters, Aloha. Welcome back. I'm Tim Apachele with Cynthia Sinclair and we're talking about constitutional crisis on Trump week. So let's get back to it. Let's talk about Jerry Nadler. He's the chair of the judicial committee. And what he is basically saying is that by denying all requests for the unredacted Mueller report by refusing McGann or, you know, or anyone to come and testify, that denies the basic law of the land. And it's also separating the powers of Congress and what they are designed to do. Thank you. That's the big thing that I was gonna say to you. And that's what makes it a constitutional crisis, right? Is because it is absolutely 100% against what the Constitution says. It's illegal. What are you doing? Well, here's what Nadler said. I like this quote. We have to vindicate the rule of law and we have to make sure no president is above the law, no American is above the law, no president is a dictator. And when you get to this point where you're completely ignoring any all requests from Congress or these committees, you're basically folding your arms and saying, I am an executive and Congress does not count in this matter. And that is a constitutional crisis. Absolutely. It takes all the power away from Congress. Congress has no power. But there's this one guy in the intelligence committee, right? Burr, I believe, who's your Republican? Richard. Yeah, the Republican chair of the intelligence committee who has subpoenaed Trump Jr, which I thought was pretty funny. And we're gonna get to that. Okay, sorry. No, no, no, it's all right because this is, not only did we have the 800 signatures from DOJ. Right. Okay, we also have a Republican who is a fairly, very, very important part of the Senate and he's Republican and he said, no, we are going to hold Donald Trump Jr accountable to the statements he made before this committee versus what we've found to be in the Mueller report. Right, exactly. Okay, and he is taking flak for it. Yeah, he is. And I'm sure I can imagine just how many calls and how many people are bumping into him in the halls of the Senate and really laying it to him. But this is where, again, the crack in the vase is this further evidence that we've gone far enough. And I don't know what the answer is to that. I don't need to, but I can just hope, right? That's all we can do is hope. We can hope that the Democrats will continue to move forward and not drag their feet because I believe that every day we wait, Trump gets more powerful. There it is. And that goes into the quote from Jerry Nathar on the following, lawless administration is a tyrannical administration. Only recourse is to cite the attorney general or contempt. Right. And then from there, you, that's how you, you have to go through the recipe of our constitution. Right. Now, Jerry Nathar said on an interview just recently, yeah, this is not gonna happen overnight. This could take weeks or months. So long as it doesn't take too long. And that's the part that worries me. And that's why I think that Trump is just doing this. He doesn't actually expect to prevail in any of these situations. I think he's just doing it so that he can stall for time. Yeah. And I know this is not probably on the list, but did you know that Giuliani is going to the Ukraine to try to dig up dirt and to try to prompt the Ukrainians to open an investigation against Biden? I heard something of that nature. What? Dealing with a foreign agency to help your campaign again. Again, yeah. Well, we probably wouldn't have time to talk about the candidates, which we were hoping to do because there's just so much here. I do want to talk about Donald Trump Jr. though and the fact that he has now been issued a subpoena to testify. And did you happen to see Donald Trump's response? No, I didn't know. Well, basically he said, I'm shocked and surprised. He's been so transparent on everything. Oh, right. Okay. And he's cooperated beyond the 20 hours of testimony. Well, that's not really true. But so what are the implications of Donald Trump Jr. going before the Senate and testifying? Well, he certainly has his Fifth Amendment rights. Right. And he most likely will go ahead and exercise it. Oh, yeah. Now there's discussion about, if he's going to exercise his Fifth, then why bother subpoena and calling him in in the first place? And that I take issue to, that degree of discussion because that is the power of subpoena. Whether he wants to sit in that chair in front of 35 different cameras on 35 different networks, that's fine. And if he wants to sit there and evoke his Fifth Amendment right, I don't have a problem with that. But you just don't blow it off and say, well, my attorney's going to tell me to evoke the Fifth. So why even show up? Well, let's think what the beginnings of the conversation about impeachment were all about is, well, we can't actually make it stick because we don't have the Senate anyway. So why even bother? And I'm thinking, the biggest thing about doing that is that it opens the door for them to be able to have better access to all of the information and the investigations that they want. Right. Now, Vice Chair Blumenthal basically said, okay, if Don Jr. fails to show up, then we should put him in jail. Yeah. And it's no different if any other citizen was asked to. It's called contempt. That's right. It's called contempt of Congress. That's right. And so we'll see. I suspect he will show up, but that's just my prediction. I don't think they'll just say, well, he's going to invoke his Fifth. Here's a letter from the attorney to Richard Burr and he's not going to show up because he couldn't invoke the Fifth. We'll see how that goes. Right. Well, that's kind of like the discussion they were having too in taking the vote to hold a bar in contempt was that, well, what are we going to do about it? And what good is it going to do? But they did it. And I'm so glad that Natalie really pushed that through so that they would continue. I mean, I think the main vote happens on Tuesday. Yeah, so we'll see. Right. News at 11. News at 11. Okay, so. News at 11 next week, you guys. Let's talk about something called the China trade war. The talks fell apart today. This morning, yes, they fell apart. Now, any guesses why the stock market didn't just plummet or do you think they've already priced it in? Well, I think it's been going down, right, for the last week. I mean, that might be the pricing in of failed talks. If you're a farmer. I think it's still coming. If you're a farmer in the Midwest. Oh, you're screwed. You just have to be devastated. You're screwed. Your life is over. You just lost your whole livelihood because of this. Not to mention the fact that we as taxpayers are going to be paying more money for all of the goods that we get from China. And there's a lot of them. Well, they estimate right now that with a family of four, the average increase in everything you're gonna pay for as a direct result of this. I guess that too, yep. This trade war is $767. And potentially going to cost 934,000 U.S. jobs. Now, if this goes beyond May 18th, this thing also could hit the auto sector. Right. And so that's gonna have even a larger impact on potential jobs loss. And so, are we playing a game of chicken here? Is Donald Trump- We shouldn't be because China, what doesn't China hold most of our debt also? Yes, they do. Okay. Not most of it. Not most of it. They hold a lot of it. A lot of it. I'd say maybe 15, 20%. That's a lot. Yeah. And they vow to retaliate strongly. Well- That's what they've said. China tends to want to influence rather than go into a direct conflict. You could see subtle actions such as, if you're a farmer and you ship your goods, your produce to China, what's to say that those goods don't get off the boat. They just sit there and rot. Right. You know, that's a passive aggressive way of engaging in this war. Right. Well, here Trump says, oh, but it's gonna work out wonderful because now they'll be able to sell their stuff to other people. And even people here in America, we can even use it to feed the homeless. Suddenly, hungry. And I thought he can't be for real when he's saying this. China will sell it to other people. Other countries. Other countries. Those people. Yeah. But we won't get the money. You know, American farmer, you just lost your place in line. Please come with us. Yeah, exactly. And show you the door. Well, we're gonna let someone else take your spot. And now they're gonna be our preferred country vendor that we are going to, you know, purchase from. It's not something we'll ever get back. Not easily. And not, I mean, a lot of the economists that I saw being interviewed this week were just like, it's, you know, if that goes, it's never gonna come back because once they've already put their, you know, market with someone else, they're not gonna come back to America, especially because they're mad at us. Right. Right? So they're definitely not gonna come back. And they're going to do other things also. That's what they've said anyway. They made a direct statement saying that they will retaliate. Of course they will. Well, they've already increased it by 60 billion, their portion of tariffs. But the bottom line is, there'll be other ways of retaliating. And you may not see that immediately in the economy, but people will feel it in one fashion or form. So I think the big thing is, you know, when you go from a 10% on 200 billion to a 25%, that is a significant. That is a very significant. And again, that's not to China, that's to the importers. And of course the importers are gonna pass that right onto the consumer. Right. So Walmart shoppers, get ready. Yep. You know, that little guy is always running around, ripping the things down. He's gonna be running around. Yeah, that's right. Stopping them back up again. Right. Yeah. All right. Well, we're out of time, Cynthia. Oh my gosh. Thank you. Time goes so fast. Thank you, Tim. I know. Oh my gosh. Since you have Sinclair, this is Trump week. We'll see you next week at 11 o'clock. Aloha. Aloha.