 It's June the 26th in 2022. It's Wednesday. It's 11 o'clock. That can mean only one thing. Time for American Issues. Take one. I'm Tim Appatelli, your host. And today's title is January 6th hearings. An election officials pressured. Before I start, I'd like to just do a quick, just a quick rundown of a few good GOP. Liz Cheney, House Representative. Adam Kiesinger, House Representative. Brent Rathensberger, Georgia Secretary of State. Rusty Bowers, Arizona, Speaker of the House. Gabe Sterling, Georgia Deputy of Elections. These are a few men that did something that we haven't seen a lot of. And that is to honor their oath to office versus their loyalty to an individual. In fact, Rusty Bowers really at yesterday's hearing really set the tone when he said the following. It's a tenet of my faith that the Constitution is divinely inspired, my most basic foundational belief. So far, to ask me to do something because just to ask me to do something just because you asked me is foreign to my very being. I will not do it. So the GOP in the Senate, the GOP in the House of Representatives, I don't know what religion they subscribe to or of any, but they can use a whole lot more of Mr. Bowers' religion. Because that was the power of yesterday's hearing was those individuals that followed their oath to office and they buried a lot of pain and agony to do so, a lot of harassment from Donald Trump and his minions. So with that, I'd like to go and introduce our guests. Today we have Jay Fiedel, my co-host. We have Winston Welch and Cynthia Lee Sinclair. It's a reunion, you guys. Welcome. Nice to be here, Jim. Yeah. Hey, Jay, we had some amazing testimony yesterday, I thought. And I think what really I thought some of the important points were when Rossensberger basically refuted all the points that Donald Trump is trying to make about a stolen election. In his testimony, he talked about Donald Trump's insistence that 18-year-olds, 66,000 of them voted that were under 18, that was refuted by the number of zero, that the registered, non-registered voters that voted, 2,423. That was refuted to zero. The claims that dead people voted, over 10,315 dead voters, dead people voted. Rossensberger said, no, there was four. They were absentee ballots they came in after someone had died. Donald Trump's big claim is that 18,000 votes were found in a suitcase underneath a vote tabulator's desk. That was discussed, and it was refuted. So here's the question. To what value did the select committee bring on Rossensberger and his ability to refute the big lie? Was it, did it make the mark? Did it hit his point? No, it wasn't him that talked about the mint. Do you remember the mint? Yes. That was my personal favorite for the whole day. It was that woman who was supposed to be a schemer, a professional scammer that Trump called her. And what is that thing in your hand? Is it a bus ride? A USB drive? No, it's a mint. It's my mint. I mean, these statements that Trump made was so ridiculous. And Rossensberger was a good example of how ridiculous they were. But all of the witnesses, all Republicans, or non-denominational yesterday, election officials, were really powerful. But where I get ducked, though, and I'll tell you now, is that I'm not sure that the base is listening. And I want to cover that in take two tomorrow. But suffice to say that they were powerful. They were right. They were leaders in their own way. They were public officials that would, beyond criticism of any kind, they touched your heart in so many ways. But query, how much difference does it make to the people who are Trumpers and who are going to follow him no matter what? It was a very powerful day. And I look forward to more powerful days like that in the hope that ultimately it does reach the base. And I say, this was worth watching. I was not watching these shows while I was traveling. I was not able to watch MSNBC or CNN. But I did watch when I came back. And wow, it was a tremendous experience just to see that hearing. So how would you rate the testimony of Brent Rossensberger? 10. 10? He was lovable. They were all lovable. They were all powerful. They were all honest, God-fearing, trustworthy, patriotic people. Did it help that they were all GOP and there wasn't a Democrat to be heard from? It should have helped, but I have a feeling that the people on the GOP QAnon side are going to say that they were, what, rhinos. That they were not really GOP. On the other hand, it should have helped, at least for a lot of people, yeah. OK, thank you. Hey, Winston, what were your impressions of yesterday's testimony? Well, what stood out for you? Oh, Lady Ruby and her daughter. Absolutely. As well as the fellow from Arizona, when he was tearing up, I just thought, boy, this guy's going to crack because he's talking about the extremely personal of these vigilantes surrounding his house while his daughter was actively dying and how traumatic that was for him. Yes, and when it comes down, as Adam Schiff laid out, that the pressure that was exerted on these people from the highest levels down to city officials, county officials that just simply are there to count the vote. And then you get doxed by the president of the United States, as Lady Ruby said. He's supposed to be the president of all the people, not to sick his dogs after one person in the country. And just how she was a powerful speaker about what she'd been through, about her being the FBI said, you're not safe in your home. And about her daughter saying, hey, they burst into my grandmother's house and looking for me and she's a traitor and all this. And she said, I just wish I hadn't put my family in that situation by being a government worker. This is really powerful because we can all identify. We may not like standing in the DMV or going down to City Hall to get our ballot. And we might think, OK, whatever. But those people absolutely are fundamental to the functioning of our society that stand up, that poll workers that volunteer to vote. This is every man and every woman in this country. And what was so powerful was that this very personal story about this woman saying, I can't even go to the supermarket anymore. Her mom says, I've lost my name. I've lost my reputation. My neighbors are terrorized by people. That was really impactful for me. Of course, the testimony. And that's where, when the fellow from the Secretary of State of, I want to say the Secretary of State of Arizona, but you know the, and tell me. Georgia. No, the one from Arizona. Oh, he was Rusty Bowers. My Mr. Bowers, Russell Bowers, his was also, and then I have to put a little caveat on that, because at the end of the day, he said he'd still vote for Donald Trump, as would Bill Barr and as would some of these other folks. But I was also interested to see the religious aspects that sort of brought in that Liz Cheney says, the Constitution was divinely inspired. And he said it as well. And of course, there's so help you God. But that's OK because that reaches the people that feel like, OK, maybe there was some, you know, these people are swearing, they have a higher power that they're affirming this too. And so that was also very. Well, wasn't that a kind of a sub-message to every American that when you enter the office, be it state, city, federal, that this oath to office is an oath to the country and not to the loyalty of an individual? I mean, wasn't that a real message that we haven't heard for in a long time? Yeah, I mean, it's what it's all about. Is they're just saying these folks were loyal to the ideals of America, to the Constitution, to the oath they took. And I think you said we haven't seen a lot of that in the beginning, but I think we've seen a huge amount of it. And we saw a few people very concerted, focused, deliberate effort to have a coup. In this country, and it was thwarted, but it's still kind of slow moving slide down the, you know, that we're still on. And so this is what these hearings are about. They're not only to tell the story of what happened truly without hyperbole, without hysteria, but also to let us know these are ongoing things. The mention about New Mexico and the fellow who was arrested in the Capitol on January 6th, refusing to count the ballots in that county in New Mexico. This is a, and we didn't talk about this before because it's been a while, but when we had the clear and present danger that was mentioned by Mr. Judge Ludig. So, I mean, I thought that was also really powerful. He's a godfather, too. Okay. Hey, thank you, Winston. Cynthia, I would like to go to you for the exact same question. What popped out in this hearings that really struck your heart or your mind, or both? I cried several times throughout yesterday's hearing, which was unusual for me to do is I get mad at these guys. But Bowers, you know, of course touched my heart when he teared up, he sort of, you know, welled up before he started to talk about how precious and sacred the Constitution is to him. That really touched me. And when it came to Brad Raffensperger, because I just sort of held that guy on the pedestal, he saved our democracy of what he did in Georgia, standing up in the face of just massive threats against him and his family. And all of them against their families and them to still continue to stand up for what's right. And Raffensperger's humility is what struck me. He just was doing his job. That's what he says, I was just doing my job. And that's all. And I thought that was very, just very humble and very endearing because it wasn't like, see, I'm here for a big show. Look at what a hero I am, you know, kind of thing, which almost came across with powers. But with Raffensperger, it was just, you know, I was just doing my job. And that was really powerful for me. And then when I heard, and I can't remember her name, the one that spoke, the daughter that spoke, Shay, this is her personal name. Jay Moss. Shay Moss, thank you. When she said she doesn't even want to go to the grocery store anymore. She doesn't go anywhere. She doesn't even want people to say her name. She's afraid to go out in public with her mother because she's afraid that her mom might call out her name and someone will know who she is. She doesn't give out her business cards or, you know, her whole life has been upended completely because of a bunch of lies. And that to me is just, how can anyone not be moved by that? And then the after, you know, shows, I always look at all the different channels. What's Fox saying? They didn't even show it, you know. What's MSNBC saying? What's CNN saying? What are the nightly news stations here locally in Hawaii saying? And I was shocked by what I heard on CNN. Anderson Cooper was having an after hearing show. He had a CNN legal analyst, Elliot Williams, who's kind of a, no offense to the guy, but he's kind of a wimpy guy. He's not real forceful, you know. He's a legal analyst. And then Gloria Borgher on the other side has been a political analyst for CNN since 2007. Then it turns out there was two other people that were on this panel, both of them previous White House Trump supporters who have not seen the light. They do not buy into the truth of what's being laid out before us and sat there. And the thing that surprised me is I thought I still, I was walking around my house so I didn't know what channel I was still on. I thought, sure, what? I'd leave it on Fox. Did I go over to see what's going on? Because I'm listening to this David Urban guy and Alyssa Farah Griffin go back and forth and back and forth without any interruption as they praise Trump. And I'm thinking, this is CNN. What is going on here? Well, I told you before the show that you were probably in a parallel universe. Yeah. All right. I got a lot of questions. I'm gonna try to get a lot of these through. Okay, Jay, hey, you know, a lot of times when people conduct criminal activity, they try to keep two arms lengths away from giving orders. They wanna make sure that they're not directly involved with doing something illegal. When we watched this hearing and we heard Donald Trump on the phone, particularly with the Secretary of State of Georgia and his call to him about looking for the 11,780 votes and then the call to Francis Watson, the supervisor of audits, you know, praising her and how she has the most important job in the world. And she implying that she better get it right. Is that the point where Donald Trump now enters into a criminal risk, criminal prosecution, because he actually now drew a direct line from himself to the activities? You know, a number of the speakers yesterday in responding, commenting on the witnesses in the hearing who were kind of on the fence about that. Even Adam Schiff was, you know, not really unequivocal about it. And I said to myself, gee, I can be unequivocal. I can tell you that I feel that the elements of a crime and multiple crimes have been met against Donald Trump. That was my opinion going forward. And I think maybe a lot of the people who didn't wanna give opinions on that question really feel that yes, maybe later, but that's how they feel that Donald Trump had committed various felonies. And so if you ask me whether it's him, I think clearly he was implicated. And if you ask me whether that evidence, and I don't think there's any contravening evidence, that evidence proved beyond a reasonable doubt for me that he is guilty of various federal crimes and possibly treason. You know, everybody says, oh, you know, he tried to bring the election down. Okay, but let me be more expressive about it. He tried to bring the government down. He tried to bring the United States down. He tried to bring the notion of peaceful transfer of power down. Yeah. That's treason. Well, you know, I think the prosecutions that actually have occurred for those that did storm the Capitol, I think most of those convictions have been sedition or conspiracy of sedition. Any act that's trying to bring down the government. So good point. I mean, these are serious charges and it'll be a question whether the DOJ picks up on them or not. You know, I listened to these calls. He was particularly the one with Raffensperger. That was a 67-minute phone call. And I'm reminded of the Nixon tapes and Watergate and whether or not these calls kind of follow that parallel track. And the one thing, I mean, I knew that Brent Raffensperger, he actually recorded that because he knew that Donald Trump was gonna ask him to do something illegal. So on his own, he and I think he had someone else on the line, one of his attorneys on the line. So that phone call was preserved. But I don't know how the phone call between Francis Watson was preserved. Maybe I'm missing something, but she was the supervisor of audits. And we listened to Donald Trump really laid on thick to her. How did that phone call get recorded in your imagination? In my imagination, either she did it or she tipped somebody else off and he or she did it. The bottom line though is they got the goods. How much more do we need to reach beyond a reasonable doubt? How much more does Merrick Garland need to start a grand jury and seek indictment for this? I don't know what we're waiting for. November is coming up. And if the House and the Senate turn to Republican in November, this kind of committee will not be able to function. And all of what we're talking about today will be quickly forgotten. I think we're in a crisis that we don't realize how serious it is. The other thing, let me point out one other thing. We talk about, what was her name? The woman who was an election official. Lady Ruby Sotter. The gay mom. She's no longer an election official. And none of the people that she knew who were election officials are any longer election officials. And for that matter, how many election officials were watching that rendition yesterday on all the major straight talking channels. And would come, I'm afraid I might come to that conclusion that I really don't wanna be in this thing. I don't wanna have calls from the White House. I don't wanna have this kind of insanity visited on my life. I don't wanna have what happened to her happened to me and my life completely askew. And I think a lot, a lot of election officials have left the stage. That's the big question for me is who in the world is gonna replace them? There's two possibilities. One is it'll be GOP, tainted election officials or nobody, nobody will wanna do it. And there'll be fewer polling places and fewer officials and more unreliable results. So in making these threats to them, he's really did a lot to destroy at least the damage our system in general. The other thing I wanna mention is that lest we forget for one moment with all the heart-rending and all these personal stories and completely damaged and destruction to people's lives and all that. And this is only a small percentage. There's much more out there that's my feeling. These are only a handful of people that the committee was able to get. They can't do this all day all night, right? They pick the ones that are best and that are Republican. But there's a lot more. And when you think about it, when you think of the president of the United States who's clearly implicated doing these things as part of a, he created the conspiracy. It was all from him. Remember the election where he said I, before the election where he said, I can't tell you that I will agree with the results. I can only tell you that I will agree with the results if I want. He did that in 2016 also, same thing, okay? I mean, this man has no respect for the Constitution, but my point is that lest we forget what he has been doing is so completely outrageous. It is hard to express it in the English language. We can never forget how totally evil and unfair and constitutionally, you know, violative his conduct. Neither we nor anybody who thinks about this can never forget the outrage of what he has been doing. Okay, thank you. Winston, I'm gonna go to a question that I think I'm gonna go around the table with. And that is, what are gonna be the downstream effects both to those who are in the GOP party and those who are Democrats? If the DOJ does indict President Trump, former President Trump, or if the DOJ fails to indict former President Trump, what's the effect on this country either way? You know, it's a great question. And I think we're gonna have to wait until the end of these committee hearings. And I think Merritt Garland is respectfully waiting to the end of this so that he can have more information. And I think there's people that are coming forward. The, if we read the polls, we find, I read yesterday, 56% of Americans feel like there's enough evidence to bring charges against Donald Trump. That means that 44% don't. That's a lot of people. And we know how they're inclined to act anyway. There's a lot of people inside of there also who are just said, enough. We had enough of the Donald. I'm sick of hearing about it. I don't wanna talk about it. Putting him on trial will make it worse. It'll just stir up stuff. There may be some truth to that. But I think the idea is that he can't ever run again. In the end, if he ran, he would not win. Is my feeling, I would hope. There's so many other people out there that have been created out of this movement that he doesn't need to run. He still controls the machine every single election yesterday, the day before, the day before, whatever they're happening. They always say, was this a Donald Trump approved candidate? We never saw those puppet strings being pulled before in this nation like that. So his influence is already still there. I don't know that he, I mean, probably, probably there will be enough against him running that people will say, I wouldn't do that. I don't know what's gonna happen, but I'm looking forward to some more history, some more evidence, some more clarity on this so that at least we can have, who is this outreaching for? It is that 5% of voters who would make a difference in those swing states, maybe the 10%. The rest of us- Is it just a matter of history rather than looking for votes? It's both. The history part's really important, but the practical effects, the Republicans may get in, but honestly, as read yesterday, it says the fringe, what we considered the fringe lunatic part of the Republican Party when it was 15% is now the opposite and it's become 80% and it's this conspiracy theory. Do you believe in it or not? And they're attacking people like John, Senator Cornyn in Texas, really what they would call establishment or moderate Republicans who are not moderate, they're very conservative. Would you expect violence in the street if Donald Trump was charged? I wouldn't put anything past anyone and that's the danger here, is that he just needs to be so thoroughly discredited and the movement behind it, it's not just one man, it's this pernicious element that's been injected into our society. And like Jay said, we don't have words in the language to express what's happened here and we have so much outrage and shock fatigue from what's going on that this is just kind of like, Shea was every person in this country, except she was attacked personally but basically her story, we are all, have all been traumatized by the last five years, period. And so people either have to put their heads in the sand or they come out and speak or they're gonna have different coping mechanisms. For right now, I would say this is targeting the 5% of voters in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida and Nevada and Arizona that might actually listen and say, enough already, I'm gonna vote for the establishment Republican or maybe even a Democrat just to save the decision. Okay, great. Hey, Cynthia, we're out of time but I wanna get your thought on this question and I'm gonna pare it down a little bit. How are the Democrats gonna react if the DOJ does not indict Trump? Democrats, as in the main population of Democrats. Registered voters. Registered voters, I think they're just gonna shut down and turn around and not vote. I know- I agree with you, I think that's dead on answer. I think they're gonna be so disgusted that they're gonna just sit in their armchair and say, I'm done. As Jed said, there is so much that is obvious for a prosecutor to go with that they're just gonna turn off and it'll be a landslide in both the midterms and 2024. I know lots of people that are saying that already and we're not even to the end of those hearings yet and people are already like, I'm done, I can't do anymore. They're not gonna do anything anyway, what's the point? What's the point is what I hear all the time? And we have over a hundred election deniers that have already risen to the ballot and will be on the ballot in the primary in 2022. And that's not even all, we're not at the end of that yet. We haven't done all of those primaries yet. So, I mean, the midterms, not the primaries, I'm sorry, the midterms, over a hundred election deniers are already risen to the level of the midterms. Okay, pretty scary. You know, I can't resist, saw something on the screen here that Winston brought up and that is if there is no prosecution, does that give an energy boost to Donald Trump's 2024 presidential dreams come true? Oh yes, without a doubt it does, absolutely. It's the same thing we've been saying for years on the show, all four of us, right? Is that just like a parent with a child, if they get away with whatever they've done wrong, they do it again. They continue not only to do that, but they end up escalating to more. If you don't stop it with some kind of accountability immediately, it gets worse. And this is the same theory right now in the father of the country, you know? And it's like, if he just gets away with it, he's just gonna keep getting away with it and he's gonna do more. So, something happens, we're in trouble. Excellent point. Okay, well, I wanna go around the table and get your last thoughts or opinions, Jay, with you. Well, I think the underscore of all of this discussion is that Trump's moves against these people, his threats, his completely unreasonable demands, and the actions of the people who stood in front of the houses and made midnight calls and generally threatened. The third parties who threatened these people, election officials, inherent in that is the threat of violence. It's not just I'm gonna make your life turn upside down. I'm gonna hurt you. And I have friends who will come and hurt you. So, and that suggests that what we're really talking about here is something, Tim, that you and I, Cynthia and Winston, have been talking about for years. And it's the problem of violence. You know, the bill that apparently will get through Congress is watered down, man. It's really no good, I'm sorry. It's just a talking point. But it is not a real gun control bill, sorry. And so, the result is that all of these quasi-military organizations, militia organizations around the country, they're stronger now. They're together, they're more organized. They learned a lot on January 6th and you're bound to do it again. And Trump is going to use them. There's nothing to suggest that he is not gonna do it all over again. And better, better for him. He's still making the big lie and so many other people around him are still making the big lie. So, you know, it's like what we need is chemotherapy for the country. Something really- Will prosecution give that chemotherapy? Will that be the chemotherapy? The prosecution? No, I don't think the prosecution will be chemotherapy. I think him and his militias will blow that off. I think, frankly, there will be violence either in the street or against officials. In some way, we're gonna have to suffer that violence before we get through this. And it's regrettable, but that may happen this year in connection with the November election. All right. Thank you, Jay, for your thoughts. Winston, to you. Actually, that's a sad and scary thought, Jay, but you know what? I think that might just turn Ma and Pa Kettle. It might not play well in Peoria when that happens and people are like, enough, enough. And they will wake up and that will be their question. Do you believe that this election was actually stolen given the enormous preponderance of evidence? There's a good article that says, what do all these testifiers have in common? They're all conservative Donald Trump voting Republicans, almost every one of them. It's your hard press to find a Democrat on there. I don't know if Shay and Lady Ruby were, but the rest of them all voted for Donald Trump, all supported him and still supported him. Winston, it was in January 6th that wake-up call from Ma and Pa Kettle. I think we have been separated now, enough from Donald Trump to have some sense of normalcy and now they're injecting an O inflation of whatever. Okay, I get that, but the reality is, maybe we've had enough space here, enough time that we can sit back and actually look at this and see the truth for what it is and reach that at least a 10%. The rest of them, the other 35%, there's nothing that we're gonna be able to say or do that reaches them right now. We just need to keep the country together, move on, and hopefully just try and get a semblance of sanity back to our politics and our society. And I remain optimistic because I, the ops, the... Well, that's why we're glad to have you back on the show. We need that. It's a tough time to be optimistic, but you know what? This country has the ability to look at itself and look at itself hard. And that's what we need to do right now. That's what we are doing right now. We're part of it. Liz Cheney's a part of it. This commission, Shay is a part of it. Mr. Raphsonberger is a part of it. Hopefully they'll get Mike Pence in there. I mean, who knows what else will come out of there, but it's time to take the hard look. And if we do, and we do it honestly, and we do it thoroughly, we can turn the ship around. Okay, great. Hey, Cynthia, you get the last word for the show. Go ahead. In spite of feeling overwhelmed and done with all of this, I just really wanna implore people to stay involved and don't just trust one news source. We always say that. Get your news sources from all across the board. Listen to all of it and then make up your mind, but don't just listen to your preferred brand and think you've got it because there's so much involved in all of this. And I'm gonna close with a quote from Zo Lofgren, Representative Zo Lofgren, who's one of the congressmen on the committee. She says, we didn't have thousands of people just randomly show up on the 6th of January. There was a method. There was planning. There was a purpose. And we are going to uncover all of it. So I say more power to her. Alrighty. Tim, I wanna add one thing that is also fundamental here is here we are spending another show on the damage and destruction that Trump has done and is doing. Think of the public policy issues and problems that Congress could have solved. Think of the decisions the Supreme Court could have made had Trump never been president. We are so far off the rails just because of him. He has done the greatest conceivable disservice to this country, sucked all the oxygen out for his own craziness and we have not been addressing the issues we need to address. Thank you, Jay. That might have been why Gerald Ford did not decided to give Nixon a pardon. I don't know. But there is the business of this America that needs to get done. And you're right, Jay. It's not getting done. Nothing's getting done. So I appreciate all those comments. I wanna thank my co-host Jay Fidel. I wanna thank Winston Welch. And I wanna thank Cynthia, Lee Sinclair for joining us on American Issues Take One. Join us next week, Wednesday at 11 o'clock. I'm Tim Apachele, your host. And until then, Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.