 Bingo, we're back for Trump week, my favorite show. We're calling this edition, this episode, the testimony she is damning, and the tagline is, but will the Republicans break ranks? Question mark. Kim Apachele, Cynthia Sinclair, how are you guys? Is everybody okay? Good morning, Kev. Good morning, Kev. How do you feel about Trump this week, up, down, in the middle, up, up? Any time the truth can be revealed, I feel better. And those testimonies that are being released, which we'll talk about, I feel far better than the truth is being put out there and asked for the request of the Republicans. Yeah. You know, be careful what you ask for. You might just get it. Well, then when you get it, then you complain about it. Correct. That's what you do. I mean, it's predictable. It's really, and it's dishonest. It's just so many dishonest things happening now. How about you? How do you feel, Cynthia? Well, I'll tell you, I have a great Adam Schiff quote for this exact thing right now. As it will be said of House Republicans, when they found they lacked the courage to confront the most dangerous and unethical president in American history, they consoled themselves by attacking those who did. Right. There's no excuse for it, and the history will not be kind to them. Right. But you know, so, so he was trying to get these guys in Ukraine to come along with him and support him in the election, trying to, you know, do with distraction, with Biden, make Biden look bad. So what's wrong with that? It's just, it's the game, right? It's just the way you play the game, right? Tim, right? Well, they're going to have to change the narrative. I mean, this term quit pro quo has lost its luster. There is more testimony of a number of credible witnesses and individuals, even, you know, on Trump's own staff, that this took place. So they're going to have to figure out, now saying there was no quit pro quo, now they're going to have to say, yeah, there was. So what? Big deal. Yeah. What of it? So each time, you know, there's something they've taken the position on fails, they find something else. But it's their Democrats' fault, too, on this. And that is, there's opportunities galore for them to look at the truth and the obvious point of the truth and amplify it and communicate about it. But they can't do it. For example, why use the term, a Latin term quit pro quo when 95% of America really doesn't understand the impact of what that means. Was that the Democrats? Let's just call it for what it is. Was that the Democrats? Yes. Well, everyone's using the term. They haven't. They're using the term. Somebody started it. Someone started it. And I argue this. Stop using Latin. Use the American-Queens-English extortion is the word. Let's look at the term extortion. Practice of obtaining something through force or threats. So stop calling it quit pro quo. Call it what it is. Be tried to extract an extortion. That's a good point. And when does the Democrats start using language that Americans will understand the impact of? So I'm not just saying it's the Republicans playing games. It's the Democrats failing to understand where they're at and how to utilize what is in front of them, which is the truth of the situation. But what else? Is that it? I mean, surely you were talking about opportunities that Democrats could have taken. What else? I just think that, again, you've got to be careful on how long you protract this. Do we now have enough information? How many more witnesses are we going to bring? So it's not an opportunity. It's a decision that they're making as to how long they go down this rabbit hole with all the different witnesses. And to the credit of the Democrats, though, the arguing witnesses that are pigeonholing Trump into a point where he can't argue against it, or his Republicans. Is it over, really? Is it suspicion? Should be. Is it soup? You know? It's soup. It's time to put the soup out on the table. Do they need Bolton? Do you need Bolton? No. Do you need Bolton? No. You've got enough. It's almost like you say to these guys, look, you know. When's enough? You want to go down in history as a guy who, you know, cheated, a guy who supported a cheating president? Or do you want to go down in history and tell the truth? Yeah. This is your moment in history. Yeah. So Bolton, we're not going to subpoena you. We're not going to fight. We're not going to spend six years in court over it. You know? Come around or don't come around. Your opportunity. Yeah. And, of course, that doesn't work. But I think if it was me and I was Bolton, I would come around regardless of what Trump said. Yeah. No, I would, too. He's mad at Trump anyway. What's holding him back? Well, look at songlin. And that's one of the things we should talk about is he's been allowed the opportunity to edit his testimony. Now, usually when you go to one of these, you know, kind of hearings and you're under oath and you're in front of Congress, you usually have about a day to amend your testimony in case you forgot something or you didn't recall something and you tried to basically clarify your existing testimony before the committee. Well, we're over a week and a half, you know, before this happened. He came back and said, oh yeah, I forgot that it really was a quid pro quo. Now isn't that silly? Well, I think what's really troubling about it is, aside from the time factor, come in scheduling issues, who knows. But what he said was the other witnesses, and he wasn't there for the other witnesses, have jogged my memory. Now I remember. It was just their opening statements that he read that jogged his memory. Right. Refreshed his recollection. Refreshed his recollection. To use his exact terms. If I had to guess, just me, I would think the big factor for him is the press was talking about Congress holding him as a perjurer. Right. Going after him for perjury. And that's what spooked him. That's what spooked him. That's what happened. I agree with you. I think the press actually did something right. They spooked him into the truth. Yeah, for Halloween. And one of the things that he said was that it kept getting more insidious as the timeline went on. And that's in regards to the pressure that was being placed on Zelensky. Yeah. Now here's one thing we haven't heard from Donald Trump. And that's his usual barrage of insults to anyone that has turned code on him. No, not lately. Yeah, he's been very quiet about it. I expected a full Twitter barrage from Trump against the online. He must know how tiresome that gets. Well, anybody testifies against him one after the other. He just calls some names. But he never misses that opportunity. Not until now. Yeah. So if there's a change here, what's the cause of the change? Is it he's just fatigued? I don't believe that. He's taking somebody's advice. His lawyers are telling him, don't you dare, is what's happening. You think he's finally listening to the attorneys? Well, I think he has no choice at this point now. I don't know if it was necessarily his attorneys that were telling him, don't you do it before now. But now there's so much at stake that. I think he realizes that you can't do that, witness after witness after witness. It just falls flat. Nobody's going to believe it. He's playing to the public. He's playing to his base. And his base is firm. And I was going to ask you guys, so with all this action in the Congress, and I'm not including yet the live action next week, where the public will be able to watch this on television, just like Watergate, right? Well, the McCarthy hearings where everybody is watching everything. Is he ahead or behind? There's three possibilities. Is he losing ground because of what's happening in this investigation and being reported by the press? Because it's still closed door. And a half question on that is, will that change next week when they go public? And I want to talk about that as a separate question. The second is, is it just flat effect? Is it static? No change in his popularity. No change. No damage to him. It's just all in suspense until something actually happens. And, you know, Republicans are holding steady. And then the third possibility is, is he gaining? Is he gaining strength? Is he gaining strength among his, you know, by saying that I'm victimized and that they got no case and they're all wet? So which of the three do you think, since you're with him, do you think we are? I think that he is losing ground because, well, at least that's what the polls are showing. He's down by seven points or 10 points in some of the polls. With Republicans, he's still basically the same, though, so he's not really changing much as far as that goes. But I don't think he's going up at all. I think when people really hear this testimony, these testimonies for themselves, things are going to change. Because right now, all they get is, you know, his propaganda coming out there. And so they don't really, if all they watch is Fox News. And then I've been watching, trying to watch just the regular network news, you know, the CBS and the ABC and not just the MSNBC or the Fox News, right, or the CNN, but just the regular news. And I think we're going to really start seeing a change because they are starting to now really report more and more and more on the things that are coming out, you know, testimony-wise and evidence-wise. What do you think we stand? Is he up, down, or in the middle? He's slightly going down. And the reason I say that is I base it on his two main cheerleaders, Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham. Mitch McConnell, if you listen to his language and examine his language, very neutral. Very matter of fact, not in any way getting out ahead of the line and defending them on anything. And if you look at Lindsey Graham, everything Lindsey Graham was criticizing now has been delivered, you know, the private testimonies. Well, that's now, you know, being disclosed to the written testimonies being disclosed. And I recently saw a quote from Lindsey Graham. And they say too little, too late. Yeah, and so now Lindsey Graham's going, basically he says I'm not going to comment on any of this further. I've stopped reading it. I've stopped reading it. I've stopped, the truth hurts. I can't handle it anymore. So I'm just not going to comment on it anymore. Maybe we shouldn't comment on him. So, well, to answer your question, down slightly because if his two main cheerleaders aren't out there cheerleading for him, that's a down. Well, yeah. Okay, so let me break up two things going forward. One is I give you the possibility next week, probably Monday, right? Wait, Monday is a, Monday is Veterans Day. So maybe Tuesday or thereafter next week. Not that much time left between now and Thanksgiving. And as you say, Tim, we got to do something here before Thanksgiving. But we're going to get into this open hearing thing. And, you know, there's this strange conflation between an impeachment inquiry and a trial You know, a lot of people that, I mean, not, they're disingenuous when they say this. Oh, this is like a criminal trial. And the defendant has to get all his rights and write across examination and to testify, whatever. And that's really not, not appropriate at all. Nor is the public hearing as far as I'm concerned. But here we're going to get into that. And there's going to be this conflation of procedures. And so the Republicans are going to make objections. They're going to be arguing with the chair. I guess in this case it's, it's Adam Schiff. Adam Schiff, he's going to have to be a good chair, strong chair. No, judiciary can be. So it's not there. Is there going to be judiciary next week? I don't know. It's not. It is judiciary. It's not strong. It's not. It's not. Not in the least. And whoever the chair is, they're going to be testing the chair, you know? Yeah. It's like going to court testing the judge and you make arguments in front of them and you never leave anybody alone. You're always trying to disrupt the procedure. Now there's already failed in that when we had the one gentleman testifying. He would be very hard for the chair, very hard for the chair. And the Republicans are going to get together. They're going to have a little meeting. They're going to decide. And Trump's suggestion, let's go boys. We're going to make this as troubled as we can. We're going to do it in such a way so that it effectively, it's under appeal, you know what I mean? Create appeal points. Create irregularities in the procedure. Make noise. Make silly objections. Criticize people. Get them discombobulated, you know? You want to get the other side discombobulated so they make mistakes. So I think we're going to see that. And my question to you. I mean, I could be wrong. This could be very civilized also, but I doubt it. If that happens, how do you change your answer? Who does that favor? It's a hard question because if they go too far with this, they're going to lose support among their own base. If they do it just right, they probably gain support and make a mockery of the proceeding. What do you think? What do you think? It's all going to depend on Chairman Nather and how he entertains these kind of answers and how he runs that show. How he facilitates the hearing. And if he does a poor job, the Republicans will get their shots in. Yeah. It's just really come down to how he's going to facilitate. It's also the press. It's also the press. But here's a bright spot on that. Back in 1973, 1974, okay, you had CBS, NBC and ABC. That was it. Now you have everything and everybody to report on this. Go for the good old days. Well, but in this case, you'll have more distribution of people just pull up their cell phone. And who knows what news service they're putting on their Facebook. I think they've got to be very responsible. For example, some Republican member of these committees or some Republican or some witness who knows, gets up and makes a tumult in the hearing and tries to disrupt things. The press has to see that. It can't be taken in by it. And if they're not sophisticated in the way it should be done and the way these guys are trying to take advantage of it, then that hurts. Well, and I go back to Nather's ability to facilitate that and be able to control it properly. He didn't control it very well with the Kavanaugh hearing. So if that's any example of what we're going to be dealing with this next week, then we're in for some trouble. There's a guy after that recently was able to go, the Republican staff person. I can't remember his last name, but he basically took control of the entire hearing. Oh, Jay, no, Jack, well done. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, there you go. Thank you. He basically took control. And Nather's been held responsible for that because he did a lousy job. So these guys don't have any experience really with dealing with this kind of discombobulation in Congress. And they're going to have to be, they've got good staffers who will show them the way. They need litigation-experienced staffers. But let me go over another question to pose to you guys. This is really interesting. There's a piece in the paper about the trial. And Roberts is going to be the judge in the trial, and he's getting up to this. And they're pretty much, I think, they're pretty much anticipating there will be a trial because the House will vote to impeach, vote to force a trial. And that's good. A couple of weeks ago, Ms. McConnell said that if they impeached in the House, there would be a trial. So are they getting ready for a trial? Roberts is going to be there. Roberts is a wild card on this anyway. But the other thing that interested me, they said, at the trial, they're going to be calling Joe Biden. I didn't hear that. What? This was in the paper this morning. So I'm saying this, and I like your speculation on this, so much speculation. It seems to me that this trial that will happen if the House impeaches is not going to be the trial you might expect. It's not going to be a trial of Donald J. Trump. It's going to be a trial of the system. It's going to be a trial of the House. It's going to be a trial of all the proceedings that went before it. And it's going to be a trial of Joe Biden and his son. It's going to be anything but the trial it should be. And at the end of the day, they're not going to impeach it anyway. We know that. Well, it goes to what I said last week. If you can't beat them on the law, beat them on the process. If you can't beat them on the process, beat them on the witness. If you can't beat them on either three, then just wave your hands and try to muck up the whole proceeding. Which I think I agree with what you're saying here. The whole thing is litigation. With litigators, at least Trump side. The other thing is that this is this trial quote where they try to beat up on Biden and beat up on the system and maybe beat up on the possibilities for other possibilities for presidential nominee. It's going to have an effect on the election, isn't it? Okay. And if they do a real job on Biden and make the Democrats look bad, and I ask you my question, is that going to make Trump look worse, the same, or best, better? You're going to say better in the election. So I think that trial is going to be just another way for Trump to gain points for the election. That's what it is. That's why McConnell is so happy to have it. They're all ready to use this as an election weapon. You're shaking your head now. This may damage Biden to the point where he's not the nominee for the Democrats. And then someone else will fill a vacuum. Okay. Before I ask him who that would be, let me ask you what you wanted to say. I have another quote from Adam Schiff that I think is appropriate for this, what we're talking about right now. And it says, the White House excuses keep changing. First, no House vote. Second, they claim immunity, which has never been upheld by a judge. Now they want their lawyers, their lawyers to participate, which is against the rules that the Republicans wrote. And it doesn't add up except as evidence of obstruction. That's what I think it all is. And I think it's a setup, I agree. Well, we know how hypocritical this whole process has been with the Republicans shouting up to the rafters as an unfair process and behind closed doors. They'll keep doing that. I remind the Republicans that back in 1974, John Dean met privately with Sam Irvin and Michael Cohen and all the people of that committee in private. And those were the Republicans. So it's just a matter of remembering history and them refreshing their memories upon history. So let's look at the background. What he's got behind his back. What has he done lately? You were talking before the show about how he's threatened to cut funds to California. He's been just ripping on Newsom and Schiff about their bad forest management. And I love what Newsom said back. He said, where is it? He said, you don't believe in climate change. You are excused from this conversation. Wow. And he pulls out of the Paris talks. Completely. Right, completely. And meanwhile, climate change is revealing itself in so many ways. Oh, yeah. I think one of the remarkable things, I don't know if we talked about this before, is that both China and Russia are in the new channels, the new passageways in the Arctic. And they're staking territory out there. And they're staking military advantage out there. And we are doing nothing. It's really scary. It's scary. Another opportunity that is being passed on. But that's not a democratic opportunity. That's a Trump opportunity. Yeah, that's a Trump opportunity. Because he's not aware of these things. He's not following them. The other thing is, you know, the art of the deal. OK. The deal with Iran, it's in a cocked hat right now. And there was a piece in the paper about how Iran is moving toward nuclear development. That's what Trump got for his efforts. It hasn't gained anything, but they're moving now immediately toward nuclear development. Turkey. What kind of a deal with Turkey? We alienated Turkey. Turkey has been attacking us or our positions. Turkey has been making friends with Putin. What exactly do we achieve with that? I'm good. You get the highway with the American troops leaving and the American troops coming back. What? No deal there. Nothing rational. I get North Korea. Remember North Korea? Yeah, I remember that place. Yeah, it's easy to forget. They've been firing missiles into the Sea of Japan or whatever, nearby Japan. And the fact is that he promised us a new summit with Kim Jong-un, nothing like crickets. No, he's firing missiles from a boat offshore even. More sophisticated yet. More sophisticated even. Yes. A boat could be off our shores. Right. OK. China, remember we were going to have a resolution of the deal with China, the trade talks. It was going to be a peace negotiation. Nothing. Not a sound. Not even of the possibility anymore. He made some bold statement. He was going to work it all out. Nothing. Not a thing. He has too much on his plate, I guess. And PS, the RCEP, which is the Chinese version of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, excluding the US, is meeting. And they're coming around the US. They're working around the US. And China is in charge. China is in charge of trade in Asia. And we are not there. That'll be a powerhouse of partners. I mean, 10 different countries of that. We'll be a trading force. And here we are languishing with TPP. Yeah. OK. I had more. Nothing more in Venezuela. Not a sound. Oh, Iraq is coming apart. And he's not doing anything about it. Afghanistan, people are dying on a regular basis in the violence there. The whole Central Asia thing is coming apart. And he's not doing anything. So, I mean, I know you can talk about obstruction and you can talk about, you know, extortion in Ukraine. But the fact is he's not doing his job. He's not even doing the job he said he would do, which is not really adequate anyway. Well, we basically yesterday was election day. Was it not? That gives us 365 days until the next election. Yeah. At some point, you run out of the game clock. Unless he's quietly set the stage in all these different fronts that you've just discussed. He's not going to get this done. And the chance of the economy. That already capitulates to a point where he just gives them whatever he wants just to say, I checkmark that and I checkmark that off the list. Buy him off. Yeah. And just, you know, comes up with a lousy deal and all these different issues in fronts. That's what I see him doing. Farmers in Indiana are still going bankrupt. And, you know, I'm only about the economy in general, so we have more jobs. But the jobs are not as good as you want. It's not clear to me when the bubble is going to burst. But the reality, I think, between now and a year from now is it could well burst. And that would not be good for him. Speaking of bursting, let's take a look at the election in Kentucky. Yeah, please. You know, we had Donald Trump go to Kentucky and beg. What I perceived as begging, pleading that, you know, don't let this happen to me. It's all about me. Get out there and vote. Well, it's not 100% official, but it looks like we have a Democrat governor in there. Not quite. And, you know, that was a direct, basically a direct answer to Donald Trump and his ability to think his cult of personality can just sway that over and drag bevins across the finish line. Yeah. And it didn't happen. What I had about that election is that he was down there with his rally, getting everybody excited. Where were the national Democrats? Was there anybody came from the Democratic side of things and say, well, Trump is across the street. He's saying this. I'm saying that. It's not true what he says. But here's what the Democratic view is. You know, I really don't. Maybe it's wheels within wheels. Maybe it's complicated. There's something on the news hour to suggest that Democratic Party had made a decision not to be there, not to be a presence in that, in that, you know, those final days of those campaigns. But really, I don't know. You have one hand clapping when he does that. Well, I think the Democrats throw their, you know, their young to the wolves, you know, if they don't think he can win, then we don't want to be a part of that loss. I don't think they aggressively fight. And I've said that for months now. Democrats need to learn to pick themselves up and be willing to go to the front line and scrap. And if they lose, they lose. But don't go, don't say, well, I don't think we have a chance of winning, so let's not show up. That's not a way to win an election. Not in my world. I think they're too nice. Also, I agree with you that I think it's like they keep giving these people chances to show up. And I think why? The first time they don't show up for a subpoena, slap a, you know, what you call it on them and put them in jail. Contempt. Contempt. Thank you. That's the word I was looking for. Just stop contempt on them. And you do that for a couple of them. And they'll stop, you know, you know, stop showing up. Remember, all these people that are required to testify a lot more, staff people, they don't have a thousand, you know, a good attorney is going to cost you $1,500 an hour. They don't have that kind of money. They just don't. And so for me, I'm showing up. I don't have $1,500 for an attorney to defend me to say, don't show up. I'm going. So OK, so what's going to happen? What's going to happen here? For example, I wanted to ask you about the base. Why is the base still at 40 plus percent? Why do they continue to support him when he's had all this trouble? And when, you know, even some people in the base must realize his fire, where the smoke is, the fire is not only in California. I think it's because they have judges just flooding all of our courts right now. Conservative judges. Why is the base supporting him? When they go to these polls, all of those. The base keeps on saying they like him. Why is that? The question is, why do Republicans vote against their own best interest? And I don't care if it's Donald Trump. I don't care if it's the days of Ronald Reagan. I don't care when it is. It's because he's got him on the hook for the social issues. I'm going to keep immigrants out of America and not take their jobs. I'm going to make sure that the Roe v. Wade is reversed. I'm going to get you on all the social issues I could possibly can, and that's why you're going to stick to me. And that's why the Republicans allow them to say, you know, we look past your bad behavior and your actions that you've got us hooked on the social issues that we've been trying to get for 30 years. And while he's saying this at rallies and in Fox News, the fact is he's got Brad Parswale sending out all these social media messages who targeted audiences. We don't get them, none of us three. The people in Kentucky were probably getting a lot of them and messaging exactly the same thing. Okay, next week, what can we expect to see? Who knows? But I know that, like I say every time, the more we back him into the corner, the more things are going to get dangerous. So next week, we're going to be looking at some new testimonies that we get to watch and see. So I think things are going to really change then. Check it out. Donald Trump loves reality TV. He's going to get a big dose of it. And that starts Wednesday. And you watch him flip out, watch him take to Twitter. And, you know, you'll see more Twitter tweets than, you know, ever before. Is this going to really come unhinged? And that's going to put many, many tens of millions of people, Americans, watching this thing day in and day out, all day long. We already watch, you know, hours of it every day, but this is going to expand the number of hours we watch. And I don't know how this is going to play out. That's what we should be looking at for next week. I ran home at 13 years old, and I ran home to watch those hearings. I don't have to run home anymore because it's on my phone. There it is. We should not forget the Americans will, all Americans will be watching this wherever they are. That's correct. Oh, Cynthia, are you feeling okay now? Sort of. I was in driver's training during the impeachment for Nixon, and so our teacher would make us listen, would didn't make us, because I thought it was interesting. The rest of the students were like, oh, I was like curling into it. And so I paid attention back then. And so I'm anxious to see the differences and the way that the new media and new social media changes all the dynamics. Maybe the Democrats are really being smart. What they're doing is upstaging the trial to follow. If people watch what happens in the house, they're going to be tired already, watching it in the Senate. That was a good point. Right. Okay, it's all about fatigue. It's all about fatigue. Okay, we're fatigued today. We're going to have to cut the show. Thank you very much. Thank you, Jake. Tim Apachello. Appreciate it. Cynthia Sinclair. Thanks, Jake. See you next week. See you next week. Okay.