 Okay, Trump week on a Wednesday, Kim Apachele, Cynthia Sinclair, let's go. First thing is, Thomas Friedman in the New York Times, Trump must be impeached. Any other way, and the whole world knows, that a candidate in the United States is subject to assistance and manipulation from foreign countries. He's been doing it on a regular basis. This is awful. Not only because it skews the result of the vote, but because the winning candidate who has taken this kind of favor, I use that term advisedly, from a foreign country is beholden to the foreign country. There is a quid pro quo there, and so you never know if your president's really your president. Does he belong to you, or does he belong to them? Take a look, Thomas Friedman in his column in today's New York Times. The other thing I just want to mention is that we're getting into a kind of rhythm over gun violence in this country. It's not every day, it's every other day, and you can make a chart. It must be going up like that, and all these deaths, and there was the shooting involving a kosher deli yesterday, and the police chief in New Jersey, or was it the governor and some official New Jersey, said, this is an anti-Semitic killing. This is a bigotry, and my God, we're having it every day with the guns in various places in the country. It's not one place. It's all over the place. No place is exempt. And the backdrop of that is Congress is doing, how do I say this, nada, ryan, nothing. Congress is doing nothing. And so it's kind of interesting that the Democrats now support a new trade agreement. We call it a miracle negotiation between the U.S. and Mexico. What's that all about? We're in the throes of an impeachment process that's white-hot. Why are the Democrats now making love, if you will, with Trump? Anybody have an answer for me on that one? Because they don't want to look like all they do is impeachment, because that's what they've been accused of. Yeah, a tactical error. They're trying to show that they're doing more than just impeachment, which is dumb. It's really the Senate that's not doing anything. The House has sent them more than 200 and somewhat, I think, bills that they have sent by partisan bills that the Senate will not take up. Not a smart move. What do you think? I agree completely. They've got to get their attention off the impeachment. That's why they want to wrap this up before Christmas, get the vote in. And they don't want to be seen and perceived by all voters, not even in the red states, but also the blue states, the purple states, that they're not fixated on impeachment. That's how they won the 2018 election in Congress, in the House, based on policies and things that matter to the voter. I hope you're right. I hope it has that desired effect, but frankly, you could take that to say that Trump is being reasonable. Not so much that Democrats are being reasonable, but Trump is being reasonable. So he's an okay guy. All we have to do, Democrats, is negotiate with him, and we'll have reasonable results. The problem is it's a distraction on both sides, and I don't think Nancy Pelosi's strategy was any good on this. We have to focus on what Thomas Friedman had to say. Okay, let's talk about the inspected general report, because I'd like to sort of preface that by saying, is that really important, or is the impeachment that's happening? How many months have we been at this table? How many months? Knowing full well whether it would be the Mueller report, or any kind of impeachment discussion inquiry, and now vote, potential vote, that we knew Donald Trump was going to do something to distract the attention away from this. Need we say more? Is it coincidental that this report's coming out exactly at the time that this is being looked at? This vote is going to take place? It's a distraction. And we've been talking about it. We predicted it, and here it is. He's controlling the agenda in the media, and then with William Barr and a ridiculous remark about how he doesn't accept the inspected general, and then Trump putting down the FBI yet still again, I mean, destroying the credibility of the organization and the federal government in general. I just do not understand. There's no benefit. It's a lie. It's just one of his many lies every day, and at the same time, it's the top of the agenda. If I was mainstream media, I wouldn't pay attention to any of it. The issue of the story is he's being impeached, as he should be impeached. This is a historical moment. It is. Unless we forget. And, Mellie, you know, we've had other presidents impeached, but not for this kind of stuff. Right. So this is truly a historical moment, and you're right. The media should be focused predominantly upon that. I agree. You know, what I've seen, too, the Republicans are saying over and over is that the Russia thing would not have even happened, right, if it wasn't for these FISA warrants. There was a little bit of a mistake from that, right? That's ridiculous. But really, what the report has said, that there was no sign of impropriety. There was no sign of bias against Trump. None of that. So in a way, I think it's kind of good that it's coming out right now, even though the Republicans are twisting it to fit what their narrative is and what they want to say. The same thing as Barr's comments after the Mueller report. He lied about what was in the Mueller report, and he's lying about what the Inspector General has to say. And furthermore, the FISA affidavit or motion, whatever it was, was after the investigation started, the Inspector General was supposed to see if the initiation of the investigation was bona fide. Well, he did. It was bona fide. No question. No question at all. Never really a question. And Trump is raising this kind of crazy, deep-state conspiracy thing, and he has nothing to back it up. But him and Barr together make these statements. And here's the part. You're not going to be surprised, and I tell you, there are people who believe these lies on a regular basis. That's why I'm wearing my pin today. This is a pin that Andrew Yang wears, the Democratic candidate. He wears, and he always wears. Do you have to, can you see it? Math. Okay, okay. Math, M-A-T-H. At first I thought, well, math, it stands for mathematics, and he wants to have everybody go to school and study math. That's not it at all. Math stands for make America think harder. That's why I got the pin. Not for Yang, but for the notion of make America think harder. I thought if you take the T out, it's mad as hell. I know we're going to take it more. We're not taking more. Okay, what do we got here? So let's see. Oh, trade agreement. Go ahead. Well, I'm sorry, but we're kind of guilty of what we just accused the media of doing. And that was not talking about this impeachment, this historical moment. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm going to take your mic. I want to talk about Goldman and Castor. Where are we in the impeachment? Okay, look at, okay. So when we got to this point, we said, how many articles are there going to be? And we said, are they going to bring in the Mueller stuff? Are they going to talk about the obstruction from Mueller? And we debated that. And we said, well, maybe not, and we said, no, they're going to go to the simple, the simple articles of impeachment. And so let's, for historical sake, let's talk about what those are. One is abuse of government, and the other one is obstruction of Congress. Can't be any smaller than that. Could be one item, but it's two items and as simple as pie. Well, the question is, is the American public going to understand it? I think that's their main goal, isn't it? To keep it simple so that people can understand it. And that's why they decided to keep it, just those two. But if you look into exactly what they list under abuse of power, it talks about all of the Ukraine stuff, all of the telephone calls. You know, removing Yovanovich, the different witnesses that came in, the ambassadors that came in and said what he did. And that there was a quid pro quo and all of those things are in it. But that you hear the Republicans sit there and say, well, what happened to bribery and control, you know, and all of this other stuff, when it's really just these two. And it's like, well, if you read into what those two are, that's what they did. They put it in underneath abuse of power. So we're now in the process of the markup, right? Both sides get to look at it and mark it up as if there were anything else. This is the part of the process. To what degree do we get through the markup process? And how long does that protract? Any guesses? No, they're having debate on it, like today, tomorrow. Yeah. And well, McConnell has come out and said he's not going to do it until after the first year. There will be no trial in the Senate until well after the first year. And until maybe even this next report comes out from Durham of the IG stuff, and the Russia stuff. Well, let's go back to the skinny versus the broad thing. You know, I think part of Nancy's strategy is that she doesn't want to confuse people with other claims, a bribery, for example. That's a two-edged sword, because they could say, well, good. Let's focus on the ones that are clear. Let's focus on those. There's lots of evidence. We all saw the evidence. But they could also say, and it depends on where you start out from, where your original loyalty is here. They could also say, well, they didn't claim bribery. So he's not guilty of bribery and all these other things. He's not guilty of that. He's not guilty of the obstruction that was reported in Mueller's report. Because that's outside of the current obstruction in the course of this impeachment. So he gets these skits on that. And I think that some people, depending on where they're coming from, will say, well, he's been exonerated. But they're bringing that in there, though. It's part of the abuse of power is that whole part about Russia, and that it is a pattern of behavior. And that's a very big part of their abuse of power, is that this is not just a one isolated incident. It is a pattern of behavior. Well, I hope there's evidence on that. I don't know where that would come from. Because it was not present in the impeachment hearing. OK, let's talk about that. How useful was the Goldman versus Castor hearings that we had? In your opinion, did you watch that enough to say, was it clear to the person watching at home on the points of evidence and the rebuttal to the points of evidence? The thing I got most out of it was, this was valid evidence. Whereas, of course, we know the Republicans say, it is not valid evidence. So I mean, did that, are we still in our silos and we hear what we want to hear? Of course. And both sides hear what they want to hear. It doesn't matter how valid the facts are. No, I disagree with that. I mean, it sounds like balanced reporting. Both sides are in their silos. I don't think that Democrats are in their silos. I think the Republicans want to paint them that way. The people who are in the silos are the Republicans. I'm afraid to say, everything they say is a liar. Distortion. If you look at those hearings that took place over the past couple of weeks, if you look at the statements they've made this week, if you look at the statements they're going to make in the debate now to follow in the, I guess the judiciary committee and then on the floor, you're going to find they're lying like crazy, mischaracterizing, a lot of disinformation. It's going to be terrible. It's going to make you sick to listen to it. The Democrats are not like that at all. The Democrats are straight shooters. I don't know why people say, well, look at both sides. Yeah, good point. So we haven't seen any poll data lately, have we? It's unusually quiet right now, isn't it? It is. I've seen two references to polls over the past few days. One reference was that as the impeachment hearings have gone on, Trump has actually gained in support. And I saw another one where the reference was that he is losing in support. So I would say it nets itself out. And it's probably no big effect either way. On the other hand, let me offer this thought to you guys, is that the public is a strange animal. The public does not necessarily reflect in polls immediately. Sometimes it takes weeks, months even, for it to all settle in. For them to talk to each other, meet at the coffee shop, whatever they do to sort of solidify. I hope they do that. I hope they don't just go by social media and learn what they know from Twitter. That would be really bad or Fox News. So I think we haven't really seen the effect yet of this event, this whole process on how people feel. It's still happening. The other thing is some of these TV news series are, as I said, quote, balanced. And they seem to sit on the sidelines and watch it as if it was very far away. And oh, boys will be boys. There they go fighting again. But that's really not what's happening. Read the Friedman article. A country is being taken apart every day. I fully believe that. And it's gonna affect everybody in the country. When people realize that it's not just a football game, half a continental way. It's happening to us, all of us, to our government. It's the worst thing that's ever happened in my life in terms of the relationship of citizens and government. Isn't that an argument for conducting this impeachment in the first place? Even though it may be a disadvantage when it comes down time for the election. But isn't that the priority or the principle that this impeachment was supposed to answer is that this wasn't a front on the rule of law in our constitution. And to what degree is that being emphasized? Well, a little bit, but not a whole lot. No, that's why the three of us recommended to Nancy that she go ahead with the impeachment. I'm so glad she listened to it. She probably went on to do the impeachment. Well, remember, I originally said censored, remember? Remember I did censored. Well, some Democrats, I read this article. Now they're going back to that again. They're going back to that. Yes. And I'm sure it's not going to work. In fact, it's going to embolden him further. The whole thing, everything that happens emboldens him further. Country is at great risk. So yeah. Well, for the record, I don't know what camera I'm at, but for the record, I came on board late. You guys are ahead of me on that one. I fully admit it. And I came on late. Well, but your question is very good. Where's the stress? Where's the emphasis? Where's the emphasis in these hearings? Because Republicans get plenty of time to make their rhetoric and it's all BS, in my opinion. And so where's the agenda now? The agenda's all mushed up. The priorities are not clear anymore. It's not clear, for example, that you've got to do impeachment in order to save the country. It's not a joke. It's not remote. It's real. It's happening. And it's not some kind of hit job. It's not some kind of political war just trying to take this guy out because we don't like him. That's their defense. OK, well, that's the whole thing. Let's admit this is a public relations war. Yes. And on one side, they're painting it as a hit job. You just said it. So who's winning the public relations war on this? I hate to say it. I don't think it's the Democrats, even though they look better during the hearings, but the spin after the hearings seems to be taking the better, even in the hearings. Republicans come up with this stuff and you don't see the Democrats saying what I think they need to say. Furthermore, it's the press. The press, we live or die. The nation, the republic, lives or dies by how the press reports this. If the press goes soft on it, and I mean all the media, I think Fox News is such an insult to our democracy because it doesn't tell the truth and because people listen to it and they're part of the public conversation and they create and support public opinion, even if it's wrong, just to get eyeballs. And the press is looking for eyeballs and all the press really, and looking for advertisers, so much advertisement goes on around these news programs. So on the query whether the press is accurately reporting what needs to be said here and of course, people on both sides of the fence, they're really dependent on the press. I'm not gonna sit and look at this hearing all day. I'm not gonna make notes about what they said. I'm mostly, I'm gonna listen to the press after it and how the press puts it affects public opinion. Are they doing a good job? I'll tell you later. I don't, I really don't. All in the name of looking fair and impartial, they're letting facts that aren't true be reported and repeated and repeated. I like watching Chris Cuomo because when the Republicans come on and start to. He likes to do that, doesn't he? Yeah, and instead of letting them continue to put forth this false narrative, he says, wait, wait, wait, you don't get to come on my show in line. That's not true and he calls them on it but I don't see that happening on the other shows. I don't see people getting called down for the fact that they're lying and that's what happens with the caster, the same thing. That is the job of the press to call out facts that aren't facts. Or at least question it and say, where did you get your, how did you come to this conclusion? It's not happening? Well, I feel, I have a mixed bag about Chris Cuomo. I mean, he gives them the floor. He gives them the opportunity to do their thing and then he wants to show you what a great cross-examiner he is. It's about him and them. And I'm really tired of listening to them. I don't think they should get any time at all. That's just me. But I enjoy racial or racial matter much more because she researchers and she comes up, she tells you what they've said on the record and then she comes up with her answer. So what is going to happen here? So what's gonna happen from this point forward in the house? And you said that we're not gonna have a trial until next year. When? In the Senate after the first of the years where he said after the holidays and all. And but Nancy has said that she's going to maybe even as soon as next week bring a boat in the house. Yeah, she said that and knock wood that'll probably happen. And then we'll all trundle off through a long Christmas vacation and come back and sometime in, I don't know when they come back but it'll be middle January already. And now we're 10 months away from election day and the job of the Republicans and Trump is to A, distract, and B, which they will do, promise. Because when there's a moment of quiet they'll come in with all kinds of stuff. Who knows what it'll be? South America, Asia, Europe. Who knows what it'll be? Economics, immigration. Look for North Korea, because that's bubbly enough. North Korea. Yeah, that's bubbly enough. Anything and everything to show that he's on it, you know? I'm sorry, I'm losing my lunch. You haven't had lunch yet. If you were, if you were a Trump and McConnell, I guess what we're saying is you would put this off because in the end they set a very good chance of not getting, of acquitting, acquittal in the Senate. Soon that wins the best time for acquittal. It's probably in October or September or October. Right. Trump can trumpet this and say, oh, been exonerated. It was all a witch on seat. I'm completely innocent, and the Democrats are really bad people. And so the idea is to fix a day, a specific day on the calendar, when this would work best. You think that maybe McConnell and Trump are talking about that? Oh yes. And do you think that McConnell in the Senate is capable, are capable, of kicking this football down the road, this can down the road, to achieve exactly the day they want? Oh yeah. Yeah. They get to set the rules. The Senate sets the rules for the way that hearing will proceed. So. Well, this whole thing's been positioned that the Democrats want to get this thing done soon because the election's coming and so they want to speed it up. And that's why this isn't fair because it's speedy and we know it's speedy because we can't get the witnesses to testify and we can't get the documents through subpoena. That's why it's speedy. I don't think this is so speedy. I mean, the Republicans are always saying, oh, you're rushing us. They're rushing, they're saying you're rushing us and then they're not cooperating. Well, in this case, they're dragging it out because it's gonna be, I think, advantageous to do so. And Nancy says, oh, we're not really rushing but I don't think she's made that point effectively. I think this could have been a lot faster. The guy's done terrible, awful things, nefarious things that have come out for sure and we're really not moving fast enough. And they haven't just hurt us, they've hurt Ukraine also because they had to sit down with Putin and his position was markedly weakened because of it. I mean, instead of Pompeo or somebody from America being there to help them, nobody was there. Trump is a compromised president, my point of earlier. He's somehow been compromised and he's favoring an enemy every time you look. Every time you turn around. Oh, leads back to Russia. Yeah. So let's go back to the actual hearing in the Senate. You know, they've said they're gonna call Biden and his son as witnesses. This has very, very little to do with the actual impeachment. What's gonna happen there? Those guys are gonna line it up so that it's not gonna be the same. Now one point that a story that Time's made, I like to pose to both of you is this. They said that there's a problem for Trump in the Senate because he can't, if the Senate wants his documents, if the Senate wants his witnesses in the White House, those people, the same people who refused to show up or provide documents in the House. It's very hard for him to say, I'm not cooperating, because they don't look like he's obstructing the Senate too. The Senate now. If he says, well, I don't think I'll come down and participate in this. It's all hard wash. I think it's harder for him to say that in the Senate. So the question is what's gonna happen? Maybe the Senate, McConnell, tries to find a way around that by not calling any of those witnesses, by not seeking any of those documents. Right, that's what he's gonna do. I think that's what he's gonna do. I do too. Because it's the thing we talked about just when we were on air. An attorney should never ask a question they don't have the answer to before that witness gets in front of a camera. My gut or a jury, you know? I don't think he knows what any of those witnesses would say under, you know, if the Democrats had a chance at them. And that's why it's a safer nut to get them on the quote unquote the stand. That's gonna be really interesting. And the rules are gonna be interesting. You know, I think the Democrats bent over backward to make fair rules, allowed the Republicans a lot of room. And the Republicans took advantage of that opinion. So what's the rules in the Senate are gonna be determined by the Senate, aren't they? They'll be hard and harsh. And they'll just go, that's how it is. And they'll get away with it. And they'll get away with it, I'm telling ya. Where are you gonna go? But remember, I'm trying to think back in the actual trial, okay? They do have a judge. In the actual trial, it's Roberts. And you know, Roberts is not completely predictable as a Trumper on this. He may not be a full-tailed Trumper in the course of that trial. That'll be a lot of pressure on him to make obviously biased moves in presiding over that trial. Wow, that'll be interesting. But it will also be structured to avoid an acquittal at all costs and avoid a conviction at all costs, yeah. Okay, so where are we? Let's connect the dots here. Where are we here? We're three years post. We are in a complete tunnel in the world. But the economy is good and he is pounding on that. And we haven't heard much about immigration lately. And we should, because I think, you know. Still happening, a 16-year-old boy just died. There was an article in the paper about some judge in El Paso, stopped the wall. He said it was inappropriate to use military construction money, including military construction money from projects here in Hawaii for the wall, because that was the violation of the power of the purse and separation of powers. But where are we? Something you mentioned earlier, Tim, we're kind of in a confusion here. We've got so much going on, so many things are happening that even us guys are barraged and it's hard to keep yourself clear on this. What is really happening? Where is it going? It's like an amoeba with 100 pseudopods. I use that word as much as I believe. I love that. Well, I think by design. I think by design. These tweets are coming out in just huge volumes and how can anyone cover it? And I think that's the problem with the press, is that they're trying to cover everything. They're not just trying to select that, which what is the most newsworthy story of the day? They're covering everything, including, if you remember last night, the Hershey, Pennsylvania rally. I mean, we're spending a lot of time on that. And he lied through the whole thing. Yes, but the point is, they're covering things that maybe are human interest stories like how the guards were too politically correct and escorting that woman out of the pavilion. Who cares? We're in the middle of an impeachment. Let's talk about the impeachment, not Trump at the podium and making hay with calling the FBI scum and that the guards are too PC. The press is covering human interest stories within this political environment. I know that gets readership. I know that gets people to click on and they're not doing their job properly, in my opinion. Well, Tegan, how much of what he said you agree with, Cynthia? Most all of it. Yeah, because they don't think they're doing a good enough job of it. Of talking about the things that are important. I even switched off of, was watching MSNBC the other day and they were in the middle of, was it Burke? Barry Burke, the guy who was questioning the two lawyers, right? And it was a really important part of questioning and they switched to the IG report. And I'm like, I don't want to hear what that says. I want to hear what these guys are saying because I thought that both Castor and Goldman were really important and the way they conducted themselves and the answers that they gave spoke volumes about what's really going on here. They caught Castor in three separate lies that he said during his beginning part, right? And out of his 45-minute opening statement, seven minutes were on substantive matters of facts. The rest of it was all process. Close. The audiences are getting burned out. That's why we're seeing a variety of coverage on the Manini, if you will. They're getting burned out, and they can't handle it all like the Nixon days. The attention span of the American public has diminished. Time to press. Okay, we're gonna be off for a few weeks. We'll come back to the beginning of the year, yeah? Be a different world. Be a different world. Make notes. Tim Mappichella. Thank you, Jay. Cynthia Sinclair. Thanks, Jay. I love you guys. Happy holidays. Happy holidays. Aloha. Aloha.