 We're back on a Friday morning and we're here at one of my favorite shows. This is Trump Week because, you know, everybody has a duty to understand what's going on. And I don't mean to just listen to all the propaganda that comes out of the White House, but to understand what's going on. That's our mission here. So there's three hosts here, Tim Apichella, Cynthia Sinclair, and me, Jay. And today we're going to look at it on our given Friday. We're going to see what's happened this week. And I'm going to let Tim call the agenda. Okay? What's first in Trump Week today? Well, I think we should talk about the State of the Union address. Okay. So, one of the longest ones, hour and 20 minutes, certainly not short and snappy. Oh, that's long. And, you know, it was filled with, you know, a variety of different twist and turns. Certainly some of them expected and many of them not. I think the one that, you know, was hitting the headlines, of course, with the quote was, if there is going to be peace in legislation, there cannot be war and investigation. Snappy little rhyme, isn't it? But you know, when I heard that, I said, okay, that's the tone. That's the agenda. He's not making peace at all. It's a threat. It's a threat. Yeah, it's a threat. And I've heard that in many, many commentators is that to the extent that he suggested there'd be, you know, collaboration, he also suggested they would be war. So it's, I would like to say neutralizes itself, but it doesn't. At the end of the day, it comes out to war. It's nothing has changed. You agree with what I said? I totally agree. And he said it twice. He didn't just say it once. He reiterated it to really drive home his point. I mean, there were, you know, these little olive branches of, you know, conciliatory let's work together. Let's work together. Let's work together with the crime reform bill. And you know, so there was these little olive branches that we did get some things done on a bipartisan basis. That doesn't mean that's where he's going forward from this point. No, he still wants what he wants. He hasn't, he hasn't capitulated on anything. Right. He's pushing for the wall too. Oh yeah. And I noticed a tone, a change in the tone of his voice when he's throughout the speech and when he's those conciliatory offerings, he has this very sarcastic kind of ride tone to his voice when he's saying something that's not true. Well, he doesn't mean it. And when he doesn't mean it, it shows in his voice. It doesn't mean anything. It's like he's being forced to say it. Right. Yes. Well, that's the teleprompter of Donald Trump. Yeah. And once he gets, steers off the teleprompter, we start seeing the real Donald Trump. That's why they are mortified to say, stay on prompter. Right. Right. And last week you headed home to look up the word narcissists. What did you find? Well, narcissism is a really large thing that all of us have a little bit of in ourselves because it stems mostly from profound insecurity. And the ones that are really profoundly insecure are the ones that need to control everything around them the most. They cannot admit that anything is their fault. They always have to have a scapegoat in place. They are bullies. All the things that we see in Trump, but I think he takes it one step further. I think he goes into that. Okay. I've said this all along from the very first show, the projection that he does, which is when you're doing something, you accuse somebody else of it. And I have seen it repeatedly throughout. We all have. Yeah. That time is time in office. And just the other day, Nancy Pelosi actually stood up from the dais and said it, said that he's a projector. And that's what he is. And in my mind, and I'm saying the same thing I've sort of said all along, which is we need to sort of judge everything that comes out of his mouth by that theory of is he just projecting. Is he really doing it when he's pointing to somebody else and saying that they're doing it? That's something that he's doing. Yeah. So it goes beyond these textbook psychology. Yes. And I think it does. It's pathological. It's completely pathological. And I think he's sort of a classic sociopath. And I don't understand why main media does not talk about it. Hearing Nancy Pelosi the other day was the first time I really heard somebody. Well, hopefully they will. It's the new frontier that the media doesn't want to go into. Right. It's what it was to Franklin Roosevelt when he had to use crutches from the car and they would never show him actually on crutches. They wouldn't touch it. This is no different now. His mental illness is something that they don't want to go down that road and actually say this may be contributory to the bizarre behavior we get from the commander-in-chief and the bizarre policy switches back and forth. And that's something they don't want to do. So I come away and watch the whole thing because I actually couldn't. I could not bring myself to watch the whole thing. But I come away with, you know, it was hebrophrenic in the sense of jumping from one thing to another. Right. And it was all the schmals like he commuted the sentence of some woman who'd been in jail, shouldn't have been in jail. What has that got to do with the State of the Union? All the schmals he was bringing in to stroke people, maybe make his base feel that he had a real heart. We know he doesn't have a real heart. At the same time, you know, his position remains the same. And his pathology remains the same. So I think, you know, at the end of the day, and I'll take this out of him, I think it was the time, said it didn't make any difference. I agree. It didn't change anybody's mind. Right. Well, do you have any further thoughts on that? Well, I thought it was the first time when we had a midterm election that was the biggest seats gain since right after Nixon's departure. We had that kind of results in the House of Representatives, and it's the first time a president did not acknowledge a change of political flavor, you know, flavor. You know, we had 1995, George Bush, excuse me, 2007, George Bush had to admit that, you know, the midterms didn't work out well for him. Clinton had to do it in 95, and certainly Barack Obama did. So here's no acknowledgement of a change in shift. And in this case, when it came to the House of Representatives, a mandate. It was a mandate. And not one word to acknowledge in the state of the union address of that mandate. Alternative universe. That's what it is. It's not the same world we live in. Okay. What's next on your agenda? Well, a couple of other points is that, you know, we're talking about the announcement of North Korea in the meeting that's going to take place. We'll see if that is any more of an impact. I did get a kick out of the quote that he said, if I hadn't been elected, we would be right now, in my opinion, in a major war with North Korea. Now, is that the narcissist part that's coming out in Donald Trump? That he would have started. Right. You know, I mean, I think we are at risk around the world to become embroiled in more wars than you can shake a stick at. He talks about pulling out of, you know, untimely pulling out of Syria, talks about changing the players and the geopolitical positions in, you know, in the Middle East. But the fact is, it seems to me, I don't know how you guys feel about it, we are at greater risk of war, including a conflagration under his kind of foreign policy. I think he wants that. Well, you know, I'm going to shift gears a little bit, but you know, this rhetoric about, you know, being staged in Iraq and to keep eyes on Iran. Well, we know that the Iraq government didn't know this, you know, when he visited that area in Christmas time, he made, you know, similar overtures that Iraq is this who can become a satellite base for us to keep an eye on Syria, keep an eye, we didn't specifically mention Iran that time. But the point is, he's setting the stage for potential conflict when it's convenient for him. Because remember, it's the distraction of the distraction. And all these different places in the world can easily be a tinderbox and be the new distraction to get away from what? Yeah. Mueller's investigation. Right. Right. That's the whole idea. So he's setting the chess board up. Yeah. We're talking about what's going to happen in Venezuela, is he going to send some troops on the border there? Oh my God. I mean, you know, I'm just saying that, you know, look for the distraction. To keep making threats one of these days, you get into a fight. That's correct. I think he's wanted to sort of instigate some kind of war or, you know, skirmish battle, something. Anyway, from what he does in our own country to pit American against American. It's a scapegoat battle is what it is. Well, he can become more powerful if he can step in and say, look what I did. And that's what he's all about. And then, and I always heart back to martial law that, you know, if he declares a national emergency that is too close to martial law and gives him wide scoping power. I was worried he was going to do that in the State of the Union, but he didn't. I was surprised. Were you surprised? I was surprised that he didn't. I didn't feel that confident that he was going to do it, but it would not have surprised me had he done it. So doesn't that paint him further in the corner if he's going to hold up for the 5.7 billion? One link from today, boys and girls, is the end of the interim shutdown agreement, and so we're going to go back and shut down country on the 15th. That's one week from today. But didn't the State of the Union address paint him further into that corner? It did. It did. Yeah. He's still threatening. He's threatened it sort of in. He didn't actually declare it, but he was threatening it. He said, I can do it. Well, how's he going to get out of it now that he can't declare a national emergency? Well, another distraction. That's what it'll be. Yeah. What about immigration? Anything happening with immigration? Lots is happening with immigration. Unfortunately. They've just got proof now with this next last report that came out that says that they were separating families before they actually declared the zero tolerance. So there's already thousands of kids. They don't know the exact number. They don't have a database. They don't have a database. They didn't set one up. No. They had no intention of reunification of child to parent. Just punish me. Punish everybody in sight. Make them sweat. Make them suffer. That's what happened here. And anybody could have seen that coming. No database. And where did the kids go? With young kids who can't even identify themselves? Where did they go? And to say that they're just in foster care doesn't make any sense either because there are hundreds of thousands of American children in foster care that can't get foster homes. Right. And tell me they were able to just place all of these little Hispanic kids in little enclosures with cyclone fences. Well, here's the problem for the Trump administration is that this report came out of the administration of the office of Inspector General Government Accountability Office. And so this is an official report put out by the administration about the thousands of kids that were separated before the zero tolerance policy was announced back in June 14th, 2018. Now, I'm just going to take a little whirlwind here. Real quick one is how was the zero tolerance policy announced by Jeff Sessions? Does anyone remember? Oh, gosh. I don't think it was announced. It was. Wait, wait, wait. And he even cited the Bible saying that he was justified. Here it is. You got it? Oh, good. I would cite to you the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order. June 14th, 2018. Jeff Sessions. Oh, gosh. So when you use God or you invoke the word of God to basically validate any horrible policy that you implement upon people, whether they're citizens of the United States or noncitizens of the United States, that's deplorable. I'm sorry. It is. Absolutely. And this whole policy of separating child from parents is something I can't imagine the United States has ever done. I mean, World War II, we did incarcerate Japanese Americans and that was very morally wrong. We didn't separate families. We didn't separate families. Let's take a short break. You guys will come back and we'll cover more points, including my personal favorite one involving Jeff Bezos. We'll be right back. Aloha. I'm Yukari Kunisue. The host of Konnichiwa, Hawaii, Japanese talk show on Think Tech, Hawaii. Konnichiwa, Hawaii is all Japanese broadcast show and streamed live on Think Tech at 2 p.m. every other Monday. Thank you so much for watching our show. We look forward to seeing you then. I'm Yukari Kunisue. Mahalo. I'm Jay Fidel of Think Tech. Our flagship energy show among the six energy shows we have is Hawaii, the state of clean energy. It plays every Wednesday at 4 p.m. Come around and see us. Learn about energy. Keep current on energy on ThinkTechHawaii.com. We're back with Trump week. Okay. And that's Tim Appichella and Cynthia Sinclair. And I'm Jay Fidel. And every Friday at 11 o'clock, we talk about what happened in the past week on Mr. Trump. And I don't know if we completely finished the possibility of another shutdown. That would really be Looney Tunes. It's in his control yet again. Right. And if he does another shutdown, he runs the risk of losing defectors from the Republican party or anything. How is he doing? Are there defections? Are there flaws and cracks and fractures in the Republican party these days? I would hope so. I would hope that these people can take their blinders off and spit out the Kool-Aid and actually look at the facts because the facts speak for themselves. And the behavior is obvious. And two, I don't understand how people can justify what's happening. I don't understand how the high ranking Republicans in the Senate can justify it. I was watching them interview Whitaker today in Congress, right? And the Republicans are just, they just like puff him up and, you know, give him all these compliments and don't even ask him real questions. And then as soon as the Democrats start to ask him really hard pointed questions, you know, did you talk to Washington, anyone in the White House about what you have learned about the Mueller investigation? And he wouldn't answer it. He just, you know, gives these crazy, skirting things. That sounds like the Trump administration. Nobody answers your question. I think the cracks were happening before the last shutdown and they certainly were there after story, after story, after story of the horrific trials and tribulations the government workers were going through to put food on the table to pay the bills, the whole thing. They didn't need that. That was a black eye for the Republican party. I agree. And I know for a fact that they don't want to see it again because many of those senators are coming up for election in red, purple states. And they're losing the popularity of the wall because of the shutdown. And they don't want to see that again. So you will see them come out. I hope so, I hope so. My prediction. I may be wrong, but it's my prediction. Well, I hope so too. What troubles me a lot is the whole thing about the press because the press has been changed. It's been morphed in some way since this administration began, lying to the press on a regular basis, criticizing the press, telling people that the press is the enemy of the people. And this is horrific because as the Washington Post says in his tagline, democracy dies in darkness. And we have now a confusion about what's true and what's not true. Who do you believe? And the press itself is suffering. So like this story that came out just yesterday about Jeff Bezos. Let me see if I can state what happened. Jeff Bezos, apparently, he's getting divorced or he got divorced. And there was a woman that he was seeing having an affair with. And there were photographs. And somehow the National Inquirer got those photographs and got some data about this. And they threatened, oh, and Bezos was real concerned about how this leaked. Because somebody got it. Social media or somebody in his organization, I don't know where, but he wanted to find out where it had leaked to the National Inquirer. And they said something like, if you pursue that, this inquiry into how it leaked, we're going to put it public. And what he did was he put it public. I know, I love that. He proactively got ahead of it. He says, if I can't stand up to it, who can? And he called it, I think, what it is, blackmail and extortion. They extorted him about the news. And so what you have is flat out corruption within the media, assuming you call the National Inquirer a media. Thank you. You have corruption within the media. It's very scary now, the media fighting with itself. I mean, the way people would see it. And doing crimes and blackmail and extortion kind of crimes against it. And you don't know if there's more of that behind the curtain. Well, what scares me, or makes me laugh, not scares me, the parent company of the Inquirer said, we'll investigate this. Really? Sure. This is the same media outlet that announced that I married Bat Boy. And that was a front page, full page article back in the 1980s. No credibility at all. I married Bat Boy. So I'm not sure to what degree the Inquirer... See what troubles me is that there's a connection between Pecker and Trump. There is one. Well, they captured the two salacious stories about him dating porn stars. And the playboy. The playboy bunny, right? I had a long-term relationship. Your names don't come to mind, but that was a capture-and-burn approach. And that works hand-in-hand with Donald Trump. And that's already been proven. He's already direct payments. This line has already been more or less flushed out in the spotlight. So what you don't know, what we don't know is if this whole affair with the extortion blackmail that Bezos is complaining about came from the White House. Because there was some indication that Trump might pardon Pecker for crimes. And that's really sleazy if it came from the White House. Remember, in his business career, Trump was always trying to manipulate the press. Even using phony names as sources back in New York. Well, if Bezos wasn't his arch-enemy, I wouldn't be so inclined to be suspicious of that very thing. But who else is going to go after him? I mean, lots of people, because he's, you know... The thing is that if you look at the three papers that are speaking out, maybe four, that are affirmatively every day speaking out against Trump. The New York Times. The Washington Post owned by Bezos. The Guardian. Really very good. And something called, I've been watching The Daily Costs, KOS. And they have lots of stories about him. You've got to look at this stuff. But what troubles me is that here he's creating this whole attack on Jeff Bezos. And he's attacked Bezos before. Through Picker, through the National Inquirer. And, you know, to me, it sounds like a way to undermine and threaten the press who attacks him. Well, you know, he used Fox and Friends, and he's used Fox News as his mouthpiece as well. In fact, back in November 26th, 2018, Donald Trump proposed a state-run news agency. That's so scary. Because he criticized CNN for being a powerful voice in the world, but it's unfair and false. And something has to be done about it, and that includes the possibility of starting an own worldwide network to show the world the way we really are. Great. Oh, wow. Okay, so, you know, there is something called Voice of America. We all kind of have a pseudo kind of news agency that does translate around the world. It's the grandchild of Radio Free Europe. So, that already sort of exists. But he wants to start a new news agency to be the mouthpiece for what Donald Trump thinks is his greatness. And the Homeland Security Office announced that it was keeping a list of all journalists. A matrix, a database of all journalists in the country who ever speak on political issues. And it was including in that list, in that database, their positions on things, namely whether they attack Trump or not. Nixon had a list. Yeah, he did. Right. I notice the difference for me. It's very scary when you start listing, including, you know, positions on journalists in the country. Ever since I've been on this show, my Facebook feed goes out to no one. It has, I mean, drastically changed. And maybe, you know, I'm just, you know, maybe it's coincidence, but I don't know, because I would have, you know, maybe upwards of a little over 100 people that I'm close friends with from high school and in different jobs and things. And they would always, that's how I would get my good numbers for my show, finding respect in the chaos and stuff. And every single show, I would get these great responses. Now I get three. I get four. I'm like, who's looking at my stuff? Nobody. So I went and did, you know, direct messages to all my friends. And they're like, I haven't seen your posts in, you know, about a month. And I'm thinking, oh, about the same amount of time I've been doing this show. That's interesting. Well, you know, we only have a couple of minutes left, and I wanted to ask you guys a question about where it's going. You know, because part of our job here is to connect the dots. How was it, say, in the inauguration of 2017? How is it now? How is the relationship with the press then and now? How is the government doing then and now? How are the courts doing? What's your sense? Pick a thread. And tell me how do you think it's going? Well, my thread is I remember distinctly after the inauguration, and people weren't sure about who Donald Trump was. They thought he was going to be able to transform to the office. He was going to elevate to the office. That was two years ago. And I remember distinctly people saying, let's give him a hundred days. Well, we're way past a hundred days. And he has not reason to the mantle of the office. He's below subterranean of the office. He's followed Putin's playlist when he's done and walked right down the line. And the state TV thing, a state news agency, is another one of the pieces in that puzzle. I'm concerned about that connection. And I think a lot of Americans are. And the thread is we have to be vigilant and keep an eye on that thread to make sure it doesn't accelerate here with distractions. Distractions or head-on collisions. Head-on collisions. That could be attorney general, not acting or otherwise. So, yeah, how is the Mueller investigation? Where are we on that? When is it coming out? Well, according to. And according to Whitaker, it's coming out very soon, which is something he never should have said in public and he's getting a lot of flack for. We have no idea when it's going to be done. I don't know how it can come out when Roger Stone is. It's just been delayed. Remember that for us? Yeah. It's not going to come out until all these new pieces have fallen into place. Congress, I mean, the House just sent their stuff over to Mueller. So he's got all this new stuff that's just come in because the Republicans wouldn't let it go over there before. They wouldn't send their stuff. I'm sorry. No, no, go ahead. It's just maybe a checklist of things he already knows. And it's just to say, I have one more piece to validate what I already have on my table. Right. So I'm not sure it's going to be new leads for him to follow more still than this check mark checklist. Oh, yeah, right. Well, here's a thread that I would like you guys to comment on. And that is when we started out with this, Trump was, you know, enjoying a lot of press, okay? But these days, he enjoys the whole thing. It's the whole enchilada is about him. I mean, it must be 95% of the articles you read, really, are about him. Right. Where does that go? Is that healthy? I don't know how the government can function if they're all tied up in investigations and dealing with him one way or the other on political issues and following his, his Michigas all around town. I don't know that way. So is the government functioning properly? No. Is the Congress functioning? They seem to be spending all the time on him and the press seems to be spending all its time on him. We are in kind of a spasm, a convulsion over this administration. Right? Yeah. Temporarily. I think the House of Representatives is focusing specifically on some very important things they did want to investigate, but they know that if they spend all the time, they won't get reelected two years from now. So I think that's going to be very short-lived and I think you're going to start seeing legislation being passed and then sent to the Senate and we'll see if those bills languish in the Senate. And then that will be reported on. Yeah, we need to get back to ordinary business as usual kind of legislation, legislative process and Congress. I don't think we're addressing. And one last thing is, you know, I heard on the way in that there's a big push over single-payer health care in this country, such as has been discussed for a long time, including Sandra's a couple of years ago. What's the chances of that? The Democrats seem like they're relatively speaking united over it. I think they got some kind of program going and it's actually very appealing to, should be, appealing to everyone or at least most people. Is that attraction or is that a dead duck? We're polarized. We're a polarized nation. We're a polarized Congress. When cows fly. Okay, let's leave it there. It seems to me that we're spending all our time in the important thing for the government and every member of the Congress should recognize this, is to get back to business and do business and do policy and do legislation and depoliticize, you know, helping people and doing the right thing for the country. We need to get back to that. I hope so too. I hope we can finish what's happening in these investigations into Trump because I would hate for them to just walk away from it and say, well, we have other stuff to do now because I think it's pretty important to talk about who he is, be really set in stone. You think there's momentum building for impeachment right now? Oh, goodness, yes. I think so, absolutely. Momentum, but not facts. Momentum, but not facts yet. Not enough facts yet. But there kind of are, as soon as they can prove all the stuff Cohen said, it is. I mean, campaign finance laws, that he's not, he has not de-invest, no, disinvested. What's the word I need to say? The Amalian's Clause, he's totally blown that one out of the water. There's all kinds of facts and evidence for that. That's an impeachable offense right there. The only thing that's going to work is the really serious ones, that the high crimes. Right, connected, yeah. The practical ways. It won't be the small stuff because they won't get enough support for it, but if it's the high crimes that would show something really serious, I think even the Republican senators are going to have to say, we have to do our duty to the oath of the Constitution. And I think that will happen, but it has to be serious. Right. Well, and the other possibility is that the Republicans are not going to leave the ship. They're going to stay solid. 38% was still with Nixon? Didn't he have 38%? It depends on how surprising the Mueller investigation is. How shocking it is. No matter what happens in the interim, what really plays is in the 2020 elections. Right. Because that's, you know, there's a fair chance that the Mueller investigation will have its most significant effect in the 2020 elections. Right. And maybe there's a benefit in having it... Delayed. Delayed until... Because people forget. Right? If you put it out today, it's still a long time to 2020. By 2020. You know how people forget. That would be political gamemanship, but we wouldn't want that. We live in a new time. We do. Thank you, Tim. Thank you so much, Jay. Cynthia Sinclair. Thanks, Jay. Next week, Trump Week. You'll see.