 everyone and welcome to Ehana Kako. We're here every week on the Think Tech Hawaii Broadcast Network. I'm Kiddli Akina, president of the Grass Root Institute. Well, whether you live in Hawaii or Washington, D.C., focus is on the new president of the United States, Donald Trump. When he was elected, the Dow soared over 20,000, but protests broke out across the country. Well, what can we expect? Well, without a doubt, those who might be called, quote-unquote, liberal have their concerns, but at the same time, those who have been called, quote-unquote, conservative have their concerns as well. We're going to take a look at why the country seems to be very nervous about the new president of the United States. My guest today is a familiar figure on our program, Andy Blom, executive director of Grass Root Hawaii Action in Washington, D.C. Andy, welcome to the program. Aloha. It's great to be at least electronically back in Hawaii. That's right. I see you don't have your tie on. It must be Pau Hana time up there in D.C. If I took off my bullet or full of girl tie, which I wear so people know I'm representing grass. That's right. Well, you know, today we're not going to talk so much about Grass Root initiatives, but really we're going to give our folks here in Hawaii and across the country who are watching a little view, a little insight as to what someone from Hawaii yourself thinks about what's going on in D.C. But I want to say this. When I last visited shortly after the election, there was such disarray. People were worrying where their jobs were going, where policy would end up. And I'm talking about the Republicans. It seems that there's enough motion going around for everyone. Well, when Mr. Trump said, let's drain the swamp and the people said, let's drain the swamp. Remember, the swamp was full of both parties. And I go to regular meetings and people were saying to me through the campaign, you know, if he wins, we're all out of jobs, too. And it's crazy and frantic up here. It's really interesting. Well, one of the concerns that you and I have discussed before has to do with what we do at the Grass Root Institute and at Grass Root Action. And that is we comment upon policy, policy with respect to the economy, government transparency, small business, and so forth, protectionism. You name it, we talk about it, but we've been having a little bit of a difficult time trying to figure out precisely where President Trump falls on policy. Now, I'm not talking about politics. I'm not talking about what we think of him as a leader, but just trying to determine what his stand is. How are we doing in finding out what his actual policy stands are on a broad range of very important issues? Are we getting better? I think we're getting a clearer picture. The picture is President Trump is not a conservative Republican. He's certainly not a liberal Democrat. He's a populist. And what we're seeing are things that person he's running right through his campaign promises and delivering. But the way he's doing all of this, it's obvious that he brings in union leaders and deals with them. He brings in business and deals with them. He is primarily focused on getting America moving, very transparent, but much more popular than a Republican. Well, what is the basis for his principles? You say he's not a typical conservative Republican. Oh, what is his guiding principle in terms of determining policy? Obviously, he cares deeply about the advancement of the American people. He is a populist president. But where does he find his political compass as he leads the country? I think that oddly enough, his campaign slogan, Make America Great Again, actually tells you a lot about the man when he says that. Yes, he's talking about a very dynamic economy, but he's also talking about, for lack of a better term, traditional American values. He is his appointments to the Supreme Court are strict constitutionalists. He is dedicated very much to national defense, to national security. And I think that I think if you were looking for what point to do north on his compass, it's his concept of a traditional great America and anything that moves the people forward and protects our nation and grows our nation is going to have his attention. Well, apparently, because he is in office now and the people put him there, his message resonated quite a bit with the American people. And so there has been a tremendous outpour of support for President Trump. But at the same time, there has been perhaps historic objection to him coming into office and attempts to do everything possible to derail his presidency. First, let me ask you to draw upon your history. You've been around longer and seen more presidents than I have, Andy. We won't go back all the way to George Washington. But is the outrage and protest resulting from Trump's presidency actually historical? Is it unprecedented? Or has this happened frequently in the past as well? Well, the coverage is unprecedented, partly because the news media is not very fond of the president and partly because we just have a lot more news media than we used to and a lot more ways of people hearing things. As far as the protests, I hate to tell you this. I was a child of the 60s and the protests against Vietnam and civil rights protests and free speech protests. Although I want to point out when we were protesting in free speech, we were protesting so that everyone had the right to say something, not to keep people from saying things. So but those protests were as widespread and as big. We had 200, 300,000 people to march for Washington on Vietnam. You know, these aren't, you know, this isn't. All together, new big protests against the World Bank. It, oh, I don't know. Eight, nine years ago, we're about the size of some of this. The difference is and it's kind of unseemly, frankly, when Barack Obama won the presidency, no matter how. Middle America, conservatives, Republicans, anybody felt about it. There weren't riots in the streets. Nobody was arrested when the Tea Party had its large movement. And everybody was freaking about out about the Tea Party. Nobody was arrested. There was no violence, no limousines got burned. So the difference here is, frankly, just very bad behavior from a bunch of sore losers. What it is doing, and this is something that you have to read past the media to see is it's reaffirming Trump supporters. And it's actually building support for Trump because. When an American president wins an election, we have a peaceful transfer of power. We don't riot and it's being viewed in a large part of the country and large throughout the mainland as a whole bunch of extremists. And I think that that's actually hurting any comeback from the Democrats. They're just marginalizing themselves. Well, that's an interesting observation because a candidate Trump had been characterized as an extremist as a polarizing figure, as someone to use a phrase you just used, who has not well behaved or bad behavior. And now what you're saying is that the very protest movements that are targeted at Trump and his presidency are garnering that kind of reputation for themselves. Unport. I think it's unfortunate because I think they're, you know, I think we should be having valid discussions about serious issues calling people names and throwing things into occupied restaurants and setting fire to limousines is not a valid discussion. I don't have to listen to your point of view when that's how you're behaving. And that's pretty much the way the president is regarding this. And now it's the way a whole lot of Washington and a whole lot of middle America is regarding this. Now we've been talking about the reactions of the general public in response to media and the media portrayal of many of these reactions, which you have pointed out are not in the kinds of numbers that have occurred in the 60s. But let's take a look at our political leaders themselves. The our congressional members, our senators and so forth. What do you see going on in terms of their behavior and their response to the new president? Well, they're learning to get along. The president is moving much more aggressively than Congress usually does. And this is one of the things that is causing I don't know if I want to call it friction so much as some either tactical or personality differences. The one of the reasons Trump won, President Trump won, was because the great many people were sick of Washington. And when Congress doesn't act that further confirms the American people's attitude that Congress isn't doing what it ought to do. And I think that if Congress drags its feet on all of these programs, I think it would not be a year. I would want to be an incumbent in in 2018 because people sent Trump there to get things done. If Congress is a roadblock, they're going to take some action. Senator McConnell has basically said, we're going to get Trump's programs through. Paul Ryan has basically said, actually, Ryan is being more aggressive in some ways than Trump is on things like Obamacare. So with the Republican Senate, with the Republican Congress, we're going to see action. The, you know, the tussle right now. And I think it's a temporary tussle is between how they how they're used to acting and how Trump won. Well, in terms of game plan, what do you see going on now in the wake of President Obama's flurry of executive orders toward the end of his administration, especially and now the flurry of undoing executive orders that you mentioned, Obamacare in particular, but what's going on here? Well, again, Trump has been President Trump has been very active and the optics of this are very interesting. Remember, people sent him to Washington to drain the swamp. We see every day him sitting at a desk, him reading. This is on the news every day, reading an executive order physically signing it, holding it up for people to see. He's showing the American people he's undoing these things and he's undoing these things in big blocks. We're going we have and are going to be seeing executive orders just cutting lots of regulations on businesses, opening the Dakota Access and Keystone Pipeline, creating a lot more a lot more openness in drilling for gas and oil. We're going to have an energy boom from this. We're going to have regulations cutting corporate taxes, which is really going to help small businesses and help them hire people. But he's just he's knocking down and he's not alone. There last week, six CRAs, Congressional Review Acts, went through Congress undoing actions by Obama's regulatory agencies. And there's another. I think the figure I heard last week was 25 CRAs that will be out and within the next two weeks. Well, that's a significant number when we come back from a short break. Andy, I'm going to ask you about the concern that as President Trump does certain things. He's not all that clear, according to some, as to where we're going, particularly in terms of the Affordable Care Act known as Obamacare. Well, I'm talking with Andy Blom, Executive Director of Grassroot Action, Hawaii in Washington, D.C. And we're taking a look at the transition in of the new president of the United States. Don't go away. We'll be right back after the short message on Think Tech of Hawaii's a Hanukkah go here every week on Mondays. OK, I'm here with Brett Obergaard of the Faculty of the School of Journalism and the Department of Communications at UH Minoa. We've had a number of shows. We have a movable feast going on and we talk about journalism. We talk about language. You're talking about communication in general. And we talk about the effect of that on the country and on individual people. Brett, it's so good to be able to discuss this with you in a movable feast. Oh, it's my pleasure. This is a great opportunity. You'll have to come back again and again. OK, deal? That's the deal. Brett Obergaard, I'm Jay Fidel. We care about everything. Thanks. Hi, I'm Tim Appichella. I'm the host for Moving Hawaii Forward. And the show is dedicated to transportation and traffic issues in Oahu. We are all frustrated by sitting in our cars in bumper to bumper traffic. And this show is dedicated to talking with folks that not only we can define the problem, but we hopefully can come to the table with some solutions. So I invite you to join me every Tuesday at 12 noon. And let's move Hawaii forward. Welcome back to the second half of today's a Hanukkah go here every week on the Think Tech Hawaii Broadcast Network. I'm Keely Akina at the Grassroot Institute. We'd love to say Ehana Kako, which is like a venerable old saying here in Hawaii. A Pule Kako. A Pule Kako means let's Pule. Let's pray Kako together at Grassroot. We like to say Ehana, let's work Kako together. Imagine what society would be like if we didn't work together to build a better government economy and society. And that's an important thing we need to do, whether we're here in Hawaii or in Washington, D.C. Andy Blom is up there helping us to achieve the interests that will indeed help Hawaii to have a better economy, government and society as he's executive director of Grassroot Hawaii Action. Andy, back to our conversation today. One of the concerns with the transition from the Obama presidency to the Trump presidency is that as we have a flurry of undoing of laws and executive orders, we may not be so very clear as to where we're going. And perhaps that conversation is no more pronounced than in the area of the Affordable Care Act known as Obamacare. The common criticism is that President Trump has not enunciated a clear plan as to where we would go if we replace the Affordable Care Act. And we are going to be leaving people high and dry in terms of their health care if we dismantle something before we know where we're going. How do you assess this conversation? This is very complicated. And the most of the people currently in the majority in Congress ran on will repeal Obamacare. But Obamacare has had a lot of impact. And it's driven insurance companies out of the market. It's caused mergers in insurance companies. There's a lot of states in this country where you can only have a choice of one provider where there used to be many. And this is one of the outcomes of Obamacare. I don't know if you think back just a little while ago, I have my health care in Hawaii and I had great health care and a whole lot of Hawaii had health care. We had the best in the country. It wasn't improved by Obamacare, but premiums are starting to go up all across the country as a result of Obamacare. Fines are being leveled. Loving businesses weren't able to hire people because it costs too much to add an employee with the health care. So there was definitely a downside, but you can't simply take it away without a dealing with the problems it's going to cause. And fixing some of the problems it's going to cause is doubly difficult because some of the impacts of Obamacare has to do with the availability of doctors now, with the availability of insurance companies. So it's not going to be this is not a let's throw the switch and on Thursday it's one thing and on Friday it's something else. So there's Andy, where is the Trump administration in terms of rolling out a replacement plan? Or is that even feasible that a whole plan would be rolled out soon? Well, the answer partly is no one's exactly sure where the Trump administration is, but Paul Ryan and the House Republicans very definitely have a plan that they're moving forward. And it's good that that has been in the works for over a year. So we're likely to see the solution come out of the House of Representatives and not the president. OK, now, earlier in the program, we talked about the fact that it's not only, quote, unquote, liberals that may be a bit confused about where President Trump is going. So our conservatives and one area has to do with our policy toward protectionism of American markets and American labor, perhaps the most colorful episode of President Trump at work in his style is his intervention with carrier air conditioning company in which he apparently has claimed that he's saved at least a thousand jobs there by intervening so that they don't send those jobs off to Mexico to be to operate a factory. And so on one hand, it looks like a populist victory defending American jobs. On the other hand, conservatives aren't sure what to think of this because it's defending protectionism rather than letting the free market play out. What are your thoughts about this? This is a really interesting area because. You know, there's also the Ford Motor Company deal, which is going to take a Mexico to be kept. And Japan has announced they're doing a seven hundred thousand or seven hundred billion dollar project in the U.S. It's going to create hundreds of thousands of jobs. So all that sounds really good. But one of the curious things that happened during the campaign is that both President Trump and Hillary Clinton ran against the Trans Pacific Partnership and they both ran on protectionist platforms, which did confuse Republicans. But there were the Republicans in Congress were split on this enough that the TPP couldn't get passed. Obama desperately wanted it and it couldn't get out of Congress because there was there was sufficient Republican opposition to it. So we're going through a period here. And, you know, that that was a deal with almost the whole Pacific Rim, except China. And Trump announces, well, I'm going to cut separate deals with each of these countries. But he also meets with the union leaders and assures the union leaders are going to have jobs. So the populist Trump is kind of in tune with about half the Republicans and about half the Democrats and out of tune with about half the Republicans and half the Democrats. And would you say then that he's confounding the the lines, the hard and fast lines between what is Democrat and what is Republican or what is conservative and what is liberal? And he's creating a new center for policy that, as you say, this affects some in his own party, but attracts others. Look, he won Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. He won Brussels states. He won Union votes. And that was partly his protectionism, I suspect. Partly it was that they're sick of Washington. But he's you're right, he is crafting something. That sounds like some grand plan. I think he's more reactive than grand plan. But he's something that's I keep going back to this. It's far more populist. That's right. Americans need good jobs. And if that means protectionism, then what protectionism? If it means free trade, we'll have free trade. There seems to be a value structure in place that defies the usual political lines. And so he'll be drawing from really bipartisan support, I think. Now, many of his policies have been misunderstood, sometimes perhaps innocently, other times perhaps deliberately. And one policy which has been perhaps more misunderstood than any other is the wall between the United States and Mexico. And this has resulted in tremendous support for Trump, as well as tremendous opposition to him. What are your thoughts on this? I go back to Congress. I want to say one quick thing about the trade that sure I've mentioned. The TPP was driven by corporate interests. It's very much a anti corporate move to be getting rid of the TPP and NAFTA. So that's very unrepublican, according to traditional thinking. So that's more of this. Where exactly does this fit in? Who knows? He didn't have to take any corporate money, so he can take off the corporations, I guess. The the wall, I think it's mostly symbolic to tell you the truth, but it's a campaign promise. And it's a campaign promise that over and over again, the polls show people are in favor of. You have to balance the hysteria with the you know, with the look at what the American people are saying. The majority of the American people in the polls out today support Mr. Trump's ban on temporary ban on travelers from seven countries. Right. We see hysteria. You see the company saying we're going to hire immigrants. But the truth is the American people support this and the American people support the wall. You know what would be a great blessing to come out of that? A great blessing would be that we actually fixed our immigration policy so people could get in there because our policy is so terribly messed up that folks are waiting years and years and years. It shouldn't have to. We're not against and Trump is not against people coming into the country. He's against people coming into the country illegally arcing the law. Well, as we go, Andy, sorry to cut you off there, but as we go to the end of our time together, I want to get your take on some of the appointments or at least the fear around the appointments that the president has made, perhaps one that is most in the news today is Betsy DeVos to the Department of Education. And as we speak, there is a filibuster, well, technically not a filibuster, more of a legislate in like a teach in or a sit in taking place sponsored by the Democrats currently in Congress. Tell us about this. But Senate rules allow for each party and each senator to claim a certain amount of speaking time. So the Democrats to slow down Betsy DeVos claimed all of today. Tomorrow, there'll be a vote and Betsy DeVos in all likelihood will be confirmed and the same is true of almost of every one of Trump's nominees. And this is a this is a certain amount of political grandstanding and playing to the base. The great question that comes out of that in 2018, there are 20 Democrat senators up for reelection and 12 Republicans. And of those 20, a big handful of them are in states that went for Trump. So slowing down Trump's nominees in order to grandstand and show you don't like the president could have a very interesting political impact two years from now. Absolutely. Well, talking about long term political impact, let's close on this note that all eyes are watching Neil Gorsuch as he has been nominated by the president to the Supreme Court seat. Can you, in just five seconds, give us your monologue, your wisdom on that? He will be confirmed. Trump wants McConnell just to go ahead and ram it through without hearings or anything else. McConnell will take the regular steps. He's going to be confirmed. OK, well, thank you very much. Andy, thank you for joining us from Washington, D.C. I appreciate all your good work. I'm thrilled to have a little bit of sunshine and soft water in the lower. That's great. So signing off for today. My guest has been Andy Blom, executive director of our companion organization, Grassroot Hawaii Action in D.C. I'm Kili Akina with Grassroot Institute for a Hanukako on the Think Tech Hawaii broadcast network Aloha.