 It's Friday. It's time for Trump week. I'm Tim Appachella, filling in for Jay Fidel, and I'm here with Cynthia, Cynthia, Lee Sinclair. I always get that up on that one. Good morning, Cynthia. How are you? Good morning, Tim. It's nice to be here. Nice to see you. Nice to see you too. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we have quite the topic today, and that is the declaration of a national emergency from President Trump. The bottom line is he's declared a national emergency, and that is going to have very large impacts both on the House and the Senate, and of course there are other states involved with this that we're going to discuss in a little bit, but let's just go right to the national emergency. So he, the bill was passed giving the wall a concession from the Democrats passed in the House, then the Senate of $1.3 billion for not necessarily a concrete wall, but for border security and border defenses, if you will. And very small portion of that was dedicated to some sort of barrier. The rest of it was all electronic stuff, surveillance, staff, more people, things like that, right? So when Trump stands up and says today, I was watching him in the Rose Garden this morning, and he's saying that, you know, they kept saying they weren't going to give me even $1, not $1, and I got $1.3 or $1.4, $1.3 billion, and it's like, no, you didn't. So he's trying to spin it that $1.3 billion was for his wall, when really it's not. You know, I saw that comment in the Rose Garden, and I kept thinking back to when you negotiated a deal, when you were back in grade school or you were back in junior high, it was always that person that said, aha, I got something off you that you weren't going to give me. And it just reminded me of a sour grape type of negotiation, and it's just, you just don't expect it from a president of the United States. Well, you would hope it wouldn't be coming from a president of the United States. You would hope for more decorum and more control and more stability for goodness sakes, but we just don't get that from this president. You know, and as he's talking about where he's going to get this money, which he won't exactly tell us, because now he's declared the state of emergency, which means he can go and get the money from all number of places. And he's saying that the generals think that this is more important, because someone was asking, one of the reporters was asking him about, you know, where is this money going to come from now that you've declared this emergency, what are you going to do? And he's saying that the generals think that this is way more important. Well, just a little bit after that on MSNBC, they had General McCaffey on, McCaffrey. And he says, it is two to five years in negotiations to get the funding that they get. They're not going to want to give it up without... Not easily. Right. Not easily. He said there's no generals. He cannot imagine that there'd be any generals that actually feel that way. Well, I like to take a little walk back, because what this stems from is the criticism that President Obama received when he... Remember when he would introduce, you know, the bill would be introduced, and of course the Republicans back in the day wouldn't entertain it at all. So that kind of forced President Obama to do executive orders. And executive orders was being criticized as trying to skirt the Congress as far as their role to fund projects and activities. And so we had a tweet from Donald Trump back in November 20th, 2014, addressing his criticism of President Obama about trying to skirt Congress. And I'd like to share that quote. Okay. He says, Republicans must not allow President Obama to subvert the Constitution of the United States for his own benefit. And because he's unable to negotiate with Congress, that doesn't sound like his national emergency is exactly that which he tweeted about November 20th, 2014. So often he does that kind of stuff, right, where he criticizes past presidents and then does the very same thing that he was criticizing them about. And then I was struck by the fact that he's saying, well, past presidents, all these past presidents have declared national emergencies. Well they looked it up and they were talking about it. There's the main big, there's only three of them. And these were the reasons that it was declared. And it was President Roosevelt, and that was to confine the U.S. citizens to the Japanese war camps in World War II. And then President Bush, and that was to justify the warrantless wiretaps and other things, right, after 9-11. And then President Obama, and it was his response to the swine flu. These are all things that happened in an immediate emergency type of a situation. This can't claim emergency. He's been sitting on this, working on this for two years. It's not an emergency anymore. He certainly has been advised by his attorneys. Now let's go back to the 1970, 1976 Act, the National Emergency Act, September 14th, 1976, which is, you know, there's still existing national emergencies on the book. Some are very small, some of them involve Iran. Very small, but they have to be renewed, I believe, every year by Congress as continuation of a national emergency. Now what I find as interesting is that Congress renews it, like I said, once a year. But they also can pass a simple resolution terminating the Act. What? Yes. And it hasn't been done? That's what's in this law. I'm like, why doesn't anybody know that's their job? That's the point is that, you know, I think Congress, if they really do object to the use or the misuse of a national emergency for something that he just can't get funding for, which is the role and job of the Congress, well, mostly the House of Representatives of course, they do have the right to say, we do not agree with this. And they could, you know, they could pass a resolution and send it to the President's desk. And of course they did. He's not going to sign it. Well, okay, but what's that called? It's basically an unsigned veto, right? Does that give them the right then to override a veto? Don't they have to have enough votes to be able to override it? Yeah, and I think there might be enough Republicans in the Senate and the House that says, look, we don't want this national emergency to be put forth because why? Well, mainly because when the next President comes in, they've said a President, I think he can do whatever he wants to. Well, and what do you think is going to come to the table? I think it's going to be gun control, because that's a national emergency. And that is a national emergency. If you want to start putting an end to this context of, you know, thousands of kids being shot up or people being shot up, it's a national emergency. So what would prevent any Democrat president in the future to put that on the table as a national emergency to get funding for it to do something about it? Or whatever they want. Well, then let's go down the line. What else? Gee, our Medicare is becoming into a financial crisis. Doesn't that constitute a national emergency for people who are not without health care? You know, the funding levels are low. What else? Certainly climate change. Certainly. I would think climate change would be number one, right? It's going to be number one. We're removing or reducing our use of fossil fuels. Get more electric cars, you know, more renewable energy. But President Trump doesn't want to do any of that stuff, right? So you can understand why there are enough savvy Republicans in Congress to say President Trump is not going to be a president forever, and we may not have a Republican president the next term after, you know, 2020, and what are we going to set ourselves up for? So why would it be who them? Why would they not want to say this? This is a use of national emergency that we don't like and we don't endorse. It happened. We don't know. Time will tell. Yeah, time will tell. From what I understood about the National Emergency Act is that you had to be Congress like couldn't be, what is it, isn't available, that's what I was looking for, that Congress isn't available, and that's the only reason they can do that. I thought that was part of the thing. The purpose of the National Emergency Act was to end open-ended declaration of emergencies. So in 1976, they said we need to put some parameters and some checks and balances on the President of the United States for the declaration of emergencies, and that's why it was created in the first place. So there are stipulations on how it can be used and how it can be declared and what type of situations can you draw money away from certain military. Now, when we say the military, we obviously think the defense, you know, either abroad or, you know, here in the National Guard about military, what about the Army Corps of Engineers? Oh my goodness, yeah. Okay. So there's a number of projects that the Army Corps of Engineers, which could be construed as military, they're working on here in the United States where that money could be, you know, drawn from. Now, the amount we're talking about is $8 billion. He now thinks he can pull with the combination of the $1.3 billion that's in the act that he's going to sign off for. Wait, and how much did he get before? Because didn't he already get a big chunk given to him from funding that he hasn't done anything with it? Well, it's been basically unused. I'm sure they're looking at that as far as the money as well as for his funding for his $8 billion or how much he thinks he needs. Right. Chris Hayes did a really good sort of a comprehensive look at the border and he had different reporters all along the border in different places from Florida to Texas. And it was a really, I really recommend people to watch it because it really gave an inside view, talking to border patrol, talking to people who live there, you know, whose land is right there. So he's going to have to confiscate people's land in order to put the wall up. And they don't want it. Most of people that they talked to didn't want it. Bedouin Rourke was in El Paso, right, because he was having his little, you know... Counter-rally. Counter-rally, thank you, yes. I don't know what to call it. But he was talking about, and even President Trump in the Rose Garden this morning made reference to the fact that, you know, there's other places that would benefit from the wall, not, you know, not like El Paso, because you can go there and say El Paso is the most dangerous city, blah, blah, blah. He tried to trump it up to be all this crazy stuff. And it turned out that he was just full of it because none of it's true. And so he even made reference to the fact that he blew it, that El Paso isn't really like that. But I was, he was talking in the, when he was trying to write down everything he was saying this morning. And he's like, he said, we will be sued in the ninth circuit, even though it shouldn't even be there, and possibly get a bad ruling, and then it'll be appealed and then we'll get another bad ruling. Then we'll go to the Supreme Court, and we will hopefully get a fair shake, and we will win in the Supreme Court, just like the band did. Right. Well, I've always said that he really doesn't want to resolve the wall problem because it's the easiest way for him to gin up his loyal supporters and get them agitated and get them to come out and support, and he just goes through that over and over again. I mean, that's the easiest way for him to easily get, you know, people to come out and support. So why would I want to solve it then really? So what better way not to solve it is to tie it up in the courts. And then at the same time, he can say, well, you see, I'm trying to keep America safe. The Democrats are not. And now it's in the courts. And I'm sure the ninth circuit, which is a liberal court, they're not going to agree with this. That's basically what he was saying. Yes. And so he's going to string this out. And hopefully, maybe in his mind, this gets him to 2020 election to use this over and over and over again as a campaign banner to say, see, I'm trying to keep America safe. Vote for me. I think he said something. Didn't I write it down somewhere? So yeah, I've already done a lot of the wall for the election 2020. It's like he's claiming that I don't need to do this just because I'm, and the only thing he said, though, was I've already done a lot of the wall for the election. For the election. Wait, nobody asked him about it yet. If we use the word logic, which I'm kind of hesitant to use because there is no logic or logic, right? If, if really most of the wall has been built, then therefore, where's the national emergency? Right? Where's the emergency and why do you need so much more money if it's already been, you know, done? Right. Well, here's something else that he said in addition to it. And I, I agree with you that the his, his proclamation about how it's going to go to the Ninth Circuit and then be appealed in the Ninth Circuit. Oh, right. And just like the band did. And that's the way the band did, too. Went to the Ninth Circuit, it got appealed, it got, you know, they didn't get a good ruling, finally got to the Supreme Court. If it's going to be immediately challenged in court, does that mean he gets to pull the money until it's been declared, you know? I don't know. I would think he, I would think he is going to pull the money. And he'll say, well, until, until it's declared illegal, I'm going to use the money. So we'll see how that turns out. And that would be his style. I would, that would not surprise me one single bit. Yeah. So he stands up and he claims I didn't need to do this, but I'd rather do it faster. That's the only reason he's doing it. So we're going to talk about some recent comments from the governor of California and the attorney general of California when we come back from this break. Okay. I'm Tim Appichella here with Cynthia, Lee Sinclair. This is Trump week. We'll be right back. Hey, Aloha. My name is Andrew Lening. 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I'm Tim Apachele, filling in for Jay Fidel here with Cynthia Sinclair. And we're talking about the national emergency pertaining to the wall, the wall funding. So Donald Trump had his press conference in the Rose Garden. And if you watched it long enough, you're going, is he unhinged? I mean, he was talking about some very strange things. He was very combative, of course, again, with the reporters. By all this is going on, we had a press conference in California. We had the governor of California and the attorney general basically talking about how this national emergency is going to impact their state the most. Oh, my gosh, yes, because of all the fires and stuff, and they're going to lose all this emergency funding. That's a very good point about what they were already there. They're natural emergencies, natural disasters that are national emergencies for all of the state of California. And Governor Newsom did point out that there's $12 billion reserved for disaster relief that has not been released at all. So he's comparing this national emergency to the disaster relief to a real emergency of $12 billion that has not been released at all. And it's not just for California, but it's other states. Texas and Florida and places that have been hit so hard, yeah. So I mean, do you think he has a valid point in that? Oh, yes, he does. And I think that maybe Trump has been sitting on it. Well, we've got the homeland security is who's in charge of that. And I don't trust Kirsten Nielsen as far as I could throw her, probably, because she's a little girl. I might be able to throw her pretty far, but I don't think it would work because I think that she just hosed that gets in line behind Trump, does whatever he wants, goes right along with whatever it is that he thinks is the way it should go. I don't think she stands up and I don't think that we are very safe in regards to homeland security. She was also involved in all of the separating kids from their parents before it was actually declared to happen. So I don't trust her at all. Well, I'm going to switch gears just a little bit because most of the show is dedicated to the propagation of the national emergency. But getting to your point, you just made. Remember, we talked about distractions and stories that just distract from real pertinent, important stories that the press does not have time to basically dive into. Well, one of them is that there is an announcement from the Department of Homeland Security was that the funding for the prevention of Russia meddling with our 2020 election has been slashed. What? Well, it's going to be slashed. It's going to be slashed in half or even more. And so you're thinking, OK, at a time where we know Russia has been trying to meddle with our election and we saw evidence of that in the midterms. Right. And we know it's true. They've already proved it. It's not like it's a question. When you have that particular office and the formal offices, Cybersecurity Infrastructure Agency, it was designed in 2016 to basically address prevention of Russia hacking and meddling into these elections. Right. Why would that funding be shelved or cut drastically? When we need it more than ever now, as we're going into another election cycle, we need it more than ever now. And would it be just to let them be able to do it? Well, let's back off so they have more space to do this hacking because he's denied that it happened all this time, believed Putin that he didn't do it. So all the way down the line, we can see that he doesn't believe that, well, or he knows that it's true and refuses to admit it. But he has said it didn't happen, it didn't happen, it didn't happen. And so, of course, he's telling all his people in his administration, this is just a hoax, it's not true anyway. You can say that after the Helsinki that this is a hoax. He didn't believe his intelligent agencies. Then he said he did believe them, then he said it didn't believe them. And he reversed himself four times after Helsinki. And so we're talking about national security, but what about the security and preservation of our democracy? And voting and the integrity of our votes is paramount to our democracy. And why would you cut funding for something we know they're trying to do currently? I don't understand that. I don't either. And so, but we haven't heard that story, but it's out there. And we haven't had time to hear about it because we have proclamations of national emergency. We have distraction after distraction after distraction after distraction. Like you said, the distractions on the distractions, right? You know, and ever since you said that a few weeks ago, I've been thinking about it. And each time one of these things comes up, that's what I kind of wonder about. Then I go, no, is this just another distraction? And sure enough, it turns out that it looks like it is just another distraction. Right. So let's just turn back onto the road and talk a bit about what the Democrats and the Republicans have said about this national security. Well, I have a quote from Pelosi and Schumer, or it's not a quote exactly, but it's their statement. It's part of their statement. It's really long. So I just sort of grabbed a little bit of it. They did refer to this national, this claim of a national emergency. They called it a power grab and they called it unlawful. And they said that the Republican actions clearly, I'm sorry, the president's actions clearly violate the Congress's exclusive power of the purse, which are founders enshrined in the Constitution. The Congress will defend our constitutional authority in the Congress, in the courts, and in the public using every remedy available. And I thought, you go guys, please, please defend our Constitution. It's a clear declarative statement of what the issue is here. Right, it's unlawful. It's a power grab and they are going to do the best they can. So I like to not only look at what the Democrats say, but to know how many Republicans are having issues with it. Right, that's a big deal. And so Senator Susan Collins from, a Republican from Maine, she is concerned and she feels that the dollars of Congress are reappropriated. And she said it strikes as undermining the appropriations process and the will of the Congress. And I don't think she likes it. Now if you're a Senator, if you're a House representative, and you see a power grab by the President of the United States, even he's part of your party, it's still undermining the purpose, the constitutional purpose of the Congress. And it is, that's why I took this part of that quote out of there. Because I thought that they really addresses that, the whole appropriations thing and the power of the purse. I love that. The Congress's exclusive power of the purse. They are the only ones who are supposed to be able to approve or disprove any kind of funding for anything. Right? Right. Well, and I'm glad to hear them have stated as they did. And I'm glad to hear Susan Collins, Marco Rubio has some issues with it. So in the next few days, let's see how many Republicans in the Senate or in the House, I'm sure there'll be some in the House as well, that actually stand up and speak out on it. Because I'm sure their constituents, they represent in their home state. Oh, yeah. Gotta have some questions about this. Oh, yes. I'm sure they do. Because they're wondering the same thing. I wonder, because we haven't heard anything about it, you know, that next step process of national emergencies to going to martial law. Right. And that's just terrible. Well, I think martial law is a big stretch to a national emergency. I think you could have states say, we're going to bring in the National Guard. That's what I mean. Yeah. But that's not really martial law. It's just they've already brought in the National Guard. We have 5,000 troops down there, right? Can they read that? 5,000? Yeah, 5,000 troops are on the border now. Yeah. And I think some states have retracted their National Guard from that duty. The governors have said, I want you to come back. Yeah, because it's not real. You don't need to be there. Well, they don't feel it's a national emergency. Because it's not. And these aren't necessarily democratic states that are saying, I want my National Guard back. Right, exactly. Because we might need him for something real. And General McCaffrey, he addressed that when he was being interviewed about how all of these troops that have been sent down there are missing out on all the training that they need to be having. And it's important to be fully trained and ready in case there is a real emergency. They need to not be, oh, out of the loop because they've been down on the border eating tacos or whatever. And I know that's not what they do. I don't mean to disrespect them. But they need to be primed and ready for a real emergency. Absolutely. And they're missing all of that. And if those real emergencies could be natural disasters, that's where the National Guard comes in and really helps out when there's natural disasters. And there's plenty of opportunities for that to occur. So if they're deployed at the border, they're not going to be utilized properly. So I agree with those governors that have concerns. So let's talk about the reaction to the initial signing off on the bill before he announced there's a national disaster, excuse me, a national emergency. Let's talk about the government within the government. And who is that government within the government? It's our conservative tacos, Rush Limbaugh. Oh, gosh. Sean Hannity. He loves Rush Limbaugh. He talked all about how much he loves Rush Limbaugh. And who was else that he said that he, Sean Hannity, yes, absolutely great supporter of what I do. But if I didn't do, if I didn't keep doing what I'm doing, then he wouldn't like me. So it's not me that he likes. He just likes what I do. And didn't President Trump in the Rose Garden this morning actually make reference to Rush Limbaugh? Yes, he did. Make reference to Sean Hannity? And Ann Coulter, too. Yeah, he doesn't like Ann Coulter. He says, I don't know her. I don't really know her. I haven't talked to her in over a year. And then, but I like her. But I like her is what he says. But the point is, does he have to check with them on every issue? Well, I don't know. But she said he's an idiot. Are they? That's what she tweeted today. She tweeted that. Well, she said worse in the past. But that's Ann Coulter. I'm just saying is, who's running this government? Is it the conservative talk show host or is it President Trump? Does he have to check in and say, mother, may I? For everything he wants to do to make sure that the base that listens to their programs are going to be in sync? Right. Boy, that's a kind of a finger in the air testing where the winds are blowing. That approach to being a leader and the President's face. He puts things out there to see how they're going to react and then goes forward with it. So I think you're right. He does kind of check in with them first. And I'm going to say that previous presidents have looked at polling data a more scientific way of getting where the nation is on a certain issue. The bottom line is going to Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh isn't going to substitute, in my mind, the value of a scientific poll that's been conducted with a number of survey respondents. The real deal. Yeah, the real deal. Instead, he just gave the polling information to his buddy, Roger Stone, who gave it to the Russians and also, hey. Guess what? We can talk about this for another 20 minutes. We're out of time. No way. That went so fast. Thank you, Cynthia. Nice to see you again. Thank you, Tim. I'm Tim Abachele with Cynthia Sinclair. It's Trump Week. We'll see you next week. Aloha.