 Good morning. It's Wednesday. It's 11 o'clock, and it's going to mean only one thing. Trump week. Well, welcome. I'm Tim Apachello. I'm your host, and I'm here with Winston Welch. And we are here to talk about what has transpired in the last week. Good morning Winston. How are you? Good morning, Tim. Doing well here. And, yeah, it's amazing how much can happen in a week and how people's psychology and physical status and mental states can change in a week, economic states and all of that. But, you know, that's it. We've been saying there's a lot of change every week for the last year and a half since we've been doing Trump week. So it's the rollercoaster ride as usual. So what I'd like to do is talk about where we've been really since the advent of January and where we're at today because there's been quite a transformation with Donald Trump. And everyone has noticed a dramatic change in his demeanor and what he's saying. So we're going to examine how we got to this point. But before we do that, we're going to have to kind of do a little chronology. And I'm just going to briefly go down in chronology and do a summary of kind of Donald Trump's response to the coronavirus. So back in January, January 21st, the United States had zero cases and we had zero deaths. On the 22nd of January, Donald Trump said that we had this totally under control and it was one person coming in from China. And we have it under control and everything's going to be just fine. Now that was an interview on CNBC. On the 31st of January, we then had six cases in Washington state and that was in the city of Kirkland. On the 17th of February, that jumped up to 15 cases. February 24th, Donald Trump said that the coronavirus is very much under control in the United States and the stock market is starting to look very good to me. And that was a Twitter comment and not sooner after that comment that Mnuchin came in and said, yeah, there's some buying opportunities in the stock market and they pretty much have this thing clamped down and locked tight. But at that time on the 24th, the Dow Jones had gone from 28,869 down to 27,961. On February the 25th, we had 53 cases, no deaths. On the 28th of February, Donald Trump said it's going to disappear one day. Like a miracle, it would just disappear. That was at his news conference. Now that same day we had the primary in South Carolina where Donald Trump on the podium at his rally in South Carolina basically was comparing the coronavirus to a Democrat's intention of a hoax and trying to make him look bad. And so that was on the 28th of February. Then we move into early March and Washington and Oregon, they firmly announced that there is a transmission through the community on the coronavirus. And the very next day, Donald Trump says, I think that the 3.4% or the fatality rate for this virus is really a false number. And on the same same day he said, some people have this at a very light level, and they won't even go to the doctor or the hospital. They'll just get better. These are many things that people do. Moving forward on that same day. Governor Newsom declared a state of emergency for California. On the 7th of March, we have now 417 cases and 17 deaths. On March the 9th, Donald Trump says, fake news media and their partner, the Democratic Party, is doing everything within its semi considerable power to inflate the coronavirus situation. That was a Twitter announcement. That same day the Dow had gone from 28,869 all the way down to 23,851. The next day, Donald says, we're prepared, we're doing a great job with it, and it'll go away. Just stay calm and it'll go away. That was a meeting with the GOP senators. On the 11th of March, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus 19 as a pandemic. On the 13th, we had 605 cases and 22 deaths in the United States. On the 14th of March, Donald Trump declared a national emergency. We're now moving in mid-March and Donald Trump has now said we have an invisible enemy. And this is when the NBA canceled their season and Disneyland and Universal Studios basically closed their parks. Same day, Donald says, we're using the full power of the federal government to defeat the virus and that's what we've been doing. On the 17th of March, Donald Trump said, I felt it was a pandemic all along before it was called a pandemic. He said that at a news conference. And then on the 23rd of March, the cure can't be worse than the disease. And then as we know after that, the United States would be open for business by Easter Sunday. So here's a long-winded chronology to where we've been and what do you think about it, Winston? How do you feel the progression of Donald Trump and the transformation of Donald Trump has taken place? Well, I think it's part for the course of what we've seen from the administration is deflect, deny, blame others for whatever it is. It just happened to be a pandemic in this case and not addressing a reality as it is. At least from half the nation's perspective or from expert perspective or whatever perspective. There was a lot of lost time here that we could have maybe made better preparations and are just seeing where these holes and weak spots were. I don't know that anyone could have immediately produced the types of masks and medical supplies that are ventilators that are needed. Instantly, that does take time to ramp up and when your supply chains are cut off, it's tough. But hopefully, hopefully, and this is a month to test your faith in a lot of systems. And it will get worse from here. I think he's right about that. Someone got to him. Somebody, and maybe Anthony Fauci and Deborah Bricks, maybe it was Ivanka, just said, actually, this is real, Daddy. And we've got to do something about it. You've got to do something about it. You've got it. Just act as if you're a serious adult and that you have some reassuring comments for folks because that's what they need right now. They need real action and a responsible adult to guide the nation at this time. So and it may be just stepping aside is the best thing to do and let other people do it. So I'm a little hopeful right now just for what's happened in the last 48 hours. Yeah. Well, there's there were reports that Tucker Carlson actually drove to Mar-a-Lago and basically pleaded with Donald Trump to take Coronavirus 19 seriously. And they suspect that that had some influence. Plus, it wasn't just the transformation of Donald Trump. It was really the transformation also of Fox News and Tucker Carlson was kind of on that lead. Now it's starting to talk about in a very serious tone in matter. And of course, Rush Limbaugh wasn't doing a whole lot. Basically, he was kind of a part of the drill team of St. It's a hoax. And so we've had a transformation of the news media that Donald Trump's watched. And so I'm wondering which one led to which. Well, you know, when you're faced with the reality, unless we have a complete suppression of free media here and you have cameras in hospitals and seeing Dr. Sobbing and nurses without equipment striking and just saying, this is a reality right here at this hospital that you know of because you drive by it every day. This is what we're facing when you have higher level people, when you have governors coming out and saying, Oh, I wasn't on the favored governor list. I'm on the do not call list by the president because I'm not showing. I'm not appreciating him enough. And then you see other states getting all of their equipment that they asked for like Florida, which apparently didn't ask until quite later. And just to did a shelter in home designation today or stay at home. I'm not sure which one exactly was when you have this, the real the reality of what's hitting the ground. It can't be denied anymore when you have actual people dying. And you, you can see that I just saw that Pence came out just in the last half hour, maybe a little bit before that saying we are essentially Italy at this point or Italy is our model. So that's very sobering. And if it's not sobering for people out there, they need to wake up and just say, OK, this is reality. We've got to pay attention 100% now. So I think I think Donald Trump got that message somehow from someone somewhere. Well, I think he has. But at the same time, I think he still thinks he's raging in himself a perfect 10 when asked that question not long ago by a reporter at the Rose Garden. They asked him, how would you rate yourself on this on this job? And he said, I give myself a 10. So that's that's kind of jaw dropping in my world. But also I see Donald Trump as moving the goalpost of what constitutes success before basically he said this wasn't real and we got to clamp down. But now he's willing to admit that 100,000 to 240,000 deaths would be actually success because that's certainly a whole lot better than 2.2 million. And I find this discussion appalling that the measure or the yardstick of success is now to 100,000 or to 240,000 deaths of American citizens. What's your read on that? It is appalling. It just took so much of this administration what we've been through in the last several years. Now, this is real. This is beyond putting kids in cages or whatever that's that's happened over the last four years. Now you're talking about just huge numbers of Americans a quarter of a million by the best estimates going to be dying in the next couple of weeks. Why anyone would say that they're doing that they're giving themselves a 10 on this or even that, you know, comparing their ratings with the bachelor or money and football or whatever it was. This is this just shows that we're not really there yet with having a seriousness of the president that needs to cut out that stuff. He needs to stop saying that he's doing that if they only if we only lose a quarter of a million people or 100,000 people that that's doing a good job. He doesn't need to rank himself as a 10. I don't know that he I think a scale is 10 out of 10. So he doesn't he's not going to give himself a nine on anything. But we don't need him ranking himself. History will judge this enough. He needs to know he needs to really take a deep look because I don't know that it's possible. But that noise is so so loud now. And I think it was on the show maybe a week or two ago. There was a poll asked about the should we ban the news media from covering these essentially, you know, campaign rallies every day. And I saw CNN has stopped carrying MSNBC. I think the New York Post, maybe Washington Post, New York Times, I think they just they will still play them but they're not sending the reporters anymore because they realize that the facts are are sometimes not the facts. They are campaign rallies. I mean, he had the my pillow guy on there the other day. What does the my pillow guy have to do with anything? We need serious adults in the room. And so when you have that, when we don't have that, it's it's it is appalling. And we just need to maybe all these news conferences. I think this this centering is fine until we can figure out what was actual news. Let me, you know, do you think Donald Trump has fine got on board? Do you think he's finally learned his lesson? Or are we going to see Mike Lindell from my pillow company back on the air? Because you're absolutely right. Winston that the the press conferences have become his impromptu campaign rallies that he's nearly not holding anymore. Do you think that's going to end? Or do you think Donald Trump continues to try to mix battling the coronavirus versus his campaign aspirations? Well, it's maybe one in the same now because his pollsters got to him. If nothing else, it says there's an interesting article about deferred economic pain and why people will take $8 today versus $10 next week. It's in a similar sense here. It was a good analogy, but basically that the overwhelming majority of Americans want to see a shelter in place designation through the end of April or longer. Longer was it was even majorities of people because they realize I don't want to I don't want to go out there. It's dangerous. So we need to have this designation and so that he can align the majority of Americans thoughts for right now with his long term perspective. Because if it cuts the death rate by keeping everybody at home, that's good news for him. So in this case, it's good that the two have melded together that public opinion has said, do this, not that. And so he has listened if nothing else just to the pollsters for his chance of reelection. So but otherwise these campaign rallies that are happening every day. Let's get back. Let's get Anthony Fauci, Deborah Bricks. The My Pillow guy, maybe they can host a reality show with him. He and Donald Trump is co-host after this is all over. I don't know, but he doesn't belong in the Rose Garden talking about how great the president is. Well, in the Trump circus, do you think all of America now even as loyal 45, 48% are now taking the coronavirus seriously? Or do you think there's still denial? Jay and I did a show about three weeks ago and we're still getting comments as of yesterday that they are the people who are commenting on the show that we did. They're convinced that the coronavirus is still a blatant hoax. Do you think rest of America is on board with Donald Trump now in the seriousness of the virus? I know the governor for Florida finally had a stay at home order enacted today. So what do you think? I would say when you've got a president who's now having himself or Mike Pence or Mitch McConnell saying that the real reason for this was the impeachment, it took their eyes off the ball and they could have focused so much better or blaming the media, whatever it is. We know that the people that are paying attention know this is patently false, that the things that had happened of dismantling the pandemic response that was disbanded by Trump or firing the head of the CDC who was working with China. All of these ignoring reports that came out today that they had a pandemic report in 2019 from the administration saying this could devastate the U.S. economy. Talking in general about what that would be and how we could respond. So I'm not sold that we're looking at any coherent truths that are constantly being relayed from this administration. I think we see everything to the contrary. I think that Donald Trump will go straight back to his old ways as soon as he, whenever he can, during this whole time and then afterwards, certainly. For right now, maybe it seems like he's getting more serious just for the moment, but don't hold your breath on that one. Right. So you had alluded to something that I also picked up on and that is Mitch McConnell was trying to now shift blame to the Democrats and cite that the impeachment got in the way of Donald Trump's thinking and not paying attention to the coronavirus and the alert to that. But we know the impeachment was done early, early February and Donald Trump was still in denial. Well into the end of February and early, early March. So that one didn't quite pan out and even Donald Trump said that. Yeah, I was had my mind on a the hoax of the of the impeachment was a hoax. So he went down that road yesterday, but he did say something very, very telling and that was I knew all along that this was serious, but I'm a cheerleader. I don't like to be the bearer of bad news. I didn't want to panic the markets and I didn't want to panic the American public. And so it sounded like Donald Trump was using that as his foil for where we're at right now today and looking at 100 to 250,000 potential deaths here in the United States. Well, whatever he needs to tell himself and the masses, you mentioned about his followers, will they believe it? Of course they'll believe it. They will believe whatever he says to a huge degree and that's just the way that that's the reality we've been dealing with for years. When you asked earlier about are people getting the message they are getting the message they are understanding that they're, they're local. Leadership is stepped up states, mayors, counties, their companies, you know, their their local any any organization that they're involved with everyone else is stepping up. So they're getting the message you see in polls that people are taking more seriously that they are realizing it's a threat. It's not everywhere. I think it was the governor of Mississippi that said he wasn't going to shut down bars and restaurants because he didn't want the fascism boot on people's throat or something to that effect. And so you do have holdouts and they're going to be in all of the the the the regular states and cities that you did expect that in. Are you surprised Winston on the the percentage of the polling that basically is stating Donald Trump has done a pretty good job. Are you surprised by any of that. You know, it's like I said here before people want to rally around the leader. I want Donald Trump to succeed. It absolutely pray for the president just like Nancy Pelosi said she does and it's praying for his strength to have some wisdom and guidance in this that the way that anybody prays for anybody else that that he makes the best decisions that he can. There's no insincerity in that people want Donald Trump to step up to the plate and to do the best job that he can and to give him whatever strength it comes whether it's divine or whether it's from Deborah Bricks or that's the same thing it doesn't matter as long as he is getting what he needs that's fine now as far as people rallying around the president that is a normal thing during these these things and if he steps up to the plate and he gives us. What's really presidential for all of the nation not just his base his fans or whatever or at the states that are better possibly on the line to vote for him. Then his number should go up because he's acting in a presidential manner, but when he's not. I think that number of 48 49% it's surprising but for people that follow this they realize as you did in your introduction about all of the statements leading up to where we are just in the last 48 hours. There's a lot of ketchup to do and so half the nation is still looking at that and saying and the my pillow guy coming on and they're saying this is not really being given the absolute 100% 110% attention that it needs full stop no more blaming media or saying it's a hoax whatever. Well, okay let's talk about the media because he took some pretty hard shots at the PBS reporter and Jim Acosta he's taken some pretty hard shots at saying that other reporters and they're. You know, Archie and so at what point do you think the media either continue to engage on this topic with Donald Trump in the Rose Garden, or, or just tune in when Fauci and bricks Dr bricks are reporting their numbers. And then Mike Pence comes in and reports his report and pretty much cut Donald Trump out of it do you think that there should be more of a concerted effort to do that or or just continue as is. Well, you know, think about in the history of this nation when the President gets on when Roseville got on first fireside chats people sat around the radio and listen to him when the President podium, it should be. It should be a reverent place it should be a place where we do listen where we pay attention because we're getting true honest. Useful information that pertains to all of us and as far as how we should have since we're not always getting that we haven't gotten that and we get this bullying behavior for reporters. These are not as one article said they're not stenographers, they're reporters they're there to ask questions because this is such an important part of our democracy is that we hold our leaders accountable we need to know what decisions are being made why they're all of these the questions that they asked. It's very important and so when you have major news media deciding they're not going to attend because the information is dubious. It's it's a sad day for America's and I would like to see that not happen. But when they're just looking at their their reporters health versus getting the information. However, as Donald Trump said, long time ago, I'm the best thing that ever happened for the media people tune in. They want to see his antics they want it's like a train wreck walking by just looking and rubber necking. You can't believe what's going to come out next so he's undoubtedly good for every banner and headline he's obsessed everyone in this nation. You know it seems like Donald Trump's been pretty successful in playing the media and you know twisting it to his his favor. To what degree do you think he's being successful portraying the reporters like Jim Acosta as non patriotic and that working against the the interest of America when it comes to the coronavirus. I saw hints of that on the last couple of press conferences that he's he's starting to twist that that any critical question to him is really an unpatriotic attitude, and it's not appropriate at this time. Have you witnessed that and do you think he's going to get away with that. You know, again, his his base his fans will say, yeah, you're right old Jim Acosta or whoever it is asked you the nasty question of. Did you what did you mean when you said don't call the lady and Michigan, and they read it or whatever the question is and he says I never said that you're nasty. You're nasty woman you're nasty reporter whatever he says putting them down instead of saying, I thank you for that question. I think that it was taken out of context, even if it wasn't doesn't matter. We can't expect the mature response here. So his people are going to believe what he says, but he remember this is the man who identified the media as the enemy of America a long time ago. So it's exactly fits into his narrative, unless they're the media that are going to give him good ratings and good attention and we already know this. So if you believe him not going to make a difference if you don't believe him not good and it's doesn't make a difference. Well, the last question we're running out of time here and that is, you know, it seems that April 30 might be a rather aggressive date, just like Easter Sunday was going to be a very aggressive time period for us to resolve this horrible virus. I see this thing going on into May and I see the markets taking even further. So when we finally do emerge from this virus and the deaths that we're going to sustain. How do you think the United States is going to be a different place both politically economically. What do you think, what do you think, how do we emerge out of this horrible time. And how do you think Donald Trump comes out of it as well. It's a question for many shows to come up but when we're looking in here in Hawaii it happened 25 or 30% unemployment for the duration of the year devastating to people. The longer that this took to get clamped down nationally locally whatever our industries that the economy is going to be in a sad way for a very long time. It's like none very few people alive have seen. I, I remain hopeful though that people are developing new systems they're supporting each other in ways that didn't exist a little bit ago. They're, they're discovering what's important to the important what haven't I been focusing on that I should be focused on. Who should I be focusing on that I haven't been focusing on I think all of these questions are coming up so I remain bully that people are going to come out with stronger million as far as Donald Trump goes. He's probably going to come out of this. I don't know stronger than before I really don't know maybe not maybe when it sinks in the reality of what's happened until now and people start actually dying in vast numbers will have a different story but I can't predict everything I would have predicted about this presidency and every action that has been taken or not taken in the last four years has confounded all conventional wisdom so I don't know this is a short answer of it. Alrighty well those are very good observations Winston and I want to thank you for being on the show and sharing your thoughts and I guarantee you next week is going to be just as wild ride that it is with this week and wish you well and I wish your you and your your friends and family well and stay healthy and we'll see you next week. I'm Tim Apachele here with think tech Hawaii and I'm here with Winston Welsh and we'll see you next week on Trump week Aloha.