 Well, this is Think Tech. This is Trump Week here on a given Wednesday. We really like this show because it follows the action in Washington. And let me tell you, if you don't already know, the action in Washington affects every single one of us. Tim Appichella, our co-host, helps us understand these issues and events. Hi, Tim. Welcome to Trump Week. Good morning, Jerry. Thank you very much for having me and another busy week. You know, the whole affair in Iran, you know, with the assassination and then the attack on the American bases there, it seems like ages ago, so much has happened. This is the best reality show ever in the world because there's no moment where something new isn't happening to distract us from the real issues. So, Tim, what are the real issues right now this week? Well, I think that a big issue is the credibility gap with President Trump. Specifically, when we're trying to find what constitute or what define an imminent threat that was required to take the assassination and take them out. What was the imminent threat? Now, we've heard so many different stories. We've heard backtracking. We've got Secretary of Defense not on the same page as Donald Trump. Was it one embassy that was in imminent threat or was it four embassies that was going to be attacked? Which is it? Or was there any of them? Was it just a generalized threat that Donald Trump felt necessary to call it an imminent threat? Let me ask you a rhetorical question. If this president over three years plus, a thousand days plus, has lied 15,000 times, can you think of a good reason why he's telling the truth now? Well, I didn't use it for credibility gap or nothing. Yeah. My guess is he's not telling the truth. One very interesting piece of evidence came out. There's some evidence of the proposition that he had approved this assassination seven months ago. And presumably it's not legal unless there was an imminent threat. So let's assume there was an imminent threat seven months ago. Do you think the threat would still be imminent a week ago? Would it be the same threat? Would it be different? And why didn't he advise Congress at any point along the way? This is a sole proprietorship type of government we have here. And more and more you see this president doing it all by himself, spending all his time at Mar-a-Lago playing golf with Lindsey Graham, one of my unfavorite persons. And in general, gutting all his departments. He has appointed people. Even FEMA does not have a proper director. And there are so many agencies, especially the State Department, where he has essentially turned his back on them. And they're unstaffed now. You can walk through the halls of the Department of State and there's nobody there. And we have people who have been there who have told us that. It's very interesting. So what you have is a sole proprietorship government. And he makes these decisions all by himself. And he lies 15,000 times. So where are we now on Iran? Let's assume that he's going to double down on every lie. Let's assume that he keeps going the way he's going. Where are we, in fact, on Iran? Well, is anyone surprised that the House of Representatives has created a resolution that will curtail his ability to wage war, to start war? And it looks like there's going to be enough senators that will actually go for it. Yeah. There's like two or three that will actually vote for it. So are we surprised this is happening? No, we're not. Well, the Senate will never adopt that resolution. It's only in the House. And it's, again, the ever-ready bunny running into the corner of the room. It's not going anywhere. Kim Cain says he's got three or four senators. Get them over 51. Now, if it goes to Donald Trump, he'll, of course, veto it. Most likely. And there won't be enough votes to override the veto. But I think it will go to his desk. From the Senate. Well, that would be good to control him because, you know, it is an existential threat that he assassinates leaders of other states and risks a conflagration that would go beyond the Middle East, that would go other places and create a world war. It's all reminiscent of the Guns of August by Barbara Tuckman, where you had these programmed responses to violence like the assassination of the Archduke of Serbia, where all of a sudden you find that this one event created a world war. And you never know when you use violence. You never know what happens. So it's of great concern, and hopefully it's of concern to some of those Republican senators. And, of course, that's linked, isn't it? The credibility, the support, the loyalty of those Republican senators is really at issue these days. I mean, it's hard to believe, is it not, that these Republican senators put their loyalty to Trump above all other interests of the nation. Very, very, very concerning. So the question is, what is going on with the trial just today? Was it Nancy Pelosi announced her managers, her Senate trial managers, including who is it? I guess it's Adam Schiff and Schumer to be the manager. Jerry Nadler. You're right, Nadler. And now we're going to have a trial probably starting next Wednesday. And if Mitch McConnell has his way, it'll last six minutes and result in a fast acquittal without witnesses. But that does depend on a vote of the Senate. And maybe we'll have, you know, more senators, you know, get sober. So anyway, what is the status of that? Where is that going right now? Well, first off, Gary, I think she's appointed seven different managers, which includes, of course, Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler. But the other five, they're well-versed in litigation and well-versed in, you know, experience and time in the courtroom. So she's not bringing in a philosophical point of view. She's bringing in a litigation strategy as they present this to the Senate. Yeah, I think that's interesting. Just Monday, I think it was, additional evidence came into the public view that is really damning evidence of notes written by Lev Parnas, I think. Giuliani's associate, where he says that they want Zelensky, the president wants Zelensky to, I forget the exact terms, but, oh, announce an investigation into Biden. And, you know, this is damning. This is a smoking gun. And there are many documents like that that have just been revealed. I guess they came out of a response to a request for documents that was pending a long time ago, and nobody noticed them, or now they've had the time to look through thousands of documents and found these things, and these are going to be submitted. I think they may already have been submitted to the Senate. And so even if they, you know, weren't in the original tranche of documents, they're certainly going to be available directly or by way of the media to every member of the Senate. How does this change things, if at all, Tim? Well, I think the more you get in front of the senators during this trial, the direct witnesses or documents, texts, emails, the harder it is for them to ignore it, because everyone's going to be looking at it. And it's not like this, you know, evidence presented behind closed doors, as if it was a grand jury, this will be open to the public. And so for them to look at it and continue to ignore it, it's going to be more difficult. That's why Donald Trump didn't want to have any witnesses, didn't want to have any testimony, he didn't want to have any documents, so they would have nothing to respond to. You know, I was, not to get too far off the point, but I was watching television last night, and interestingly enough that the movie that won, I don't know how many Academy Awards the night, a week before, is called Clown. I'm sorry, make that Joker, Joker. And it's a story about a guy who happens to be psychotic. And it has, you know, it has some interesting connections and the use of words and names to, you know, the original Batman Joker, but it's not that at all. And I'm trying to figure out why it won all those awards, but it's the story of a psychotic man whose occupation is being a clown and he devolves into a murderer and some tremendous violence. I mean, really shocking violence in this movie. But I kept thinking of this whole process that you and I have talked about before. It goes back to the article about Dr. Frank where he wrote for The New York Times that he felt that Trump was a psychotic. And the thing about psychotics is they don't stay the same. They're not static. They move. They have a dynamic. They get worse unless they take their medicine. They get worse. It's the story of this movie, How He Got Worse. But, you know, when you see all these things happening, you wonder if we are seeing a process, a dynamic, where Trump is getting worse, more lies, more outrageous things, more things that are mean and nasty and undermine the Constitution. What do you think about that? Are we seeing this dynamic? We are seeing a dynamic and it's not just a matter of now undermining the Constitution. We're now starting to undermine international law and that is the wars of crime. Students' crimes are crimes that are above war specifically as you can't just create assassinations, you know, sovereign states and say that this is not a portion of war. There's some, you know, there's some wiggle room there and the wiggle room is the term eminent threat. But we know, we're pretty sure that the assassination of this general was not eminent. He was not an eminent threat. Was he a bad guy? Absolutely. Did he deserve to be hit and taken out? Absolutely. Was it the right time to do it? Absolutely not. Was not the right time to take him out? Certain administrations certainly had their opportunities and they chose not to do it, for a reason. And so we don't want this president who's starting to devolve get us into a war. And that's why I think you see this resolution that's going to be presented by Tim King. I think we'll see a pass and then we're going to go to the House. I think we'll pass there too. Yesterday with John David and a history professor at HPU we reviewed the history of the relationship between the U.S. and Iran from back in the early part of the 20th century. And, you know, it started out as an oil relationship and oil really defines Iran. It defines its economy and all that. And then we did some things. There was a fellow named Mosaday and he was the popular leader of Iran I guess in the 50s and the U.S. brought him down. Sort of like the Iran controversy with Oliver North. The U.S. was manipulating, you know, in matters of government in Iran under the hood and we did things that offended most people in Iran and they began to really dislike us with cause, with cause. And then, you know, of course with Jimmy Carter all those people were held hostage in the American Embassy. 52 of them. Trump reminds us it was 52 of them. And we have been on a bad footing ever since with Iran. On the other hand, you know, and I like your opinion on this. On the other hand, Iran, erroneously in a sort of a paranoid kind of way shot down, intentionally shot down. Not a mistake. They intentionally shot down the Ukrainian airliner and then said, oh, we didn't mean to. But they meant to shoot something down and they shot it down successfully with two missiles, you know, with dead-on accuracy. And so, you know, they're embarrassed now and they say they're going to prosecute a number of people. They've already arrested and started their prosecution. We don't know who the people are. But you know what? It's similar to the fact that the U.S. shot an Iranian plane down some years ago. And a lot of people were killed on that one. I think we apologized, we did not apologize, but they apologized for the one that went down last week. So I raise all this because somehow, you know, somehow it's a kindred event. Somehow we have the problem, they have the problem. We handle it differently perhaps than they do. But the fact is they're a modern, very near-western kind of community in Iran. They just happen to have a theocracy that messes things up, my opinion. So the question I put to you is, are we kindred to the point where under the hood we could establish a peaceful relationship, camaraderie even with Iran? Or is it always going to be like this? Well, that's a good question. And I think what comes to my mind is Donald Trump's, you know, shifting from one side to another as far as how you feel about Iran. Let's look at this recent overtures from Donald Trump to the Iranian people or specifically to the Ayatollah. And he said the following, to the leaders of Iran, do not kill protesters. Turn your internet back on and let reporters roam free. Stop killing the great Iranian people. So here's, you know, just position one second he wants to go to war with the Iranian people. And he's difficult by killing the second and commandant of the country of Iran. And then in two or three days later, he's pleading to the Ayatollahs that the Iranian people need to be free as they are in the United States. I don't get it. I don't understand it's just position back and forth and it's for convenience sake or he really has some argument issues going on. Well, it's like when he gets up and makes these, you know, long speeches like up to two hours and he dissembles all over the place and rambles in every direction and just uses epithets and words that he thinks will achieve an emotional result. And I'm reminded, you know, while the articles are going from the House to the Senate, he's out there in Wisconsin having this huge theatrical choreographed rally. He does that all the time in the name of, he's running for president. It doesn't matter about the impeachment. And in those rallies, he makes all kinds of comments about his purported adversaries and he tries to shore up his position on all these horrendous mistakes that he's made in the recent past all through his administration. And so what we have is this kind of huge disconnect and there they are, tens of thousands of people surrounding him, holding signs that support him, tens of thousands of people cheering at his every word. What is going on in this country? Does he really have that kind of support? I find it extraordinary, more and more. I'm glad you brought that up to me because recently Donald Trump tweeted an image of Nancy Pelosi and Hesham and Chuck Schumer in a turbine. Now he did this for a purpose and under the picture it says the corrupt damned trying to come to the Ayatollah rescue. And what is he doing that for? He's trying now to castigate Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, as Muslims. And in Donald Trump's world means if you're a Muslim, you must be a terrorist. And why does he take that tap? Well, because 38% of his loyal base buys into that. Well, if you're a Muslim, you must be a terrorist. And this is crazy. This is the president of the United States basically castigating an entire religion as terrorists. And it's got to stop. It's got to stop. Well, who's stopping him? You know, it's hard to stop the man. You know, the president does have some influence by virtue of his title. There was a very interesting segment. I think it was on PBS, I think it was last night, where the cameraman, the interviewer, was approaching people on the street in Middle America, Wisconsin, Iowa. I don't remember which one. And it appears that Trump has encouraged people to report those who have beards, Tim, beards. If you have a beard, somehow you are a threat to the country, to a democracy, a beard. And it was the most amazing thing, amazing thing, because they approached a lot of people who happened to be Trumpers. And they asked him, you know, what do you think about this beard thing? You know, would you report somebody who had a beard? Would you want people with beards to be reported? It was a ridiculous tongue-in-cheek question. And yet, a great majority, if not almost all of them in this segment, said, yeah, you know, people with beards are dangerous for the country. And we have to make the country safe. And there was one guy who said that who had a beard, which I thought was really odd. I'm sorry to... I'm losing my composure here because what you're saying is absolutely absurd. I know for a fact that he had an issue with John Bustat, but I didn't know he now had a, you know, some real mental problem with people with beards. You better tell that to a lot of millennials and a lot of the NZ folks because open them their beards. We're all in trouble now. I can see all those guys running back to their homes and shaving right away. But this is where he is. This is where he is. Is that sane? Is that a moderated? Is that a president speaking? Just a summary, a quick summary of the old bits of you. The golden oldies of hits of Donald Trump because the Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer dressing them up as terrorists because they're wearing Islamic garb and obviously with that photo with doctored. So he loves that kind of stuff. But what have we been through? Remember the Muslims were banned from this country? We had a Muslim ban. And then remember he called anyone who had a problem with it as un-American or treasonous. And then remember he said, if you are a critic of these things, you're human scum. And then you have the image of him beating CNN. You remember that logo of CNN being beaten as if it was a wrestling match. And then we have Hillary Clinton being hit with a golf ball, hard. And then we have minority congressmen being told, go back to where you came from. And then we had neo-Nazis and the KKK in Charlottesville being compared to us, find people on both sides. So the list of deplorable overtures continues to expand, continues to grow. And unfortunately our Senate, who should be the break up with current activity, are mum, they're deaf, they're silent of this thing. And why? Why? What gain do they get by allowing the pregnancy of this office of, you know, this prestige office of one of the greatest countries in the world to be disintegrated and denigrated in our very eyes? We don't understand it. No, it's hard to understand. It's a dark, dark, unpleasant thing that we find that exists in our country after all these years. We have, you know, diversity, years of kindness, years of acceptance and tolerance. Now we find we have this in a substantial number of people, millions of people get behind this. A lot, in my opinion, a lot of what Trump is doing is racist, misogynist, and people support it. That's the essence, in my opinion, of his base going on here. But let's look at who could say something. We have the Democrats. And my next question to you is a hard question. You better sit down for this one. How well are they doing in these debates? How well are they doing in responding? Or are they just fighting among themselves? Are they going to, they have a chance to win against this, this solo proprietorship, solo proprietorship president? Firstly, I have a chance to win. The question is, can they put it together in order to win? And I was happy to see that the Warren Bernie Sanders conflict didn't blow up any further on during one stage than the time was given to it. I thought that was going to go on for five or ten minutes. This conflict between the two about an alleged statement that Bernie Sanders said that women, you know, they could never win. And that whole thing was blown up way out the park. And the moment on that, on the moment on that, Stephen Colbert really had it right last night. He said, this is not a matter of, he said, she said, it's he said, she said, he said, she said, but he didn't say it, and she said, she said it. And you know, he was really hysterical about this. But you know, it was a tempest and a teapot. Is that an issue? Is that matter? What they said about it, how they feel about it? Fact is, it's going to be very hard for a woman to win a presidency, either the nomination or the presidency. It's going to be very hard. You know, if he said that, I would not disagree with him about it. And you know, the problem is, we spend our time arguing about what he said and whether it's right or wrong about women. That's not the issue. The issue is so many, so many other things. And I'm very concerned that Democrats don't present well and the press takes advantage like raw meat. They made a big, you say it was a small thing. They made a big thing out of it last night. It defined this debate. And I'm saying, wait a minute, is this really what this race is about? Well, let's talk about some of the other issues. You were going to talk about them. Well, I think the one that concerns me the most is how the world Trump is once again controlling the narrative for the Democrat. And they've got to stop doing that. We've got to get, the Democrats got to get the narrative on the impeachment trial. That's the one. And they've got to get the control of the narrative on the issues going forward for the 2020 election. And if they don't get those two things under control, once again, Donald Trump controls the airwaves and not only controlled his base, but he now is getting into the independent vote. Just to do a slight turnoff here on this issue, is I was speaking to a confirmed independent voter. And I asked him the questions about all the affordable things that have taken place in the last three years with Donald Trump. And he'd know each and every one of them. And he'd know that we were deplorable, horrible, horrible things that the president was either done by policy or in words. And I said, then why? Why are you now supporting him? You're an independent. Why are you taking the support of Donald Trump at this time? Good question. And he said, my 401k has been better than ever. And it comes down to that. What do you say? And that's the silo thing, you know? I'm doing fine. I do not care about the rest of the country. I do not care if people are starving in the street. I do not care that they're dying of opioids. It's my interest, Uber Alice. And I am very concerned about that because it represents a shift in the American culture. There was a time after World War II where it seemed to me that everybody cared about everybody else. It was a community of a nation. We're in this together. We're in this together. We need to care for each other. And that was what distinguished the United States from so many other countries. We care about each other. Well, clearly when they answer the question that way, my 401k is doing fine. My business is doing fine. My taxes have been only modestly reduced, but reduced. They're really talking about themselves, not the next guy. They don't want to help the next guy. Now, this is very troubling, and it's emblematic of the moral failure or decline of this country. What I suspect is this is affecting the senators in the Senate. It's my interest. Now, maybe it's not their 401k that they're more concerned about. For the senators, it's my ability not to be premiered out by Donald Trump's picking up a candidate against me, and I get to keep my job as a senator. So, again, self-interest. And for many Americans, maybe it is the fact that the 401k has looked better than ever. I have a problem with that, because I agree with you. I thought the lead generation stopped in the 1980s. Well, apparently it's alive and well. Well, you know, though, I had this conversation with a number of people who are so excited that their 401ks are doing well. But this president has the power, the sole proprietorship power. Without consultation, by beating up his secretaries of one thing or another and the Fed of ruining the economy in one tweet, he could do it. And he may do it without thinking thoughtlessly, as most of his acts are. And in that case, you know, he's not going to look so good. And neither is the guy in the street that was interviewed, not going to look so good. In fact, the whole thing could collapse. And there are those people who actually think it will collapse. So for those people out there who feel that they should measure their loyalty to Trump by the level of their 401k, think again, one good extreme storm in climate change, continues to deny will bring us all down. And speaking, go ahead, we're about done. Okay, well, here's a conundrum. So many Americans, especially in the Midwest, they don't have the resources to really get involved with a 401k. They're living paycheck to paycheck. So if it is the 401k syndrome that garnishes so much loyalty to Trump, what do we say about those individuals that aren't involved in the stock market as many other Americans are? What's their tag of loyalty? Is it racism? Is it misogynism? Is it, I don't know, the fact that you like a wrong man, a wrong leader and you just, you know, compliantly fall behind? I don't know. Well, but maybe we'll find out going forward, Tim, because we're going to do this every single week and we're going to do it next week and we're going to explore these things, connect the dots here on Trump Week. Thank you so much, Tim Appichella. And thanks for having me. Aloha. Sleep well.