 I'm Jay Fidel. This is Think Tech, and this is Coronaville. What's next? And of course, Coronaville is linked to all the other Trump issues. So but let me just open by saying, you know, we have a problem, Houston. It's shooting up logarithmically all over the country. The Trumpers don't seem to recognize that reality. They get involved in these super spreader events, like what happened last Wednesday, and we got cases upon cases. And then we have a failure of the government in distributing the vaccines. This is all turning bad. And yet, and yet he has managed to keep, you know, himself at the top of the agenda. And the media is reporting on him and only to a small degree on the relatively small degree on the coronavirus. So I just wanted to ask you guys, let me let me start with you, Tim. Tim Apachele, Stephanie Dalton, Cynthia Sinclair, and Winston Welch. I'd like to ask you, Tim, what has Trump, that is the administration, that the United States government been doing, been doing about the coronavirus in the last few weeks? Well, thanks for having me on, Jay. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. You know, they abandoned the try to quell this virus a long, long time ago. In fact, we discussed on previous shows that we think that they were trying to encourage herd immunity. And that's why they've done nothing. They wanted to encourage more people to get it rather than discourage. And it uses, my evidence, all the spreader events that Donald Trump held before the election and all the spreader events he's held since the election. So as far as the coordinated effort from the federal government, very, very, very little. And it's remarkable, isn't it? And they're complicit in the thousands of deaths that have taken place. Yep. Yep, they all have to go, don't they? Stephanie, we have problems in the River City on this too. An article in Civil Beat about our failure to organize a distribution system. What's that all about? Well, people are very, very frustrated, especially the folks that are still in the 1A category. 75 year olds are outraged because they made the grade and age and fine. And they can't get any service. So I've called Queens. I've called the health service and they, oh, well, we don't know. I've called Straub. Well, we don't know anything about what's going on. And the plan is to set up what they have put out in the publicity is that the plan is to have a distribution down at the Aloha Tower. But there's evidently a big haul down there for taking visitors from ships and all that. But then also over here at the Neil Blaisdell. And they say you have to have an appointment and fill out an application. Well, there's no information on where the appointments start. There's no application when you hit the link. So they're just scampering to try to get this stuff together. And I don't understand what the Lieutenant Governor wasn't on today because he was off giving another talk. And so I think that they've really, they're dropping the ball or something's in the way of getting this finished up the first tranche of people in 1A. And Cynthia, Cynthia, how much of this is the fault of the federal government? I mean, our failure here in the state to have a rational systematic distribution system. Is it our fault, their fault or both? I think it starts with the federal level and then sort of goes down to the state level. But the state has, I mean, the federal has messed this up so bad that I think every state is having to just sort of scramble. So even if they have the best plans in place because of what's happened with the federal rollout, they've had to scramble and readjust. And so Hawaii isn't the only state that's having these troubles. Everywhere is because they're having to, to just sort of on the fly, replan everything. Well, to go back to Tim's point, you know, it's the final thrust. It's the A2 Brute that we have this fantastic epidemic going on. And yet if I'm the governor of Michigan, I'm not going to be paying any attention to that at all. I have to survive my state house. I have to survive my administration. I have to deal with the risk of having thousands of insurrectionists burning my capital down. I'm not going to spend any time on COVID, even though COVID is much more of a threat to the population. So Winston, let's, let's turn to you. Let's, let's, let's talk about what's going on these days. Where are we since this is a hard question. I hope we can do it within the bounds of our show. Where are we these days, given the, you know, the, the fantastic insurrection last Wednesday? I mean, have we, have we really made progress in terms of getting rid of Trump? Oh, okay. You threw me, well, number one, there's never enough time to cover these topics in our show. That's guaranteed. But back to, before I get to that point with, with Trump, I think Donald Trump is here to stay with us just like coronavirus for the rest of his life and beyond. Just like Moderna's CEO said, coronavirus will never go away. And I think there's some parallels in that. Tim said it right. They have sort of just given up and said it's herd, herd immunity now. One in three people is infected in LA estimates show. That's from the LA times today. 90,000 more Americans will die of COVID just before about the beginning of February. We're at 4,000 people a day. Think about that. That is a 911 event more than that every single day. If you have, if you've had COVID, you only get protected for about five months before you can get it again on average is what study in the UK says. And we're looking at mass disaster in the next few weeks that says if you don't need to go to the store, do not what you don't need to go to the store. Have your groceries delivered, especially if you live in the mainland here in Hawaii. It's a little bit better. But like Stephanie said, it's confusing. And I've read reports. I was at Kaiser the other day dropping someone off and there was a line waiting out there. So what's this? And so I don't know if it was true or not, but someone said, oh, they're giving out COVID shots. And it was all ages waiting in line. And I said, oh, that's interesting. And he says, yeah, they're giving them out to anybody. I said, anybody, do you have to be a Kaiser member? He says, no, you could be anybody. I don't think so. And they're just taking all ages. And I thought that can't be true. But then I read in the paper today that if you hang around Safeway or CVS that when they get to the end of the day and people haven't shown up for their appointments that they have that extra vaccine. So people have now been kind of camping at Safeway and CVS, which doesn't help either. So I think once we get these mass sites established, look, we're going to have a new government in six days. And they have already Joe Biden's hand is going to be tired from signing stuff in the first hour of his presidency to get this as right as possible. But we are in for a world of pain in the next few weeks. They said it's going to be worse than it's ever been. It's a disaster. Go back to my question. Are we rid of Trump? No, but he's been marginalized. He's been effectively, you know, it's the corporate scarlet letter of being silenced by Snapchat. Now, even Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, his message is not going to get out in the way that he has thought it would, but it will get out in other ways. Is he going to be impeached? He will be impeached. I imagine that he will be convicted by the Senate, but then there will be constitutional questions that come up and say, does this stick because he's not in office anymore? So certainly this will be going to the courts later on. But the main thing is that his, I don't know. I just read another report that said today he's still more popular than Senate Republicans. And it was today's report. I can't remember if it was political. It was a 40% still support Donald Trump when I just thought, good gravy, how is this man still getting any support? But he is. And so the Republicans are having to do their dance, but their party's just being ripped in two for the people that are in a personality cult versus traditional Republican values. And I hope the latter is able to resurrect themselves because we do need a principled conservative party in this country, just like we need principled Democratic party in this country. So yeah, OK, well, Tim, what about getting Trump in jail? And I think it's really a big question about whether he's going to be removed from office and whether his perks will be taken away. I mean, I'll be interested in your thought about that. But at the end of the day, is he going to jail? You think he will? At the end of the day, yeah. And I'll tell you who's going to do it, Cyrus Vance, the Southern District of Manhattan. I think he's going to move forward on all the various charges that they've been waiting to do since he'll leave office. And as far as his perks and whether or not he can run for office, I think there's sort of provisions in the 14th Amendment that allow that to happen. It's not just paragraph three. Paragraph five, I listened to some constitutional attorneys, and they said paragraph five allows the Congress to pass new laws in order to implement the 14th Amendment. And so Congress, there's nothing to prohibit Congress from passing a law that specifically spells out, A, you shall not run for office again, hold public office, B, all presidential perks that were awarded to you will be stripped. So you can further define that so that if it's challenged later on in court, you'll have new law to further clarify that which was intended. Yeah, that would be good. What about federal prosecutions? You think Merrick Garland will go after him? Will Biden go after him? Well, Biden doesn't have a say in it. It would be. That's well put. Yeah, it's up to the Department of Justice. And Biden said very clearly, you answer to the rule of law. You do not answer to the president. Gee, too bad William Barr didn't understand that point. But I think Merrick Garland will. And I personally think Merrick Garland will look at what laws were breached and follow his duty. So Stephanie, where are we with the Republican Party? It is extraordinary, is it not, that all these Republican legislators have demonstrated they're still loyal even now today, even now today. 197 of them voted in favor of Trump yesterday in the House. Where are we with them? Why are they still loyal to him? Well, I think that it has all been built up, as we've talked about before. It's not just Fox, but there's this capillary system of radio programs that have just been pumping on all of his themes and tropes and everything plus Twitter. So I think that there'll be some diminution of all of this as we go forward, and mostly because now the financial context, his financial context is coming to pieces. Even Deutsche Bank is not lending him any more money. That's what they say. So what happens, I don't know. But all of the New York City's canceled all of his contracts. I mean, he did do one good thing with the skating rink there in Central Park, but it brings in yearly income that the Trump boys are taking care of. But all of those income streams are now getting dried up because they're saying that they will not continue to pay for to someone's corporation who's had criminal activity and this violence in the Capitol and all of this amounts to that for them. So you know what? I realized that Trump has never had, after reading Mary Trump's book, do you agree with me that Trump has never had a job? I'm thinking he has never had a job. Not even that he's not been a gov. Government, we're working with somebody that truly has no conception. It's like the secretary of education now departed and has never been in a public school classroom desk in herself or with her children. So I mean, we're up, we have, there's some unraveling, unwrapping of stuff, incredible. So, and there was that one congressman was going on about working at McDonald's and like for these guys that are all dressed up in these outfits or wearing their mask and saying, you know, if you work for McDonald's and you've got to wear the uniform or whatever they tell you to wear, otherwise you can go find your job someplace else. And that was when it hit me like a ton of bricks. He's never worked at anything like McDonald's. And no, oh, no, he hasn't worked at all because he's been with dad. He's had the deal of a lifetime. But anyway. Yes, he has. Maybe he'll work in the cafeteria there in the prison. So here we have a question from a viewer. I'm reading the question. See, we can deal with this. Multiple state officials got COVID from Republicans who refused to wear masks in the bunker during the Capitol attack. Is it just Republican to deny COVID or are they too influenced by Trump? That's an easy question, isn't it Cynthia? Yes, it was outrageous as I watched them refuse because they're on camera refusing to take the masks and being handed to them. It's not like they just ended up in the bunker with no masks. No, they were given masks and they refused them. And that's what just really taught me a lot. And so I believe that they are under the power of Trump. And we were talking a little bit before with Stephanie about the psychological elements of this and lots of people are likening this whole thing to a domestic violence situation as an abuser. It's as if so many people in America have been in a relationship with a domestic abuser and they're frozen sort of. And he used, very intentionally used all the specific things that abusers use to cow their victims, right? And to put them in the corner and to make them doubt themselves and to make them not believe in anything. But that one person, it's that sole proprietorship like we've been talking about for so many years here with him. And it's that that I see. So there's gonna be this. Sure. And let me ask you this though. Let's assume for a moment that it's a good analogy. That abuse and harassment, sexual abuse, harassment in a domestic setting shows you the same elements as what Trump and his enablers have done really to the country to 70 million people. What can we learn from the sexual abuse and harassment that we can apply in trying to correct the problem, correct the thinking of 70 million voters who voted for him? Well, the whole thing that is the first part is that they have to convince you that what they're doing is not bad. That the problem is yours, not theirs. And so we've got to, I think that's where having consequences for what he's done will really help a lot of the people be able to split away because they'll be able to see, oh, it wasn't me. It was him. Maybe I can believe in myself again. Maybe I can trust things again. And that takes intention too. So it's gonna take intention from the media and other politicians to come out and talk about this. And pose limits. Yeah. When I was a counselor in summer camp way back when, before you were born, when we found a problem camper, our mission was, this is a social work camp. So we really thought about these things. Our mission was to try to put constraints on that person, to put limits and to state the limits and then enforce the limits. I don't know if that still works now, but Tim, I wanna ask you to make the analogy and actually we're gonna have a show about this later today. Make the analogy with the tricks that Hitler used in coming to power. One of them was scapegoating minorities. We know the horrible things he did there. The other was propaganda. And the third one that comes to mind is the big lie. The big, huge, repeated lie. These are hauntingly similar. And so query, how similar are they to you? Are there other similarities we should learn from? And finally, my bottom line question on this is what can we learn from what happened in the 30s in Europe that we can apply now in order to limit this possibility again? Oh, great questions, Jay. First off, before the big lie, which let's identify the big lie that the election was stolen from Donald Trump. That's the big lie right now. But before the big lie, remember, we had 30,000 some odd smaller lies that people became desensitized to. Lie after lie after lie. And even though they were identified as such, you couldn't keep up with them. And like anything in human nature is to say, I can't process these numbers. I can't grapple with the daily exposure to something that's a lie. And then when that lie is repeated over and over and over again on Fox News or any of the, you know, the local media circuits, it's no longer a lie. It's just a, it's something that they accept. And so that when it comes to time for the big lie, that is accepted as well. And that's something that Hitler did very effectively with Goebbels and was completely successful in it. And so now the point is Donald Trump has pulled it off. He has poisoned 74,000 Americans with the big lie. And what was your last part of the question? I'm sorry. What do we do? What come in, by the way, was 74 million Americans. Yeah, I'm sorry. But what do we do? What do we learn from what happened in Germany? The whole affair with Hitler and the war and his deception and lies to the people and how he got them into his way of false thinking, which is so similar in my opinion for what Trump has done. What have we learned in making the comparison, assuming it's a valid comparison that we could use now to defuse all of this alternate universe lying system? Okay, it's happening now and it actually has been happening since the election and a little bit before the election. And that is limit the oxygen that Donald Trump has been given through the media sources. Limit the auction, identify the lie and quit giving this autocrat, this would-be dictator, the airtime and oxygen that he still craves to spread his lies. And that's happening now. And it's happening exponentially now with Twitter, locking them out Facebook and all the other social media. But you know, he's trying to get other social media to use in the same way. Maybe they're smaller at first, but if there's 74 million people interested in finding them, they will find them. And so a Twitter by some other name will emerge, don't you think? Yes. And that's where I've mentioned other comments about the FCC. New laws have to be passed about standards, standards of broadcasting, you know, the knowingly and overt publication of a lie. And until that's done, it's the Wild West again. And, you know, remember back in the 50s and 60s, there were some standards of broadcasting that were enforced. And it looks like the enforcement of some of those rows have gone by the wayside. Yeah. Well, Winston, before we get to, you know, a moral solution, a solution of dealing with public opinion propaganda, we have those National Guardsmen sleeping in the Capitol. This is really a scene to remember for the rest of our lives. And we have those fences and we have 15,000 and more. And we have, you know, public officials making statements to suggest that in fact, they gave them instructions. They said, you have some general, you have live ammunition, you are going to be carrying rifles. And if you feel you needed to defend yourself, you may shoot, you may engage, you may shoot that weapon. What's going to happen here? Are we going to have a shootout at the OK Corral here in the next few days, the next three days? Well, there's corrals everywhere around the nation. There's 50 state capitals, there's giant city halls, there's all types of federal, state and local entities that are on edge right now. I don't, there are loose cannons certainly. It's not the majority of people. It's not the majority of Trump supporters. It's not even a small minority. It's a tiny minority that can rabble rouse. They have assault rifles. And they start shooting at the National Guard. The National Guard is going to shoot back. Yes, they will, but hopefully all sides will exercise restraint. But, you know, we do have the rule of law here. And the law says you may not take over the government sedentiously. And we have elections that have been carried out. And now to Stephanie's point or to your point where almost 200 people who swore an oath to uphold, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, after being almost, could have been called hostage or killed by these same people continued to uphold and vote against impeachment is astounding. And what that says that you were to mention to Cynthia, this is like a Stockholm syndrome really, isn't it? They have, they're either afraid of their constituencies or they're actually believing what they're being told, which is scarier. And I think that we're gonna have reckonings all across the country. There's corporate reckonings going on right now where they're saying, we're not giving you any more money for your elections if you voted for this way, not just Donald Trump, all the way down the line. But interestingly enough, I was looking at a poll that came out that said, Ted Cruz is overwhelmingly supported in his own disc by by Republicans and in his district. Mitt Romney's at the low end, but he's supported by twice as many Democrats as Republicans. Look, there's an article in Axios that says, top Republicans want Trump done forevermore. They just warn against making him Jesus. At NPR, great article called How Did We Get Here? A call for an evangelical reckoning on Trump. This has to bleep throughout the nation so that we find that 74, 75 million people that still are thinking in this way, we have to reach their hearts and minds to let them know how we got off track and how we get back on track. How do we do that Winston? Very noble. I will tell you that right now, Donald Trump's not going to prison. That's not going to happen, but he will be investigated. He will be centered. It will all come out. Tim's thought of when we used to have, I don't remember what we called it, fairness and media or something where they had to report both sides, whatever that is. That's not happening either. We have to remember, you mentioned Goebbels and Hitler. They were masters at it and they only had the radio and leaflets and newspapers. Almost every single newspaper in this nation that I can remember in 2016 said, this man is a nightmare. Do not elect him. And he was still elected. Where Facebook and algorithms and these social media sites and Fox News, they are so manipulative. Our emotions and our thoughts and feeding us exactly in a cycle, they make Goebbels look like a kindergartner. So we really have to go back to those very basic things and say, what is your culpability as a social media organization, as a news organization? How do we do that, Winston? Well, I don't know. I don't know how we do that because we do have freedom of speech in this country, but at some point, maybe it comes down to the almighty dollar and Kellogg's or Ford saying, we will not have rights on your network if you continue with us. And we've seen mass purges. You know, it's not going to happen. Well, we've seen mass purges over the last few years. I'd like to get to her way in on that. Well, we have seen mass purges and I think we're moving in that direction, but we've got a lot of work to do to show up our institutions. He said purges, Cynthia. What do you think of purges? Yes. Yes, there's a lot of people I can think of that I'd like to purge for sure. Well, as far as the FBC rules and regulations go, they just had Tucker Carlson up in court not too many years ago because he was spreading misinformation, right? But they said it was just opinion, not a news station. So that's when Hannity and Ingram and Hannity, that's how they were able to keep their jobs and they didn't get censured or silenced because it's just opinion, right? So there's got to be more strict rules. I agree with Tim. We need to really define those rules more succinctly and more specifically. And we have to enforce them by saying... Stephanie, I don't see the Republicans. I mean, it's aspirational to think that we can change their minds and bring them over to the light at the end of the tunnel. I think it's a project that takes decades of education, and that's your specialty, around the country where we take people who come from neighborhoods that have gone to Trump and we show them they got to use critical thinking, all that stuff that the schools have to be better. And maybe, I mean, I'm interested in your thought about it. Maybe this is already happening, but it's not easy and it's not quick. What are your thoughts about how you change the way these people who appeared in the Capitol or these 74 million people, how do you change the way they vote and think? Well, I think we have two... We have a couple of examples briefly of lies that didn't get told, or one example of a lie, a major lie that didn't get told. And that was right at the beginning. And it involved major markers and clear evidence that there was only one truth. Okay, so the first one, the lie was about the size of the inauguration audience for Trump, okay? So he went to Obama's stuff, looked at the picture, oh, look, come in here there. And then he went to his, and they had that white thing out on all the grass so that they were doing something to make the grass better. And that showed that that was his inauguration shot, no getting away from it, except the next day, all the women and the women's marchers came to town. By the millions and filled up the mall, and they were... To go to Tim's point, it started there or even before. I mean, Trump was a liar when he was in real estate, way back when, way dealt with the media. I mean, we knew, and we saw the New York Times counting 10,000, 15,000, 20,000, 30,000 lies. We should have known then, but what could we have done? Markers, because what the reason that he didn't use the women's march as his audience is only because they were wearing the pussy hats. So if women had not had pussy hats on, those pink things that show up in every kind of footage, he would have used that footage for his inaugural event because the entire mall past the monument was jammed. So the lesson here is to wear those hats. Tim, you've been bursting at the seams on this. I've been bursting at the seams, and I'm sorry. But look, it's time for the FCC to make a rule, and that is make a clear delineation between news and commentary. When Walter Cronkite came out after the 10 offensive in 1969, he went from being a newscaster to a commentary. He made a verbal announcement to that, but that's not good enough. What the FCC needs to do is require a banner at the top of the square and a banner at the lower part of the screen that you have now went from news to being commentary. And that goes for CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, you name it. It needs to be across the whole spectrum of news reporting. Yes, that's really, and then. Okay, but you're seeing one of the really subtle, awful nefarious things that has come out of Trump's attacks on the press and his enormous number of lies all the time, increasing in scope and magnitude and outrage, is that it has stretched the First Amendment. It has made the First Amendment, it has put the First Amendment under attack. If you call on somebody to define between opinion and fact, where's the line? It's gonna be hard. It's gonna start somewhere. It's gotta be somewhere, but you know, we have to find a system. My statement, my thought is that the First Amendment, as we knew it, as we understood it from Hugo Black, which, you know, you can't cry fire in crowded movies theater is very simple. That's over. The First Amendment has been damaged beyond description in the course of this administration. Okay, time for closing comments. Stephanie, let's start with you. Summarize what we've done here today and where we're going in the next week. This has been a most informative discussion hitting all of the high marks that needed to be met. And going forward, we're gonna watch as Trump's prerogatives and perks are going away. He's not gonna have them and we're gonna see more bad behavior. So hang on, we're not there yet. Yes, it's only a few more days, but those are days. Hang on, hang on. Winston, can we afford to hang on? I mean, what's it gonna be like when we put the troops next to the insurrectionists? You could have a, America is burning Civil War kind of week, couldn't we? We could, but I don't think it's going to, I hope that it doesn't happen. And at the end of the day, as far as First Amendment rights go, the almighty dollar is going to prevail because these corporations are afraid of getting sued if they, by their shareholders and or by putting out information. So Kellogg's, Ford, whatever, they're not gonna be given the dough anymore. And that is what's going to control a lot of First Amendment stuff going forward from now. And that will bleed over to the networks and all that. That said, I don't have a TV that I watch network news on. I get it all on the internet. So I'm probably like, and the younger people, I don't know if they're getting it from TikTok or where. So you're right, that genie's out of the bottle, education, almighty dollar, I don't know. And hopefully this week, people will show restraint, as I said before, baking soda, baking soda, baking soda all around. Everyone needs to calm down and regain our sense of propriety and rightness. Cynthia, why don't we just go on a blackout for the next week and not see anything, read anything, hear anything and take a one week nap and then wake up and see what's gonna be at the other end of it. What are you gonna do? No, I actually, I already took my nap back when the studio. I'm okay, I'm refreshed and I'm ready to go. I think with consequences, well with accountability, all accountability for all of them, not just Trump, but all of the Jim Jordans. And when I say Jim, I mean, G-Y-M, Jim Jordan, and all of the Lindsey Graham's and the people that so voicefully supported all of this, Mishigosh, as you like to call it. So there needs to be accountability and then there needs to be consequences. And until that happens, there can't be any healing and we will not reach any of those people. There might be a few Republicans that voted because they liked the money that they received. And so they're starting to pull back because they're like, whoa, I don't know about this whole takeover the government thing, but most of them are still under the power of Donald Trump. Yeah, oh yeah, that's the true fact. So Tim, we've had some good events here in the past. Like Biden won, although some people don't believe that. Biden won, the two Democratic senators in Georgia, they won. Nancy is still in place. They did impeach the bugger. That was really terrific. These are good things. So Tim, how are you feeling? I'm feeling very cautious. I'm a little concerned about what transpires between now and the inauguration, but I'm optimistic. And the reason I'm optimistic is because the system actually ultimately worked. The democracy held. We voted someone out. It was a fair election. And as time goes on, his power will diminish. And as we've said on this show before in other shows, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. There you go. That's it. That's the lesson of all of this. You know, there will be a time when it cools off and we won't have Trump to kick around anymore to use the phrase about Nixon. We won't have Trump to be on the headlines every day and every minute. And the news will not be as exciting. It will not be like a 24 hour reality show which he has achieved first now for four years. And the question is, will we still have opinions? Will we still be interested? Will we still participate in the national public conversation? And the answer is, we'd better bloody well do that. Whatever happens, you know, yeah, vigilance. It's all about vigilance. Thank you, Tim. Thank you, Stephanie. Thank you, Winston and thank you, Cynthia. Don't forget your next show on Rediscovering America is on probably the most important day. It could possibly be the day of the inauguration. Wow, exciting. Are we looking forward? Well, in many ways we are. Thank you so much, you guys. Aloha. Aloha, Jay.