 Welcome to American Issues. Take one. I'm Tim Apachele, your host, and today's title for the show is, Ignore the Constitution. I'm President of the United States. Again. You know, in the last six years, and I think I've had this speech before on this show, but we've listened to Donald Trump say all sorts of deplorable things, I mean, things that no president of the United States would ever say or even think, not to mention yet we've entertained Donald Trump's misogast for the last six years. Now that he's not president, we're still subject to it. We're talking in previous shows of hopefully not having to talk about Donald Trump, but he crosses the Rubicon and we are forced to deal statements he makes. And today's show takes that in consideration. But let's just hit some of the hit parade of topics that we've had to talk about before. When Donald Trump first entered the scene, he talked about John McCain, a veteran war hero. He called him, he's not a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren't captured. So there was quite a statement. And then who could forget the Charlottesville aftermath where Donald Trump said, there's good people on both sides. Or certainly who could ever remember the comments he made on Hollywood access video, which I'm going to talk about those quotes. Everyone remembers them. Let's talk about Donald Trump's defense of Vladimir Putin and Helsinki, where he said, President Putin says it's not Russia. I don't see any reason why it would be. And then, of course, I'll never forget the comments he made in France about the World War One dead veterans in France. And he called them suckers and losers. Well, not to be outdone. Last week on True Social, his his little network, he said the following, a massive fraud like this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution. This was the one that I'll never forget. And I don't think any Americans should forget it. And they certainly should remember it now that he's a candidate for President of the United States in 2024. So to discuss this issue, I have with us, Jay Fidel, the co-host for American Issues Take One. Hey, good morning, Jay. Good morning, Tim. Jay, maybe it's maybe I'm just sensitive. Maybe I'm overreacting. But in your opinion, how serious was Trump's words to terminate the United States Constitution, just so he could be reinstalled as President of the United States? Because his big lie that he lost in 2020? A couple of thoughts on that. Number one, I'm glad you referred in the title to him ignoring that he has ignored the Constitution. But he has ignored the Constitution all through those six years. It's like it didn't exist. He did what he wanted. And he made the effectively ridiculed the Constitution all the way through. But this is different. There was a discussion on MSNBC yesterday where, was it CNN either way, where they said, oh, he has said that he is going to suspend the Constitution. And somebody says, you can't suspend it. What is that about? And I think that was a misstatement by the media that he was said he was going to suspend the Constitution. He's already suspended it in every way he could and ignored it. But now he says he's going to terminate the Constitution. And that is pretty serious. He knows the meaning of that word. And the people around him know the meaning of that word. Lest we forget that the people around him are all acolytes. They'll do whatever he says. And they'll advise him and help him in his mission to terminate the Constitution. The question, you know, and I think he really means it if he has the chance. He will do exactly that. We have speculated many times on what a new administration by Trump would mean. It would be horrendous. And I actually like to cover that on the show tomorrow, take two. But, you know, in an administration, another administration by Trump, there would be no Constitution. There would be no rule of law. There would only be Trump. And we know what kind of strange material, perverse material Trump is made of. So my point in answering you is it's really serious. And the question we should, you know, ask is what makes him do that? What does he hope to achieve? Because making that kind of statement loses part of his base. They can't stand it. They don't see it as any way patriotic at all. They see it as, you know, treason is essentially as I do and you do. So the question is why in the world would he make that statement? You want me to answer it or you want to answer it? Well, I'd love to hear your perspective on it. I think he's massaging the base. He knows that he's going to lose some people who are independents and moderates. He knows that. That's not important to him. He's in a new place. He is seeking a new base, a more violent base, a more extreme base, a new generation of base, the people who were at the Capitol, the people who walk around with assault rifles, the people who are at the far end of the spectrum. He wants to include people like that. He wants a new base, a more extreme base, who will fight like hell for him. And so this is his new thing, you know, with the guys at the dinner and the White House, the anti-Demites and, you know, and he's making all these statements to recruit new extremists. Well, let me interject something because by definition, if he's looking for a new base, doesn't that mean far fewer voters because they're Uber extreme? Oh, that could be a big miscalculation on his part. He has miscalculated in the past, we know that. But I think the only logical reason for him to do this, aside from him being crazy, I don't think he's crazy. I think he's crazy like a fox. The only logical reason to do that is to grab new acolytes. And I agree with you that, you know, it doesn't work for a lot of people. He's losing a lot of people, I think, who are independent and moderate. They know what the fringe is, if you will, of the existing base. But he doesn't want the existing base anymore. They're not violent enough for him. He wants a working army. He wants those guys with the assault rifles who do anything he calls for. Stochastic. Remember that term, stochastic. He wants to be able to send signals to them and have them destroy the democracy. That's what's in his mind. Okay, so really, as a candidate for 2024 election, if we try to get in the mind of Donald Trump, which I don't want to do, I'll never come back, is he just basically trying to be installed as the leader of the United States by a violent non-election? Well, isn't that the definition of sedition? He's working. Yes, it is. Of course, it's a coup. It's treason. He's working at two ends. Imagine bookends. One bookend is the election in 2020. It was really his, and Biden lost, and he won the big lie. So he's working on that. I am still your president. Therefore, I can take stuff to Miralago. Therefore, I can make all these outrageous claims. I'm still the president. So that's the one bookend, say at the left. The bookend at the right is the 2024 possibility. So he puts his hat in a ring. He's a candidate. And what could happen between then and now, between now and then, is something could be a provocation by which he would launch a violent insurrection, more violent or effective than the one on January 6th. For example, remember Graham who said, if he is indicted in Miralago or in January 6th possibility, then there would be violence. So there could be violence between now and 2024, where he brings out his new army, so to speak, and they do violence. I mean, it's like, there's one more point now, and I'll get to my conclusion. We spotted an article and we put it on the ThinkTech website, a rather daily advisory, about how at these various protests by right-wing groups, the oathkeepers, they're still working, and the proud boys, they're still there, appear with guns. And if you are running opposite to that protest, and you're, say, a liberal Democrat, and you don't have a gun, and these guys have guns loaded with guns, they have multiple guns per capita at these peaceful protest, you aren't going to hang around. If guns come out, you're going to leave or be hurt or killed. So what I'm saying is, it's so easy for him to change the tone of that on any given day with an extremist new base. So that could happen between now and 2024. And I guess the far end book end on this is the election in 2024, which because of his aberrant behavior, he is likely to lose. However, he is also more than likely to question. And it's not just a litigation. It's the big lie all over again. Only this time, he's got an army to back him up. So he's got a plan. He is so determined. It's hard to imagine how determined he is. He's going to get back in the Oval Office. He's going to become president and for life without the restraints of the Constitution. As I listened to you explain this, and I'm not disagreeing a whole lot here, but as I look at one of your extreme ends of the book ends, the one, the first one was Donald Trump still thinks he's president and he's acting like he's still president. It's 2022. It's two years later. I mean, at some point, when when do we all say this is delusional? And isn't that a disqualifying factor for any presidency or anyone to run for an office, federal office one way or another? I mean, when does when does mental illness enter into a criteria for not allowing a candidate to run for the highest office in the country? Well, remember those protests in 2017, January, all the people out on the streets said, not my president. Do not suggest that you or me or any any right thinking enlightened individual in this country would ever believe the big lie. We wouldn't. It's a big lie. As a matter of fact, there's a fair amount of evidence available to the select committee and otherwise where he indicated quietly in the Oval Office that he knows he's not he lost that election. He's making it up. He just wants the power and he'll get there any way he can by sedition, by treason, whatever it may be. All right. Well, that leads me to my next question. That is, are you what's your reaction to the GOP's reaction of Trump's willingness to terminate the Constitution? Well, I don't know what kind of magic he holds over them. It's probably a dossier on all of them. It's a threat. It's a threat that he will call all his dog whistle on them, that they'll be attacked at their homes. I mean, God knows how he gets them to fall in line. Hitler did these things. Same playbook. And I think a lot of them are terrified. And in the Atlantic a couple of years ago, it wrote an article about how fear plays a big part of the rise of an autocrat. And that was visible in Eastern Europe after the war. So I think what we have is this sort of magic thing, and I wish that the press would zoom in on that, would home in on it, and tell us what's going on. It's not that he's crazy. He's crazy like a fox. It's that he has this kind of magic understanding of the way to manipulate people. The other thing I wanted to mention is you suggest that he is crazy and therefore could be removed by the 25th Amendment. But don't forget, the 25th Amendment requires some kind of vote by his cabinet. Well, his cabinet, by definition, are all corrupt. People get up and say, oh, wow, he testified in front of the select committee. He must be okay. He's come clean. He wrote a book. Fact is that Trump appointed him, and Trump wouldn't appoint anybody who was not an acolyte, who was not completely, totally loyal. So the 25th Amendment is not an option anymore, because if anybody were going to rely on that against him as a sitting president, day in 2024, for example, everybody in the cabinet would be his person. He would own them all, and they would never vote against him. You know, in the intro, I kind of went through the hit parade of Trump's crazy statements and deplorable statements, quite frankly. He successfully walked them all back or made the public forget about him. I certainly didn't forget about him. Does he do the same with this? He's already claimed that he didn't say what he said on his true social network. He's already backtracked it. Moon walked away from it. Does he successfully Moon walk away from this damning statement he made? He already tried, yeah. He already changed the verbiage, and he fell back to some other position. Does the public forget about it and take his usual tack that it was just a distraction? There's two competing considerations. One is the press. You know, the press has become more adept at handling this sort of thing and more likely to remind us on a regular basis. I mean, they talked it up a lot since he made that statement. That's a good thing. Okay. The bad thing is that there are people who want to forget it. They want to forget anything that's negative on Trump. So they will lie like he is lying about what he said, and he has the ability to bring them into his lie. And the other thing is this, never forget the power of distraction. That's how he has done this over the past six years. A new reality show every day was something that surprises and delights and entertains you. He moves the needle ahead on the news cycle, and you forget what happened in the previous news cycle. He's done that so many times. Yeah, that's my question though. Does the American population forget this damning black and white statement he made on True Social, his network? Depends on the press, doesn't it? Yeah. Okay. I don't, you know, the liberal press presumably understands our discussion here, and will keep reminding us, and never let us forget. But the right-wing press, Ugg, they will buy into the distractions, and they will pump on the distractions before you know it. The average person in the country will forget what Trump did, as in so many cases in the past. So the question, there are people who want to believe whatever he says, especially the new extremists that he is now pandering to. There are also people who will never buy what he says, and then there's the group in the middle, and he's working on that. He's trying to build his new extreme base to cover more ground. I would say that, you know, the jury's out as to whether he can escape from the implications of his traitorous remarks. By his remark that he made, that doesn't, as far as timing, that doesn't bode well for pending indictments either about January 6th, or the documents, the top classified documents of Mar-a-Lago. Does that statement bode well, or does that help the Department of Justice on trying to convince a jury that an indictment ought to be made? Oh, yes, absolutely. I mean, remember Ari Melber and his book, which is coming out in a few days now, putting, you know, connecting the dots on Trump's state of mind, showing you that he did things arguably legal, and as time went on, he got more desperate about holding on to power. They became illegal, and the question for Merrick Garland is, what is his state of mind at the moment of January 6th? Because that is relevant to whether he was inciting an insurrection and so forth. And this is one of those things, I totally agree. This is one of those things. If you want to find out his state of mind, you go through the same kind of continuum. So he ignored so many things in the Constitution. And then he said that he's going to terminate the Constitution. That reveals his state of mind essentially throughout, and certainly on January 6th. So yes, I think it helps Merrick Garland. But, you know, we'll see. Merrick Garland's clock is still ticking on Merrick Garland. And at the end of the year, the Republicans may very well try to impeach him, or otherwise undermine his ability to call for an attack. You know, someone many years ago said something that's always stuck with me, and it's helped me understand things that I don't understand. And that is, the quote was, Tim, never try to make sense, rational sense from an irrational person. So the question is, why would Donald Trump, I guess I'm going to ignore that quote, why would Donald Trump at this time, where he's under the microscope, make a statement like this that gets to the state of mind of what he did in January 6th? Why would he do that? Well, you know, my conclusion is not necessarily Merrick Garland's conclusion. And it's not Trump's conclusion. I think he's got big of, he thinks he's got a big of fish to fry. He thinks that he can beat indictments, you know, where they are possible. So it doesn't make that much difference to him. And he will always rely on his ability to obstruct and obfuscate, you know, any move against him. And that, you know, may be true, and we all have to hang tough on it. It seems like we're closer to indictments now, but the metronome is ticking every day. And we don't have any. You know, the thing in New York about Weisselberg, Trump was not a party. He wasn't indicted. His corporation was indicted. Makes him look, you know, like a bad guy, but it really doesn't get to the core. Alvin Bragg is trying some criminal, you know, investigation now. He's late. He's a year late on that, too bad. I'm not sure that's going to go anywhere. The civil case out of Albany may or may not go anywhere. So remember that Trump has the power to obfuscate, delay, deter, or even violent on these things. Yeah, I mean, he has the legal power for appeals and things of that nature, but the political ploy, I mean, we just finished the last of the midterm elections with the Warnock's victory over Herschel Walker. Oh, that hurt Trump bad. Well, that's, and that's where I'm going to is that, you know, yeah, he has his legal ploys of appeal. But now that he's, you know, he's taken a hit to the bow with the midterm candidates that he endorsed that didn't get elected in the swing states. And now the crude, the crude atta is Warnock's victory over Herschel Walker. So just how bad was he hurt in this final election? Oh, I think the Herschel Walker or Warnock election hurt him really bad. Why? Because it stood by itself. And it was a huge 10-foot reminder of what happened on November 8th, you know, where Trump lost many, if not all of his Trumpy candidates. So this one is sort of a, it reinforces the conclusion that people might have come to before that Trump's candidates are bad news. And therefore the Trump is bad news. With the missing link, as you mentioned a minute ago, the missing link is why the Republicans in Congress, why Mitch McConnell can't belly up and admit it. I mean, it's really insidious. You've got to listen to every word that guy says. I don't know if you saw the footage where the Capitol Police were having some sort of event yesterday and they wouldn't shake McConnell's hand and they wouldn't shake McCarthy's hand. They just passed him by. It was a huge insult and it was on national TV. And it was the Capitol Police who were the only heroes in the room. And so, I mean, there's something happening, but those guys are not, they're not actually condemning Trump. And I don't know what it'll take. By his statement he made on Choose Social about termination of the Constitution, does that statement alone disqualify him as fit for the office of President of the United States? Yeah, it does, substantively, but it doesn't under the 14th Amendment. Section 3 doesn't. So, he needs to be convicted somewhere. And I'm afraid to say that conviction has to be final of appeal. And it is very unlikely that that conviction is going to be final of appeal. In my opinion, that's the conservative, legally conservative way to look at it. That's not going to happen before 2024. If I were a candidate, you and I talked about this many times, if we were candidates, we would sue him and try to get him off the ballot. We still may. Yeah. And make it clear, make it clear that he is in violation of the earning the language, specific language in that constitutional provision. I don't know how he can worm his way out of that. You know, he can say, oh, I wasn't responsible. I didn't participate. Nobody believes that. Even the people who believe in the big lie don't believe that he is not responsible for January 6th. So, I think it may cost him votes, even though it may not be a black and white obstacle bar to his candidacy. I'd like to go back a little bit to your earlier statements. And I agree with you. I think Donald Trump is trying to create a new base. He's tired of the old base because they're not 100,000% loyal to him. They're only 100% loyal to him. I think you're right. He is trying to define a new following. Not dissimilar from Jim Jones' faithful following. So, let's get to the point, though, of media coverage. And that is, should he find a new base that is more violent, more extreme, will the media coverage his antics or to say, we can't even cover it because the followers are so extreme and they're violent based and we can't afford to follow that kind of coverage? Where does the media go with that, with his new audience? Or more precisely, where does social media go with that? Both. Yes, both. Social media is more, I would say social media is more influential among the new base than the New York Times is, for sure. So, I mean, I guess what you're asking is, well, why don't we sort of embargo his comments? Don't print them at all or delay them until it's too late for them to have the dog whistle effect. Or third possibilities, couch them and this is an attempt that dog whistling, don't buy it. The problem is, though, that this has shown to be true. He has learned over those six years. He's learned where his strengths and weaknesses are. He's learned how to manipulate his base. He's learned how to create violence. What a guy. And all those other things he does, which we can talk about later. But this lesson is, to me, it's clear that he will use the media as sort of an enhanced dog whistle apparatus. And he will create more violence and stress and divisiveness in the country. And his friend, Vladimir Putin, will work with him on that. And so the answer is, I don't think we can stop it. How do you stop it? Do you stop Elon Musk, who is really bad, bad, bad? Do you stop Zuckerberg? Zuckerberg threatened yesterday he was going to take all the news off Facebook. I think that was just a trial balloon to see how people would react. He's not going to take the news off Facebook. There are a lot of people in this country, including the base, who use Facebook as their sole news source. Why would he take the news off Facebook? He's not going to do it. If they all agreed, we're not going to give Trump a break on this, that he can't use our media as dog whistle, then we could stop it. But they're never going to agree. All right. Well, we've run out of time. But I've got to ask this last question because I keep asking myself the question and I don't come up with the right answers. Jay, in your opinion, why did Donald Trump state in explicit terms his willingness to terminate the Constitution of the United States? What was in his frame of mind, or what was his motivation to do something that stupid? Let me say stupid. Maybe it was clever. I think that he has a plan to violate specific provisions of the Constitution that will limit his ability to retake power, including provisions that relate to voting. For example, provisions that relate to the transfer of power, provisions that would roll it back in accordance with the big lie. It's desperate. Everything he's done has been desperate since 2020. But it's the desperation flavor of the week. And you notice that the direction of this, the flow of it is always to more desperate and more dangerous and more seditious all the time. So we're going down that path with him. And this is one of the steps, one of the dots, if you will, that we need to connect on that path. Well, maybe after six years, people are fatigued with this more desperate attempts and moves and maneuvers. And maybe this time people just ignore him. But you and I know that that's not likely the case. Here we are. We're talking about him. Every channel, every newspaper is talking about him. Yeah. So from that definition, he's successful. The old thing about you say whatever you want about me, just spell my name right. He understands that. America's bad boy. It's Bonnie and Clyde all over again. And there are people who oppose what he's doing and saying, but who nevertheless follow him and want to be entertained. This is the biggest reality show in the history of the planet. That's the Cardi's playing. That's the Cardi's playing. Alrighty. Jay, last thoughts. We're out of time. You know, you and I, back from the day of Trump week, how many, five years ago, you know, we try to connect the dots and we keep stumbling into these inflection points where we say, oh my God, that's pretty scary. You know, he's doing this, he's doing that. And we talk about him. And we try to believe you and me both, Tim, we try to believe that at that, the next inflection point, he's going to be turned out. He's going to be the emperor without the clothes. And people are going to realize what insanity this is. But you know, it hasn't happened yet. He's crazier or apparently crazier than ever. And his moves are more outrageous than ever. And we are at yet. I thought we were going to have an inflection point with the runoff in Georgia. But now I'm saying, huh, there'll be another one. Give it 48 hours, I'm telling you. There'll be another inflection point. And you and I will have the same experience. My God, you know, what is he doing now? And how can we turn away from this? And we can only hope that something happens that will stop him. But it hasn't yet. You know, there's an old saying during World War II, and it was, the war is a bore, because it was just covered morning, noon, and night. I like to think that Trump's a bore, and no one's going to pay attention. No one's going to listen because they're bored to death. But you and I have been doing this for five years, and I'm sad to say we'll probably be covering it in the next two years, too. So we'll just see if that prediction is true. And I'd like to thank you, Mr. Fidel, for joining American Issues Take One. I know we've got more to continue on American Issues Take Two tomorrow. Looking forward to it. And thank you so much for joining and lending your sage advice and opinions to the show. And with that, I'm Tim Apachella. Thank you very much. Join us next week, American Issues Take One. Aloha. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at thinktecawaii.com. Mahalo.