 June the 15th, 2022. It's Wednesday. It's 11 o'clock. That can mean only one thing. Time for American Issues. Take one. I'm Tim Appichelle, your host. And with me today is a bit of a reunion show. We have Winston Welch, who's been on assignment for many, many months. I know that he's been working on a lot of stories. And Cynthia Lee Sinclair. Welcome you guys. Welcome back. Morning. Aloha. I kind of went out there with the title for the show today, because the title lend itself to what's the topic of the day. And the title is Trump goes with drunk Rudy. Big lie is born. You know, what's in the title everything. And what have we been finding out from the select committee's hearings a lot. A lot of that we've known but I think the value of the hearings is that they're putting it together in a story that we can actually get our arms around. Remember the Mueller investigation. It was so convoluted and there are so many exits and on ramps to what was going on that I don't think the American public could grasp it. And it didn't take much for Bill Barr to decouple the reality of the Mueller investigation from its complexity. So here we are with a very complex issue of January 6 how that happened who was involved. And, but the hearing select committee is doing I think a wonderful job of putting the pieces of the puzzle together and telling a story. So without further ado, let's go to that question. Winston to you first. What, what new things do you think we've learned from this from these two hearings. Well, I, you know, I was talking with someone about this asking have you been watching the hearings and she said no, there's no new information in there I don't I don't think we heard anything but that's not true there's a lot of new information from all of these these guests they've had a year and a half, basically to do a methodical plotting. So this is an analysis of what's gone on and that actually you know, they've been criticized for not coming out sooner for not doing this, you know, we're a year and a half out on this thing but that said this sort of work needs painstaking research it needed to have the people that they had to come forward and what we're seeing out of this is this was not insurrectionist or rioters this is being shown for what it is which was a full frontal coup attempt on overturning the peaceful transition of power from one election to another. And it's being led in as bipartisan manner as could possibly be done because the, you know, the House Republican leadership would not really participate in this because some of them are complicit in this as we found out as well in these in these hearings. But that said, having the way that this is gone about and Liz Cheney is a brilliant leader in this and the way that she laid it out and I had heard on one commentary that she'd been a federal prosecutor for 20 years but the way that this was laid out. As one commentator said was textbook classic case of what they were going to do, how they were going to do it, it was not hysterical it was not dramatic it was very matter of fact laying out what it is. I want to go to that point, I want to go to that point because one of the things that impressed me is a lot of times in the hearings and I think we saw some of this in the impeachment hearings is a Tennessee for committee members to grandstand a bit. And what I haven't noticed is any committee members are asking your questions, any hint of grandstanding or trying to paint this for a political advantage. What I'm seeing is a outlay of facts and testimony and witness testimony. Your impression on that point. Yeah, I would agree I'm not seeing any any of that I think what may have surprised people is just sort of laying this right at the feet of Donald Trump but it's not just Donald Trump there's an entire movement behind him that wanted to support this so while he you know is rightly being put where it is, they're calling out the other people behind it and I think part of their really brilliant strategy here is to have people that were involved in his inner circle, the bill bars, his campaign chairman who had, you know his wife had the baby the day of the testimony earlier. These are these were deep. They had, who was the Ginsberg the lawyer I mean that had that fought Bush v Gore. These are died in the wall, Republicans and not only that these are part of the inner circle of Donald Trump from the very beginning people that that we probably have a little bit on some of the actions that they taken but those have been. I think all sins are absolved on some level because they are actually standing up when bill bar stands up and says this is the way that it is when you have Liz Cheney who is was number three in the House leadership on the Republican side. daughter of Vice President Cheney I mean these are not liberals, she voted with Donald Trump 90% of the time but when she sees a coup attempt that's just out to destroy what she understands as her nation. This is really remarkable this is not liberal Democrats banging that the pan this is going to the source of the Republicans that were all around it. And most important is what one of the witnesses or one of the committee members said was this is not a Democrat issue this is not a Republican issue this is an American issue. And these folks are standing up as Americans and saying, this was wrong, and this is what I saw, and this is the factual presentation of what's happened. Right yeah great points Winston appreciate that Cynthia you know Winston brings up the point the fact that all this testimony is coming from more or less Trump's inner circle. I would think that lens a little bit more credibility, and to, I'm sure to Republicans they don't like to see that they don't like to come out against other Republicans but when it comes to attempted coups I guess that's what you might expect. But anyway, to you a same question. What have you learned out of these two hearings that maybe you didn't know before. To that point. Well, um, first off, let's just define what a coup is right a coup is the overthrow or alteration of a legitimate government by abusing power, or through violent. It's an ongoing coup right that some of these people are are going with. I think the guy that struck me the most made me the most effect I thought was that Ben Ginsberg guy who was involved in the 1990 or no the 2000 Florida. And recount stuff investigation and all that, and he just stood up and said there was no evidence. No, and he told Trump that. So I think that's an important thing. They're trying to establish if he did know if there was anything, you know, behind what he was doing. Did he just believe that he really did win, or did he know better. And that's when I see them very carefully laying out is how many times he was told that there was no fraud. Well that I think that's the point is that you had I think is Alex Cannon, who was kind of the data guy who who looked at election night results and said, not looking good. And I would not recommend going out on election night at one in the morning or two in the morning. I was up to watch that and say that you've you've won the elections, I would not recommend that. And then Mark Meadows chief of staff said okay so there is no there there. And despite the constant advice that he got Trump wouldn't have any part of it didn't want to listen to it so what did he do he tried it out, and went with yeah I won the election and if I don't win, then this whole things a fraud. So he said, you know he set the stage on election night. And I think maybe, maybe they had announced Arizona at that time. And that's what I think angered Trump the most is that see it excuse me, Fox News actually aired the, the Arizona results and I don't think they were happy about that. No, they fired the guy. They did for telling for telling the truth firewall. Yeah, yeah for telling the truth they they terminated them. And guess what that's what every news organization should do is fire your your your executive director for telling the truth. Wow. So any other thing Cynthia that you thought that caught your eye on these last two hearings that that you really didn't know before or other than Ginsburg. So, as far as things that we didn't know before. Here on think tech we really follow the news. So we are pretty much familiar with all the stuff they're presenting. Right, but the average Joe just watches the evening news, he's getting all kinds of new stuff. So I'm not really seeing a lot of new things that we didn't already kind of know happened, but now what they're doing and I think that another thing that's behind all this is one of the questions is who are they trying to reach with this right who's their target audience. This is my opinion. History is their target audience. All of this is getting, you know, transcribed, you know, black and white history, and there's going to be no denying it there's no changing it there's, and they're being very careful to stay away from opinion, and just deal with facts. And, and I think that's really great and I noticed the same thing there's no grandstanding, right. How wonderful to be able to air down all of that. You know, look how great I am see over here let me gaslight you now kind of stuff it's gone, and they can just go right straight to the heart of the matter and I think that's brilliantly put together and really well executed. You know if I was in the audience as a candidate for 2024 for the president United States. I'd be watching this very carefully and watching this report that's going to be produced because as an audience member, I might want to take the report and plop it down on a judge's desk and say, Here's my brief. President Trump, former President Trump has no legal standing to enter into President United States under the 14th Amendment paragraph three. And here's my brief to prove it. So there might be a future audience that we haven't really thought about yet but any candidate was standing certainly could good run with this. We'll see time will tell. Yeah, I agree with that. So any one of us here on the show could run for President United States and what's prevent us from filing a suit. When are you running Winston when you're running for office. And even then, I don't want to catch talks. It's hard enough just to be an informed citizen honestly that run and stand for office with noble valuable principles are honorable people for the huge most part and we have to applaud them and they've taken so much abuse and flack of the last couple years, even we're seeing that that that fellow that testified. You know, we haven't even gotten to that part yet of the hearings coming up which are going to be going drilling down to that level in Georgia and the harassment and threats of local Rosenberger died in the wall. Yeah, a broken functionaries in these states that are just designed to count the boats. Yeah, there's some real heroes that have emerged out of this in the last 17 months and Liz Chinese certainly is one of them, regardless if she retains her seat in Wyoming as a senator. She'll go down in history as a true patriot, certainly not with the principles I line up with but as a patriot of democracy in the Republic should go down in history. No two ways about it. Speaking of history, you know, William Barr is coming out of this is, I don't know, I'm trying to think of back in the days when Robert McNamara. He tried to redefine his role in the Vietnam war and, and not really telling the public how the war was going he was in charge of you know, you know, he was the Defense Department Secretary of Defense. And he was partly responsible for the cover up of what was occurring in Vietnam and how we were not winning the war there. And then he came out you know years later and kind of tried to. You know polish it up spin it that his role and I'm getting the sense that Bill Barr is doing the same. What are your impressions of Bill Barr and his testimony concerning Donald Trump and the insistence of his big lie. Well, you know, like I said he got, he got a lot of stuff wrong over the last, when he was in power and he really had some policies that I don't think were in the best interest of America but he was the Attorney General at that time but for this last one. And this, this really important thing which was our time here is done. We lost Farron Square. He told it to Donald Trump many times in many different ways, as he stated, very clearly, he stated, you know talked about the different lawsuits he sent out his own investigators really looking for something is there any there there. He categorically found there was nothing there I thought when when the when they rolled the comments of the federal judges, a huge number which was pointed by Donald Trump saying this is just pure she buy right and and the comments that they were rolling from the judges was so telling these are people who have access to all types of information that are in a position to judge these things very carefully. And then they did. Bill Barr is whitewashing of himself. Well, you know what, it just is but if he's coming through at the end here and saying this is this is actually what happened and you know city was saying that the target audience is history I think that is one target audience. David Brooks had very good column in the New York Times a couple days ago and he said I don't care who sent an email or text when on January 6 I want them to address the ongoing coup attempt of these these elections we're seeing right now where you're having people, these acolytes it's just as if you know that the beast was unleashed and it was it's a hydra so you know and they're literally running for office saying, if I don't like the results. I will simply ignore the will of the voters and and put these these folks in office. That's really where the damage is that the value of these hearings is to say, you know there's ongoing attempts to start a free democratic election. Well that's where the dots have to be connected because I think it's probably be on the purview of this but not necessarily because it's a logical. It is the next step that says here going from every every level go into school board rooms or school boards on to you know your local city councils on to state government levels and and put enact these policies that are detrimental to a free and functioning society so I think it is natural to make those connections but hopefully, hopefully, like Cynthia says we probably pay attention to this more than the average Joe get 20 million people watching it so how many people in this country let's sort of round up to 400 million so you've got 5% of the people but are those. Is this going to be reaching the elusive soccer parents right who who were sitting there and they're like yeah well I really don't like the swamp and I appreciated Donald Trump trying to drain the swamp but this was too much putting this all together in a logical coherent historical fact to laden series of hearings, I want to buy the commemorative addition honestly but if just people watch this and they see wow, I thought that guy was his, his acolyte that was his number one deputy and now he's saying wait a minute here. He didn't bill bar at once when say he thought he'd lost it or that he was delusional or something to that effect like. Okay well let's let's go to this because you know what came out of this in this testimony and certainly on the second. You know the last hearing was this notion that there was team normal and team crazy. And you know that kind of catches the American public's interest like team normal team crazy, who was on team crazy well it was drunk Rudy on election night and Sidney pal. You know that was part of team crazy and then you know you had bill sip in as a team normal and they were trying to convince Trump that stop, you know, stop saying these things about you know fraud and we don't even know what's going on. It's still election night and nothing's been formally you know closed out, but Trump didn't want to listen to that. So I guess the question is, if there was a team normal, and if bill bar was part of team team normal. They certainly didn't come out and say anything. As Trump started to pedal out the big lie, they were complicit with the big lie because I don't know maybe as a consultant you just want to stay on the payroll and dam the democracy you're getting paid, your thoughts on that Winston. Team normal basically went along with team Trump on his big line, you know, narrative. Well, you got to look at when. Go ahead. Oh, I just just got to look at when did they quit. When did they really express their reservations about this and you know what day did bill bar quit it was January. First or fourth or I can't remember when he quit December something. Why didn't they come out very forcefully in the media saying this was wrong, but you also have to remember that at the time, you have this entire bellows stoking the nation saying this was stolen this was fake and here's our all our information but if there had been a concerted attempt by team normal to come out at that time, maybe we would have had headed this off already so I think that's the point, you know, this whole thing could have been head off. And I think you make a great point on that, Cynthia you were you had an opinion about this topic about team normal versus team crazy. Then question to you. Why do you think team normal didn't spark up and say, I mean I know they'd be have a job they'd be terminated immediately, but didn't they have a duty to the American public. So there must have been some sort of threat behind it that wouldn't let them something that would compromise themselves. Right. Well, Donald Trump can't have dirt on everybody because that's, that's the kind of the mantra of why people fall in line with Donald Trump that he's got some kind of hold or dirt or hypnotic effect on him. Can't have it on everybody though Kenny. Well, anybody that didn't come out when they should have he can say, well you're complicit because you didn't say anything back then so you're just as guilty. So I think the threat element is there. And you hear them say the reason that they didn't do it was because they wanted to be able to stay and keep breaks on the crazy. And to think that they could somehow keep it from getting so outrageous. And I don't know if I really buy into that too much because, like as per came out with this book saying all this stuff and it's like well why, why didn't you come out and say well I wanted to see if I could at least, you know, keep it from going out of control completely. And I guess I kind of give that to him but it doesn't ring true to me that factoid that they're trying to put out there as to why they didn't come forward. And some of them, it's true, they just thought they could help if they stayed and then won't lose their jobs, or maybe they really were complicit in part of it. And that's all it would take is to maybe it's a lesson for government and those who work in an administration I don't care if it's Democratic or GOP is, you know, it's the john deans that knew they're crossing a line they didn't know it well enough, they were doing something wrong and they went along because they didn't want to fall out of favor. There's there's a intoxicating effect that you're you know you're working with closely with the president United States, and you want to make the president United States happy. And you know john dean of the Watergate fame was certainly that attorney that didn't want to put up roadblocks and then be thrown out of the game. So isn't that isn't that a ploy or a play not a ploy but a play to administration individuals egos, and you know the power they're getting drunk with power scenario. How do we stop that. How do we stop that. That's the one power, the entire Republican party sacrificed their integrity to get their judges and, you know, to get what they wanted. They were willing to sacrifice their integrity for that. And so any Republican or any member of the guys, you know, administration was power hungry with this they've already, they've already sacrificed their integrity so they're all in at this point. So maybe that's part of it too. So the only thing left is their historic reputation maybe. Well, partly but so they thought it could succeed. And then they could stay in power, right and it's that that draw the power out there. Like, well maybe we can make this work and then we'll all be you know set for life with this job. I think that might have been part of it too just that that power, absolute power corrupts absolutely and I think these people were corrupted absolutely. Yeah, part of it. Yeah, no that's a great point. Winston, we had 20 million viewers on the first night of the hearings. Clearly, I think that's a bigger audience than anyone anticipated beat out the NBA championship games, which is, you know, that's quite a high viewership. I think the interest of these hearings is just confirmation and of what people already know and makes them feel better. Or is there a new audience that independence and or some of the old GOP that have some integrity left. Are they watching. Who do you think our audience. I know we talked a little bit who the audience maybe but what do you think this 20 million might comprise of. And I didn't see a breakdown as to who was actually watching this yet in elaborate breakdown but let's just assume that Fox News got the message because they carry the other hearing now they said oh we couldn't carry it because our the first one because our host control their shows okay whatever but they carried the second one which is quite interesting and I saw the. I did watch Fox with Brett bear debriefing it with to blonde ladies and and basically they were they had to tread very gingerly because their colleagues are implicated in this I mean they're they're they're text to Donald Trump are there so shine Kennedy comes to mind. Exactly and at the end of the day though you know what we're watching is is we we need to look at this as Americans and say okay what kind of society do we really want to live in here. Do we value free and fair elections, regardless of who is in office and is. Let's just say okay. This is the mess that we've got right now. So this is helping us understand where we're at. What are we going to do from here. How are we going to make it better. How are we going to all get on the same page that we can understand that elections are not stolen or the switch flipped and all the theories that have been debunked I think that that's where maybe the benefit of these hearings will be that they're being presented in a way that is. The public to understand this happened. Now what now what are we going to do with this and so it's not to prevent I don't think Donald Trump will run again. But he's got a lot of other people out there who are still part of this whole denier thing and they'll be holding to him but as we saw in the elect in the, you know, election results of yesterday. You don't necessarily have to hold on to Donald Trump anymore to win as a Republican you can go back to the conservative values. And it's sort of skirt this for right now until he's out of public consciousness enough I don't know that that's going to happen, but these hearings if it does happen will be part of that you know that happens. Sometimes when you get into these hearings and you hear testimony things, one thing leads to another and I saw the door opening on that on this week when you've gone from sedition and Trump's involvement with sedition to basically take an avenue over to the big lie became the big rip off which is to say they raised 200 million, 250 million dollars for the Trump defense of the big lie stopped to steal was the name of it, and 250 million dollars was raised, only to find out that a lot of that money went to Trump hotels. What's Trump juniors girlfriend's name. She got 60 K speaking role and for 60,000. You know Al Capone never went to prison for any involvement with a murder, he went to prison regarding tax evasion. Does this take, take on another flavor with a prosecuting attorney and say New York or somewhere else Winston. Very well may will have to see about that. I would still guess that at the end of the day Donald Trump is not going to be in prison. He might be indicted though, and he might undergo some sort of trial, but it will have to be undertaken very carefully with the same sober people that we're looking at right now but when you have people that just say this is just total fake news and more fake news I'm not sure that we have to find out what is the best way to reach those folks to let them know this there were, there were crimes committed here. And, but if they don't believe it it may not make a difference. He's not going to go to to prison but he might be indicted and unable to run. That said, you've got 40% of the country that still thinks his approval rating is higher than those on January six which is really shocking and just speaks to the, the need to educate our fellow countrymen and women as to, you know what's gone on but maybe after this and coven, we're just kind of needing to turn a new page and if we can just turn this dangerous corner coming up in the next year or two, three, we might stand a chance but we're looking at a fundamental, I think change in the psyche of American society that is being played out in the Supreme Court and the composition of that as well as what's going to come up in these next elections so we just have to stand by and stand by. Yeah. Okay, thank you Winston. Cynthia we've come out of run out of time but I want to get your, any of your last thoughts on this topic. I know you had a couple quotes, things that you think that are important to point out before the show concludes. It's very powerful to have all the capital policemen sitting in the front two rows during the entire thing. I thought that was a real important statement to make. These were people that got hurt. They were law enforcement. So all your blue wave love is wrong, you know this whole blue line staying with the blue line we're all about law and order. It was policemen that were injured. And so, instead of just having them come in to be there for the questioning part, they were there in the audience just, and I wonder if they're going to be there through the whole thing. I think they might be. So a couple other things that I think are important and just crazy. It's another part of the crazy coming out of all of this. Peter Navarro has now had made an official charge has a suit against the January 6 committee, and Nancy Pelosi, because he's saying that they are maligning his character or whatever, just because they're stating the facts of what happened. And so he's trying to grow shade out there. His actions maligned his character. Exactly. Thank you very much. And I think it's important to remember there is so much stuff that has come out of this insurrection. And just was it yesterday or David points was yesterday. They stopped was it 20 old father guys that were going to I can't remember what they're not keepers there. Yeah, no. They're out of the Hayden Lake area. Yeah, they came all over from everywhere. But there were all a bunch with riot gear in waiting in a, in a van in a U-Haul van to go and make trouble and attack and who knows if they would have hurt people or they were prepared to get plenty of stuff to hurt people in that that gay pride in a pride that they were having. And it just, I wouldn't just struck me this morning. Yeah, but this isn't just about January 6. This is about what's happening in our tree that's profoundly affecting the electorate in in dangerous dangerous ways. Yeah, I think this one that thank goodness they've got a good handle on investigative intelligence to be able to know it was going to happen. And it was just a tip from someone. So I really want to enforce that if you see something say something right to people so that if you see something say something. It wasn't anonymous tip from. Yeah, good point. I just saw it. Okay, so my closing closing quote is from Stephen Colbert is as you guys know that way I handle all of this is I watched the comedy at night and it somehow makes it so that it's a little more palatable right. So Stephen Colbert says, so 20 million people watched and he's so great we just want to express my gratitude to the committee. We all know about all of it, but watching the way they put it all together reminds us that we're not crazy. Yeah, we're not. Thank you Cynthia Winston you get the last word. Well, I'd say stay tuned. Watch what's going on, educate yourselves, ask your friends okay USS 331 million people I rounded too far up but let's just say we need a lot more than 20 million watching this we need 100 million or 200 million watching this. This is real history like Cynthia said, the bleed over into our society right now, and all these different areas where people feel that it's, it's fine to just. If you don't like someone do whatever you want just like a free society, we will do whatever you want no consequences. That's the message that we can't really have here. That's the message that we need to rein in people and say, this is not the country we want. We want a country that aspires to its best and highest ideals. And that's what this commission is all about just finding that the facts and letting the American people know what they are so that we can course correct as a nation. Yeah, great point. The world is watching our society, our democracy, we are that shining city on the hill, hopefully still, and your point is well well taken Winston thank you so much. All right, we've won our time in 28 minutes certainly isn't going to be enough time to cover this topic, but we'll have to take another crack at it again so I hope you'll join us. I'd like to thank Winston Welch for rejoining us here on American Issues take one, and I'd like to thank Cynthia Lee Sinclair for always for great comments. Thank you Cynthia. Thank you for both of you to join us. Would you please join us next Wednesday at 11 o'clock, and I'm Tim Apachella and we hope to see you then. Aloha. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktecawaii.com. Mahalo.