 Welcome back. This is Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel, and this is Coronavirus. What's next? We have Stephanie Dalton, Tim Appichella, Cynthia Sinclair, Winston Welch, our regular group to talk about coronavirus. But you know, the fact is it's all mixed up with Trump anyway. This is still the biggest issue in the country. Let us not forget. So let me ask you first about this extraordinary thing that appeared in the paper about Michigan. Michigan, a lot of the election officials have certified the votes and submitted their affidavits to that effect to the authorities in Michigan. And yet Mr. Trump was reported this morning as calling one by him a palmer. And we have to surmise there were many others and telling her that there were death threats against her. And she ought to consider recanting her sworn affidavit of account. I should add that he also invited a number of officials from Michigan come to the White House for a meeting with him over the weekend to discuss this matter. And by the way, on Monday, they finalized the certifications for that state. Your reaction, Tim Appichella? Well, my reaction is, number one, if I'm one of those people being called to go to the White House, I'm not going because I don't want to be infected with COVID. Number two is if she's already signed an affidavit verifying the vote from the population, the voters, Donald Trump is starting to tiptoe into the sea of election tampering. Not unlike Lindsey Graham, who did the same thing as far as I'm concerned of, you know, the Secretary of State of Georgia and suggesting that ballots, mail-in ballots could be tossed if there were some inconsistencies with a few ballots. So between Lindsey and the President of the United States, they're engaging very closely to election tampering. And I don't know, obviously, William Barr is not going to do a thing about it because, you know, William Barr is William Barr, the most faithful lackey ever put into the place of the Attorney General. But that's my initial reaction and I think it's disgusting. It is really, truly disgusting. And it is an example of the further decline of the Republican, of the Trump and Republicans. So let's go to Hawaii for a moment, Winston. You know, I've always said, and Tim and I discussed this a long time ago, that he's coming for us, that he will affect our lives, that we can't stave it off because, you know, he'll find a way to affect us, everyone. And here we are at Christmas and it is affecting us, everyone. Let me give you some examples of that. The cases here are up. Cases in the country are 160,000 cases and new cases a day. Hospitalizations, 80,000 new hospitalizations a day. The death rate happily is down because I guess best practices among the health care professionals. And we have 250 plus thousands of people who already died. It would take a long time for us to dedicate this show to just counting to that number. Now in Hawaii, the businesses are closing permanently. Tourism is on life support. The economy is literally falling apart. People are in the streets. There's no support for them. There's no money for them, no federal money, no state money. The state is a deficit of it depends on who you talk to, but something in the order of two billion dollars, which is a huge percentage of our, you know, annual budget. And we have crime, which is what I heard yesterday from a fellow who was Akamai about that. We have a dramatic increase in crime. There are not enough tourists to mug and rob. So the criminals have come around for the local people. And you see that in the next door, you know, social media publication. You see there's all kinds of crime going on, affecting us and all of us at home in our homes, even when we're home. So, you know, what's your reaction to that Winston? I mean, this is of some concern because, you know, here we talk on Trump Week and on, I should say, rediscovering America and on coronavirus. We talk about things that are happening far away. And yet they come closer. They are coming closer. They're affecting our lives and they are likely to affect our lives more. What do you think? Well, it is when you said, is Donald Trump going to affect us? Yeah, in every way, he's affected the mental health of the nation. He's affected our social health, our economic health, our physical health, obviously, with the whole denial of COVID, with the blaming, with just the weirdness around it. And now you've got a quarter million people dead. We're leading the world in that, which is shameful. It's not that we are the only nation affected by this, but certainly policies of the federal government or lack thereof have absolutely contributed to this, as well as politicizing this so that wearing a mask, which is the basic common sense for 100 years, isn't being followed. Again, in the absence of federal leadership or with whatever this leadership is called, we have to go back to whatever's local. Local means start with yourself and work your way out. Are you taking measures for yourself when you go out, when you go to the store? Are you washing your hands? Are you wearing your mask? Are you looking out to the people in your family and your circle? Are you not going out when you know that it's a place of exposure? I mean, I just read something in Washington State. Three people went to a wedding last month and it became a superspreader event. What? How are these people? Why are these people having weddings? Why would you endanger people's lives at this point by having a mass event like that? So you have to think about this and don't give them to peer pressure. There was an article on COVID fatigue. We've all got COVID fatigue, but you know what? You still got to wash your hands. You still got to wear your mask and you're going to have to for the next year, conceivably, because that vaccine isn't coming out. Now, when it does come out, then it's incumbent upon people to to trust in trust in Pfizer, trust in AstraZeneca and and Johnson and Johnson and the other ones that come out. And obviously we're all going to be guinea pigs in this, but it starts with personal responsibility because we don't have it at the federal level at the local and state level. And we seem to be doing better here in Hawaii than most places. Are we suffering? Absolutely. Help is on the way. Joe Biden is coming in. The spigots are going to open up and we're going to have relief in ways that we can't imagine right now. But we can we can hope for. And I think that's where we go to Cynthia about that. Is Joe Biden coming in, Cynthia? You have my favorite, my favorite, very favorite person, Emily Murphy standing in the way. And there's a lot of her to stand in the way. And and she is making it impossible just one person to have a transition, even a transition on COVID. And Biden has made it clear as far as he's concerned, she is causing deaths. A number of people have written letters to her. Maybe a lot of people should be writing letters to her telling her to get off and and allow the transition to go forward. But she is loyal to Trump to a fault as so many are. And she is blocking efforts to to do to work on COVID effectively. So where are we in terms of the transition? And my friend, Emily Murphy. Well, she's standing firm, as you said. I have a friend who gave me the perfect analogy for this transition thing. It's kind of like, OK, we are car stolen. I mean, we're all very happy, but that joy, that peace, that it's not there yet. We were, you know, we were celebrating in the streets that first day, but it's like, the after effects were like, whoa, maybe it's not really here. And so my friend, the analogy that he uses is like, you get your car stolen, OK? And you get it back. So you're very happy that you got your car back. The only problem is the radio has been stolen. The side mirrors are gone, the back bumpers gone. And one of the side windows is smashed in. So great, you got your car back, but it's in Iraq, just like our country. We're getting it back, but it's in Iraq. So I'm afraid of how much time it's going to take for Biden to actually get things back on track that by then four years he'll be up and he won't actually be able to move forward because he'll be doing so much damage control when he gets there. Let's unpack that for a minute. Stephanie, what is Trump doing right now? What is he doing positively? And more to the point, what is he doing negatively to damage the country? I mean, I totally agree with what Cynthia said. The idea is to pass it off. It's a it's a relay race. You pass it off to the next runner and you want to put it in as good a shape as you possibly can. So it would appear that Trump wants to put it in as bad a shape as you possibly can. What are the markers of that? What is he doing to put it in good shape? What is he doing to put it in bad shape for the next for the next president? I think you just put a pin in it. He's just, as I said, the the metaphor of a cat just continuing to work it. And he's doing everything he can, pulling the threads to get these votes down. He actually must have some a fantasy that this is going to happen. But the answer to why he's doing it is, of course, his self centeredness and his focus on this imaginary path that he has cut forward. And he thinks he's making progress and he's going to stay at it at it and until he can divert from it and create all of these other disasters. So we were going through all of that. Now and some of his people are falling out because we have two states only left who have not put in a mask requirement and that South Dakota and Florida, both of which are engulfed with a virus at this time. So he's there are people still holding for a minute. Also heard that those two governors have aspirations to be president or run over president in 24. And what they're again, what are we coming to if that's the kind of behavior and concern for the American people that get what about foreign policy? And the foreign policy, he's he's not on that, except where he's going to see that that's his his opportunity. I mean, we already have him. He's an Iranians who are very vulnerable and they're on the verge of disaster with the economy in addition to the COVID. And he's playing nuclear button pushing. And that, again, is raising the concern about why one person is, you know, obligated with this one button. So something that as a question has come up before we discuss, you know, we have to reconsider some of these policies in place and how to manage it better so we can all survive on Mother Earth. So the saddest thing I've heard this week about the way people are entrained to him is nurses, a nurse talking about assisting patients in the hospital with advanced COVID likely to pass saying they don't believe that they have that because it doesn't exist. It's gone. Oh, my God. OK, well, so, Tim, now, you know, the stock market seems to be going up. Nevertheless, it has really not paid the price of all this craziness. And, you know, you wonder about what drives the stock market. I mean, are they reading the same publications that we are? Are they talking about the same issues? And yet they seem to be driven by Trump. I know how does that work? Why are we at 30,000 on the Dow? That's that's extraordinary. And the other the other thing is, is it sustainable? You know, one of these days, you know, the title of our show today is when is when is the reality going to settle in? When is the reality going to settle in in the stock market with a failed economy? We're not going to have vaccines for at least six months and maybe longer for most Americans and maybe longer for other places in the world. You know, the country is essentially coming apart. And yet the market is up at 30. What's going on? Well, Jay, this was the question before we went on air that I said I didn't know. You're asking me a question. I really don't know the answer to because you're right. The fundamentals are being ignored. Unemployment is being ignored. Manufacturing is being ignored. All the key economic indicators are being ignored. So is this just a confidence for Donald Trump? But now Donald Trump is no longer going to be president. So I don't know. The one thing I do know is that when it when it does finally the realization that the economic fundamentals are really in bad shape, when that realization to the marketplace hits, you can see a tumultuous fall in the Dow and the NASDAQ and the S&P expected, we're going to see a horrible fall. Now, well, we see it fall as fast as we did back in March, where we went from basically twenty nine thousand on the Dow down to nineteen thousand five. I don't know if it's going to be that fast and that quick. But I think it's time for people to kind of realize that they're sitting pretty pretty or they're sitting pretty on their 401ks. And there might be some impetus to preserve some of that. Some of the gains that they got back from the nineteen five, you know, low point back in March of two thousand and twenty. I wish I could give you a better answer on what's going on. But I just don't know. Yeah, well, nobody knows. But there are some advisers out there that are saying get out that this is made for a crash because we we have enough data to know that it can't get good. It's going to get much worse. Here's the problem. Where do you flee to? What markets do you flee to? You go to the bond markets. You know, a CD is one quarter of one percent if you're lucky to get that. You know, what what other instruments are you going to be tied to? You know, the Fed is at zero percent overnight Fed funds rate. You know, your three year mortgage now is at two and three quarter. So where do you make your money? If you start dipping into your principal, if you're retired, you start dipping into your principal and start spending that versus hopefully some interest you would gain in spending on the interest. So that's why I believe so many people have gotten into the stock market because there's yield there and there was opportunity for upside. But, you know, you're basically I'd rather go to Las Vegas and throw my money on 13 black. All right. So Winston, you spoke earlier about the the vaccines. That's the big hope, isn't it? But what's the status? I found it very strange that Pfizer came out with a 90 percent efficacy number. Moderna came out with a ninety four point five efficacy number. And then within one day after that, all in the same week, Pfizer came out. Oh, whoops, we're ninety five better than Moderna. Does this have a smell about it? You know, the the reality is we're in uncharted territory here and people will complain about Big Pharma, but you know what? Your cat bites you and you need to go get an IV. You pretty much thank God Big Pharma exists because that's going to, you know, flood your veins with whatever you need to kill the cat scratch fever. Is our system flawed? Is it is it tragic in America the way that we pay so much more? And and there's such inequity, certainly. But the the fact is that we have had really, I don't want to say warp speed, but we've had a very fast, robust, worldwide development. This is not an American development. Now you might say that that groundwork is late in this country because of excellence in higher education. But this is a worldwide effort. These are German companies, Swiss companies, Japanese companies, American. They're not loyal to any nation. They're loyal to themselves and they're chasing your almighty dollar. And Rubel and Peso Euro, they want to make money off of this. But they also have a responsibility. Their job is to make these vaccines, is to make them safe and also to roll them out because that's they've got shareholders and that they have to answer to. So if the numbers change a little bit, I'm not worried about it. It'll be interesting to see how it rolls out and who they're going to get it to first. But I am actually surprised that it did come out so soon. I mean, we've never, ever had vaccines developed like this. We are guinea pigs. This virus, everyone's a guinea pig, honestly. And, you know, it just shows you what we can do when we put our minds to it. Well, let's let's have a real demonstration of it. You know, so far it's it's only news reports. It isn't actually it isn't actually a vaccine. It isn't actually deployed. And every time you listen, it's going to be a little further into the future. And now it's like six months away. Yeah. And when you have a million, 10 million, five million, you'll start seeing the side effects in here. You'll start to see if it's actually working. So, you know, but I don't know, I'm not an anti-vaxxer. I mean, I think there's when when it comes out, then I will get the vaccine. And I think most sane people will probably get it. Barring some massive evidence. It shows that it's a bad thing to do. But at this point, you know, I get my flu shot. It's all we got. It's all we got. And even now, as I guess it was Cynthia pointed out, there are some states that still don't buy in some. And we don't have it. I mean, that's the reality. We do not have it when you say it's all we got. What we got is the ability to isolate, to wear your mask in public, to wash your hands, to follow best practices for public and personal health. Well, that article you sent around with about fatigue is a really important statement. People are bloody tired. This started in March. They've been locked up or, you know, restraining themselves since March. They feel they paid their dues. They feel if they don't have it yet, they probably won't get it. All kinds of bizarre thinking about it. And I think they're going complacent. And I think that even if you're telling them to wear a mask and do social distancing and blah, blah, blah. A lot of them are like going complacent. This is a big problem. It's going to get worse, too. And the body count is also going to go up. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if we double where we're at right now in two or three months from all the indications from what we see that this is going to be some very bad times now. And the fact that you there's there's no hospital beds right now. There's no ICU beds in so many states and locations around this nation. That's not going anywhere, given that you're having to now suddenly change people's behavior, where they were fighting it as a belief that it wasn't. I mean, you have Scott Atlas telling people you have the president after all this time, telling people to rise up in Michigan and and don't follow public health policy. It's absolutely insane. And when you're fighting that, guess what? That virus is going to spread. It doesn't doesn't get up on its own two feet and walk around. You got to carry it there. So we've got a lot of work to do here. But let's talk about the mental capacity of our president for a minute, Cynthia. You know, one thing that struck me remarkable, remarkable is this Mexican general. I don't know if you saw that. The Mexican general, who was part of a cartel, who was killing people in Mexico as part of a cartel drug cartel. And, you know, he was involved in selling trafficking drugs into the United States. The FBI was investigating him. They arrested him a month ago and set him up for a trial here in these United States on some really hideous crimes. And all of a sudden, yesterday, William Barr dropped all the charges and sent him back to Mexico without ever, you know, without ever facing American justice. Now he's going to face Mexican justice in which he is a major corrupt figure and a buddy of the president, Amlo. So what does that tell us about where Trump is spending his time and the decisions he's making and why he's making them? It bears a huge flag of corruption, doesn't it? Well, as per Trump's usual modus operandi, right? That's what he does. He has himself surrounded by corrupt people that help him continue his corrupt behavior. You know, I'd like to go back just a little to speak to. And it's partly this Trump thing, too. This is where the damage of Trump downplaying this virus comes in. When you go to take your car into the mechanic, right? If they tell you to come back in an hour because it'll be done in an hour, you come back in an hour and it takes five hours, you're mad. You're angry. Why did they tell you that? So here, Trump's been saying, be gone tomorrow. Well, tomorrow has come and gone and it's still here. So same thing he says it again. And that's the whole thing. It's like, well, you said it was supposed to be gone. It's still here. That kind of mentality, I think, is what seek down into people's minds about not really accepting the reality of the truth. I got some numbers for us here today. OK, we have eleven point six million people that are infected. We have two hundred and fifty thousand people, like you said earlier, that have died. We had eighteen hundred people die in one day yesterday. That just floored me. I almost hit the ground when I heard that. Eighteen hundred people in one day. I was freaking out over a thousand people. So Texas has the highest with one point thirteen million and twenty thousand deaths, then California, then Florida, Florida's third. They've got nine hundred and five thousand cases and seventeen thousand deaths, but no mask mandate, you know, and then Illinois, then New York. And it goes down like that. So that's the order that they go in. But until people understand that this is not going away, that Trump lied to them, we're going to be in this mess of people trying to continue to deny it. Yeah. So what can Biden do right now, Stephanie? I mean, I suppose he has a semi bully pulpit. He can get up there and say things like he did the other day over Emily Murphy and that she was causing death by by delaying the transition. But what else can he do? He's forming a commission. But what else can he do with the commission? It feels like these things are in place for a long time and that no matter what he does, he's going to have a major challenge on his hands. Well, I mean, I think he's got the creative of brain to do this kind of stuff. I mean, obviously, Cynthia says these numbers are just rolling off duck's backs. Who cares? I mean, we're moving up to World War Two numbers and probably going to surpass that those deaths, which is unthinkable, but is likely to happen. But what about we have all of these deaths and all of these six sick people? And the worst thing that can happen to us actually is to go and not have any doctors and nurses left. I mean, you can have a hundred ICU beds and so what? Put me in one if there's no MDRN there to do business on me. I might as well be at the curb, right? So where are the awards for the people that are so many have died? But like with Biden can can start getting these people in the spotlight. Let's give them the congressional medal. I mean, they've been working around the clock for ten months. God's sake, could somebody please pull out the heroes just so we can have a hero thing and start paying attention to that kind of positive thing and also our state, one of our states is the highest in the world, world for statistics. OK, so who's the best? Hey, man, give them a star. Hey, why don't we're doing good enough? But definitely Maine and Utah. Hey, this is going to do anything they should do. So what about let's get some focus on the positive here? There's no hope to continue. Tim, I want to talk to you about the agenda. You know, we changed the name of the show, which I thought was the right thing to do. Your show from Trump Week to America, you know, rediscovered. But, you know, with all of that, Trump is still setting the agenda. The media is just hanging on every word. Every every maniacal, ridiculous thing that he does. And it just gets worse and worse. You know, in fact, what he's doing now by approaching officials in various states and trying to get them change their votes and their minds. That's that's a federal crime, for sure. So he's setting the agenda and it feels like we're we're in the Red Sea. And the Red Sea has parted of the waves or the waves are up there on both sides. And one of these days, they're going to come down on us. And I'm, you know, who's to say what's going to happen right now? The silence in terms of moving ahead on democracy is deafening. But where are we? Where are we going? Who's setting the agenda? What is the agenda? We're lost. We're lost as a nation. We're in the desert before we hit the Red Sea or after we hit the Red Sea. I mean, we're lost in the desert on this. And, you know, this goes back to the cult of personality and the propaganda that Donald Trump is so successful to implement upon the the the citizens of this country. And he's a master at it. Unfortunately, the media can't pull away. It's like a moth to a light. They can't pull away from them. And unfortunately, until Joe Biden get the media's attention and becomes president, the agenda is stuck on Donald Trump and all his craziness. And I don't know if I think Cynthia's car analogy is really quite appropriate. By the time we get this car back, we won't recognize it. The paint job will be tarnished. The mirrors are broken off. The radio's stolen. The back seat's been torn in half. We won't recognize it. It's going to take President Biden four years to even try to fix it. So what can we do between now and then? I just think we have to. I think we just have to look at what are the issues as a citizen of this country, what are the principles and try to steer towards the mission of this country, the mission of democracy and try to pay attention to that. And as in our daily lives as well. And so when we hear this craziness of Trump, that we steer clear of it or we rebuke it on the spot and for the next 60 days, it's going to be very, very tough to do that because we're going to get into arguments with loved ones and family and friends. But we're in a critical time right now where we can't afford to let our guard down. And that's my feeling. Just it's so critical and we got to keep our guard up and be vigilant. I think you quoted many times in the past, democracy only works if you're vigilant. Yeah, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Nathan Hale, a long time ago. OK, Winston, I'd like a word from you to close to summarize your thoughts at this moment. Well, you know, Thanksgiving is coming up next week. So, folks, we got a lot to be thankful for. It's great. We can have the show and we can talk about whatever we want to. And half of or more than half of our nation came to its senses and said, we had enough of this. And the other half probably did too. It just they'll come around. They'll come around ourselves. We have our own take personal responsibility. Stay at home and make a list of things you're thankful for. Be thankful that you're not spreading the virus or getting it by going to somebody else's house. And what's your message you want to leave? We have a lot to be grateful for, but mostly, you know, focus on your own responsibility at this point, because it's not going to come from the federal government right now, but we hope is on the horizon and it's coming in eight weeks and it's coming right now. Like you said, Joe Biden's already rolling stuff out. We can look toward the future. Cynthia. OK, I have an isolation, well-being checklist, and that's what I'm going to end with today, one, shower, this is a daily isolation, well-being checklist. I should say shower, medication, drink water, clean one thing or a space in your house, 10, something growing or living, you know, an animal, a person, a plant, even if that's what you've got, but tend it, right? Be mindfully present to a sound or a song, a sensory feeling, something you see in a spiritual practice. OK, these are the last few. Reach out to a human outside your home. Do one thing to get your heart rate up. Do one thing you'll be glad you did later. Do one thing just because and get in at least one good laugh. And I say, before breakfast. Cynthia, you are so beautiful. Stephanie, what have you got? Can you beat that? In some of those boxes, I'm just really thrilled to hear that those are the right ones to have. Thank you, Cynthia, for that. It's just fabulous. Look, I think what is our pleasure, our place to fall into and feel good is that I didn't want. I mean, it's so miraculous that we did it. OK, just imagine how easily it could have gone the other way. And the cat's at it, still pulling the threads and playing with it. So he's going to do everything he can to go unlikely, as all the authorities have said. So I think we need to rest into that and have some ease and look to the future for the positive outcomes. Thank you, Stephanie. That's a really, really balanced thought. Tim, you're the last. You want to share some final thought? My goodness, I'm going with Cynthia's comments that I heard in the toolments, particularly I heard drink. So I'm going to have a gin martini later tonight and get your heart rate up. I'm going to watch more news. OK, all right, yeah. You need the gin martini to take the news as for me, I'm going to have a gin martini right now. I'm not waiting. I wish to. And Stephanie Dalton, thank you so much, you guys. Great, wonderful show. Thank you so much. Aloha. Stay safe.