 Welcome to American Issues Take One. I'm Tim Apachele, your host. And today's title is Political Advantages Falling Towards Trump. You know, it wasn't much to say that Trump killed off all the competition to become the GOP nomination. It's, he's the heir apparent. We'll see how Nikki Haley does in the South Carolina primary and we'll see how she does on Super Tuesday. But it looks like Donald Trump's the chosen one, the anointed one. He's basically, he's killed off through challenges in the legal court system. All the indictments and the trial dates have all been shifted and bumped. So it looks like for the most part, he may not have a trial come before the election date. And to add on to that is the border deal has been killed by Donald Trump and Trump alone. Mike Johnson has dutifully followed what Trump wants and any real progress or bills have been killed in the Senate and therefore it's not gonna happen in the house. Therefore the border deal is done. Therefore the funding for Ukraine and Israel at this time is in uncertain territory. So the advantage is the Trump right now looked pretty good. In addition, we also have, I hate to say it, but President Biden seems to be self-imploding especially when he gets in front of a microphone. So to discuss this, I'd like to introduce my co-host Jay Fidel. I'm already getting depressed. You're introducing- My introduction could do that to people. It's not the first time and it certainly won't be the last time. Jay, of the things I mentioned in our introduction, which one stands out of the most as far as how Donald Trump's getting an advantage so early in the 2024 presidential campaign? Well, it's not only early, but it's probably right through the campaign. He's got the style. He's got the magic formula. And there was an article in what was it? Today's New York Times about how why these people vote for him and support him. We'll get to the media in a minute, but the base, why do they support him? And the answer I think is pretty simple. He's rerunning the apprentice. He's got that mean thing, you know, the shot and froid thing, dumping on people, insulting them. You're a fire, remember that, okay? And people loved it. And it was the thing that saved him because at the time he had that show for like six years, six seasons. And at the time he started it, he was in deep debt. And the newspapers reported that that the show saved him because it gave him variety, but also cash flow. And what he's doing and what he did in the first term is an extension of that show. He found that people liked his formula in the apprentice and you're fired and he plays it again. Whenever the magic bullet was, he's repeating it. So if you ask me whether this is just now early, it's not early, he's been doing it. And it's not early in the sense that it's gonna continue. He's gonna be stroking his base in the same way. I don't know if there's an antidote to what he's doing, but that's how he gets his base to follow him. It doesn't require rationality or knowledge. It doesn't require policy. It doesn't even require being decent. As a matter of fact, being decent is probably the other side of the coin. So I think I would urge people to take a look at that article. I don't think it's an easy solution, that that is the problem. Well, you just hit the word, I mean decent. I was jotting down the human decency as you were speaking. What happened to human decency and not only for his mega followers, but the ones on the periphery, the ones that are not mega followers, but they seem to either ignore or cower to bring up some of the things that are not decent. I'm going to the Gold Star families that he criticized. I'm going to the veterans that he called them suckers and losers, which have all been verified. I mean, these stories were verified. At first they weren't, and now they are. John Kelly verified the suckers and losers story that was, I think it was in the Atlantic magazine. But also, where's the decency where they just give him a checkered flag to say, okay, you wanna be an autocrat? Be an autocrat. You wanna be an autocrat for a day, which we know it's not a day. We're not gonna object to that because, I don't know, I guess the form of government is no longer important, your thoughts. Yeah, the form of government is no longer important. Decency is boring. And what we are living in is a reality show. That's what we are living in. And I think it's an intersection of the media. And I'm not only talking about the news media, although I'm including them when I say that. We're talking about the entertainment media. This is entertainment. It's fun, and people really respond to the Schadenfreude thing. There's all kinds of psychological studies that Gene Rosenfeld has referred to. You kind of enjoy seeing somebody else in pain. You enjoy somebody else's misfortune. And that's what he played on in his reality show, The Apprentice. And that's what he's playing on now. So if he does something mean and nasty and indecent, a lot of people like that. And they do not make the connection between decency and good public policy. With Trump, there is no public policy. It's only entertainment. If you stop somebody on the street and you ask him, you know, who do you support? As I told you in earlier shows, he will say, I support Trump. And then you ask him why? And he will say, because Trump is powerful. Now there's all kinds of layers and nuances on that statement, Trump is powerful. Trump is entertaining. Trump seems to be powerful. And the definition of power is the wrong thing. It's the wrong definition. We do not judge it by decency or by good policy. And that's why when Joe Biden got up yesterday and made a speech disagreeing with Trump's maneuvers in Congress, which were awful, bloody awful, in order to destroy the immigration bill that he himself had been complaining about, why it wasn't passed earlier, that sort of thing, they don't know, they don't make the connection. They don't see what he's doing as a counter to the interests of the country and the people, you know? I always say, we are the country. We are the government and the government is us. But in recent years, there's been a disconnect about that. We're not the government. The government is not us. The government is something as Nixon used to say to kick around. And what we do is we kick it around and he uses it as a political football, as a weapon. He's weaponized the entire government. And he's getting along on entertainment. Does that answer your question? It sure does. I want to add to it though. You know, you mentioned when Joe Biden got the podium and I thought he did a fairly good job when he followed the prompter about Donald Trump's, you know, he owns the fact that this border deal, which was vitally important to both Democrats, independents and the GOP, however we want to see a solution at the border and it can't go on much longer because the crisis is getting worse and worse. So Joe Biden was able to pinpoint exactly how Donald Trump has put the kibosh on it. He's destroyed it. And you would think that the Republicans would have to do some or accept some ownership of that, but it doesn't seem that going that way. But more importantly, once Joe Biden, you know, finished with his talking points and he did again, I think he did a fairly okay job with that. But then he said, I'm not going to take any questions from the media. And yet there he is taking questions from the media and falling all over himself. He's fumbling, he's forgetting. He can't remember Hamas as one of the principal antagonists to this war in the Middle East. He couldn't remember Hamas. So Donald Trump is getting help, is getting help from Joe Biden, from Joe Biden being Joe Biden when he's off script. Am I wrong on that? No, you're right. I mean, his remarks, I thought I watched it. His remarks were okay, he made the right points. There was no passion in what he said. His ability to articulate was weak. I'm sorry. There was an opportunity for him to really go after Trump and it didn't really feel that way. And I think people watching it were saying it was a pretty sad sack kind of approach. But then he said, this was like Obama's statement about the red line. Remember that in the Middle East? Then he said, I'm not gonna take any questions. This is for whatever reason, he gave a reason. And then immediately he started answering questions. And I think it was the second question when he couldn't remember the name of Hamas. And I don't know if you've caught this, but somebody over on his left among the press had to remind him of the name of Hamas. Somebody called it out to him. Here's the president, can't finish a sentence. And the press is telling him the name of something of an organization which has been responsible for the devolution of the Middle East. A terror organization that's in the paper 10 times a day. He couldn't remember the name. Let's clarify something. We know Joe Biden has a stutter. But this clearly was not an issue of stuttering. This was a question that he couldn't put one word in front of the other. And certainly his recall of who the principal, the principal bad character in the Middle East is. He just couldn't remember. And that's not a good visual for anyone, particularly for Joe Biden and his campaign to be reelected as president of the United States for a second term. Yeah, so it's a little late. I think the deadline for putting papers in is either passed or about to pass. And so that's what we have. We have Joe Biden and Connell Harris. They're gonna run again Donald Trump and the mystery woman, whoever that might be. I say a woman because I think Trump will select a woman, a MAGA woman. But that's what it comes out to be. And I think at the end, a lot of people are saying there've been on-the-street interviews about this among the Republicans and say he's just weak. He's old, he's fragile. And that's a big talking point for them. And Joe Biden walked right into that yesterday. Well, why is it a talking point for everyone to pay attention to Joe Biden's failings? Yet when Donald Trump refers to Nikki Haley as Nancy Pelosi, and it goes on for minutes and minutes about how Nikki Haley refused to protect the Capitol during January 6th, that got one day of airplay. And basically Donald Trump gets the advantage that the media only focused on that for one day. What about that? I didn't see anything in the paper this morning about his faux pas over the name of Hamas. No, nothing. Yeah, and on the other hand- Yeah, nothing yet. There has been a number of articles about Trump and how he confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi. But for some reason, he gets a pass on that. And I wanna, I mean, by the press, and I wanna talk about the press, because back in the day when Donald Trump was doing real estate, even before the apprentice, he knew how to manipulate the press. He would impersonate some member of the press and call another member of the press and wind up getting his name in the paper. He did that all the time with these outrageous things and statements. Everything calculated just to get his name in the press. Just spell my name right. I don't care what you say about. And he managed the press for his whole career and he's managing the press now. He managed it in his first term and he's managing it now. He knows how to get them excited. And when they get excited, the base gets excited. So I think he's, as I said before, they treat him as entertainment, as fun. They treat him as watchable and the press loves raw meat, so the press covers him. As a result, there isn't a day goes by when he, if you look at what's in the newspapers and on TV, you will see that he is managing it. He is doing things and saying things and get his name out there. And that's why they're covering him. It's not news, it's just Trump making a fuss. And so I think he's done us all into service in so many ways, but so has the press. The press has covered him like a blanket and up to this point where Joe Biden is supposed to start his campaign for real, it seems to me that Donald Trump is way ahead of him by attracting all this attention, all this media and all this interest by the public, especially the base. And so I think we have to remember that all the time but I don't think the press remembers it. No, they don't. I guess the thing that's always has perplexed me for the last five years is that, we talk about whether Donald Trump is fit for the office of President of the United States or not and the lack of human decency and so many things he says and does. At what point or why isn't happening, excuse me, at what point does your support of Donald Trump start to reflect upon you as an individual? And you are a psychologist, nor am I, or sociologist, nor am I, but at what point in society do we start looking at your choice for, I call an immoral individual, a flawed narcissist, psychotic or anti, a sociopath, but at what point does that reflect upon you because you support that individual? And I don't see that happening in today's commentaries or on how we look at our fellow voter brethren. Yeah, has it happened? Why? It happened, his fundraising is doing well, his outrageous statements are attracting attention. He's running the show, literally in so many ways, running the show and Biden is not. And even though Biden is decent and presumably much more into public policy, public policy doesn't matter to Trump. He only wants to do his show. If you remember, and I'll tell you when I tuned out on his show, first of all, he was always nasty to people. He was getting off on firing, quote, firing them. He had a big sign in front of Trump Tower which said, you're firing. He put that sign up because he knew that people liked that. They liked to see the misfortune of others. But then I'll tell you what I tuned out on that. It's when I realized that there was not a good reason for him to fire people, that the statements he was making were irrational, that he was running this apprentice thing without a real agenda. There was no policy. It was all him being nasty. And I said, what is this? What kind of a show is this? Who would watch this? I'm not gonna watch this. And I tuned out and never watched it again when I made that conclusion. And the same thing here, doesn't matter what the policy is, doesn't matter whether he was right or wrong or pathological or he doing anybody any favors of any kind, it's just entertainment. Now you ask and I wanna address your question. You ask, when are people gonna recognize that? Well, not yet and probably not through the campaign. And if Trump is elected or gets back into office, notice I do that poor thing because I believe that even if he isn't elected, he's gonna make a big fight on getting back into office. If he gets back, when he gets back into office, then it will, that first day of dictatorship will start to affect people. Civil rights will be undermined. The economy will probably be undermined. All of these crazy things about violence and insurrections and using the National Guard and the Army under the Insurrection Act, he's gonna be a dictator and it's gonna get you where you live. And when it gets you where you live, then you say, gee, I might've been wrong about supporting him. I might've been wrong about appreciating the entertainment value of this as opposed to the policy value of this. That's when people are gonna get the idea. A lot of people, because a lot of people will be affected adversely in their lives when they live. I'd like to think you're right about that, but you know what? It seems to me that Donald Trump has an ability to install intimidation or fear against people that are sitting on the fence. You saw that great deal in Germany, even as Germany's being bombed into smithereens and collapsed, support for Hitler was greatly enhanced and he just had the ability to install fear that if you didn't support me, bad things will happen to you. So let's fast forward that to the border deal. Before it was killed in the Senate, Donald Trump was on the phone talking to his senators and his House members and basically brow-beating them that they better kill the deal. And that was reported and I believe every word of it. How does Donald Trump brow-beat somebody? How does he install fear in them so that they comply and they step in line? They get in line immediately, even though they've been in the media disputing Donald Trump and the fact that the border deal was a good deal and it was a good deal that had decades of things that haven't been included in the border deal. It was a monumental change since 1987, since the immigration reform. How does Donald Trump do that? You know, this reminds me of the private dinner that James Comey reported in his book and to the press in general, where Trump invited him over to the White House and they had this one-on-one little dinner. Comey was surprised, because he thought other people would be there, but it was just two of them. And Comey wrote it up immediately in the car on the way back, he wrote it up so he wouldn't forget what was said. And Trump is saying things like you like your job with that mafia implication that if you don't play my game, you won't have your job. And indeed, that's the way it unfolded. So I saw what you saw. All the media reported that Trump was actively involved in killing that deal. He was actively involved in switching votes in the Senate and he was doing it by intimidation. And Tim, I'd like to explore with you what that means, what he was saying, what those midnight calls were about. What did Trump say to intimidate people who presumably were capable of being rash and who understood the kinds of things we were talking about? We are talking about today. And I'll start out by suggesting that the first thing he says is you like being in your job. You like being in the Senate. Well, I need you to help me out on this, buddy. I need you to vote against that bill. And I'll tell you why, because I want to win the election. And I see this as something that I will blame Biden for and you need to help me. And if you don't help me, I am going to, I'm going to get you out of office. I'm going to primary you. I'm going to take lots of money and have my supporters give lots of money to people who will challenge you the next time you run for office and you'll be out and you won't have the perks, the salary, the fancy office and staff and the power. So get on board, man, or you're all over. I don't know what else you might have said to you. Well, yeah, I want to kind of project here on this one. And that says, you know, I can see Donald Trump saying, you know, the judges that opposed me, the prosecutors that opposed me, Nikki Haley who's opposed me, guess what they have to do now? You'll never guess. They have to hire security guards to protect their house because anyone who opposes me, my followers know what to do about that. And I think it's left dangling in the air about, well, you could do whatever you want. You have a prerogative to do whatever you want. But remember, my followers have their prerogatives too. And if you don't like to have to hire additional security and take on these threats, which all of them do, maybe you want to think twice about voting against me and what I want. You're absolutely right. And it really does sound like the Teflon Don. It really does sound like the mafia. You know, the shrouded comments with implications of violence, which he has been able to achieve increasingly. You know, the latest thing is the swatting, right? You know, send the SWAT team to somebody's house. And don't forget Nancy Pelosi's husband was attacked. And don't forget that a federal judge lost her son by an attack at home on the East Coast. So yes, he's able to do that stochastic rhetoric on command. He can speak to people who are capable of violence and who respond to him. This is very scary. And you're absolutely right. This has to be part of the conversation. What interests me, and I keep thinking this, and I want to bounce this off you, is suppose, you know, one of those congressmen or senators says to another, you know, I got a call from Donald Trump last night and it was really awful. He was threatening to primary me and get me out of office. He was threatening to have his base go after me. You know, this is really crazy. And there's no reason beside his own self-interest. As a matter of policy, it's a good bill. My duty to the country is to vote for the bill, not against the bill. And I'm really tossed about this. What do you think? And the other guy says, you know, you're right. Why don't we call a third guy and have a conference call? Why don't we have 20 people meet in a conference room tomorrow morning at nine o'clock and discuss how we're gonna deal with this? He says, he can't pick us off one by one this way. We have to get together. We have to vote as a block. We have to compare notes. And you know what, Tim? I don't think that's happening because I think that finds out that the number one guy called the number two guy and organized that conference at nine in the morning, the number one guy, he would get pummeled by the base and who knows what. So I think he's got him so scared they can't even combine their efforts. I think you're spot on. And I think that those conversations behind the closed doors are not happening amongst other GOP senators and other members of the house. So what you have is a classic bully tactic and it's working well. And at what point does that not work? And I don't have that answer. But here's one question I do have and that is Donald Trump got what he wanted. He's kiboshed the border deal. Does that, and right now that is an advantage to Donald Trump. He got what he wanted. He's gonna use it as a pinata bat against Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential campaign season. So he got what he wanted. But does that come back to haunt the GOP particularly when we see visuals of increasing border problems, increasing crossings, people being hurt in the boarding crossings? Does that eventually boomerang and come back to haunt the GOP? It could. It's very well could, you know, my theory of the stock market, the fatigue theory. You get, you know, you get bored with boredom and you get bored with too much of this. And the chair of the RNC, Daniel is her name, I think, or McDaniel, quit or he fired her. Reason that he fired her. He fired her basically in the media, he fired her. Yeah. And he'll find somebody else who will be more loyal to him. But if I'm watching, I'm saying, gee whiz, you know, this is chaos. He's creating chaos. He's firing people with the emphasis on the word firing, just like the apprentice. And he thinks- What was her crime? I like that. What was her crime? What was her crime? What was her crime? Against Donald. She wasn't loyal enough. But, you know, we can only speculate as to like the fly on the wall about why. And I think it's probably because he wanted her to do things. It's just like the White House. The Oval Office had the same kind of echo here because he wanted her to do something that was illegal or wrong or outrageous. And she didn't want to do it. So he fired her. Well, wasn't this partly because Donald wanted to suspend all future political debates and the primary should just be considered done and he shouldn't have to contend with Nikki Haley anymore and the RNC said, well, wait a minute, we have a process on how we get to our nomination and I think Donald Trump took exception to that. And so therefore, he considered her as not being a team member on his team. Team is such a, it's not the right word. I mean, if you're not totally 1000% loyal to him, you're an adversary and adversaries get fired. You know what? I wanna add something here. We only have a few minutes left. I wanna add the notion. You asked me, what could change this? Well, yeah, I mean, the base could wake up one morning. I'm not optimistic about that. And the Republicans in Congress could wake up and say, what are we doing? What did you do in the time of Trump daddy? And the answer would be a pretty pathetic answer. But you know what? We're not factoring in that history always moves forward. So anything could happen. And anything means things outside of Trump's control. He could control the media and he does a really good job at that. But he may not be able to control the media if something really spectacular, some third party event takes place. I mean, we know that, you know, Putin is supporting him and he's supporting Putin. Look at that newscaster, what's his name over there? Having this friendly interview that that's on behalf. Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson, who has a big following. So, you know, Trump and Putin are really joined at the hip. But we're never gonna see Trump support funding or weapons for Ukraine. He wants Russia to win. But suppose, for example, I'm just giving you an example. Suppose the EU comes through with the 50 billion it said it would provide Ukraine. And suppose Ukraine takes territory back. And suppose it attacks Moscow. Suppose, you know, it does terrible things to Putin personally. Suppose Russia gets into a kind of revolution over this. That's something that Trump doesn't wanna see, but he can't control it. And that would change the calculus. I'm just giving you an example. Suppose something happens in the Middle East. And I don't wish this on Israel, but suppose Israel has reverses in Hamas. Trump doesn't wanna see that. He wants to see Israel succeed because he needs the evangelical vote and all that. And he's been consistent about that. And he would do that in office, which surprised me by the way that the standalone bill for support for Ukraine did not prevail. And I don't think there is a standalone bill for Israel. I'm not sure that would prevail because Congress is in chaos. But let's assume there's something really chaotic happens in the Middle East likewise. Out of his control against what he wishes, that may change things. Let's suppose something happens in this country, like a major climate change, like a major protest about something that is against him in some way or against his preferences. This could change. All I'm saying is that we live in a time of change. We live in a time of unpredictability. We live in a time of high stakes and often violent surprises. And something could happen in the next, it's not even 10 months anymore, the nine months to follow. Something could happen that could dramatically change the calculus brand and make people realize. Well, we can say that about Joe Biden too. I mean, I suppose that Donald Trump or Joe Biden, given their age and their medical condition, suppose a major medical event occurred and that would impair their ability to serve as a candidate any further. We just don't know. And I agree with you. There could be an outside influence that is beyond both candidates' control. So I guess it's wait and see. We'll see. It's wait and see, but your point is really the most likely of all these things, they're both getting on. They both have problems. I mean, I wrote a piece recently about extending the whole experience of confusing Nancy Pelosi with Nikki Haley. That is likely to happen again and again and again. And it's a serious organic problem, a brain function problem, which Trump himself recognizes. And I don't think Trump has the ability to add two and two anymore. And if that goes forward over the next nine months and the press is diligent at following it, he could lose a lot of attention, a lot of support because people conclude that he's really not fit. And in my opinion, he's not fit now and hasn't been fit. But it's coming out and it will continue hopefully to come out. But you're right. The inability of either one of them to serve or for that matter, their vice presidential picks to serve will change the calculus. And to go a step further, at their ages and their situations, even with the most attentive physicians all around them, the two of them, one of them could fail to wake up one morning. And that would absolutely change the calculus. We'd be thrown into such chaos either way on that. I don't know what happened. It's hard to speculate. Hard to speculate. Okay, with that, we're gonna leave it. Your last thoughts before we conclude. I'm sad that Trump seems to have the support in this country. And I'm sad because it reflects an electorate that is not Akamai, that has not been reading the papers, that has not done critical thinking. And the fact that an entertainer and a shot and froid person, the likes of Trump on the apprentice has such momentum going forward to the election. And I think we, and I say we, I mean, all 340 million of us, we are gonna get exactly what we deserve. I would have to agree with that. I'm disappointed that the Trump supporters are looking past the human decency factor. And that seems to be discounted greatly. And I expected more out of my fellow Americans than that what I'm seeing now. And I don't think that's gonna change anytime soon. And that's leaving me a bit cynical. So we'll leave it at that. Jay Fidel, I wanna thank you very much for joining us for American Issues Take One. It's been a great discussion. And if you like this discussion and you wanna see more, why don't you support it? Hit like and hit the support button. We'd appreciate it very much. I'm Tim Appachelle, your host. And why don't you join us next week for American Issues Take One. And until then, aloha.