 Hi, welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Trump week, one of our most important shows in these times. And today we have a full house. We have Tim Appichella. We have Winston Welsh. And we have Stephanie, Stephanie, Stephanie, Stephanie, Stephanie, Talton. And they're all hosts in Think Tech. And we're all going to collaborate and cooperate on trying to figure out what Trump did this week. And it wasn't easy, but it was all around the coronavirus. Tim, let's start with you. What are your thoughts about his performance this week? Well, Donald Trump has finally made the transformation from Nair of the CV-19 virus to a believer. And unfortunately it took way too long for him to get to that position. And I don't think he really got to that position on his own. I think he was prompted and prodded by Fox TV station, specifically Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson made a very, very definitive proclamation about the seriousness of CV-19 virus. And I think other people have been working on him, specifically Dr. Fucci. And the bottom line is he's here now. I mean, serious. And I think that's good for our nation. Yes, Stephanie, do you agree? Do you think Trump has behaved himself properly? Is he good for the country? What he's been doing lately? I think that he, I certainly agree with Tim's point. I think that he is coming around way too slowly, but he's being, I think, coached to address this in a presidential manner. I think he's doing a lot better with his, with reading off of his prompter and in the kinds of statements that he's making. However, I did hear that people are wishing that he would be okay to step back and let the experts and the scientists and the researchers and the doctors take on the major responsibility of communicating to the public. So hopefully he'll feel he can do that and let Vice President Pence step up there and be the MC kind of person. So we'll see if any of that statement from the, from, I think it was on NPR or the radio someplace. Maybe he'll hear that. Maybe he'll do it. Maybe not. It would be better if he did. Yeah, Winston, you know, I think these guys are being soft on him. A lot of newscasters and opinion people are saying that he's wrecked his own possibilities at winning in the election in November, that he is the worst possible person to handle a crisis like this and that he's done a bloody terrible job and exposed millions of people to horrendous, if not lethal disease. How do you feel about it? Well, I think all of those are true. He has been very late to just recognizing this as something where, you know, even on the, I think it was the sixth, he says he's not concerned at all about the virus on the seventh, I'm sorry, down in Mar-a-Lago and that it could be maybe just washed right through. I think since our last meeting a week ago, you know, there was the news conference on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, the markets continue to tank because they realize that the response from the federal government has been a day late and a dollar short. But of course, nobody wants, you know, to have any shout in front of here. People do want to rally around a leader. They want to see him or her perform to the best of his or her ability. And sometimes that may be stepping aside, analyzing, you're out of your depth here or breadth. And there are people that can step up. But with our, you know, the government being eviscerated at this level, they're really having to put things together. Fortunately, we're seeing that he does seem to recognize the seriousness of that. I think a, as Tim said, that Tucker Carlson got his ear as well as a report from England showing the what's going to happen if nothing is done. So all of this together, I think he just realized, wow. But that said, his approval ratings are up just from Newsweek, which I was reading this morning. So the masses are saying, Hey, you're doing a great job. And, you know, we want success out of this. There is zero question about that. So how we best support this man who's in office is in the moment, I guess. Yeah, I still think your guys are being too soft on him. You know, what happened? What happened to the testing? See a lot of testing around the country? I don't see a lot of testing around the country. It's peanuts. We're way behind, you know, Korea, for example, if we have drive drive drive in testing, it's only in one or two places in the country, the test kits are not here yet. Of course, the respirators are critical for people who are dying. And he's not providing respirators. He's telling the states they have to, you know, somehow find them and pay for them themselves. You know, he's, he's, he's hoaxing us. If you want to looking for a hoax here, it's him. That's my opinion. But Tim, what do you think about is the specific programs that he's talking about? And what do you think about the possibility, the fact and the possibility that he will achieve those programs? Well, in programs, let's talk about the packages in Congress. Just to do a little history, Donald Trump suggested that 2.5 billion would be enough money to care, take care of the problems. Immediately Chuck Schumer said, I don't think so. It's going to be much, much more than that. So fortunately, Chuck Schumer worked with the Republicans and they passed the 8.3 billion dollar package, which now I believe the Senate as of this morning or this afternoon has approved that package. It now goes to Donald Trump for signature. That package is a drop in the bucket, which is going to be required in combat this virus. It does have some provisions for relief for the airlines. It does have some provisions for relief to the those who have. I'm not clear whether or not it has provisions for sick leave. That was a hotly contested provision of that bill. I think if it's not in the House bill, Senate bill, but I'll tell you one thing that was a complete waste of time and that's why the market sunk is the concept of having payroll tax cuts. It doesn't help anyone who's been laid off. It doesn't help anyone that hasn't paid their mortgage or has to pay their landlord. This is completely useless and certainly has nothing to do to help those who are on earn their wages by tips and commissions. Let's work on programs that are going to aid the package for Americans and I guarantee you the stock market will stop bleeding. But if all the package elements are designed to help businesses and ignore the bottom line of what's causing this virus and those measures to stop it, then we'll continue to see the Dow fall. The Dow is at 19-8 right now. It's going to go lower. Oh, bad news. Yeah, I mean sometimes he says something and the Dow goes up, but mostly it goes down dramatically. So, Stephanie, is he putting too much emphasis on raising the stock market or preserving the stock market and helping big business as opposed to helping save lives? I mean, is the emphasis in the right place with these programs? Well, I just don't hear anything about that. From him, nor does he have the expertise for the stock market or any of those financial issues. But I do agree that he's listening. He is listening to other people and that's why we're getting some really good news here. I think the mercy and the other ship, the comfort, getting those out to solve a little bit of our hospital shortage of beds is encouraging that he is doing that. So, which is evidence that he's listening, because mostly he doesn't really have that depth of knowledge about the government and what are all of these fabulous resources that we have to bring to this crisis in which he didn't bring or even know about to begin with. Now, he's learning. However, I agree with Jay very much that this is a hoax. Again, that there's this hoaxness to it, if that's a word, because even with regard to the payroll tax, I'm just so sensitive to his predationary, his predator instincts, because that is another first step. It could be a first step in that the disaster fantasy is, of course, to take the payroll tax out is to have people stop paying their social security contribution. And what is the point of that? And also, it may be a lever for or set up a track here of experience with relieving people of that to getting at reductions in the social security benefit. So, I mean, that is just a hugely threatening move is to fiddle with that money. And I certainly agree with Tim that exactly all of those things he said about what it can and cannot do it. Absolutely correct. Winston and Winston, although they're late, you know, it's taken a long time for Congress to get its act together, even after it was clear that Trump was taking Mnuchin's advice and all that. We won't see any money on this for at least a couple of weeks. So far, it's really all talk. But let me ask you, you know, is this been fast enough? Have we seen political will here? Have we seen the government getting together? Have we seen Trump actually leading Congress? And I suppose I like your thoughts on on how it would work because they're bandying about trillions of dollars. Do we have that kind of money? We already ran into a big deficit. The Republicans have been spending, you know, gazoos of money now more. Another trillion here and there. You know, whatever Dirk ever ever Dirkson said, you know, a trillion here and a trillion there. After a while, it makes for real money. Didn't you say that? Well, you know, this presidency has been an unmitigated disaster for our nation. All of it. But what I'm seeing signs and hope right now is that there are some experts stepping up, that there's governors, that there's school boards, that there's companies. Everybody else is saying we're not seeing the leadership, so we're going to take it ourselves. We're going to do what we need to do to protect our family, our workers, our states. And then at the federal level, I think we are seeing a concerted effort. I think he's not leading Congress so much as Nancy Pelosi said, this is what we need to be said to the Republicans from what I understand. You guys need to get behind this. Stock market tanking. Now it's lost all of the gains since he became President. He's really looking at legacy issues. I don't even know if the idea of re-election is sparked in his brain, but it does feel to me really for the first time that he is talking about all Americans in this. I don't feel like it's just the people that voted for him or his fans. I feel like there is an all Americans thing and maybe it's just that he doesn't want literally millions of people to die on his watch in a catastrophe that may have been much more avoidable. But that seems to be my perception of it. You know, again we all hope for that he has the wisdom to put the right people in place to make those decisions and that he can step up to the moment. He has not shown this for his whole presidency but now may be his time that he can say, look maybe I haven't been hitting it right with the whole country but now's that opportunity and I do hope for that. The most rational cool voice has been Mnuchin, not him. He can't even read a teleprompter script but let me go to that. It's a good segue because I always feel that what Trump says and what Trump does may not be the same thing. And you know your view that maybe he's stepping up, you really wonder. I mean this is the week if you will recall that he's been leaking the notion that he's going to pardon Michael Flynn which is something you know really awful, awful. Flynn pleaded guilty. He's going to pardon him. So doesn't that suggest that it's business as usual for Trump? Well Jay I'd like to take that on. Yeah. Yeah I mean remember there's things that are seen and unseen and for the last three years of his presidency we've always been talking about the shiny object. Well we don't need a shiny object any longer. It's called coronavirus 19 but he's still doing things under you know out of sight that we don't even have time or want to pay attention to. We've got a national crisis. We have a worldwide pandemic, a worldwide crisis. So it's amazing to me that these these headlines are even making its way to the papers. You should not even be involved in such discussions. But getting back to Winston's comment about legacy just yesterday he's going he's trying to preserve his reputation and he's deflect responsibility. Now remember he said he's going to give himself a perfect 10 on the way this is being handled. Well we all think that's not the case I'm sure of it. But he recently just said no one could see this coming. Well I just heard an interview from Chris Liu who is the Obama cabinet secretary and he said specifically he was in a meeting with Trump administration folks and they did what is called a tabletop exercise for disaster preparedness. And in that exercise they covered at least two things. One is there's a massive hurricane that hit the United States and two is a massive pandemic virus. So they trained, they talked about it, they planned for it. That's before he really even stepped into the office. They were they were planning for these things. So for Donald Trump to say no one still is coming that is patently false statement. Well while I have you and what about that extraordinary statement he made that he didn't know that the epidemic team had been disbanded. He didn't know that CDC had the budget of CDC had been seriously cut. I find that extraordinary and he turned to somebody else. That really happened was that you wasn't me? No. What is that? Trump as usual? February 26th he was quoted to say yeah we laid off those people because I like to save money and we can get we can get them back together. It's almost like you know animal house. We can get the band back together again. And the bottom line is he fired him. He wanted to save budget. Okay I get it but does he not realize that you know these tabletop exercises were performed and a coronavirus or something like it was a very real possibility. So he laid off the team. Yeah and he gave us a whole song and dance about it wasn't him. Stephanie you talked about the Defense Reduction Act and I think that's another one of those things that he's doing behind his back. Can you talk about that for a minute? Yes I think that these points about his repertoire are really important. I mean in these things that we're citing that he's saying are that are self-serving. This is just thematic throughout all of his statements. And another thing that is thematic or important to watch are some hints that he gives about what's going on in the backdrop. And so one of those that may be in in play right now has to do with not only did he as you know invoke the Stafford Act which brought the FEMA operations and activation to the highest level level one and this is good. And he also invoked what is called the Defense Reduction Act and this was a 50s law that came out of the Korea War experience and it has been invoked numerous times. But one of the concerns about him mentioning that and he just mentioned it in passing that he was invoking that and there was no explanation or no description or no sign of any of his intentions for what to do with those additional powers or enhanced expanded powers that are allotted to the executive through that power through that act. So that is worrisome because he has this crisis situation and he's not thinking as you want to point out that we're not about unity and coming together and serving the people and saving the people's lives which are going to be downed on him if they're not saved presumably, even though he's very Teflon I don't know how you're going to get out from under that we've already got 106 deaths in the U.S. from this virus. But what is he going to do with the Defense Reduction Act powers that he now has invoked and my concern, my disaster fantasy is that we're going to move towards a situation of hopefully not drastic laws that are going to keep us sequestered or are in place, protecting in place but maybe reconsidering the 2020 presidential election and I just think that this is an important warning that we need to listen and we need to think about what are these key notes that are popping up when he speaks off script and what is the background on that what is going on where are the questions from the press about that what is it and what are you going to do with the national the Defense Reduction Act please Yeah, and I remember a situation where the where I was at the PBS reporter asked them why he terminated the you know the infection team and he said that's a nasty question I love that is it Tim and I predicted this months ago that in the period between the his exoneration quotes and the election that he was going to attack the press we're going to see more and more of that but you know actually I've saved my favorite question for you Winston my favorite question of the week is what is going on with China so you know he dumps on them he says it's all their fault he locks them out of the United States he makes statements to evoke all kinds of racist reaction around the country okay and then they in return blame the United States but now he is trying to defend against that that claim and it's sort of the perfect storm what do you make of that how and I guess the most important thing is all of this considered how are his diplomatic relations doing with China and with Europe it seems to me that this is a time as Stephanie says to come together in fact that diplomatic relations are not coming together at all well it's not helpful it's not helpful from Donald Trump or from the Chinese to take the bait I think all nations around the world realize this is an aberration in in American history and American policy and they've just been waiting it out until we get someone who's responsible and and doesn't say just inflammatory things like that we need international cooperation now we don't need the Chinese kicking out our reporters are them kicking out ours people can well I want to say people can see fake news when they see it but maybe they can't however when you have I don't know if the report was true about trying to buy this vaccine from Germany and that's oh yeah but this is ridiculous this is vaccine is for people and when you I think the more important thing is that when you have a president with over 16,000 documented unlies lies are untruths or deceptions and then many of them about even this virus if you just go back a couple of months there's a credibility thing here so that when something is said we have to second guess and his own administration have to come on and do just major cleanup work and say actually maybe the entire opposite is true so whether it's with China or Europe or the American public he needs to stand aside and just introduce the people and say this is the expert on the topic she is going to tell you what to do he's going to tell you what steps you might take and that sort of thing and let other people take over and that's probably the most presidential thing that he can do right now is realize he doesn't have the answers and he just needs to be a reassuring figure at this point as much as he possibly can be when with the nation so divided but you know if he gets up there and says folks I'm out of my he's not going to say he's out of its depth but here is Dr. So-and-so here's Director So-and-so and they are looking out for all of our best interests that would do a lot of way to kind of calmer pair of sympathetic nervous systems while the stock market continues to I hope so you know I think the stakes are so high in terms of lives you know the statisticians the mathematicians are projecting huge numbers of American deaths like a million people are at risk of losing their life in this thing I don't know if he takes that seriously I don't know if he's capable of doing you know what we hope so Tim we have enough time to go around Robin and give final thoughts and projections if you will expectations for the next week here on Trump week what are your thoughts my thoughts are I want to agree wholeheartedly with what Winston said if we can get him out of the picture and let the experts take over I guarantee you that will come at least the financial what but when he says one thing and he means another and he miscategorizes the truth that is not helpful for the American public to hear nor the financial markets so if they could just get him to be mum just for once in the three years of presidency things and the way we proceed on this coronavirus is going to go a whole lot better all right Tim Apachele Stephanie Stephanie Dalton what have you got for us as a sort of closing thought and a projection for next week well I have a rather dismal thought based on news I've heard lately coming in from international sources and that is the special protection that we thought had been given by the virus to the children is not actually playing out that way and that now that there's more data that they're able to see that that's not the case and there may be of vulnerability and jeopardy for youngsters to be given the virus as much as our our capuna and our elderly folk are eligible for so I'm very concerned about that we do have the 109 deaths right now but they're not they don't include any children so I think that if we go forward and this this news starts to come in and actually affects our population we we are really going to have some dreadful work to do it's going to be time you know you mentioned you mentioned Winston about the the deal that Trump allegedly tried to cut with the German company called CureVac where the word is that he try here as administration tried to buy exclusive rights to the vaccine that that was promising they have two vaccine candidates that they're ready to do trials on and it's interesting about that is two two things he was going to pay a billion dollars to them and of course the second thing is he wanted exclusive to the united states that is no other country and possibly he saw it as a profit center which is a pretty ugly concept in these times and that the Germans you know you know said no rejected that entirely and made it public but my question to you is what what what are your thoughts about these other strange things that are happening will they continue to happen I mean if Trump took Tim's advice and just shut his mouth and stopped with the tweeting would that solve the problem or there's so many other problems threads if you will that are going on with this administration that it could never be clear and clean or as we hope well you know there's a great article in salon by historian David Perry and he says after Trump will need a truth and reconciliation commission to begin healing from the harm done to the country by the Trump administration's lies and system abuses of rule of law not to mention its criminality corruption and other risks all static values such a commission would also be a necessary first documenting the Trump regime's crimes on assault on truth reality in America's collective memory including corruption manipulation of the judicial system his media messaging and psychological effects that Trump and his authoritarian regime have on the American people that is not to say that Trump is not in any event read the article at salon I think it hits to the core that this is even before this whole coronavirus has hit I'm really concerned about as we go forward as Stephanie said what are we looking at with these laws are we going to have some emergency powers act that's invoked that says we can't have an election this year it's not going to be free and fair because not enough of you will become to the polls or we don't have a mail by voting or whatever it will be and therefore I'm suspending elections it could very easily happen or Congress could I don't know what could happen in that but or he could just tell his folks you know it's not going to be fair I'm not recognizing the results of it there's a lot of things that could happen hopefully none of that will happen he will realize this was this was a fun four years and I'm done and let someone else take over I don't think that's his instinct so I do have a lot of concerns but echoing what Tim said if he can just step aside right now that would be the best for the nation just stepping to the side and introducing people he's not going to give up he's a fighter but hopefully his best self-preservation instincts will take over which would include taking care of the nation as best as possible right now and at this point we just have to this is what we got so we have to step up in our every way that we can city, states, organizationally and personally and and look out for each other yeah amen to that I only want to add that after some of our other shows where we titled it something about is this is this a hoax on YouTube we had an inordinate number of comments from people saying yes the coronavirus is a hoax and that leads to an article that I saw recently how a lot of Trump supporters a lot of Republicans still feel that there's nothing to worry about and they remember Trump's early remarks but not his current position on the seriousness of the the pandemic so that has to change for us to go forward in any you know robust way I think and hopefully we'll see it change all right you guys look forward to next week next week on Trumpy thank you all thank you Tim thank you Winston thank you Stephanie great show Aloha and wash your hands