 You're wondering, this is Think Tech Hawaii, I'm Jay Fiedel and we're talking about Coronaville. Coronaville, what's next? And the title of our discussion this morning is, where does COVID fit in the impeachment we've all been watching? Does it play a role in possible conviction? With our guest, Tim Epicella, Cynthia Lee Sinclair, Stephanie Dalton, Winston Welch. Welcome to the show, you guys. Regular contributors. Good morning. Good morning. Aloha. Okay. If you've been watching the impeachment proceedings, raise your right hand. What? Okay. You know, yesterday and today have been very interesting. But what the discussion is today is actually merging to me than before. And that is the Democrats portrayal of Trump's failure of remorse and his galvanization of the proud boy and other ultra right wing elements of his movement. This is actually scarier to me. We've already seen, you know, pretty much what went on the Capitol on January 6th, although we learned a lot of new stuff yesterday, but we hadn't heard about the FBI's, you know, investigation and examination of what was going on with the galvanization of the proud boy movement. So my first question, Tim, is this is pretty scary stuff. I don't know if it's as scary for you as it is for me, but they said they'll be back. They said they'll be more violence. They're just waiting for his instructions. So my question to you is, will the country survive? Will this depend on, what will this depend on? And how much will it depend on the verdict in these proceedings? Got any thoughts on that? The country will survive. I agree. It's scary. And I think what scares me the most is the reaction of Republican senators faced with these undeniable evidence, undeniable role that Donald Trump played in this whole business, and they're not willing to entertain the seriousness of conviction of impeachment. That's what scares me because if they're willing to look over this one, what else are they going to this look past? And so the country will survive. We'll get through this. I think it's going to polarize neighbor against neighbor for a while. I know I feel polarized, or if I have any family or friends that are pulling for Donald Trump on this trial, I don't want to talk to them. I really don't. And it's sad because these are people I love. But it says something about, in my opinion, their moral character and their dedication to this country and the constitution and the rule of law and the democracy of this country. So I take it to heart and it bothers me. And maybe I'll go back to losing sleep again. But to answer your question, yeah, the country's going to pull together and Joe Biden will get some of these policies implemented and passed and the country will improve and will get better. Okay. Well, that's optimistic. Cynthia, let me throw one other element in the pot. Which a friend of mine brought up in a conversation this morning. You know, if you hit two sides of the divisiveness against each other, that is the ultra-right and the regular people, the liberals if you want, but I think they're the regular people. And one side has guns and the other side doesn't have guns. One side has sworn to use the guns against iconic figures in our government and the other side won't use guns. They don't have guns. They're not about to get into violence. Does that change what Tim was saying? Will the country survive? Well, I have hope that the country will survive. But I don't have certainty that it will. I don't feel like it's a done deal. We will for sure make it because there's so many people that I hear like the report, the memo that we got from somebody that said all of the things that they're saying, you know, the Republicans are saying all this far right stuff, all of the people that I know that are far right that are still down in the south where I used to be. They still think this was stolen. They still think that Biden is an illegitimate president. And as long as that mentality continues, even with normal people, not just the far left crazy people, but the normal Republicans that still believe this stuff, how do we reach out to them and help them to see the truth of that? I don't know. But I know that we have to keep trying, right, because that is where our hope lies. Our hope lies in all of the rest of the normal people, as you call them, reaching out to those people that are still lost in a sea of misinformation. It's not an easy job, but I think we have to try. I don't know what you mean by try or what we can do. You know what we can do? We can have this program. That's what we can do. Well, so, you know, Winston, I sent around an article that really impressed me, and it was by a woman named Jean Steinberg. I think it's Steinberg. And I sent it around last night. I don't know if you got a chance to see it, but it tracks on Ann Appelbaum, who wrote for The Atlantic three or four months ago, and who compared the history of Eastern Europe with what is happening now. Steinberg compared the history of Germany, mostly, with what is happening now. And it is a very chilling discussion. And what it says along the lines I was mentioning before is if one side has guns and the other one doesn't, it's not a fair fight. And if one side has been galvanized, as the testimony came out this morning, by Trump's efforts to bring them together, to knit them together into a fighting force, an army, a movement, that really puts us behind the eight ball. And in that article, there's a list of five steps along the way to get to a dictatorship. And the second step is using violence to take over government institutions. So we're on the track that she describes. What do you think about that? Where are we in terms of survival of the country? Well, as you might have gleaned, I'm typically optimistic about things and see the glass half full when I wake up. And if I wake up on the wrong side of the bed, I get up on the other side of the bed when I can. These are extraordinary times if we haven't been sobered by what's happened by the riveting testimony and prosecution in the Senate today, yesterday and the day before. And I urge all people to go to C-SPAN or whatever. And they are watching it. There's so many hits on C-SPAN. It's heartening to hear that. Now, Winston, somebody told me today, unbelievable, that Fox News is not carrying. I was just going to say that. Is that incredible? Those people that follow Fox News have no idea what we are learning. That's right. And that was I was getting to that is that we're half the nation is watching this. The people that are tuning in are folks that although we welcome a variety of viewpoints on think tech and have all manner of politics on these shows. This one specifically, we may have certain thoughts about and we welcome our viewers that are watching to help us understand why did you believe this man and why don't you see what we see? There's got to be something after this. And this is where I'm interested in sort of moving beyond is how do we get people to even understand the same basic facts? And we are not dealing in a nation that is having the same basic facts. You look at people, independents, whatever they are, are tend to look like Democrats when they say who is president of the United States? Who's the legitimate elected president of the United States? Republicans and we'll say that the ones that have limited news sources, let's just say, have been co-opted by those new sources so that they have an entirely different worldview. How do we get to a point where we are all watching Walter Conkite again, who by the way is a little bit before my time, but you get the idea of it? That that or Mr. Brinkley or who is the other one? In any event, we have to learn how to communicate with each other to understand beyond the rhetoric what's going on. And I think the Senate has laid out a pretty convincing argument here. I haven't heard that on the other side from what's going on, what the defense will present. And their argument obviously won't resonate with us. But it'll be interesting to see how the spin is there. Our nation has seen really difficult times. Right now, we're in a difficult existential moment, I would say. We're not having blood spilled on the streets, but you're right. We're on a march to a strong man or a lack of democracy. And we saw this almost happen just a month ago here. So while being generally optimistic, I think we all need to go back to the history books, read those things. How does fascism happen? What steps can we take to prevent it? And how do we learn to communicate with people? Especially, I mean, starting with those we love. But how do we learn at the very top to reach the Murdochs and say, you won't have a nation to broadcast in to make the money from selling soap if you continue down this path? And so- I hope he thinks of that. But meanwhile, he's cleaning up. Yes. So Stephanie, one of the interesting parts of what happened on January 6th is why it stopped. And apparently it stopped because they couldn't find Nancy. They couldn't find Pence. They couldn't find Schumer. I think they've injured, killed or kidnapped them if they could find them. Luckily, they didn't. And they couldn't find the ballots. And when this was known to Trump, who I believe, I believe that Trump was in touch moment by moment, real time with the leaders who were leading the crowd, the mad crowd, tried to find these things. When he learned that they could not be found and they'd been spirited away, then he called it off. He said, go home. And that's why they went home. If the search had continued, the search had been successful for those things, I suggest to you they would not have gone home. And I suggest the next time they do this and they have said they would, they won't go home. What are your thoughts? And what does it depend on? Will the movement be reactivated after these impeachment proceedings? And assuming for a moment that you can't get 17 public senators to vote for impeachment, will that accelerate the movement? Or if the movement does impeach Trump, will that accelerate the movement? What is acceleration of the movement depend on? You are, that's a chilling question, Jay. You know, I personally thank you for that. I was fighting meltdown this morning while I was watching Fox News show the impeachment trial. And my meltdown was, as already been mentioned, is I have adult family here that I love dearly, but they're on, that's that problem of they're on the other side. And I'm starting to get viscerally involved in that. And that's my meltdown thing, is that, how to handle that, as well as just in general, the deplorable way that Fox presented, the Fox newscasters, Barbie and Ken, you know, were kind of neutral. But then they brought on the second defender of Trump is whatever his name is. I'm sorry, they're two of them. He's the second one that didn't make the... Okay, but anyway, he came on and he went through their litany of what they're going to present next. And they just can't wait till they have their time because they didn't really have their time on the opening because they were really trying to do something else there. And that that was not well enough prepared, they were limited in time. All these excuses. And then of course, what's coming on that they're going to do is to help everybody understand what's going on here, that there is a glorification of violence. And there's a disunifying theme here that's going to just put Americans one against the other. It's all decontextualized about Trump. Everything is taken out of context. And everything he said is negatively interpreted. And it's unfair to focus on these misrepresentations of his mentioning of peace and his mentioning of fighting hard, which any patriot is going to be proud of. So I miss about ready to have my mouth melt down there now you bring this up because I realized they have no, they're not open to what was so beautifully presented this morning in the, in the statements which had to do with a comprehensive review in a holistic way, what Trump had done over time to get these people to be where they were. You heard all the way back to the Michigan's and the taking of the governor and what you're evoking, what you're evoking Jay is this is a bloodlust. They have said things about blood running out of the Capitol, they did read emails about that. And it's a bloodlust so they would have maybe they would have done that. I don't know but if they haven't done it, can they be held back to not do it. I don't know that's the question here but but Tim let me move closer to the core point of our discussion, which is about COVID. We learned yesterday and today that a Trump was setting this up for a long time. It wasn't just that day it was months, and it was part of his plan to stay in power. And then you realize that he is he filed for reelection at the time he was inaugurated in January 2017. He's been running for office the whole time. He really, really, really wanted to stay in power. Okay, and now we have COVID and COVID rears its head in late January really February. He has taken certain steps steps to deny it to call it the flu steps steps to change the numbers steps to make the people feel the public feel that it's not as serious as it was. He has lied to us on many, many occasions. He has caused other people to lie to us over the entire period of the COVID tragedy. And so we find that his efforts preceded January 16. And really what I want to get to is the connection between this interaction on January 16 and his moves on COVID, because I believe that there is a connection. And I believe also that COVID this is a separate issue. COVID is in the room. COVID is in that impeachment. This is a terrible, terrible president, but I think it goes further than that. I think he was taking steps on COVID to enhance his opportunities at reelection. And he was governing everything he did in COVID to make it better for his reelection. The only problem for him was that he ran out of luck. That it kept on getting worse despite his lies. And by what November, people understood there was a serious problem. So my question to you is what do you think about that? What's the connection between COVID, which we here have followed for the whole year? And the impeachment and the feeling about Trump in the Senate discussion, in the trial and in the public? Donald Trump would have been a second term president had it not been for COVID. There's no two ways about that. Donald Trump did everything he could back in early March. You and I did a show about this in early March, basically calling it a flu. And he wanted to make sure that the financial markets were not impacted. So that's why he denied it. That's why he wouldn't wear a mask. That's why he said, don't wear a mask. Basically, we had all his rallies and the things that we saw for for nine nine months up until the election. So Donald Trump had bad timing. I agree with you 100%. And the death toll kept rising and that didn't help his election chances. And then finally, the death toll got to the point where now it was affecting the Trump states, the red states, the families of voters for Trump is they started to die. And these people started to realize that, no, COVID is a real disease and it's killing people and it's killing his voters. And so it was bad timing and Donald Trump couldn't twist twist COVID in order to get him and gain him the election. So he had to do what he tried to do in the first election that is call it a fraud. And Donald Trump did exactly that. The second he knew that mail-in ballots were going to be used. He said it's rigged. It's going to be fraudulent. He did that months before the election. And he has followed through consistently. And I just want to raise one point because when Donald Trump said, you know, go home, he didn't just say go home. He said the following. These are events and things that happen when election victory is so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly and unfairly treated for so long. Go home, love and peace, remember this day forever. Well, we will remember this day forever, but this is classic example how Donald Trump thinks that the people who stormed the Capitol are patriots and they're not. And by the way, those who stormed the Capitol to tie it into COVID infected a lot of police and a lot of their fellow insurrectionists. And the case numbers have gone up skyrocketed since that insurrection of the Capitol. That's what I have in my mind. Yeah, before you get off on the notion of public health, I am beside myself about the suicide of two of the police there. It strikes me that must have been a horrible experience for them and their families. Can you imagine these are ordinary working guys, policemen, all of a sudden in their lives they're committing suicide. You can imagine how they felt to go to that level. Well, I hate to say it, but I'm sure they felt they failed in their task and their duty. Suicides never, you know, it's a long, you know, it's a short term solution to a long term problem but I'm sure they felt mortified that what happened happened on their watch. And by the way, the senators the GOP senators should feel the same way that this happened on their watch. And they should be cognizant of that and they should really pay attention to these proceedings and grow a conscience and do something about it. Well, some of that must inspire you to make some thoughts, Cynthia, what do you think does my biggest thing and I've been talking about this for weeks now is how bad it is that they hung those boys out to dry the way they did. They knew there was going to be violence. They knew full well there was going to be violence. There was a report on the 5th of January that actually went out with from the FBI. They were saying that there was going to be war on the Capitol. We won't give up. These were some of the things that they had intercepted on parlor and some of these other sites that there's going to be war. We won't give in. We won't stop till we get our president back. Nothing else will do things like that and they, and they put it out there. So, the biggest one that hit me out of all of the presentations was when Swalwell, Representative Swalwell did his, and it was about the police, the Capitol police, and they begged you can hear them for the first time you hear them radio radio in to say, We need help. We're overrun. They were crying for help for two hours. Two hours. They cried for help. I want to raise one thing with you. You know, that is clear from today. Anyway, that there will be more about that these guys are there. They're conglomerated. They're consolidated around the country. They're not only attacking the Capitol again, but also attacking state institutions. And the level of confusion, the level of misinformation is astronomical. I mean, right now, Trump is blaming Biden for COVID. He's saying Biden is doing a bad job. And there'll be more. I mean, everything that Biden is doing, Trump will blame him for everything that goes wrong. And some of it, Trump will make it go wrong. Trump will blame him for it. And, and his friends in the Senate will will do the same. So my question is, how, how can we survive if this is going on? How can the Biden government do on COVID when you have Trump attacking him this way? How, you know, it's entirely possible that we'll have a new pandemic with the variants. And that, you know, will be in worst shape in a few months, for one reason or another. How does that feed into Trump's lies going forward? I just really quickly give you what the Times report is for today on the virus. This is this morning's report, right? It says it's been a long time since the virus news was as encouraging as it is right now. So for all this, Biden's doing bad. We have the overall situation is bad. The virus is spreading more rapidly in the US than any other large country. And more than 2,500 Americans are dying daily. But it is a market difference than last year. I mean, then last month. So let's assume that for a moment. Does that help Trump or hinder Trump? Trump could say, Well, Biden hasn't hasn't really terminated the pandemic. So he's at fault for not doing that. Or is it hinder Trump by saying, you know, look what a good job Biden is doing. How is this going to play in Trump's attempts to come again to power? I think it hinders him because there's a market decline in viruses. And part of the reason they're contributing to that is that they're saying that it's the vaccines. So he hasn't even been in there a month and we've already got a marked decline. So it's pretty hard to say Biden's doing a bad job. Can I just insert he's 61% favorable. They're all clapping about that. But I wanted to just say, and I know it's Winston's turn, but I also looked at Johnson and Johnson this morning thinking about their stock and what's going to happen. The CEO of J and J is saying that what the, the variation is coming and we have no, no way to stop it. So it's just really, really chilling again. And on the other hand, there's good news at it because that might be a unification for the US because if we can't combat this virus. We have, we are going to have a lot of community over what we're going to do if it's truly deadly for all of us. So that J and J CEO probably be, you'll probably hear from him later. Well, Winston, I want to give you plenty of material to make a comment about. God bless America. I, I back, you know, the art show is extensively Coronaville and and and all of that, but it's obviously just, just so hard parcel hit gum in the hair for, for the political, you know, challenges that we face here, but you know, Stephanie's, that's interesting news. I wonder what happened to their stock when he came out with that statement. Did it go up or down knowing that we've got a lot of problems in this nation. We're facing them with the same sober, reasonable adult in charge with great people in his cabinet that we can trust to do the right thing. We have to let them do their job. The, the, the huge majority of Americans know that he is the president that he is making the best decisions on their behalf. And we have to trust in that process and having just just looking at this PTSD of the trial of the last three days, and the chaos that we faced every single hour for the last four years. When we look at what everybody did today or you tomorrow or yesterday, he's running the country he's doing a competent job, no more than competent he's doing a stellar job, especially given what he's have to deal with so let's give it some time. Let's exercise personal and societal responsibility. Let's reach out to our friends and family and try and help them understand our thinking and the gentlest way that we can so that we can come together and we don't have to have mask wars or just a bit just distractionary stuff. We've got a lot of challenges but we're, we're more than up to the task of facing them together. Yes, Stephanie, what troubled me, what troubles me is that the, there's only one article of impeachment. And it's not about COVID. And to the extent that it's in the room and hasn't really been discussed. Well, I think Jim is right on. I think that had there been no insurrection, whether Trump could have been impeached simply on the basis of his lies around COVID. No, I agree with Tim, I think COVID's been a gift without COVID. He would have had so much charge of the economy and other at other of his, what he thinks are accomplishments, it would have been hard to beat him. And now we did beat him and my energies are about how do we get the Republican people to be public servants and not self interested and politically motivated. They've been mentioning this through the presentations in the Senate that they're there to be public servants and to represent the people. And so how can we encourage people to connect with their representatives and their senators to get them to do what's obviously the right thing. I can't believe the people of every day book. Tim, I want to shift gears a little bit for, you know, final comments here. And that is this, you know, watching this is, is so compelling. Something on the evidentiary side of what happened, you know, in the course of the insurrection is compelling on how it, how Trump led up to it. And this was part of a whole plan, a scheme, an organizational arrangement with his supporters. I'm sure there were telephone calls galore all around the country. And while COVID was burning up our people, while they were dying at this rapid rate, and while he wasn't doing a damn thing about it, not a damn thing about it. He's got the time to call all these people and organize the skinheads quite extraordinary. So this is obvious. It's obvious to somebody in Paris or London or Berlin is obvious to anyone in Asia is obvious. They feel about what's coming out here, what's coming about out about the plan, the scheme that Trump was involved in, what's coming out about the skinheads, and ultimately, within a few days, an acquittal. How do you think America's stock looks to them? I think that shining city on the hill is not so shining. And I think the rest of the world is disappointed in where we're at. I think they're optimistic that President Biden will lead us out of this darkness. I believe that they're willing to overlook this last four years as an anomaly. And God bless them for doing that because, you know, these are our trusted partners for for decades and decades, and they're still hanging tight with us. Whereas you would think maybe many other countries and other peoples would say, America is hopeless, but they're sticking by us, there are allies, and that's a great thing. And my only hope that Joe Biden get past this and I'm sorry but until we start reading the same facts on the same page, I'm not sure we get out of this and again I don't know if that's multi billion dollar lawsuits against irresponsible media companies, or is that the FCC cracking down finally getting back to the days of Walter Cronkite, Chit Huntley and Brinkley. I don't know where that starts but until we start agreeing on the same facts and reading the same facts. I don't see a way out of this. Any other comments, Cynthia what do you got. Okay, I have an article that Winston sent me that I want everybody to know about and I want everybody to go read. And it's in Vice News, and it's by Greg Walters, and it's titled here's how the GOP could convict Trump without even voting. Apparently, the way the Constitution is written, it says three quarters of the Senators present. So, if those chicken guys can't stand up and do the right thing, just stay home. And it's an easy outform to because they can say, well it's not a legitimate thing anyway. What about Mitch McConnell Winston, all he would have to do is say, follow me boys, we're going to convict. Wouldn't that change the world? Well, you'd hope so but it's like I said yesterday, six years from now it's going to be Mitch McConnell colon D colon running for office because his party won't exist anymore he needs to stand up and do the right thing as a man as an American. As a person of conscience and meet and he's told his people they can do what they want if they held a secret vote. Zero doubt that this would be absolute conviction. Why don't why can't know why they don't. That would ensure it. Let's come in is that Tim's points are good but you know what, all of our allies have been through this. They're watching us to see what how we can do it better. Can we do it better. They all have been through it have been wars over it and have had to recover from that had to have our help. Now it's us. So let's just see what the outcome is I believe it with this country is really made up. It can be. It can be guys. Thank you Tim. Thank you Cynthia. Thank you Winston. Thank you Stephanie. Another great discussion and another inflection point in American history and in our future here on the planet. I hope to see you all in person soon. Putting it another way. I hope I will see you again in person. I look forward to it.