 Welcome to Think Tech on Spectrum OC16, Hawaii's weekly newscast on things that matter to tech and Hawaii. I'm Jay Fidel. And I'm Keisha King. In our show this time, we'll review some of our earlier Trump Week episodes, where we connect the dots on what he is doing. We've reviewed these shows before, but given the news these days, it's important that we continue that coverage. We do a weekly talk show called Trump Week, where we look at actions and events generated by and surrounding Donald Trump and his administration at the White House, and try to make some sense of what they are doing. As we have seen, the decisions and actions of this president are often unpredictable and driven by impulsive and inappropriate motivations, rather than by the interests of the country. So we and each of us need to be mindful of what has gone on before, and keep track of the context and the individuals who are influencing and participating in those decisions and actions. Given the revelations concerning his decisions and actions in the Ukraine scandal, the impeachment investigation, the unraveling of the Middle East, the degradation of our immigration policy, and the economic disruptions of the trade war against China, we all need to follow what is going on in the White House. Given the court packing, the litigation of so many unprecedented issues, now in the pipeline to the Supreme Court, the expanding crisis in the balance of power between the branches of government, the regular attacks against our constitutional rights, including voter rights and freedom of the press, we all need to follow what is going on in the White House. Given the failure of our foreign policy, the decline of our critical diplomatic relationships, the emergence of despots in so many places, the violence and disorder around the world, and the obvious looming and terrifying prospects of global climate change, we all need to follow what is going on in the White House. In Trump week, we try to examine what the president is doing and what effect it is having and likely to have on this country and the world. So here's a few clips from our Trump week series. There are, of course, many more. If you want to see these shows in their entirety, check out thinktecawaii.com or our Trump week playlist on youtube.com slash thinktecawaii. The president is not above the law. There is no good reason whatsoever to exempt him from this process or from criminal investigation. Trump's saying, well, you know, I can't be indicted because I'm a sitting president. Well, that's never been a Supreme Court ruling. It was an opinion and the DOJ. So the judge took issue to that. And, you know, here we have the president in the White House saying, well, not only are we not subject to indictment, but also now we're not subject to impeachment. And, you know, the judge took issue with us. We'll pass this. Yeah. So what are you? I mean, basically you have self-declared yourself king of the United States. That's where he's been going. And if you connect the dots with our little show over here, Trump week, that's what you find. And the really troubling thing is that people seem to accept this. It has a ring about it. It has a familiarity about it. He wants to be king. He wants to be a dictator. He doesn't want to be troubled by the Constitution. I think we're in a constitutional crisis because he's going to keep on doing that, which takes me to one sidebar point. And I've been trying to figure it out. I've been talking to people trying to get their thoughts on why does the base support this craziness? Doesn't the base know this is a stress and strain and a breach of the United States Constitution of everything this country stands for? Why do they support him? Support him. Give him money. You know, he's got almost a billion dollars in the till. And it increased. Every time he gets to, you know, he does one of these really wild things, he gets more money. Why do they support him? You have a theory? I have theories only. The theory may be similar to Richard Nixon when he was being impeached. They were going through the process and he maintained a strong 38%. Well, it's not strong, but he maintained 38%. Why wasn't those numbers lower? Donald Trump has a cult of personality. And you know, I'm getting to the point where I'm going to start saying the cult of personality is similar to Jim Jones. I mean, if he says, drink the Kool-Aid, boys and girls, do as I say. I'm not sure that they wouldn't do it. Oh, I agree with you. This is money on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. You know, these are, you know, these are extreme things for me to have to say, but at this point, there's a certain percentage of this country, they know that he's, you know, he's trying to basically break the Constitution. He's trying to be above the rule of law, and they don't care. Now, your question is why? Well, I think they just like him. They like the cult of personality. I think that Donald Trump appeals to their inner, if you will, racist tendencies. He's trying to make America great again. Well, what does that mean, you know? Nostalgia. Nostalgia for no rights for women, no rights for, you know, gay, lesbian, no rights for, you know, minorities, you know, tight immigration. I don't mind these tight immigration issues, but this is not the best and the best that America can do. Remember the old adage, when you're in a hole, stop digging. So what is he doing to further dig in the hole? You say that no one's going to show up without the state, the state attorneys, the state department attorneys. That's a form of witness intimidation. He's going to start refusing these subpoenas. These are things that he's, you know, Adam Schiff now has warned him that these kind of, to ignore subpoenas and or documents will be, will constitute, as did, whether to Nixon, articles of impeachment from that office. For obstruction. For obstruction for the impeachment. For obstructing this investigation, and he's a critical principle witness to it. Yeah. If not a party to it. So, you know, what's interesting is that in the bottom of the, of Congress of the Capitol building, there is a jail, you know. And theoretically, they have the power to jail people who are in contempt. They haven't done it not in a long time. Right. But, you know, the question is raised now. How do they enforce congressional investigations? Because Trump has blown them off on many, many occasions. And you know, he has told people, don't testify. Well, we know that through the Robert Miller investigation, and certainly a number of counts of obstruction in that. But that's not going to be brought up in this. It's too convoluted, too complex. This is very simple to understand. Let's keep it simple. Let's keep it simple. And right now, they're just adding more to the charges, because if they do not show up for testimony, or they do withhold documents, it's a slam dunk. And you know who's causing it. Let's look at the other guy, the Attorney General of the United States. May I say that again, the Attorney General of the United States, one of the highest positions in the cabinet. He's about justice. He's about truth. He's about enforcing the laws. And here the guy is breaking the laws. He's on junkets. He's on junkets talking to run Trump's agenda about coercing these nation leaders to do Trump's bidding. Again. Again. I mean, you know, I feel that he should never have been confirmed that Congress bought Bill of Goods on him, as they did on Pompeo. And unfortunately, it's hard to get rid of him. You have to impeach him and trample back him up. And you know, that'll be a distraction, a digression. The real target here and should be is Trump himself. Do you remember during the hearings, Kamala Harris asked Barr, have you ever been instructed to initiate an investigation from Donald Trump? Yeah. And he hymned and hawed and he went around and around trying to define the term, you know, investigate. Oh, it was something else. That serves as a real reminder that that question and that answer was right then and there. He had been asked. What is he doing here? And how does he intend it should affect the national public opinion on whistleblowing and impeachment, impeachment yesterday, impeachment? Well, since this program first went on the air and certainly years before that, what has come out of our mouths time and time again is his ability to distract the silver, shiny object. This speech is nothing more than a distraction, trying to divert attention away from the seriousness of this impeachment vote or excuse me, the impeachment inquiry. And the bottom line is we know how good he is on distraction. And I've got 14 points right out of the gate on this speech to distract us from this serious seriousness of this impeachment inquiry. Were the points he made true? I kept thinking, wow, the newspapers are going to have a good time with this. You know, in truth versus lies, they're going to be able to find a lot of lies in there. Well, here's the one I like is that, you know, there's no president but me that has changed things around and make America number one. And the people will need to realize that if I'm not around or whoever the next president will be number two or number three, he said, I have brought trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars into our economy. China has lost trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars and lost millions and millions of jobs. This is hyperbole at its finest. It's not true. It's not true. That's what hyperbole is. It's a great lie. And there are people out there, I hate to say this, whose educations take them to believe what he says. They believe it. They accept it. And I heard one lie after another. I hope the Washington Post, he called them the Amazon Washington Post. I love that. Conflating everything about everybody. They're all bad. They're all in a conspiracy against me. Just another, you know, witch hunt against me. And it's a hoax, he said. How do you react to that? I mean, what do you see from all of this as his MO in dealing with the crisis he has on his plate right now? Well, right now I see him providing cover for the fact that Rudy Giuliani was in Ukraine and was poking around and he has no reason to be. Now, suddenly he says he was sent by the state. And the state does not support that. So they're trying to make it that he's there for a different reason. He's there to investigate the Russia hoax. And so it's like he's just trying to provide cover for things that are going to be coming down the pipe that he can see without a doubt. So many lies. This reminds me of the discussion that Jared had about adoptions. Adoptions in Russia. It's a lie. It's something, you know, you have to be a fool to accept it. And I don't, you know, there are people who will accept it. I'm sorry to say in this country, but the press, at least the press I read will not accept it. He's going to get called on it. Civil servants who have contributed a lot to our country, the defense of our country, to our national security. And Trump is after both of them. And just when you thought, you know that all of that was simmered down. Oh, no. Now he's initiating investigations through your friend, the Attorney General Barr, which is really awful. You know, take civil servant of that seniority who has contributed that much, investigate with a view to prosecuting them. Thank you, Mr. Barr. We can only hope it happens to you. Donald Trump found his Roy Cohen in William Barr. He really did. And he twists the law against people as a weapon. And maybe trying to send a message not only to them, but anybody who would oppose his policies or his cockamamie decisions gets punished and the law gets twisted this way. I doubt very much where the jury would find either of those guys guilty of anything. But look how much time and expense they're going to have to output as an outlay to defend. You can't get insurance for this. So, you know, they'll have to go to the bitter end before they are redeemed. This is really a sort of sad and ugly story. The law was intended to be used as a battering ram to punish people proactively and then send that as a message to the rest of would-be whistleblowers and or people who oppose him. This is dictatorship. Yeah. And at the same time, your friend, Mr. Trump, is telling the ICE guys that if they break, they listen to him and he knows what he's asking him to do is illegal, violation of the congressional, obvious congressional intent, that he will pardon them. He gives them a pass. He encourages and enables them to break the law. And, you know, the word comes out to me. And this is the same guy who twists the law against civil servants like McCabe and Comey. And, you know, what I get out of that is, you know, that he has violated the law in a major way. The law, the spirit, the constitution, the statute, the spirit of this country, the spirit of democracy like every day. And the word that I get out of it is dianu. And in your absence, Cynthia Sinclair and I use the word dianu a number of times. This is a word that means, in Hebrew, as a matter of fact, it means it would have been enough. Okay. And, you know, the thing about offering a pardon to people who he encourages to break the law, that would have been enough. You know, and so many hundreds of things and the lies and the deceptions and the inappropriate connection with, you know, with foreign leaders who are adversarial to us. I mean, we could have a show that would last six weeks, just identifying all the things. And every one of them is dianu. There was a lot of, he mostly just talked about healthcare. There was very little talk about Trump. I'd like to see more talk about Trump. I'd like to see more talk about the fact that he didn't really win the election. It was a, it was a fake win that was brought on by help from Russians and his own collusion with them. So I have a problem with everybody treating him like he's a legitimate president when he really isn't. Yeah. You know, and when Harris did this to Biden a few, you know, debates ago, she went down in my estimation. I thought it was tacky. It was low class to do that. And when Castro did it last night, Thursday night, last night, yeah. You know, he went down in my estimation too. It's tacky. Why do that? Plus he was wrong. Sorry. Plus he was wrong. Plus he was wrong. So I mean, it's a cheap, it's a cheap shot at best. And I agree with you totally. They ought to focus on Trump. There was a piece in the New York Times, I think this morning, of saying gee whiz. They spent an enormous, Leonhardt, they spent an enormous amount of time on healthcare and about exactly what the healthcare insurance policy going to look like. People don't, they don't really want to get into the weeds that way. We have bigger fish to fry. We have more, more salient, dangerous problems to deal with. I agree. And the Democrats are all wrong. But part of it is, of course, the journalist moderators. There was another piece about saying, why do you always use journalists? You think they walk on water? How about using history professors and political science professors? How about using, you know, people from the universities in that area instead of, instead of always living with the journalists and journalists are looking for raw meat. It's not to their credit that they do this. Anyway, that's my cut on the debates. It looks like by the numbers and the numbers can change. We know that. They may not be, you know, of any consequence later on. It looks like Biden is vying with what, Bernie? Warren, no. Warren and Bernie, the three of them. The three of them. Not clear what's going to happen. Things will change. I agree. And, you know, the important thing to me and to many, many other people is who's capable of winning against Trump? Because if the one person who ultimately stands up is going to suffer all kinds of slings and arrows, he's going to try to, you know, decimate them if he can. And they have to be able to deal with that. Every time I see the picture of him shaking hands with Putin, you know, at the... We're trying to get him back into the G7. Yeah, exactly. All of that stuff kind of shows that, you know, okay, so we're still going down the list because there's plenty more. And all you have to do is read the Mueller report to know that Russian interference happened and that he cooperated and that he tried to obstruct justice in the process so that nobody would find out. Now, they listed security clearances, secret communications with Putin. We still don't know what he said in Helsinki. He destroyed all the notes. There's no evidence of what was discussed. That is deeply troubling. Can we afford to have a president who does that? It's just deeply troubling. With a historical enemy. In fact, a de facto enemy right now. And he's having secret conversations. Right, exactly. Now, the Hatchack violations, I thought that was for Kellyanne Conway and I didn't realize that applied to him, so I'm not exactly sure about the details of that one. But then, okay, we've got the Saudi arms deal. Well, don't forget that most recently, when he revealed a photograph taken by an American satellite of the remnants of an explosion in Iran. And what's interesting about that is it tells the world, all the intelligence agencies of all the rogue nations in the world, it tells them our capacity, how strong, how ubiquitous our satellites are, how clearly we can read fine print from miles and miles above the surface of the Earth. So we know how to hide. He's telling them the specs of our military war machine. Right, so they can learn how to hide from it. If an ordinary commander in the Navy did this, he'd be in the brig. So it's really remarkable that Trump did that. And to me, that's a huge violation. And nobody has punished him. They called it to our collective attention, but nobody has punished him and nobody will punishment unless there's some kind of impeachment process. I agree. Well, we are in an impeachment inquiry. You know, Representative Nadler told us that he is officially in impeachment inquiry, and all these investigations come under that. And there's another thing, when you think about giving up our secrets, he did the same thing with those Russians. The important thing is not to limit our attention to specific news events or name calling, however shocking or theatrical they may be, but to consider the collective and cumulative effect these things have on our lives and on the lives of our children. We need to examine actions and nonactions that do or will affect our lives together, including those that derived the press, deny the truth, divide and evoke hatred and racism, abandon the disadvantaged, undermine the rights of women, promote murderous weapons, and ignore the rule of law, the constitution and moral and ethical norms. We must include these issues and threats to our democracy in the public conversation, not just to thrill or threaten people, but to enable voters and officials to develop sound and courageous opinions and thoughtful policies to make the right decisions. And of course, to protect, defend and save our republic. And now let's check out our ThinkTech schedule of events going forward. ThinkTech broadcast its talk shows live on the internet from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. most weekdays. Then we broadcast our earlier shows all night long and on the weekends. If you missed a show or if you want to replay or share any of our shows, they're all archived on demand on thinktecawaii.com and YouTube. And we post all our shows as podcasts on iTunes. Visit thinktecawaii.com for our weekly calendar and live stream and YouTube links. Or better yet, sign up on our email list and get our daily email advisories. If you want to participate in our shows, contact shows at thinktecawaii.com. If you want to pose a question or make a comment about a show, call 808-374-2014 and help us raise public awareness on ThinkTech. Go ahead, give us a thumbs up on YouTube or send us a tweet at thinktechhi. We'd like to know how you feel about the issues and events that affect our lives in these islands and in this country. We want to stay in touch with you and we'd like you to stay in touch with us. We'll be right back to wrap up this week's edition of ThinkTech. But first, we want to thank our underwriters. Thanks to our ThinkTech underwriters and grand tours. The Atherton Family Foundation. Carol Mun Lee and the Friends of ThinkTech. The Center for Microbial Oceanography Research and Education. Collateral Analytics. The Cook Foundation. Dwayne Kurisu. The Hawaii Community Foundation. The Hawaii Council of Associations of Apartment Owners. Hawaii Energy. The Hawaii Energy Policy Forum. Hawaiian Electric Company. Integrated Security Technologies. Galen Ho of BAE Systems. Kamehameha Schools. MW Group. The Shidler Family Foundation. The Sydney Stern Memorial Trust. Volo Foundation. Yuriko J. Sugimura. Thanks so much to you all. Okay, Keisha. That wraps up this week's edition of ThinkTech. Remember, you can watch ThinkTech on Spectrum OC16 several times every week. For additional times, check out oc16.tv. For lots more ThinkTech videos and for underwriting and sponsorship opportunities on ThinkTech, visit ThinkTechHawaii.com. Be a guest or a host, a producer or an intern, and help us reach and have an impact on Hawaii. Thanks so much for being part of our ThinkTech family and for supporting our open discussion of tech, energy diversification, and global awareness in Hawaii. And of course, the ongoing search for innovation and candor wherever we can find it. You can watch this show throughout the week and tune in next Sunday evening for our next important ThinkTech episode. I'm Jay Fidel. And I'm Keisha King, aloha everyone.