 Wow, Trump Week this week, we have a million things to talk about. Tim Appichella and me. Hi, Tim. Good morning, Jay. Nice to see you. Nice to see you as well. Very important we do this work. But first, a moment of comic relief, you know, out of Shakespeare, out of Hamlet. A moment of comic relief. Watch this, this is on the internet, and it celebrates Halloween. David, this is what people in general are starting to think. This is a perfect Halloween celebration. When is your birthday, Tim? I'd like to get you one. Please don't, because you'll be out of office by then. It'll be passe. Well, that would be nice. So let's talk about this week. A lot of things happen this week. We are, you know, chock-a-block with things this week. I guess the first one is the one we ought to, you know, see as the most important thing not to be distracted from. That is the impeachment. What's the status? Where are we going with this? First off, you expect me to speak on a serious note after that video? Well, you know, the impeachment process is moving along. Now, Donald Trump has, you know, trenched in saying, well, you haven't taken a formal vote in the House, so therefore we don't have to cooperate. And wasn't that an interesting read on what's not required? So he's trying to hijack the entire process, and he's trying to hijack the narrative, which he has actually starting to do. That's starting to happen. And that's, I told you, and we talked about this, is that that's the concern. If you give this guy too much time, you'll hijack the narrative and paint the picture that these are the Democrats that are just trying to basically have retaliation for the loss of 2016 election. You know, I saw the letter they wrote about Giuliani, why Giuliani was not going to show up or share any documents. And it was, it was prairie. It was something that a first year law student would write. And he just threw every objection in the book in there, and none of them made sense. They were all, you know, a crock. And that's what he said in defense of his contempt of Congress. My only view, by the way, just to a footnote to this, my only view is that Congress has the power to hold somebody in contempt. And one of the sanctions for that is to find that person, a money fine. And that to be a criminal fine, I think it could be a civil fine too. And if they find these guys like big bucks, that will sober them up somehow because that fine will last longer than their time in office. A lot of them are going to go sooner. And arguably, it's not something they can be pardoned for. You know, it seems to me that the Republicans get away with these kind of stern maneuvers, if you will. When the Democrats try it, it's they're, you know, they just don't pull it off or they don't want to pull it off. I think your comments are right on tune. If they refuse subpoenas for the documents or they refuse the testimonies in front of the committees. Yeah, start finding them. They'll waste your time. Right now, they're taking these ridiculous positions. They say that the whole thing is unconstitutional. That's what they say. I mean, it's like throwing it on the wall and seeing if it sticks. Well, let's talk about just for a second how many people are actually being, will either come forward or have already refused to come forward or have already tested. Yeah, please. You know, we're talking about Mike Pence now. You know, his involvement in this is starting to get in the airwaves. And there'll be a question whether or not those documents are going to be supplied by Mike Pence. It doesn't look like it's going to be. Oh, I'm sure it's not. That's the, you know, Trump has instructed them all not to participate. Yeah, Mark Esper, Defense Secretary. We have Russ, Russ Voight, who is the Office of Management and Budget. There's some documents that I'm sure he's sitting on that the committees would like to see. We have Rick Perry. We have, well, first up, before we talk about Rick Perry, Mick Mulvaney's name is starting to creep out now, as he back in May of 2019 started to orchestrate Rick Perry. He's a very important man, Mulvaney. Yeah, Kurt Volker. He's the chief of staff. Yeah, he's that, yeah. Kurt Volker and Gordon Sondland. The three that actually were put on detail for the Ukraine back channel communications. You know, what this tells you is that everyone around him was involved in this initiative. It was no small thing. You know, he had everybody on his team was directed at forcing the Ukraine to lay some dirt on Biden. Everyone. In 1974, the title of the movie was All the President's Men. Yeah. The reality of what's happening now is all the president's henchmen. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, they're all doing their part. They have a loyal duty to do whatever the president has asked them to do behind closed doors. And they enacted it. History will not judge them kindly. Okay, so we did have a couple of witnesses. So who were they? What did they say, as far as we know? Well, we have, let's see, what did we have? We had the former ambassador to Ukraine. Yavonovitch. Yeah, she came forward. And a lot of them are saying, we don't care what your advice is to us. We don't care about your attorneys either accompanist to these or telling us not to show up. We're going anyway. So there's a lot of courage. There's a profile and courage for the ambassador. They go down well in history. And I'm losing her name. She was an aide and she spent nine, 10 hours in front of. Hill. Hill, thank you. Yeah. Fiona Hill. Fiona Hill. And what a profile and courage she is. And she's telling it like it is. And at some point the floodgates can't be held back. Well, we don't know exactly what they said. It'll be interesting. And he's complaining he doesn't have a chance to cross examine them. He doesn't have the right to cross examine them. This is an investigation, not a trial. Again, remember. A trial comes later. He gets to make it up. Yeah, sure. And this is like the grand jury indictment. They can do that in private. Well, what I find interesting is that he's trying to use this as a way to, you know, derogate the whole process. But where's the stand-up to this? Where's the stand-up to say, hey, you know, you're just talking out of the side of your mouth. Because you can't do that. I'm not hearing that. So what he's saying is actually catching traction. Yeah. I'm looking among his face, anyway. I mean, the knowledgeable people know that he, you know, Congress can and will and should do this, that the House can do this. And, you know, they know, they should know that he's just doing fake the way he always does. And he's lying one day after another. But you're right. Some people buy it. Some people go along with it. A number of senators, Republican senators have gone along with it. And they've repeated this. And it just demonstrates how ignorant they are. Well, let's talk a little bit about what behind the scenes Giuliani's been up to. I mean, he's doing more. I never said that. Now, he's back into firmly as I'm the president's attorney acting in this capacity. And he himself has an attorney. I think he just let him go. Was that right? Yeah. I think he just said, I don't need him anymore. Was that attorney that wrote the letter that I'm talking about? Yeah. I don't need him because I'm not testifying. What great logic is that? I'm in legal peril for contempt of Congress, potentially. And I don't need an attorney because I'm not showing up. Now, there's a sound thinking board. A lawyer, by the way, is practicing out of Florida, Miami, I think. Sounds like somebody Trump might know. You mean, one of the holdovers from Mar-a-Lago? Yeah, right. You never know. So, you know, I mean, the old adage, when you're in a hole, stop digging. And they just continue to dig. They are. They're making it worse. And this is clear obstruction now. And I'm thinking that there's no question there's going to be an article there in the articles of impeachment that include obstruction. And we have examples of it every day. So, the only question we should just discuss on this notion, the other question, is timing. Everybody says, oh, well, maybe by Thanksgiving, maybe by Christmas, maybe by the end of the year. As far as I'm concerned, this has got to go happen right now. For Thanksgiving. And the question is put in the debate. Before Thanksgiving. Is there enough evidence right now to impeach them? And the answer is probably yes. Well, I think they want to dot their eyes, cross their T's, and actually lay out enough testimony. Very succinct to get, you know, two verbose on this. It's going to be a nightmare. People won't get their arms around it. But I think they want to put out very succinct statements from all these witnesses and let that be part of the record before the vote is taken. You can overdo this. You sure can. And leave it to the Democrats. They will. If you give them the opportunity, they will overdo this. They've got to get some guys to work all night and pull together, you know, a memo about it and make articles of impeachment and then put them on the floor. Yeah. I've got to do that soon. I don't know what the big holdup is because the holdup works in his favor, obviously. And there are a lot of people in the country that feel we should resolve that, I don't agree with them, that we should resolve this in the election, not in an impeachment inquiry. And so the closer you get to the election, the more involved in those people, the more support those people will have, you know, for the argument that we should wait till the... But in fact, this is a judicial matter. It's a matter for the House under the Constitution. They have to act. They should act right now. Well, we've argued this point on Trump week four months now, you know. How far do you get into the election year? And you're still talking about this stuff. And to what degree do they say, see, it's a witch hunt. They're just trying to, you know, have me lose on the ratings and lose my voter base. And they'll play right into that narrative. They'll play right into it. One of the big failures of the Mueller investigation was it took too long and it came out to be a nothing burger. And he was diffident. He just never really addressed it. I don't think it was a nothing burger. I think there was 10 salient points on obstruction. Yeah. They just couldn't get their arms around it. Right. It was too convoluted, too complex, too long. Too much time went by. Yeah. And Mueller didn't wrap it up in a nice clean bow, you know, in a package. He didn't do it. Right. So that doesn't count. I mean, it counts maybe, you know, in terms of your perception. It'll be a side note now. It'll be an asterisk somewhere on a page on these articles. What counts is what's coming out right now and all these witnesses are supporting it. And I suppose maybe there's one more round of witnesses after the witnesses this week. But then they got to stop. They got enough. Yeah. I'm getting back to Giuliani. The two guys that can't shoot straight is how they're being described in the media. Igor Sormin and Lev Parnas. There's a third one. He was arrested in Washington yesterday. Oh, I didn't catch that. Another guy. I think he's Ukrainian also. And he was he was consorting and conspiring with those two that were arrested last week. They have Giuliani palling around with a guy named Igor. Cool. Yeah. Well, Giuliani into it up to his eyeballs. Remember, he got $500,000. Is it $500,000 from these two guys arrested at the airport? His company, so to speak. And that had to be money that went back to Trump. That was payoff of some kind. Yeah. Remember the one way to get that. He was the bag man for a payoff back to Trump. You know, having to do with Trump's efforts, Trump's release of the military, you know, military money to Ukraine. It was all kinds of stuff going on. But this gives that to what we're talking about. If you follow down too many rabbit holes, the maze, if you will, gets too complex and people lose interest. They can't follow the maze. So, I mean, it was almost like back in the 70s, you know, with Nixon and, you know, the plumbers, remember the plumbers that broke in and you had all these, the finance guys, Robozo, and you had them all out there, you know. And it was hard to follow it. Yeah, so they got to move. They got to move. They can't let Trump command the agenda. Now, but Trump tried to command the agenda over this past weekend with his move on Syria and Turkey and the Kurds, which was, I suppose he tried to do that to get into the headlines. He tried to do that to change the subject. That's what he does. That's his MO. You and I have talked about that many times. But this was a horrendous mistake. You know, it was just one tweet and he ruined the Middle East. And it's irreconcilable now. It's unfixable. Yeah, it's done. It's done. We're out. Well, we're almost out. You know, he's sending Pence over there. I think Pompeo is going to. They're all going to trying to impose on Erdogan to have him stop, these incursions into Syria and the killing of the Kurds. They're going to try to get him to stop. And he's saying, nope. It's a full mission. I reject that. Yeah, it's a full mission. I mean, it's a waste of time. Yeah. It's a waste of time. They're going over there as a waste of time. It's visible. And if he really cared, he'd go over there himself. I have a feeling, though, he's been trying to call Erdogan. Erdogan's not taking his calls. I have a funny feeling you're right. Yeah. So he's sending these guys in order to direct some. But this is not going to come away. I mean, of all the distractions that you and I were talking about and trying to predict with Venezuela or, you know, all these different avenues for distraction, who would imagine, as Lindsey Graham has just recently stated, this will be his worst mistake of his presidency? It is a question because it destabilizes the whole region. So, you know, A, it kills the Kurds, thousands of them right now as we speak. That's incredible because they're our allies and they were into this with our blessing, with our help, with our promise. And there was footage yesterday on the tube as the Americans were leaving. They were hugging the Kurds. And it's so sad, leaving them to be killed. Thank you, Mr. Trump. That's so the Kurds are a sad story. And you had a quote about the Kurds. Well, I did because... Trump is trying to defend his action against the Kurds. Well, first off, let's go back a little bit of the time when this first came out. First, he said, I'm not abandoning the Kurds. That was one of his initial statements when this, you know, they started to take flak. I'm not abandoning the Kurds. Well, okay, he's way past that statement. Then he said, well, you know what? I was reading an article and, you know, the Kurds really never did help us in World War II or Normandy on the beach landing. Okay, so that was kind of like his next statement about the Kurds. So, you know, one of today, the Kurds are... What a stupid remark. All of them are. Okay, all right. Okay, let's keep going. The Kurds are no angels. And here's the one that really kind of got me on this one. The Kurds are no angels. Take a look at the PPK. Now, the PPK is kind of their... You know, they've been, you know, fighting the Turks. They won't, you know, they're kind of more of the extremists of the Kurds. Yeah, but that's what everyone wants to stop and kill. They want civilians. Here, in one sentence, really, Donald Trump has taken 20 to 25 million Kurds and he's lumped them all in one sentence as the PPK. How convenient. So therefore, if they get slaughtered, well, they're terrorists. They're extremists. Yeah, and not angels. See how Trump does that with the ease and grace of a magician? Yeah, and then he made some statement. I think it was about the Syrians, it was about one of the groups that's involved. He said, they like war. They're always involved. They've been fighting for years and years. We don't like war. They like war. They like to be killed. Well, he compared it to, they've been fighting for many years, like the Palestinians and the Israelis. So that was a quote this morning and then they've been fighting for a thousand years. So therefore, it's okay for us to just give up on our... We back out of the situation. We let it all fold in on itself and we let them continue to fight. Well, a genocide occurred because they've been doing it for a thousand years anyway. That's basically what he said this morning as far as I'm concerned. It's not like that though because the Syrians, what he did gives the Syrians an open road to the border actually, to Turkey. What he did builds a relationship between the Syrians, builds the existing relationship between Syria and Russia who would love to make us fools, Putin. It builds a relationship between Turkey and Russia. Russia wins. It becomes the honest hope that we should have been. He does weak in NATO. Okay. And of course Iran comes out ahead because Iran is involved. So he's destabilizing all these people and he is paying homage to Russia. It's funny that every time you look he's doing something that favors Russia. The guy has a thing about Russia and you wonder what Russia has on him because every move he makes it benefits Russia. That question has been asked for the last three years. What does Russia have on Donald Trump? Again it pops up. In any event he's losing a lot of support in Congress in the Republican side of Congress and I think in the country too because you can't justify what he did. There are reports that the Republicans in the Senate are starting to back down on that the criticism. They're starting to soften their tone. That's because he's working day and night to talk to them and to make a telephone call. It has an effect on them. The power of his personality and who knows the cult of his personality seems to be taking hold again. It has and obviously they're starting to back down from this criticism. Before we end on this topic I just want to throw out a couple of quotes that again it just shows how out of touch he is with humanity and how obtuse he is as he looks at the world and how he just by himself will pull out of these important regions of the world. One single phone call over the weekend he was asked about this thing about putting a knife in the Kurds back and the United States basically has done that. He said well you know what no American soldiers have been killed you know why that happened? He said that's why it goes. That's just the way it goes and that's the way it is we're the boss. So when there's pointed criticism and not only does criticism about how this looks bad how this compromises our allegiances with Europeans around the world and these are pointed criticisms and his only response is that's just the way it is we're the boss. Now that's an argument from a three year old. A five year old. And he seems to get away with this. People buy it, I swear to God it's amazing to find they buy it and his base is still apparently rock solid after this huge gaffe. So at the same time lest we not forget that he's still wrecking the environment he's wrecking our immigration policy he's abandoned you know Hong Kong democracy in Hong Kong Congress, the House passed a bill making it's not going to pass to the Senate but making it illegal to you know oppose the Hong Kong protests or something like that and that's not going to get through but he hasn't done anything about it he hasn't done anything about Venezuela he hasn't done anything about North Korea he hasn't made a deal you know I got a piece coming on called the art of the non-deal Tim because in fact he hasn't made a deal about anything there's no deal he's only on rabble deals whatever deal you can think we had before he's unraveled it so the art of the non-deal is in full play and his attack on the environment denial of climate change is all incredible how negative it is and his racial bigotry has poisoned the country so we can't forget that because that still goes on you forgot one item the wall in fact just recently opposed to the House and the Senate bipartisan effort passed passed a bill to say there is no emergency and he vetoed that and now there won't be enough votes to overwrite his veto but they did take another pass at it saying there is no national emergency at the southern border there's a national emergency in the Middle East he can create one like that there it is anyway so let's talk about let's talk about the debate last night I guess you'd call it the October debate there'll be another one in November and every month thereafter there'll be a lot of people on the stage so the Times had an interesting report ranking how well they did last night and Elizabeth Warren seemed to come out first and some others were successful I remember Amy Klobuchar which she was successful also Buttigieg was successful I don't know how Sanders is doing he's up there and Biden is up there but Biden doesn't sound like a president this is not going to happen he's losing his luster he's losing his luster what it tells us I think is that things are changing and they are going to change and we really don't know that Elizabeth Warren is going to be the candidate I think the people at the far ends Paul sees an example and a couple of others I think she did put a nail in her coffin last night she basically kept saying this was all about regime change you know going into Syria and backing up the Kurds was about regime change and it wasn't it was about basically fighting ISIS she's got a very odd view of things she does and I think she got hit hard enough by Buttigieg that basically I think that took her out of the running because clearly her repeated statements I think it was like nine times during the night she kept harping on regime change and clearly she doesn't either know or she wants to ignore the fact that this was not about that it was about taking on ISIS and having a partnership with the Kurds to do that I think Harris is out I had high hopes for Harris but I think she's out press was not kind to her either she did not rate her very high so the question is whether Elizabeth Warren was in this position and I'm not sure that she is Elizabeth Warren by the way wrote a tweet over the weekend supporting the protestors on Monacaia I thought was really uninformed what does she know about it well it's the underdog issue politicians love to glom onto an underdog issue that's getting some airtime in the papers in the newscast this is a popular thing to talk to another candidate I don't believe any of these guys can beat Trump and right now assuming he doesn't get impeached that's a good assumption given the senate so what came out a few days ago was that Bloomberg former mayor he's floating a balloon he's floating a balloon and if Biden drops out and Biden may Biden seems weak and undetermined somehow Bloomberg said he would come in and he would be a very interesting candidate in that field and you could say about him more than the others really honestly at least what we know of him that he could beat Trump he would be the proverbial dark horse candidate but at some point it's too late so when does he make that decision hopefully if he does it's before Thanksgiving because I don't know when the deadline is it probably is until next year into file papers and of course he has a certain amount of name recognition in the northeast I'm not sure he has national name recognition right okay so what do you think is going to happen this week Tim complex there's a lot of oysters in the stew here not enough potatoes you know I really I worry about the country I worry that these debates are not they're not really presenting a candidate that you want to vote for I worry about Trump getting away with it I worry about the loss of synergy yeah it's just again how much time go the synergy is lost the air out of the balloon is gone and that concerns me because this needs to be followed up rather quickly the stakes are so high do you think Nancy is going to go past Thanksgiving on this I do you do I think she's going to delay it until after Thanksgiving yes I think she's as much as said that this is a big problem and so if he gets the chance to do the agenda and come up with another Syria he'll try to make something good out of something bad he'll attack somebody to get involved in a name calling contest he'll find some dirt on any one of those candidates or on Nancy and before you know it he'll have the agenda again you mean the bright and shiny object yeah and the media will follow that and she was but you and I will see it clearly right we strive to we persevere to endure thank you Jim we'll be back next week with more