Episode 8- Halftime at the Impeachment Hearings

Rich goes off book this week to analyze the whole idea of last week's impeachment hearings.  Not a blow-by-blow, but rather how we got here.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

[inaudible].

Speaker 2: 0:05

Welcome to the podcast, the common bridge with Richard helpy. Rich is a successful entrepreneur in the technology, health and finance space. He and his wife, Leslie, are also philanthropists with interest in civic and artistic endeavors, but with a primary focus on medically and educationally underserved children. My name is Brian Kruger, and from time to time I'll be the moderator and host of this podcast. So welcome to, uh, the common bridge. Uh, rich, it's good to have you here. Again, we have an interesting week to talk about and that what happened last week and generally we've been trying to deal with policy, but I really want to get down at least an audio for our, our listening audience. What's your take on what's been going on with the impeachment hearings from a, from a common bridge standpoint? I, I know this can get polarizing really quick because we only ever had one side. Really, that's, uh, that's done the questioning or brought the witnesses. So let's, let's start with that on this, uh, on this late November day,

Speaker 3: 1:04

well, the impeachment inquiry is really an extension of the polarization that we seen. Um, there remains important legislative things that aren't being addressed. And now you and I have talked on these podcasts about healthcare. We've talked about immigration, we've talked about guns, we've talked about, uh, the economy, tax policy, et cetera. Um, the similar literally in our, uh, our economy right now, our technology is outracing our legal system and our regulatory framework. And this is a time when good governing is really necessary. And guess what, we're not getting to that. Um, there are other policies, environmental policies that aren't being addressed, trade policies that aren't being addressed, um, because of this partisan divide. Um, and so when I step back and think about it, it's, it's this considered the environment that this impeachment inquiry is being conducted. Um, and we've got to wind the clock back to 2016 in that fateful November day. We got a president at that time that really wasn't prepared for the job, clearly, uh, seemed disinterested in learning the job and demonstrated massive personal issues. I mean, that's what we got. Yeah. All right. And,

Speaker 2: 2:38

well, you said it, you said it in an earlier podcast that we were bound to get this guy, not necessarily Trump. We're bound to get this at some point just because of the way.

Speaker 3: 2:45

Well, I certainly, well, given the choices of the two major parties, we were due for a crappy president. Yeah. And now we have one. We were getting one one way or the other. Right. Um, but, but again, a president that wasn't, wasn't interested in learning the job and I can't even begin to describe some of the personal issues there. Now, after losing in 2016 the Democrats could have accepted defeat, made a vow to listen to the voters and the swing States that turn the election and taken a dignified high road. If they had, if the Democrats had pivoted to policy positions, it would have allowed the public to see the deficiencies of this president. All right. But what did they do instead? Almost from day one started talking, impeachment started talking resistance. I think it was day one. I if not day one, it was day two. It's been going at it since then. Exactly. So taking the high road with good legislation, uh, the fumbles, the stupid statements, the personal issues. Look what chief executive of the United States starts a tweet war with an actress while sitting on the throne at three o'clock in the morning. I mean, just one. Right? Exactly. So had the Democrats behaved like adults, what would happen right now is that the Republicans today would be frantically searching for an alternative candidate or candidates in this primary season. But that didn't happen. The Democrats went hyper partisan adolescent rage, a resistant movement, and all it did was masked the shortcomings of this president. It didn't give voters a place to go. And guess what the polls reflect that they're about where they were after the election,

Speaker 2: 4:55

which is astonishing. Do you think that the senior, uh, uh, democratic, um, personnel with this reacted to the fires and the riots? Remember the first day, the day after? I mean, their cities were starting to burn down and, uh, it showed a movement of, of young, uh, liberals who were just mad. They don't really quite get things done, but they were mad. And do you think that that's the reaction to this? Instead of, like you said, acting like an adult going, look, we can get, we can handle this in four years. We can get rid of this guy. But instead they acquiesced to that burning down of cities and stuff. And now here we are at this impeachment stuff.

Speaker 3: 5:30

I don't know if they encouraged it or lit it, but they certainly could have tamped it down. Yeah. All right. And so now this impeachment, it's just the latest chapter in the partisan divide, uh, in, unless something changes dramatically. It's one more in the line. It's the pussy hat marches. It's the story that the Russians changed the outcome of the election on a microscopic investment in Facebook ads. And Barack Obama said, you know, none of this interference, which I think everybody agrees was attempted and did occur, didn't change the outcome of the election. It's another other lines that Robert Mueller is going to root out the smoking grunt guns of collusion. He had time, he had unprecedented access, he had money. And then if you witnesses testimony, it was worse than the worst possible outcome that one could get. I think maybe the left was a little bit crestfallen in that and I think the Wright was trying to hold its breath, but then the right is lucky at this point to have it be this even, because like you said, if the Democrats would've paid attention, acted like adults, this would almost be a slam dunk. Oh, it would be. And then think about this, how about the spectacle? Inventing an attack on a sitting federal judge who had one approval by the same body, the U S Senate 97 to three based on a wild theory of an unsubstantiated claim when he was a teenager. Yeah. Isle and also done outside of the process. Yeah. Like who backs that? Uh, and, and then, you know, remember Michael Cohen had the goods and stormy Daniels revelations would usher Michael Avenue into the white house. Now Michael[inaudible] is going to a big house, but it's not 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, right? He's got little ones out of big ones. So that's the climate that we're in and it's all hyper-partisan and none of it is doing anything in terms of dealing with the very real and very solvable issues in the country. All right, so the Democrats now are doubling down. Um, you know, the talking point today is, I'm, I'm listening to the new services, uh, arts say, Oh, more new evidence. And I'm saying, okay, what is it? They never say, right? It's everything right now is secondhand innuendo, you know, presumption and so forth. Um, in fact, the whole exercise reminds me of lawn chair Larry and the FAA. Do you know lawn chair Larry? Absolutely. Okay. For those people that don't know, um, give us a recap. I believe it was in the seventies that a fellow in Southern California, uh, launched himself into the air using weather balloons tied to a lawn chair. It looked comfy. I got to tell you, if you saw pictures of it, you know, it's, you know, duct tape works for everything, um, and an appellate gun to let himself down. Um, I believe he got way into a controlled airspace. He was spotted by pilots going into lax. Yeah. They frown on that over there. They did. They, they eventually, um, he landed in a, uh, backyard of a police officer's home in San Pedro, California. Um, and I remember reading the paper the next day, even though I was quite young. Um, and the spokesman for the FAA said, we are definitely charging this guy. We don't know what we're going to charge him up with, but we're finding a thing to charge him with. Um, and that's kinda what this whole exercise reminded me of. It's even if you look at the two weeks of the hearings, the accusations shifted and shifted and shifted. So at the end of it, I wasn't even sure what, um, uh, what the president was being accused of doing. And then you hear this other thing that's being floated, uh, cloaking themselves in the righteousness of Watergate. Now I was, we're going to give away our age here, but we're both, we both remember this pretty well. Watergate, Watergate started with a crime, a crime. Everybody could understand. It was a break in, it was a break in at the headquarters for the democratic national committee at the Watergate hotel discovered by a security guard. But at first there was Republican pushback. But what was the big difference in that compared to now some of the Republic, all the Republicans. You're jumping ahead. Okay. So if you think about that, so there was this break in, no question. All there's a crime's been committed. Everybody can understand a break in is a bad thing. All right, who did it? Oh my goodness. These guys are connected to the white house. How connected to the white house are they? They go right up to Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman who are direct reports to the president. Then there's recordings, what the president said, pretty clear. So now we're at a point where, um, in the words of Sam Rayburn, what, or excuse me, I mean it was a Howard Baker, excuse me. What did the president know and when did he know it? Because we know a crime was committed. It leads to the president. There's a gap in tape and you know, it's, it looks like he was either involved in directing it or in stonewalling. The investigation clearly have high crimes and misdemeanors. You clearly have that. And, and the country came together, um, and the, the Republicans went to the president said, you don't have the votes to survive impeachment. And, uh, president Nixon resigned. Now here's the problem with that. Right now the Democrats are forgetting that Joe Biden's actions are very understandable and well-documented. Joe Biden is boasting. You can see it on YouTube. Hey, I told the Ukrainians, fire this guy that is investigating my son, or you're not getting a billion dollars of aid and it's, you got six hours to do it. People can understand that. Sure public can't see the crime, that, or crimes that the president today is being accused of. And so now they've got themselves painted into a corner. They being the Democrats. So think about their options. Now they can vote to impeach, they can delay, they can vote and not impeach. So they vote to impeach. And guess what? The GOP goes on, on offense. They call Adam Schiff. They call the whistleblower. Guess what else they do? They taught right before the votes are cast for the Iowa caucuses and the early, you know, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, six us senators that are running for president on the Democrat side are back in Washington at these hearings. Yeah, I mean the circus atmosphere and the fight for soundbites, they're going to make the cabinet hearings look like child's play. It's an, and I think this is what Pelosi didn't want to have happen in the first place. This is what she feared. When I went at first she was saying, no, we're not going to go down that route. We're not going to go down the impeachment route and here and again, whether it's sincere or not, she says, well, we haven't decided yet how we're going to go. Well, the other options would, that gives the speaker Pelosi, they can delay same result. Republicans go on offense and basically say, Hey, look, put up or shut up. If you either you got a case file articles of impeachment vote on them, bring them here because we want to conduct a trial. Third option, they can vote and not impeach. And I have to tell you, Brian, I don't even want to watch for all the presidential gloating that we would get. No, seriously, can you imagine a vote in the house of representatives that fails to get to the 218 votes needed to send this to the Senate? Okay. And you're Donald Trump and you have a Twitter account. A microphone. A bathroom. Yeah. So let me, let me just sum it up like this. Look, the country waited for Donald Trump to act presidential. I mean, he was just ham-handed during the primaries. And sure, he got the nomination. Everybody says he'll pivot, become presidential. Didn't happen. General election. Same guy. You know what? Sideshow Hillary is going to win. This was going to go away. He wins the election like, Oh, now he's going to shift to become presidential day one. Hey, my crowd's bigger than yours. And so, and so we've been waiting for him to presidential. All right. And uh, hasn't happened. Now the country is also waiting for the Democrats to give a reason to pivot to them. And instead we childish behavior. We get threats and and attacks instead of here's the issues facing the American people. So in 2016 I said this, that Donald Trump's nomination, the only good thing is that it would blow out the establishment of the Republican party. And you look at where we're at today. The GOP right now is like a deer in the headlights. There'd be wilderness, but they can't move. Okay? They're going to get run over by the car or the car is going to veer around them, but they got no move on their own. There's, they're stalled. Now I also said if Donald Trump wins the general election, the only good outcome out of that would be it would blow up the establishment of the Democrat party. That's right. Okay. And now the Democrats have this horrible problem. They got to figure out who they're throwing under the bus. That's right. They have to, it's somebody going under there. I know some people argue Jerry Nadler's all were are already there, but you know, at what point do you give up on Joe Biden and say there's too much smoke around him around Ukraine? We're really sorry we brought this thing up in the first place. But it's just way too easy for people to understand. And look, Brian, in the meantime, the country's stalled and technology and technology companies are outrunning our ability to govern them. And that is a real threat to what makes this a great country. So we need to get off the partisan divide. I don't care if the Democrats defeat the Republicans or the Republicans defeat the Democrats. Neither one of them are doing the job for the United States of America and our citizens. It is our government. We need to tell them to behave better, act like adults, legislate and defeating the other one. The other is not a win for the American people. My humble opinion.

Speaker 2: 17:17

Yeah. Rich, thanks again and thanks for covering this. And um, for those of you out there that want to, uh, learn more about the common bridge, go to the uh, rich LPs website, um, and it's reach lp.com and continue to listen to these. This is a great, Hey, listen, I helped you reach your help you.com Richard, help me. I'm sorry. Um, but Hey, I hope you have a good Thanksgiving, a holiday, and we'll pick this up next week. Mighty fine on a blessed Thanksgiving to you and to everyone. Great, thanks. You have been listening to Richard healthy's common bridge podcast recording and post-production provided by stunt three multimedia. All rights are reserved by Richard helpy. For more information, visit Richard helpy.com.