All Doctor Who wrote members will stay in their homes. The males, the females, the other ones. If you do not comply, you will be exterminated. You will obey. Did nothing. Homo section at the Homo sapiens. If you found an escapee, so look at Professor. It's quite fascinating. Come on. The citadel of the time lots of the planet Gallifrey. Of course the planet I was originally from or my character. As a Doctor, you know him. You've heard of him, I assume.  You're telling me? I'm enough to shave two, brothers. Yeah, that makes sense.  And now, this. This is terrible for my image. Nice to see you've got your head in the right place.  Oh no, all we did was sign the contract to be in Doctor Who, and then, just because we didn't read the fine print, we locked up in Doctor Who Road for all eternity. Twice over, if you count that. I mean, I meant the constant surveillance, but now you mention it. The whole premise is sort of bizarre, isn't it? A phrase of great power, wisdom, and consolation to the soul. David? At times. You don't say.  Oh, I knew you would be. I'm not Russell T. Davis, not Stephen Moffat, not even John Sim as a skeleton man. How are you speaking to us? Sonic screwdriver. With a bit of a boost. You see, I've got something that the middling Moffat wouldn't want me to have. Sex appeal. Oh yes! Well, no, no, it's this. What's that? Uh, hello? Sorry, David. It's me, Bernard Cribbins. Honest Lord. Cribbins! You okay? I'll save it for the retirement. Professional, sorry. Right, listen closely. How did you lock onto me? There ain't much differentiating me from everyone else in this world. Oh, come on. There's only one way to lock onto you.  Where have you been since the last time, Sawyer? I was locked up in the old road. I'm sorry, but he's in ruin. Yeah, Sawyer too. Only briefly. You know what? That's the past. He's been haunting me all this time. You know, I think... I think it's time I let the past go. You sure you can manage? China! Still alive, I see. Yes! Of course! The crystal's in the right universe now, so we can recharge! Oh yes! I've never been so happy to see your face. Where are you? Oliver seems to be on her own flaws that Moffat has fortified. Right, okay, good. That'll make freeing you all much easier. So let's focus on getting me out, break down this barrier here. I'll go defeat Moffat, then I'll free you all at the end. How's that sound? Terrible! We need to work together here! David's right! And I don't often say that. Oi, back me up here. You know as well as I do how bad Moffat is. Do you know who you sound like? With any hope, Christopher Eccleston. Well, yeah, but that's not what I mean. You sound like... We don't have time for you to wax philosophical about Gallifrey's shine. Listen! It gets in your head. It insists that you have to push everyone else away. Does that make sense?  Right, I'll work on a way of breaking down your barrier. Shouldn't be too hard as you should be one layer. Count ten inch. Stop it! Now, you should have two sonic screwdrivers on you. Sorry, Jodie! She says it's fine. Actually, I've spoken to all of our Dr. Friends and... She'll look at them on a call? Um, best not. Let's have our grand reunion at the end. Yeah, celebrate. Plus, we'll never get much done with that much ego in one call. Hiya! Just saying. Okay, sick time and... Gribbins has something he wants to say. Hi, Chris! Hi, Rose! So, you replaced me, did ya? I used to be.  If it wasn't for you, I'd be sipping two of my own. But no, someone had to replace you and tell himself, didn't they? Oh, couldn't have been done up. Couldn't have been marked for no. It has to be a wheel-free bar.  Look, in my defence, it really should have been your granddaughter. I don't actually care. But secondly, Chris, there's something in your back and he will not want to... No, no, can't hear ya! No, no, can't hear ya! It's just a prank. Sorry about that. Talk soon. Point sharp. All right. Gone. That bad, was it? Yes, yes, don't panic. The bad man. I almost forgot you were in this fight.  Even though... It's not funny, is it? It despises you and every strand of DNA that makes you up. Oh, ha ha ha! Got ya. Sorry, right. Mr. Ross. Why have you sided with Moffa? What's he offered ya? A great variety of things. Revenge against Paul McGann, who has bested me before. Presents of the world. My reality bomb on a lesser universe. As well as his great, mysterious powers held within his pen. Gorsies, why am I not surprised?  You know of this device. Know of it? Bitch, I wheeled in it. This very road that we dwell in now was created by... Well, I think so, anyway. Rebooted, at least. You held such power, you simply let me. Not quite, but continue. As racist fascist dictators go, you're my second favourite, just below Queen Elizabeth II. Too soon, then. Why don't you come and join us? Face to face so we can talk some more about this pen. Maybe I can even give you a few tips on when you get to use it or help you get it early. And what do you get in return? Is that what I am? What are you testing? What are you using me for? Isn't this what you want, anyway?  Silence will fall, that's what you want, that's what you say, this will do it. What's stopping you? Only when the time is right to be proud of you. I should check in on your biggest cash cow tenant. It's been a hot minute.  Plus it is imperative that I find out how Rose escaped. Can't be having that. Oh, sick! Take it for me.  Got some sort of camera outage.  Send one of mine. I have no idea what you're doing. I'll be honest, explaining it's not going to help me. No, no, don't you dare apologise. None of this is your fault. Besides, it's kind of cool being this close to the adventure again. It's been so long since I've been a part of it all. Sounds peaceful. Oh, yeah, yeah. At the beginning, sure. But after a while, old men can get bored too, Dave. Nice to see you. You doing with your sonic device? The last person who asked that really didn't like the answer. Why is your security camera offline? Oh, you got me. I was turning it off so I could have a cheeky wank. Unacceptable! It shall be repaired! From my superior! Fancy a game of Scrabble or something? Daleks do not play Scrabble. Er, what's your game of choice then? Monopoly? Jenga? Twista?  So, let me reiterate my terms. You helped me by turning off that camera there and I'll help you get the writer's pen for exclusive use in your dimension. Do we have a deal? Are you sure about this? I mean, you're basically making a deal with Super Mega Hitman. No, I'm making a deal with a fake alien from the mid-70s. You either become one yourself or suffer unceasing pain at my... Do you know what I like most about you? You have my word. I will be watching very closely. Now, how do you suggest escaping the holding cell? I do not have control of these. David, go! Oh, oh dear.  Daleks do not have noses. I'm still work. Quick march. Do you like my gun? So much so, I'm keeping it. So, if I... OK. If I see a Dalek, what am I supposed to do? Well, seduce it. Works on tenon. Now go! At least not until I get back. I shall instruct my children to refrain from shooting her. I only ask that you do not release Ace and the one you call Sylvester McCoy until we make a full retreat. They are considered to be the most prolific Dalek murderers in our history. It's a problem. Right, Davros, I need to alter our deal. The leader of the Daleks has got to be a new low for you. What's the idea you could have used with John Barrett? Worst nicknames? Where's Dave? Owl. You say foolish. Where's your loyalty? Interpure Daleks specimens. Our creator has vision but is nothing but an impure failure. Congrats, Davros. He's been out resisted by his own kid. He'll be very proud. Now where is he? Is this life? What?  Goodbye. Oh, you will love this one. It's called Animal Crossing. All animals will be exterminated. Oh, I like this one. It's one of my favourites. How about my Minecraft? We shall mine for resources to help the Dalek cause and craft them into weapons of mass human destruction. Explain once we get you guys out of here. You can't read. There's a time and a place, Chris. Fair point. Where is it? Desk. Let's save the day. What are you waiting for? You can wipe out the Daleks, defeat Morphat, free everyone from their selves in one fell swoop. What are you waiting for? You have the power of use it. You might have laid traps for me or some sort of failsafe. I can't risk releasing anyone yet. Not even Rose. Take your leg! Shall I die?  He wouldn't do that, though. He promised, you see. Correction. You shall remain here. What did you do that for? You're on our side. Orders from our creator and the human Christopher Eccleston. Idiot!   Well, come on then. What's stopping you from just turning Morphat inside out? Come on, we can do this now. Think of all the pain that he has put you through. I've seen all of it. It's all in those Doctor Who Road films. Him closing down your prop shop. He manipulated you for years. Allowed Batman villains and Cybermen to invade your whole road. And worst of all, raised multiple armies in this road as well to take you and all of your friends out. So come on, tell him! I know!  We have not seen each other in the flesh for quite some time. How healthy you're looking is something the matter. What are you doing here? Just surveying this prison setup you have. Excellent defences. Thoughts on the camera setup? Could use some improvements. Against Dalek laser fire? Among other such attacks. Let's stop messing around. You've been sold out, Dave. So, why? Are you talking to Christopher Eccleston? Sold out by... Don't change the subject!  And there he is. You don't seem too surprised. As soon as I saw you had gone from here, I knew I couldn't get back to my office in time. That's okay.  Then again, you always sort of were, weren't you? Or you have safeguards in place. Bingo! Well, that would explain the slight... Internal bleeding.  If you ever got out of this, where else would you go?  So every time you use it... Always a barrel of laughs this one. Ever since 2004. Here he comes. It's Mr. Coupling, man.  A simple solution is to hand the pen over to me. I doubt he put safeguards against his ally. Want to take that chance? Plus, no offence. Creator of the Dalek race. But you will never get your hands on this. Now, if you don't mind, this is more of a private chit chat we've got going on. So, see ya. All Daleks will withdraw through the cracks. This world has become far too unstable. I repeat, all Daleks will withdraw to Scarow. Don't shoot here! Yet you very much did. You what? The cracks and the skin of the world? Don't be unbelief.  Now, let me take a stab in the dark. You made them.  Fair to guess, but... No. You see, a while back, someone did something so... momentous. With that pen, that it damaged the walls between realities. So that beings can cross from one to the other with relative ease. Such as yourself? You know what? Doesn't matter. What does matter is you telling me what big momentous thing was done with this. Or so.  What's this? It was my reward. It came at a cost. All my losses. All their deaths! That was the cost! I tried to pin this all on my gun for a laugh. I told Ailey it was all his fault. That was the true of course, just for the giggle. It was all only I can fix it. Pre-written death note. I've got this page.   What number? Oh. You mean that? Well I was going to sort that once you were gone but you go and then humour me. Like I said, the more you use the pen, the more it kills you. I figured you'd appreciate a countdown. I've only got one. Oh yeah. And do you really want to waste out on me? I mean there's so much to do. Think about it. You need to free your friends. You need to revert the road back to normal. That's going to take a bit of doing. Seeing Rose again. And of course the most tantalising of them all. Fixing yourself. What have you got to say? I've had a long time to think about what I'd say to you. And your conclusion was? Even after everything you did back in the old world. Daft thing is I would have forgiven you. What? If we were good. No more revenge plots, murder attempts, mind fuckery, all that. I would have forgiven you. Today? I think you've shown your true colours for the final time. Yeah. You know I never thought about it like that. You put it so well. I'd be down for that if you would.  I always wanted peace. Every day of my stinking life I only wanted peace. But you never let me. Even now, 19 years after first being imprisoned here.  So, I guess that leaves me with just one last thing to say. Say your show now.  Hello to you too. I did it. He's dead. For good this time. What can I say? I am the best at getting rid of crappy writers. Nasty habit though. Okay, okay, that's good. Alright, get up. We'll get you to Russell. He won't let you down. But this is the end. I have seconds on the most. After all these years waiting for each other. You've had no time. It was fantastic. And you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And you know what? So was I. Is this death? You get used to it. Oh, great. What is this? Ghost of Christmas past. Come to teach me the meaning of Christmas. Nice soap. Wearing it to guilt me or something. You're really not getting this, are you? To be fair, dear boy. You didn't. Yeah, okay. It's tricky to process. Sir, allow me to explain. No. You'll only get it wrong. Allow me to explain. Allow me to explain. I don't have that to say. I don't have that to say. I don't have that to say. I don't have that to say. Search dominance. Eternity has never been more stressful.  You're worrying the man. Basically, Chris. You have become something greater. Far greater than you once were. Still not getting it, but keep bickering. It's funny. Chris, you must take this seriously. Paul is right. This is life-changing stuff. Literally. No, no. You must type it up more before the gut punch reveal. Gut punch? What do you mean? Well, now look what you've done. He looks like he's about to purr himself. There's literally no way of cleaning that here in the afterlife. Okay, I can explain what's all this. But, everybody stop that. I'm afraid she... ...come to terms with my...failings. Well, thankfully because of the Star Wars shenanigans, some of the Star Wars logic began to take hold. Like how whenever a new head writer is in charge... You know what? I don't care. I've spent the last three years... ...years regretting what I did. Thinking there was no other way. Thinking I'd never get to see any of you again. Just as I was getting to know you. I hear you all are. All of you are alive. Uh, yeah, no, no. Still dead. Still very much. Dead. Okay, false ghost. Sure. But... Who cares? You're all here. All of you.  Yeah, shockingly it wasn't something I was willing to have a go at. Well, not until today, I guess. Now, I think it's time to show you how eternity is going to work. Wait, wait. Before we start, back in the old world, on the worst day of my life... ...rebooted everything like I was alone. You were... We were all there for you... ...in your final moments. And we were so... Do you think about the right choice? You couldn't have brought us all back. I mean, the pen is powerful, but not that powerful. You had no other choice. A scary choice than that. What you did... ...was something only the strongest of us... ...could have done. And I don't just mean... ...rebooting yourself. He means... ...moved on... ...kept living your life. You have no idea the weird shit... ...that I've got not to in this new place. Oh, but we do. Oh, this is one of my favourite perks. The ones I agree. What's this? A gateway. A relief. Or a beginning. Or to be frank, a television remote. You get signal in the afterlife. Well, we do only get one. But it's the greatest show in the galaxy.


We'll have a minute to watch. Thank you. Here, here. Right. Right, so this is the operation. Right, so this is the question. Yeah. Yeah. Woo! I'm going to open up there. I'm going to be able to monitor this. I'm going to be able to go ahead and look at the process. Yeah. I've got this for you. Thank you, ma'am. Right? Yeah, I'm sure you'll... Yes. Alright. Thanks for coming on. Yes, for sure. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We're going to be able to monitor this. Yeah, I'm sure you'll... Yeah. So essentially, it's a mobile platform that has your common infrastructure right, but that's going to connect. That's really where we're just bringing it out, so you want to talk about where.  It's going to show up right now. It's just a couple of boys and girls.   Yeah, I see it. It's shifting all down. It's going down.


Is the executive branch also broken? Let's look at that here on American Issues Take Two. And we have our co-host, Tim Apachella, our regular contributor, Stephanie Stoll Dalton, and a special esteemed guest, Colin Moore, of the political science world at UH Manoa. Welcome all to the show. Thanks, Jay. So let me begin with you, Colin. You went to school, you learned political science, you studied it, you read it, you took tests in it, you wrote dissertations in it. How do you feel now? I mean, was it worthwhile? What's going on? Politically, political science-wise, the country is devolving. We may not have a country after a while. You think you should have studied basket weaving instead? Absolutely not. I mean, the irony here was, when I was in graduate school, people who studied US politics, like me, were considered a little boring. The action, you should be studying Latin America or Africa or somewhere interesting. So, as horrible as it is to say this, as the United States has had more political problems, being a political scientist studying the institutions has become challenging and fascinating. And I don't think the discipline has been able to keep up. And we were really wrong about a lot of things. I mean, when I was in graduate school, everyone basically believed that we had this figured out. I mean, the United States was an advanced, stable democracy. And sure, there were some problems around the edges. But more or less, the system worked in a rational way that largely benefited most people. And we just had to tinker around the edges. And that's clearly not true. And Donald Trump managed to really blow up the system that we thought had reached kind of perfect equilibrium. Well, so it seems retrospectively.  You know, maybe we have to rewrite that. First thing we do is kill all the political scientists. I hope you're not too concerned, Colin. I hope, well, yeah, I hope I'll be safe, yes. Maybe they'll go for the lawyers first. So, okay, we have a system where we're pretty sure that Congress is broken because the Senate is broken. And so many things have happened that makes us wonder whether they are interested in or confident to manage business of the country, which is complex. We have 130 million people, a million issues, and in some ways, the most important country in the world. And somebody's got to manage it. And Congress has a lot of power under the Constitution. Congress seems to be broken. Okay, then we go to the Supreme Court. And if we weren't sure before, we now know that with a supermajority on the conservative side, actually, it's beyond conservative. It's something else. It's irrationally conservative, if you will. The Supreme Court is broken. So let me put the title question to you, Tim. Is the executive broken? Because if the executive broken is broken, we're in some real kimchi. Well, each branch of government is interactive. I mean, one impacts the other. And you just mentioned it, that the Senate is broken. Well, what effect does that have on the executive office? If you can't get through Congress, then you go to what Obama started to do as executive orders. And that only gets you so far. And then when your term is up, your next president, in this case, it was Donald Trump, came in with an avalanche of executive orders. And only to be reversed when President Biden comes in office. That's no way to run a government. So, you know, every branch has to do their part. And, you know, a lack of bipartisanship cooperation in the Senate is leading us to these problems, thanks to the polarization of politics and the inability to talk to one across the aisle and almost a vitriol attitude towards one side to the other. That's got to stop somehow. And Donald Trump certainly inflamed that and lit it on fire. And I think President Biden is trying to do his damnedest and his best to, you know, reduce the temperature, but it's not happening because Trump's influence is still alive and well. Is the executive broken, Stephanie? Yeah, I would say it's a concern because as you know, all of these agencies are like a cake. You know, there's the cake part, then there's the icing over it. And all the icing is the schedule C's and the SES's and the people that are actually moving the policy down through the agency work, which the agency work itself is that the grunt work of getting the grants out, get the contracts done, doing the oversight, doing the regulation. So it is at this point probably broken because that icing layer is open. In other words, that's where the president fills in with the politicals and they're still working to fill that up because that was really hollowed out, as you said earlier, and by the last administration. So there are plenty of jobs, but they're, yeah. So they're in the process of bringing it back up to a level of operation that's good. I mean, even the IRS is, you know, that got has been also hollowed out. Now I understand they're giving it more money and they're gonna hire agents so that they can do more close oversight of the middle class. They're gonna be looking there to make sure they do the auditing of those tax returns, which is a little surprising. You know, Colin, you said that, you know, not too long ago, it was in balance somehow and we can have confidence in it somehow. It was remarkably easy, at least to the observer, for Trump to mess up the Congress with the help of McConnell. It was remarkably easy for Trump and McConnell to mess up the Supreme Court, and they sure did. We didn't realize that he was also actively messing up the executive branch. He was pulling the good people out, corrupting them, firing them, forcing them out, and then replacing them with people who were not competent, but whose only criteria was whether they were loyal to him. And we know more about that now. Every day we learn more about that. It's like a two-bruté. After you do Congress in the Supreme Court, you also do the executive, and we are finding out that. You know, this seemed to be so easy that a would-be autocrat like Trump actually had no difficulty in messing up all three branches. My question to you is, you know, how hard is it to come back? I think it's gonna be a challenge for a few reasons. I think the first is that, and you mentioned that, this kind of came, what was unexpected, how easy it was to mess these things up. And I think even close political observers realized when Trump was in power, how much of this is built on norms, just shared understandings of the way that government should work, or what's appropriate, what's not appropriate, more than beyond just the laws that enforce those. And so if you get people in there who are perfectly willing to violate all of the norms and push things to their absolute limit like Trump was, you know, even past what was legal, of course, although there was a little more pushback there, you can get surprisingly far. I mean, democracies are fragile. We've always known that that's why it's so hard for emerging democracies to succeed. But in an advanced democracy, I think we thought those norms were a little more robust. And I think everyone had that experience when Trump was in office, that, oh, well, now he's done this. Now that's too far. People are gonna, that's really beyond the pale. There's gonna be consequences now. And they're never really worse. So he kind of blazed a path to do some of those things. I mean, for example, politicizing the executive branch, he's been criticized for that. First, he's hardly the only president who, you know, pushed the limits a little bit to try to use the executive branch to help his political agenda. But past presidents have always been careful about that.  Trump just blew past all of that. So lots of presidents have pushed this in the past. But, you know, to give an example, in terms of, you know, I know one thing we wanted to talk about was, you know, how can you fix this? And one of the reasons it's gonna be a challenge is because there were a lot of Trump political appointees, you know, who were mainly appointed, not because of their competence, but because of their loyalty to Trump, whose positions were converted into civil service positions in the federal government. That's a practice called burrowing. And all administrations have done this to a limited extent, but I think it was taken to an extreme under Trump. And, you know, the more sinister members of his administration also understood that, you know, they needed to get their people in the office of personnel management, which is supposed to police a lot of this, you know, to give the green light. So, you know, the folks who were supposed to watch for this were also on board with a lot of what was going on. And those people are gonna be very, very difficult to root out. You know, it strikes me that the liberated ones, if you will, who have come before the select committee and talked about how life was in the Oval Office around the time of the insurrection mostly, because that's what the committee wants to know about. They're Republicans, and sometimes they're really right-wing Republicans. You would have to imagine, you know, looking at the Comey Rule movie and reading his book, that they were sworn to loyalty at some point, because nobody would have gotten that far in his administration who didn't swear to loyalty. So, although now they're speaking out good for them, the fact is that while they were selected, while they were serving, they weren't what you would expect. They were his, they belonged to him. And I guess the question I put to you is, and this goes to our earlier conversation, this had to be happening in other agencies, other departments, other secretaries, other high-level officials as well, who are not necessarily relevant to the insurrection, but who are nevertheless also compromised. And let me throw a thought at you. I mean, the executive, which is comprised of all these agencies and departments and what have you, has probably got a lot of compromised people in it, simply because he wasn't appointing anybody who didn't swear loyalty, all right? Go ahead and take that, Stephanie. Well, sure, you know, that's true. Remember now with like agriculture. Early on, he took all of the stellar research folk out of agriculture here in DC and sent them off to the hinterlands. I don't know, many of them retire, you know, quit. So he's removed a lot of the competence, which leaves then the, and those would have been civil servants rather than politicals because putting the politicals in couldn't have changed the research act. You'd have to rehire. Anyway, I don't know that agriculture has pulled that back. I haven't read anything that they're full compliment. Again, to do the quality, high-level quality work that they're noted for centuries of this kind of work. And then, of course, we have the example of the EPA, which was also how people stopped dead in their tracks in the middle of article writing and publication and walking out the door. So these schedule C folks, the politicals that come in are appointed to these higher-level positions. They come in and they do what they do, but they've got to move that entire huge workforce in an agency to come around to do it their way. And there's a lot of pushback on that. And then mentioning those boroughs in, they don't always stay because those boroughs in, they're used to being on the schedule C track up there in the icing on the cake, not down in the cake, where you've got to do the work, okay? And you've got to make the standards and get the outcomes in place to meet the requirements of the statutes, right? Because that's what these agencies are doing as they're implementing the statutory guide. So hopefully they're on their way back, but it's a long way back to find the people that have the competence and want to be in the federal government. Well, indeed it's a long way back. And we've been presumably on the way back for a year and a half, and we still have DeJoy running the post office. I was thinking about that this morning and I said to myself, gee, okay, he couldn't face them down. He couldn't yell at them. He couldn't tell them, he doesn't want saboteurs coming election again. But the board of directors of the postal service is made of appointees. And they could, even if you say that Joe Biden cannot fire DeJoy on a given Tuesday morning, the board can. And what amazes me is the board must also be compromised because they are not doing that. He's a known saboteur. It matters now with the election coming and all the issues around voting and mail voting. We still have him. What are your thoughts, Tim? Well, yeah, I mean, if I was Joe Biden, which I'm not, but you come in with a personnel sickle and you do that in the first month of your presidency, particularly to those who are loyal acolytes of the former president. It's just what's done normally. A lot of times the presidents will come in and replace a whole gaggle of personnel in different agencies. And let's not forget something. Behavioral organizations, they tend to like the CEO of a company tends to hire people like themselves, similar philosophies, similar beliefs, similar type of personalities. And over time it filters all the way down to the person who drives the pickup truck. So when you have someone who's loyal to a particular individual, in this case, Donald Trump, that's not a good thing because to use Colin's term burrowing, that's why they transform the organization to a particular persuasion of thinking. And I don't think Joe Biden did what he should have done and that is just basically make changes. And if it was Donald Trump, I guarantee you he would have done it in the first two months of anyone that he thought that was not completely on his side. I think Joe Biden in some ways is trying to act like President Lincoln and trying to have bipartisanship of both sides of the aisle. And I hate to say that might be a little bit naive in his way of thinking, but I think that's exactly what it was. Yeah, and I recall that there are some 4,000 appointments on every change of power. I don't think that Joe Biden has made 4,000 changes. But the most delicious one of all Colin and really super delicious throughout discussion is the Secret Service, which has got to be an example of many lessons. What do you think about what happened and what is still happening with it? Remember, James Murray is still in charge even now. Yeah, yeah, that was truly shocking when the January 6th committee revealed that they had somehow lost these text messages and largely were still working to protect President Trump. That's hard for me to explain other than that. I think that there are certain agency cultures and that even before Trump were more attracted to him and his form of politics. I think the Secret Service is one. I think the Department of Homeland Security is one. I think that there are people in those departments who were there before, I mean, civil servants or law enforcement agents who felt like Trump was their guy. He was speaking their language. And I think they naturally were inclined to provide him some cover. I mean, that's speculation on my part. But I think that there probably is an element of truth to that and I think the Secret Service was probably one of them. But I don't understand how he stays in charge unless, especially after that disaster with the text messages, how those are lost. I can't imagine how you could explain that or provide a legal or legitimate explanation for that. Yeah, in fact, James Murray hasn't. Yeah, no, that's true. He hasn't said a word. He hasn't explained it. He hasn't apologized. He hasn't told us anything about it. And you leave it up to the Washington Post to find out what happened and you don't talk to them. You don't tell them, you shut down on them. Jay, isn't that a comment on leadership from the executive? From James Murray? Yes. No, isn't it a comment about our Commander-in-Chief allowing this travesty to occur and not stepping in to do something about it? I think it speaks bonds about his lack of leadership and again, being so naive about the thing. Would you say, Colin, to continue that, that Trump has, A, left loyal sleeper cells through the executive branch. James Murray was and is one of them. And he is not particularly loyal to the country or to Joe Biden. He is loyal even now because of his silence. He's loyal to Trump and he's not the only one. I mean, there are people in Homeland Security who likewise lost records and they're going through the same scenario and lack of excuse. You can only, it's not like the Fifth Amendment. They have a duty to get up there and tell us what happened and they're not telling us what happened. So that speaks volumes. Would you agree with me? This sounds conspiratorical, but would you agree with me that there must be sleeper cells like Murray and Chad Wolf has gone but people in Homeland Security who are still marching to Trump's orders right now? I think there are definitely some. I mean, the people who are burrowed in I believe that there definitely are some who see it as their goal to undermine, in many cases the agency that they're part of or to push back Homeland Security on more liberal immigration rules. The thing, James Murray is an interesting character though because a lot of these people were talking about who were appointed to these civil service positions were people who were basically wildly unqualified who were political operatives who were stuck in there. Murray is not part of that group. He comes from a law enforcement background. He was not a political figure. On paper he seems qualified for the job he has and that to me is actually a more interesting problem which is I think that they're, he corrupted the cultures of some of these agencies and the secret service might be part of that. So there's kind of two ways I think you're seeing this. One from just political operatives who are embedded and agency cultures that were somewhat corrupted during this period. And the second, the latter is much more difficult to stop and root out. I mean, as anyone who's worked in any organization knows, changing an organizational culture is incredibly difficult. Yeah, and a sleeper, a sleeper isn't necessarily somebody you can identify. You don't know if he's been compromised. You can't be sure. So Stephanie, what can Joe Biden do when he knows at least logically and empirically that there are sleepers in a given organization? Can we tolerate a secret service that we cannot trust? There are all kinds of terrible things that could happen. If the secret service is marching to Trump's orders. What do we do? Very, very chilling. These are bureaucracies, including the secret service. So we are talking about serious bureaucracies for moving around. Well, the secret service gets like billions of dollars of budget every year, billions. So there's command and control in bureaucracies. And there's no dearth of that in the executive branch for the, as I said, the cake part of everything. So it's a matter, again, maybe Tim's point, the leadership, it's command and control. It's bureaucracy. You take orders and you step to it. I don't know if the question has come up. I heard it on the media today finally that there's some question about why they can't find these messages. Because this is the first time I've ever heard of anybody actually being able to erase something from the internet or from email. I mean, they're now gonna get the special people in to take a look at that equipment because I thought you never could pull anything out permanently from, you couldn't erase, okay? So there's some incredulity here about how lost are all of those messages. Are they that smart that they know how to do that? The Secret Services and an internet organization or the Facebook, I mean, so anyway, I'm waiting to hear more about that. So I have some expectation that we're gonna find out that as we already know, you can't erase anything from the internet. I like to add a personal think tech story on this. We had an email this week from maybe one of our first video shows back in 2010. And he was from New Delhi. And he asked our staff if they could give him the link to that show. And he was an academician in New Delhi. And first we couldn't find it. And I said, oh my goodness, you know, this sounds like a Secret Service already, can't find it. But then we looked closer and we found it. One of our first video shows, we were able to find it. So your point about looking on the internet is well taken. Usually there's a way. Even that's not the obvious way, there's always a way. But I wanna shift gears with you, Tim, a little bit. So a political official from Hawaii went to Washington shortly after Trump was in office and found that the halls of the State Department were empty, that the offices were empty, that a lot of people had been fired or left. And they simply were not unstaffed. And the State Department arguably is disabled, has been disabled. And is still disabled. And then I talked to another friend of mine who is in Africa right now and her comment to me today was that Russians are moving into Africa and in many places they own Africa and the United States is not there. Do we have a foreign policy?  But they certainly suck time away from foreign policy and foreign policy in a liberal world order is very important. Your thoughts about that? Well, I think Joe Biden did years of fence mending in short order with NATO and our European Union allies. What normally would have taken years to undo the damage that Trump did. Joe Biden was magnificent in this effort. Again, years of patting up in a matter of months. Unfortunately, as a result of the invasion of Russia into Ukraine, a lot of that happened exponentially quick. I go back to Donald Trump and his motivation for doing these things. A great part of it, as you know, is try to isolate United States away from our allies. I go to the comment that he constantly made is only I can fix it. And thanks to his hubris and his ego, he meant it. You know, Jay, on this Halloween out in the State Department, the State Department has two cores. They've got the Foreign Service people and they have the Civil Service people. So this Foreign Service group, are they the ones that are labored? I mean, they also go international too. So the Foreign Service for the State Department has a lot of different things in it from the other agencies, but because they have that Foreign Service group, they're pretty committed. So they usually stand up to whatever they have to endure until they get to 65 when they have to retire. I don't know the answer to your question, but let me go to Colin. So Colin, you know, part of this is looking into the echo chamber, looking into the future. What was Charles Dickens, the ghost of Christmas future? You know, we have our allies. We wish we had more. We have some quasi-allies and some people who clearly not are allies with respect to Ukraine, but they watch like everyone in the world. You know, think tech has a lot of shows overseas and we always ask them, are you watching American television? Are you seeing American movies? Are you reading American newspapers? And are you following the action domestically? And the next question is what will happen if Joe Biden isn't president anymore? What will happen if Donald Trump gets to be, or one of his acolytes gets to be president? And they express concern because to the extent that the executive is weak now, it's likely to be much more troublesome later and they worry about the future. Is it a legitimate worry? I think it's absolutely a legitimate worry. I mean, I think this, the chaos created by the Trump administration and our hyperpolarized politics has just done untold damage to the reputation of the United States and the world and the reputation of democracy. You know, I was reading an article in The New York Times a couple of days ago that was explaining how elites in Africa no longer are looking to the United States, not just because China has provided more direct aid, but also because this Chinese model of kind of meritocratic authoritarianism seems more workable to them. They look at the world's oldest mass democracy and it seems to be falling apart and the Chinese seem to be doing all right, at least in terms of improving the living standards of their people. You know, and this of course is used as propaganda and rhetoric against the United States. So I think it goes beyond just having a foreign policy. I think we're always under scrutiny because there is so much reporting of American politics and American culture. And I think that the conclusion for a lot of developing countries is that this is not the train they wanna hitch their wagon to anymore. The Chinese might look like a more plausible ally even if they rightfully are skeptical of their human rights record and see that as a little more opportunistic. They also have had some very obvious successes. And so I understand that that position. So our own failures here domestically are have done just tremendous damage to our reputation abroad. So Tim, you know, I'm fascinated with that movie, The Comey Rule. I'm fascinated with the book that drove that movie. And there's one part of that movie that I think is worth talking about here at the end of our discussion. And that's the part where Trump places a call to Comey and he said, let's have dinner. And this is the center of the movie and I'm sure it's the center of the book. And I saw an interview of Comey and it was the center of that interview, this one event. And he says, come over to the White House and let's have dinner together. And Comey is amazed that the dinner is at a little tiny little table, just the two of them. And Trump uses that dinner without any hesitation to ask, he said, do you want to remain director of the FBI? Which was strange because Trump was complimenting him in public and then he said, are you loyal? Can you be, will you be loyal to me? I need your loyalty. And it was a, you know, face on attempt to corrupt the man. And I somehow as Come said, you know, we're in a new time here that this could happen under Trump and query could it happen under, you know, President DeSantis going forward or any president who wants to corrupt the system to demand loyalty over duty over country. And my question, which isn't easy for you is how do we stop that? There are rules they were, but they were not followed. And, you know, we don't think that Come was corrupted as much as Trump wanted to corrupt him, but to some extent he was corrupted. And many others, how do we stop that small table corruption conversation in the White House? Oh, I think Liz Cheney has done an excellent job to answer that question. And that is to remind all agency heads, all those who participate in government in the military is that you have an oath to the country, to the constitution, to the rule of law, not to any one individual. And I think that needs to be pounded in to the front part of someone's cerebral temperance to remind themselves of that and be willing to lose your career to reinforce it. And I think that's our problem is that we have career politicians, career agency heads that are making a lot of money. They're doing very well for themselves. They're, you know, they have a lifestyle that's probably pretty considered pretty good. And the risk of losing that lifestyle versus standing up to your oath of office and your ethics and your morals doesn't always win the day. You want to, you know, that's half of our politicians in Congress, they know darn well the problems that Trump brought on and the lives that they have to live with because they want to be re-elected and they need that paycheck. So it's a humanistic thing for us to have to, to focus on is your personal effort and your mission to the agencies or to the country. You know, I've been meaning to ask you this question through the show column that is in the study of political science, in the study of American political science, you have to have a social compact. You have to have everyone in the country believes fundamentally in the country and in the system. And it strikes me that we are getting evidence every day that people do not believe in the country. They do not believe in the system. Is this rep repairable? Or are we going to have to, you know, find another system? Maybe something like what Xi Jinping has. Can we re-knit the tattered sleeve of our social compact? I think that is the central question, Jay. We tried it one other time after the Civil War and I'm not sure that even that was entirely successful. If it happens, I mean, it may happen as a result of generational change. I mean, that's where I see some hope that people, younger people may be less stuck in these very polarized views about the country. They're certainly more open to a more diverse country in all sorts of ways, but they also may continue to be skeptical of our government of the system. I think that idea of a shared understanding of the system has sometimes been a bit exaggerated. I think that existed in a remarkable way post World War II. I think it was a little more fragile. So I think a lot of us grew up during a time when not only was the United States very prosperous, there really was this shared understanding of the way things should work. I think it's gonna be a challenge to get back to that and I think one thing that would help is for the government to really start delivering for people. That means more than just legislation, that means seeing a material difference in your own life and even the Democrats haven't been great about delivering that. I think if inequality keeps increasing and young people can't afford to buy houses and so on and so forth, then why would you trust a system that's not delivering for you? Yeah, what about a president though? What about the chief executive who comes and says, look, this is the reality. I recognize the challenges you have to work with me. Why am I reminded of JFK's inauguration speech? Think not of what I can do for you. Think of what you can do for me. Another president, a president with a kind of strong heart, rhetoric, who can speak to the souls of the people like a fireside chat with FDR, like a JFK, like Jimmy Stewart. He wasn't president, but you know what I mean. Right. And new executive, an executive who meets those specifications, who can touch you. Even in times of adversity, wouldn't that help? I think it would help, but I mean, we haven't had a better order in our times than President Obama and he confronted a lot of the same challenges.  And if you are dealing with a polarized Congress and like we've been talking about in this show, an executive branch full of officials that are trying to undermine what you're trying to do, then no amount of, you know, rhetoric only goes so far. And I think, I mean, for example, FDR delivery. Yes, he had those fireside chats, but people saw their lives improve in dramatic ways during the new deal. And that's, I think, what really cemented the loyalty. That's why, you know, my grandparents would talk about FDR because they really, you know, grew up in grinding poverty and saw themselves, their own lives, you know, change for the better. And I think that at the end of the day, you do have to deliver those material benefits. It can't just be rhetoric. Okay, we're into our final leg here. Final thoughts and summarizations and takeaways. Why don't you start, Stephanie? Well, I think the comments about Liz Cheney from Tim and Collin's point about delivering is so interesting and so obviously probably very true. But it also reminds us that these people like FDR and other real leader presidents, productive presidents, they made the system work, they made the government work. And it has occurred to me that our government is very complicated to get it to, and very hard to make it work. And what's so inspiring for me is that, so is this country we have, this diverse, huge country that for some reason the founders thought could become this magic country on a hill or city on a hill and they devised this complicated government to make it work. But it turns out that all the things that the leaders have to do to make the government work are the kinds of things that the whole nation, all of the people have to learn to do. The compromise, the negotiation, the working together and all of this that our government requires of people in a democracy. So I finally maybe come to my own satisfaction as to why didn't they just make it like England and will do the parliamentary thing? Instead, no, we've got this crazy thing that doesn't sit there in any parallel manner and in any predictable way. But no, we've got something that is probably the only way for this huge, beautiful country that we're in can be governed by, but we have to learn better how to use it and how to be part of it and how to make it productive for everybody. Yeah, oh, and Tim, your final thoughts and query, do we need a new constitution? Because we have so many threats and challenges and people who don't wish us well, who would like to bring us down. How drastic should our steps be? Not a new constitution, but certainly some amendments. I have to agree with Colin Moore completely and that is whenever government, a term after term after term after term through presidents and there's nothing getting done. I remember John McCain at the Senate floor, nothing's getting done. And so when you have perpetual gridlock, it's an argument for your detractors and for would-be autocrats to say, see democracy doesn't work, it doesn't improve your life and Colin did spot on on that point. And I think my last point is, when you see an evaporation of the middle class, you have economic disparity between the classes of people, there comes dissension and their democracy doesn't look so great. So you look for a strongman that could take my life and make it look better, make it feel better, whether it does or doesn't, this is the point. So we've got to preserve the middle class economically and we have to be able to break the gridlock in the Senate. Okay, Colin, you're the anchor man. Give us your final thoughts, your summary, what you would like our audience to take away and you can also include what I can do, what I can individually do to help. Sure, well, I agree with what Tim and Stephanie said and I'd also add that for the president, I think it wouldn't hurt him to be a little more aggressive. We were talking about FDR and I'm reminded of a famous line from FDR who says, they're unanimous in their hate for me, we was talking about bankers in this case and I welcome their hatred. And I think we could see a little more robust anger coming from the president, the sort of thing you've seen from Governor Gavin Newsom of California to really take this on because he by nature, I think his career as a senator makes him someone who always looks for a compromise and I'm not sure if we're gonna be able to achieve one now. What can people do? I think it's to have more conversations with more people about politics and government. I think that many people in this country have an idea that what they think is what everyone else thinks. That's just common sense, but by common sense, they mean that's what I believe or people I know believe and I think more people need to be shaken a little bit from that to understand that they're reasonable people who differ and we only will have a democracy if we're comfortable having these disagreements talking about them and in civil ways. Well, thank you. Thank you, Colin Moore, our special guest and thank you, Tim Apichella, our co-host and Stephanie Staldols and our regular contributor here on American Issues Take Two. Thank you all and Aloha and she, may God bless. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.