Transcript of Episode 63 with Robert Greenfield and Dr. Dawn Asper

Episode 63-  Rich , Dr. Asper, Robert Greenfield

Brian Kruger:

Welcome to the podcast. The Common Bridge with Rich Helppie. 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 under-served children. My name is Brian Kruger and from time to time, I’ll be the moderator and host of this podcast.

Rich Helppie:

Welcome to the Common Bridge. Today’s episode should be airing right when the first presidential debate airs on September 29th. We have two guests today. Robert Greenfield and Dawn Landcaster Asper have never met nor have they had a conversation before today. But both come from Westland, Michigan and suburban Detroit, both have been very successful in their careers, and each is very politically savvy. And just before we went on the air, we learned they attended the same junior high, although perhaps not at exactly the same time. So you’ve got some commonality there. Our audience will remember Robert from earlier episodes where he discussed China and China policy or from his extensive presence on Quora, where over 1 million people have read his learned commentary. What you don’t know about Robert, because he’s so good at talking policies is his political leaning. He was one of the most vocal anti-Trump people I met through social media, and we struck up conversations that way. He is a Democrat-always has been, and today he will be discussing policy from the Democrat side of the aisle. So let me welcome back to the Common Bridge a guy I’ve learned a lot from and have a great deal of respect for Robert Greenfield. Robert from London, England, thanks for joining us today.

Robert Greenfield:

Hi Rich and hello Dawn. I want to thank you for the opportunity to be back. As you know, as you said before, my specialty area is China, and this is quite a privilege today to be able to talk and share thoughts about the future of our country. So thank you.

Rich Helppie:

And also joining us on the Common Bridge is Dawn Lancaster Asper, a Doctor of Chiropractic Medicine. Dawn is a scientist. She has a degree in bio-psychology and zoology from the University of Michigan. She is a healer who cares for patients, a small business owner, a Monroe County Michigan commissioner, and a learned reasoned person who brings a clear viewpoint. Dawn might describe herself as a Ron Paul libertarian, who came to understand the Trump brand of conservatism. Dawn, welcome to the Common Bridge.

Dawn Asper:

Well, thank you very much and hello to Robert, and I’m just very pleased to be able to interact with you today.

Rich Helppie:

And for our audience, again, these are both sincere family-oriented people who share a deep faith, who serve their communities and both strive to make the world a better place. So today we’re going to run through some of the topics and discuss the difference between a second Trump term and perhaps a new president in Joe Biden. This is the promise of the Common Bridge, that we can have good civil discussions and perhaps demonstrate something better than the pending civil war. So let’s jump right into it, the 2020 election. Dawn, has Donald Trump earned another term?

Dawn Asper:

Well, I really feel that he hasn’t just earned it, I think we need him to guide our economy back to the peace and prosperity track we were on pre-COVID. Promises, made promises kept-it’s really quite a remarkable feat under any circumstances. And it’s certainly unique to this presidency, at least in my lifetime. But to do so well under persistent unrelenting attack is what Americans consider so impressive, I think. Beyond that, he fulfilled the spirit of promises he didn’t even make, I would say namely to the black community. He asked them to take a chance on him and just said, what do you have to lose? And he’s delivered historically low unemployment, opportunity zones, and permanent funding of historically black colleges and universities. He’s a warrior and Americans love overcomers-those who inspire us with their perseverance against seemingly insurmountable odds to win. It’s clear to me that he didn’t just write the Art of the Deal, he understands the art of war, or he could never have survived in office. He knows himself, and he knows his opponents and he’s also outworking all of them and that’s highly respectable.

Rich Helppie:

Great. Robert has Donald Trump earned another term?

Robert Greenfield:

Well, I would say this, that Donald Trump has had an extraordinary first term. There’s no doubt about it. His impact is undeniable, he won’t be forgotten for a long time. And he’s been shaping the Supreme Court now with three appointments. I think if I were an evangelical Christian, I would be very happy, never mind anything else, but that’s been working out very well. If I was a second amendment person, a constitutionalist to literalist as they call it, I’d be happy. If I was pro Russia, pro China, pro North Korea, pro Turkey’s Erdoğan , pro Israel’s indicted Netanyahu, pro Bolsenaro and unfortunately his hundred thousand dead and burning the Amazon, or pro Modi and the Muslims, that kind of thing, pro Taliban, all these guys, I’d be very happy. I’d be very happy if I was pro tax cut. All that’s been good. I don’t think there’s ever been a president for the 35% of the country that-I don’t think Donald Trump leads them, I think they lead Donald Trump. I think Donald Trump’s doing exactly what they’d like to see. So I’m not surprised that Dawn would say, as libertarians who have a very limited view of government, I think in an open, free market or so-called, they would be in a corporate dominated economy. I think this survival of the fittest, it’s working, however I’m one of the 60% that don’t fall into that category. And so for me as a young black guy said the other day, when was America great for black people, and Donald Trump was a bit nonplus. He was not very clear about that. I mean, if you look at the transgressions by Trump, they’re kind of monumental. If you just boil it down to one item, because this is just opening remarks here, to the 200,000 Americans who are dead and his complete apathy and pathetic response and unfortunate excuse making, even if you got everything you wanted out of them, including the continuance and the expansion of a white superiority, Christian rights, or more guns, [inaudible] only heard one thing in my view, the mantle of-and please this is not my saying this, a lot of people say possibly the worst, and I know you’re not going to like these words-mass murderers in American history.

Rich Helppie:

Have the Democrats earned the right to govern and can you give us that?

Robert Greenfield:

First of all, I don’t think it’s an easy question to answer. I would actually have to say, as the out of power opposition party, they have had a very limited impact. And as much as Nancy Pelosi puts bills in front of Senate and they don’t pick it up, there’s not much she can do about that. They didn’t control anything in the first two years. They didn’t have-30 out of 50 houses in the states were controlled, the state legislatures were controlled by Republicans. So the Democrats have had a very limited impact. And I would think from the outside, I think today, what my position will be talking about is what Biden can do, not what I would say in terms of what they have earned or not earned.

Rich Helppie:

Okay so Dawn, same question, have the Democrats earn the right to govern based on what they’ve done since Donald Trump’s been elected?

Dawn Asper:

Well, it seems like Trump was able to overcome the Republican establishment for his nomination in 2016. And that really wasn’t the case of the Democrats. I think America likes the more non-establishment style. I feel as if the Dems squandered four years rejecting the results of an election, and deflecting the blame for the loss, trying to overturn the results. For them to bounce back and lead, I expected to see some self-reflection and then a change of strategy, maybe a step back on socialism and some effort to seek a candidate that would enliven the base. Instead, to the disappointment of many of my friends who are Democrats, each candidate doubled down on the giveaways when they were in their debates and defaulted to the way of the establishment. In the final analysis, Sanders get kicked out again. I kind of thought maybe they would go with a Tulsa Gabbard-somebody who is younger and had a more moderate way. Their failure to speak out on the rioting and burning and worse, to later blame the violence on Trump, was just a bridge too far. Calling him a racist when he collaborated so much with Senator Tim Scott, even after the comments about Charlottesville, he just went to Tim Scott and said, what can I do to help the people who I’ve offended? And worked with Tim Scott through all of that, which I thought was really amazing because even Tim Scott was shocked, he didn’t think he would like to work with the president.

Rich Helppie:

This of course is in the news. And this was a great lively start. Also in the news today, the judiciary, particularly the Supreme Court and look not surprisingly, both parties have flip-flop positions since the 2016 vacancy on the Supreme Court. Republicans now assert that their election victories were in part based on judicial appointments and cite the historical precedents for election year Supreme Court appointments. Dawn, what type of justices will Donald Trump appoint or nominate?

Dawn Asper:

Well, fortunately, the president set out long ago to be transparent about this. He’s maintained a public list of those he considered qualified, that being those who would interpret the constitution as written and as intended by the framers, specifically interpreting the law, not creating it.

Rich Helppie:

Robert, what type of justices will Joe Biden appoint?

Robert Greenfield:

Well, Joe Biden has a long career. As you know, he was on the judiciary committee, he’s had his hand in 15 appointments. Biden has very clearly been kind of a middle of the road guy, middle left type of person. He’s not nominated anybody or been part of anybody that would be anyone at all like what Dawn is saying. In fact, I would say it’s just the opposite. I think the activist judges these days are going back to what they think is a literalist interpretation. But in reality, we all know is that the constitution is who ever is in power. Who’s ever in power, they’re the one who says what the constitution means or does not mean. And if we would like to say, let’s go back to the 1789. I would have to say we’ve had 26 amendments or more since that time, which means that the constitution is constantly changing to reflect the changes in society. And so I think that what we’re doing here these days of talking about what founder’s intent was 225 years ago is disingenuous at minimum, and actually completely not in keeping of who we are as a country today.

Rich Helppie:

Every law school goes through that historical debate and about what were the intent of the framers, and that’s what makes this country great. And it just seems to me that this was yet one more failure of our broken partisan system. I can’t believe that Chuck Schumer cannot find one person out of the 41 names that Donald Trump’s put out that he finds acceptable, and nor do I believe that Mitch McConnell couldn’t, if he wanted to, give in and let Schumer have more influence within that framework, but of course, that would make a functioning government, and that’s something that seems to be we’re working against.

So let’s go over to the biggest part of our economy, and that’s healthcare-affects us all. Our healthcare financing methods are quite frankly, they’re just a mess. We’ve had some very learned guests on the Common Bridge, Nate Kaufman, Chris Allen, Brian Peters, Dean Clancy, I’d put myself in that group. And we have a solution that covers all Americans without thwarting the innovation that makes the miracles in our healthcare delivery the envy of the world. Yet the political parties can not seem to advance workable ideas. Dawn, the Republicans are accused of wanting to strip healthcare away from millions of Americans, exclude people with pre-existing conditions from being insured, and frankly have not been able to deliver any understandable plan. What’s his track record? What can we expect in a second Trump term?

Dawn Asper:

Well, actually sometimes Republicans are their worst enemies. Their plan for reform was thwarted by McCain’s dramatic surprise vote against the skinny repeal of Obamacare. But what followed that then was that Trump issued an executive order and promoting healthcare choice and competition across the United States. So that’s what he was going to prioritize and I think this is the way he would go, is to have the administration prioritize three areas for improvement:  association health plans, short-term limited duration insurance, and health reimbursement arrangements. But I mean, I would really favor more what we were working on maybe 15 years ago, which was having a high deductible insurance with a health savings account. And then I would say probably competition across state lines. The only problem with that is that all these insurance companies are just going to go to the state that has the fewest regulations, because they each get to decide what they’re going to do.

Rich Helppie:

I have no problem making the big health insurers and the paid health the villain here, that’s to me is a simple thing to fix, had we the political will. Robert, the Democrats have made a lot of promises on healthcare and yet seem divided on what legislation they might offer. What might we expect from a Biden administration and would it matter who controls Congress?

Robert Greenfield:

So this is where I differ from Biden. You know, I live in Australia. You and I’ve had lots of discussions about healthcare. So my answer is that the United States system-healthcare system, is out of control. You can say that it’s because of the insurance companies. You can say that the ACA was a bad idea, which I think it is. Biden is going to try to fix the ACA, and I don’t know if that’s fixable, but I think he’s going to do something more interesting on the bottom end, which is he’s going to expand Medicare/Medicaid. If you look at the numbers, and that’s, I think, the most important thing. 44 million people are right now on Medicare, and there’s 20% of the US population considered, in some form, disabled-that’s 65 million. So you start taking people that are on SSI, as well as Medicare, and you take the ACA, which cannot work without young people on it, as we know, because they have to carry the burden of the cost. You’re going to end up putting a defacto national healthcare on the Medicare side. And I think what you’re going to see there is a Medicare B type of option, where people will opt in and pay some kind of a fee. There’ll be no pre-existing conditions-prohibiting that. So what Biden’s going to do is expand the bottom end, and I think he’s very much committed to the US private health insurance situation. So that’s working for a lot of people. I think it’s 170 million or something like that. It’s a huge number, or maybe more, and so that number is going to stay up there with the private health care insurance. I think they, a lot of people, do a good job. I think he’s also going to talk about negotiating Medicare prices. That’s that act of, I think it was 2002 or something thereabouts under Bush, that’s got to go, Medicare has gotta be able to lower its prices. Big pharma is going to have to finally allow that to happen. And then I think also in hospital corporations, there will be a re-look at that. And finally, and this is my most important one, and I’m not even sure Biden is looking at this, but I want to advocate right now for all of your listeners. And that is a growth in the public health, revitalization of the public healthcare system, as well as what I call community clinics. We have got to get away from the emergency room. And while we are the best in the world at providing new hearts and bionic this and that, we are not very good at all on the public healthcare system. And that’s why it’s not just Donald Trump’s fault on the 200,000 who died, but it’s also a very, very underfunded and inadequate public healthcare system.

Rich Helppie:

I agree with a lot of what both of you have said. And I just think it’s very sad that both parties have mishandled this. Neither will do the right thing and take on the big insurance companies. And one of the myths about the 170 million people that are covered by an employer sponsored plan, is that they’re covered until they’re too sick to work or too old to work. Medicaid, you hear the scare stories about people being thrown off their health care. One of the things the Affordable Care Act did was take healthy people with no children at twice the level of poverty and made them eligible for Medicaid. You can argue whether that’s a good thing or not. I agree with you about Australia. And I think the 200,000 lives soundbite is a thing we might want to dial down, because as a person with a great knowledge of how records are kept and what’s going on, that is a complete different topic. And I know when we start breaking it down, people are going to be shocked at the differences.

Let’s go on to immigration. I don’t think anybody can argue that we’re anything but dysfunctional as a nation and particular the reporting industry. We’ve had photos of Obama era cages attributed to President Trump. We’ve had discussions, are those caravans or not caravans, but we’ve heard the president say scary things about people that want to come into the country. Donald Trump made border integrity a key part of his campaign in 2016. So Robert, without mentioning President Trump or his policies, how would a Biden administration govern immigration policies and border control?

Robert Greenfield:

Well, Biden has a pretty detailed program, but I’d like to make this brief and I’ll tell you why. I think he’s kind of on the outside. And he’s not there just yet. So here’s what I think Biden is saying what he’s going to do. First of all, he’s very much towards control of the borders. I think everybody is, everybody has to be. Obviously he’s pushed by the left wing of his party to do some amnesty type of things with DACA and other areas. I think he will end either the Obama or Trump cage program-that’s way off. I think what you’re going to look at Biden doing is trying to bring people, and this is my primary issue-also in terms of the economy, we have to get people into the economy legally that are there legally, or make them legal so that they are not just paying the basic tax, which is user taxes and maybe employee taxes, but also full income tax, et cetera. So we have to bring the people into the system. So I think Trump has a different approach, which is he is not willing to concede for anybody who’s there legally to become legal on his [inaudible], his focus is close the border.

Rich Helppie:

Dawn, has President Trump fulfilled his promises on immigration and border control? And what could we expect in a second term?

Dawn Asper:

I believe he has, he’s moving forward. Obviously it took a while for the wall. There was the monetary issues and so on and so forth. But I really think that it’s important for a lot of reasons. They kind of make it like, Oh, you don’t want any of these people to come in, but it’s really more the trafficking, the drugs, and other things like that, that it ends up affecting as well. I really think that the Democrats really missed an opportunity when Trump offered the DACA thing, because he was offering 1.8 million for people on DACA. They were really only talking about 800,000 when it began. And he was offering them 1.8 million and they just wouldn’t make the deal. So I think they really missed an opportunity there.

Rich Helppie:

Second term, not what happened in the first term, second term, you’re Donald Trump. You’re re-inaugurated in January. What does he do on immigration?

Dawn Asper:

I think he is going to have to make sure that we have a working permit so that there is enough of the employment on this side, workers on this side, but he can’t just, he has to keep it under control because otherwise we’re not going to have low unemployment. Low unemployment is what drives wages up. And we want to keep those wages up. We don’t want to just let everybody in and then wages end up dropping because then it becomes an employers market instead of an employee. Being able to raise wages on a natural basis.

Rich Helppie:

Well, I think those are all great points. And I’m surprised neither of you brought up giving a green card to someone that gets an advanced degree from one of our universities.

Robert Greenfield:

There’s one thing that’s very important that we’ve not talked, it’s not about H-1Bs or anything or stems or anything like that. I believe, and I want to put this out there Rich, and maybe you can even put this in as we go through, the number one issue for the world moving forward after climate change is going to be immigration. And that includes what I call, and a lot of people are calling, climate migration. What that means is that unless we actually start working with everyone from Guatemala to Kenya, to Nigeria, to a lot of other places, they’re not just coming here, they’re also going to Europe, there’s a million boat people, and I’m not talking about Syria with civil war. I’m talking about huge populations that there are no local population planned parenting going on, there is no investment by the United States there. The Chinese investment is coming primarily in the form of large infrastructure projects that are not benefiting anyone except maybe a few people at the top. And so what we’ve got here is between, in my view, 1-3 billion people in the world, that are all putting their hand up and wanting to get here or to Europe one way or the other, or get to Australia. And if we don’t actually start working on that at the source, this is a losing battle for us. You can make all the walls you want. It’s going to be a losing battle.

Rich Helppie:

And look, this is a great articulation. Since the beginning of humankind populations have migrated. And we know that through historical records and things that are unearthed nearly every year. And we also have the globalism-nationalism debate, and these are great topics, but I don’t know that the election of Donald Trump or Joe Biden might change those patterns. So we’ll come back to those at a later Common Bridge.

Let’s talk about something a little closer to home and that’s guns in the United States. There are some 300 million firearms in private hands in the United States today, including some 10 million of the so-called assault rifles. There seems to be consensus that the second amendment is there for good reason. And at the same time, broad agreement that keeping guns out of the hands of those who would misuse them is essential. In Episode 2, I proposed the graduated licensing program so that training storage and proper handling could help resolve the misuse of guns. We’ve got red flag laws in some states today. Dawn, President Trump has said he backs the second amendment fully. Does that mean we’ll see no meaningful restrictions on the misuse of firearms?

Dawn Asper:

I really think he is leaning toward red flag laws. I’m not in favor of that. I feel like backing the second amendment is assuring that Americans would defend themselves, and the misuse of firearms is criminal. So only law abiding citizens end up abiding by any new laws that would be passed. And that means that only the law abiding citizens would be affected by them, not the criminals. The criminals pretty much bypass the purchase process altogether. They just steal a gun or exchange their guns for something else. And I just think what he would do though, one good thing that he would do if he did red flag laws, would be that he would make sure that due process was right then. He wouldn’t wait until you’re trying to take guns away from somebody and then they have to  fight for due process, which there’s no assurance that they would even have legal representation. The problem I see with red flag laws is that you’re really creating a possibility for violence. I mean, I would not want to be the officer who goes to the home and removes a firearm from somebody. I just think you’re creating dangerous circumstances. I really don’t even think we have constitutional ability to do that. I mean, if you looked at the constitution, Article 1, section 8 is the power to coin money, regulate cameras, declare war, raise and maintain armed forces, and establish a post office. So the constitution really expressly forbids the federal government from regulating firearms. So we would have to change that.

Rich Helppie:

That’s a second amendment debate about what well-regulated means. And I think it’s been established that you can maintain the constitution yet still have some restrictions. So Robert, Joe Biden has said he wants to halt the ownership of some type of guns. He’s advocated, hey, a shotgun is all one needs. And that he’d support confiscating AR-15s, which he misnamed AR-14. So Robert, what might we expect from a Biden administration on limits to the second amend?

Robert Greenfield:

In the interest of time, by the way, Biden has about a 60 point program on this. So the main thing about Biden, I think, to remember, is his background and also Harris’s background. They actually come from a law and order background. So you’re looking at somebody who is on judiciary committees and other committees, same thing with Kamala Harris. She’s also an attorney general. In fact, she’s been criticized heavily by the left, that she’s way too strong on crime. And Biden obviously was one of the architects of the 1994 crime bill, which he had to do his mea culpa about. But bottom line is these are not two people that are pro touching the second amendment at all. So I think that’s really important. And I think that everybody should be very clear about that, because record is what counts. Now, in terms of what Biden, if you want to take an overall look at it, he’s about to pick up what Dawn was saying and also what you were saying Rich . He’s about enforcement of existing laws. I think that’s really critical. Republicans constantly are saying, yeah, we got all these laws, but well, they’re not enforced. And so unless you enforce the law, then you don’t get weapons off the street. You don’t ban manufacturers’ sale of assault weapons, these kinds of things, you don’t do this kind of stuff. Unless you actually enforce the National Firearms Act or also work with the ATF, none of these things are done. Now, buy-backs, I think are actually what he did say. He didn’t say he was taking away assault weapons. That was, don’t mix him up with our guy in Texas down there, Beta. What Biden’s basically saying is he’ll buy back and that’s a voluntary buy back. Now, if you don’t want to sell your AR-15s back, then you’re going to have to register your AR-15s. What he’s all about is register, register, register. So if everybody feels like that’s a problem, we’ll then I got a problem with people having a problem with registering firearms. And buy-backs-it works. And it worked definitely in Australia. We could talk about that in detail, but I could go through that. I know the thing about, some people feel, red flag laws, it’s intrusive. I would say that they’re not intrusive, I think, at all. I think red flag laws are a good thing, but I don’t think that they solve any major problem.

Rich Helppie:

It sounds like we have a little bit of agreement then around some things that can be done. And look, it’s just hard to imagine a government simultaneously looking at mayhem and disarming its citizens. And it’s equally hard to imagine supporting teenagers armed to the teeth walking into the streets of a troubled area. So we need to be sensible here.

Let’s take a look at the economy a little bit, both candidates seem to embrace a competitive posture with China and also make statements about bringing manufacturing back to the United States. We saw in the pandemic that not only personal protection equipment, but also essential medicines, were being manufactured offshore. And frankly, that’s scary. Prior to the pandemic, employment was at an all time high, unemployment across the board at all time lows, wages were rising and particularly so at the lower income levels. So when we think about tax policies, interest rate policies, employment, and national competitiveness, what are the differences between the candidates with regard to tax policies, impact on wage rates, employment, and manufacturing. And let’s see if we can boil this down into some very concise statements so that our listeners can understand the differences without being as hawkish on policies as the three of us are. Robert, how might we compare and contrast what a President Biden might do versus a President Trump, what he has done and what he may do in a second term and what results might be possible.

Robert Greenfield:

Trump is a corporate interventionist and tax cutter. That’s what he likes and that’s what he does to stimulate the economy. That’s okay, that juiced the economy for awhile. The problem with that is it produced a ton of service jobs. I call it the nail salon and restaurant and bar economy, which means that it’s very, very susceptible to things like the pandemic that has social distancing. So the problem with the Trump approach is that it works very well. And even though you say historic unemployment levels went down for blacks and brown, they immediately went up because they were the guys doing the so-called essential jobs in those areas. So that’s Trump’s approach and I get it and I won’t go into whatever the shortfalls are in the million here, a trillion there. Let’s just forget that for the moment. Let’s just talk about stimulating the economy. That’s what he does. He’s good at that. He did it, he did that tax cut and it did produce some action.

What Biden’s looking at is, well, that’s nice, except that doesn’t really make people get back to work in the long run. So with Joe Biden is he’s kind of an old fashioned guy. He’s a guy that does believe in stimulation, not in socialism. So his idea is essentially to start at the very beginning. The beginning is to make sure that there is a second stimulus package passed to make sure that we don’t lose our firefighters, public education, EMT, et cetera. Okay, that’s fine. That’s done. But that’s another short term thing. Extending unemployment that’s another short term thing. But what he really is looking at, and if you look at his platform, it’s this, he starts with a call to action on developing a public health core. And I think that that would be interesting for Dawn to comment on when she has a chance, because we have one of the weakest public health systems in the world, and we need more people on the ground actually working in those kinds of areas.

And then he has four different national areas that he’s talking about, which you already touched on Rich , one is mobilizing American manufacturing innovation, now, not later. Basically Trump talks about it, like Tom talks a great game, but it didn’t happen. The second thing is infrastructure. That’s my big thing. As you well know, we all come from Detroit. We all know how that’s happened. So to me, infrastructure and equitable clean energy future, like Biden has in half a million electric charging stations. A third area for him is care giving in an education workforce that’s going to be for the 21st century, which we’ve not touched on yet, which is education. But education is a big deal, vocational training is a big deal, making community college no cost or, or free. And then finally, we got to get all the people that are on the brown and the black side into the workforce in a positive way, whether it’s a $15 an hour stuff, that’s not really the critical part. My view is that people need to be functional. They need to get beyond whatever their kind of past is. And I think Biden is the right guy, the right guy to create that atmosphere and to help create those jobs and it’s not socialism.

Rich Helppie:

Dawn, it’s a fact that the government is a central part of the economy. We’ve seen an Obama-Biden administration and a Trump administration both deal with economic crises. As we exit the pandemic how would policies of President Trump or a President Biden differ and what would be the expected results?

Dawn Asper:

Well, I think President Trump would stick with the lower taxes. I think we’re going to have to do that, keep it with the corporations because otherwise we can’t have tariffs with China. We’ve got to bring corporations back to the United States. I think we know with the supply lines that we need to be manufacturing things here. We can’t like have one piece here and one piece there. And it has to be manufactured in the US and I think that would bring in some higher paying jobs as well. But a President Biden, he said he would have higher taxes. He said that, I don’t know if that’s in his platform, but he said he would have that. And I know his regulations just on the pharmaceuticals and vaccines and so forth would definitely push out a vaccine quite a ways. There were, I think, 29 regulations that were mentioned. It would just reverse the movement of corporations back to the United States. And when tariffs are being employed, the US has to have low taxes to bring those companies back. So I think that’s what he’s going to center on is just making sure that we can get our companies back here and be manufacturing things here. I just don’t think markets will respond well to a Biden presidency because of the tax thing, I just think that will kind of reverse what we had going on right before COVID.

Rich Helppie:

Great. Well, it looks like there’s a lot of work still to be done on the economy. Of course, infrastructure is something near and dear to my belief system, that we need to make smart investments. I’d borrow the money today at these historic interest rates on hundred year federal bonds and get after the base, including the technical infrastructure. And that leads us to the next topic about big tech and anti-trust. And we just can’t talk about the economy without talking about big tech and antitrust. Episode 59 of the Common Bridge featured professor Dan Crane, talking about big tech antitrust and how unfettered monopolies threaten our very freedom. And this is a historical precedent for it as he talked about. Dawn, what could we expect from a Trump Justice Department in a second term?

Dawn Asper:

Well, this certainly isn’t my area, but I know that when he’s looking at what’s going on with these big monopolies, he’s seeing that Europe is fining them and so forth. And I think he would like some of that money actually. But I think that sometimes big companies can offer a better or a more affordable product to consumers. And I would just think that he would probably, it would be important, that antitrust enforcement and competition policies were in place, but not to the point that you’re actually punishing firms for their competitive success, because he does seem to value competitiveness to give the best consumer experience.

Rich Helppie:

Robert, how would a President Biden address this issue?

Robert Greenfield:

Well, as you know, I come from the big tech side, so it’s kind of near and dear to my heart. My personal view after living in China, Australia, so many different places, is that big tech are the crown jewels in the United States system and it’s not something that you can tamper with easily. And yes, I think there needs to be some controls put on it. There’s a lot of things out there. There’s a brand new movie that you all probably seen, The Social Dilemma. There’s a lot of different things going on. But if you look at the market, Dawn mentioned the market, the big six, which are Facebook, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Netflix, Microsoft plus perhaps Oracle, but those big six, that is 20% right now of the growth that has been on the NYSC and also NASDAQ, respectively.

So those are really leading the American interests around the world. So I think what Biden has to do here, this is my advice to Biden, is don’t mess with something very easily. I think actually our issue on tech is more for, and I’m not so much on the privacy concerns, I think it’s the manipulation of the technology for the purposes of just the shareholder, i.e. Facebook. In other words, using algorithms to promote certain things and also, and I’m talking about advertising and manipulation. Yes, there’s also the things about different groups being on there. And we can all argue about whether or not those groups need to be regulated more or less. We can argue about the Russian or Chinese interference and things like that. But I really believe that the hearings that I’ve seen so far completely missed the mark, which is that these are, again, the crown jewels of American dominance in the world. And that if we’re going to split into a Chinese internet, a US internet and possibly a European internet, it is not to the United States advantage. What the United States needs to do is to be promoting its technologies, but also making sure that those technologies do pay their fair share and tax wherever they’re paying it. But then secondly, and most importantly, is that that technology is, goes back a little bit more towards the betterment of society and less just towards the pocket book of a few guys. There’s no justification for instance, of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos to be worth $200 billion as an example, or the same thing for Mark Zuckerberg. Anyway, that’s my view.

Rich Helppie:

It sounds like we’re getting toward a bipartisan consensus there. And I think both of your viewpoints are much in line with Professor Crane. And I encourage everyone to listen to that episode. And we hope to get Professor Crane back to speak more on the Common Bridge.

A part of any economic discussion is the impact on our environment. In Episode 43 of the Common Bridge with Michelle Arquette Palermo, she detailed some of the environmental relief that has come with closing the economies. Yet today we have wildfires in California and elsewhere in the West, we have hurricanes in the Gulf, a strong, scientific consensus on climate change, and we’re scheduled to leave the Paris Climate Accord in November. Dawn, mention of the environment was conspicuously absent in the GOP convention. We all have to live on this planet and breathe its air and drink its water. What can we expect from a second Trump term relative to climate change and the environment?

Dawn Asper:

I think there’s a consensus that there’s climate change, but I think the rub is when you get to how much of that is contributed by mankind, and what balance do you have to strike? Because if you don’t strike a good balance, you end up harming the most vulnerable people on the earth. Really the United States is sort of like the goose that laid the golden egg. If you kill us other people really suffer from that. And I believe that we’ve done really well. If you go over to China, they don’t even know where to put their garbage. But I think we grew at a more steady rate and some of these other countries that grew so quickly they’re really more the offenders. Are we supposed to cut back our clean coal and cut back everything that we’ve done to make the environment more more acceptable while they’re able to just go ahead and throw stuff out there?

Rich Helppie:

Let me probe that, as the leader in the world, United States, and as the leader of the United States, the president of the United States, what would a second Trump term look like relative to climate change and the environment? If we need to be leadership, what does it look like?

Dawn Asper:

Right. I would say that we would be looking at-I’m not a person who thinks we should be focusing on carbon. Trees and plants are the carbon sinks on the land and the phytoplankton play that role in the oceans. I think that if we were to look at pollution, those are the things that we need to always preserve-water and air, water and air. But we have so much, I would switch over, I would make it where we would switch over. Like everybody wants to ban plastic straws, things like that. I would switch over to where that we would be using hemp or soybeans or something to make the disposables, as opposed to using plastics and styrofoam and things like that. Because that’s really what we’ve got. We’ve got these mountains and mountains of collecting garbage.

Rich Helppie:

Just to kind of force the point, is the Trump administration talking about this? Again, I watched the entire Republican convention and most of the Democrat convention, and it was never brought up. And it seems to me that if we’re going to get to the kinds of policies you’re talking about, the leadership needs to come from the oval office.

Dawn Asper:

Well, I see what you’re saying, but I just think that when you look at what man’s impact is in terms of the actual change of climate, I think it’s probably 10% or less. I mean, we’ve got 1,500 potentially active volcanoes, five of them have been active in historical times. We’ve got sunspots. Those are things we can’t control. If we had one big Krakatoa, we could have a whole season with not even being able to grow anything and cooling. So that’s the problem that I really disagree with, and I think Republicans in general tend to disagree with. We’ve got methane gas coming up from the bottom of the ocean. We’re not going to be able to do anything about that. So I’m looking more at the things that we can do that would…

Rich Helppie:

I look at it this more along the traditional environmental lines about pollutants in the air and the water. So Robert, let me turn to you. Scientists agree that the earth exited a mini ice age around 1944. And in all of our adult lifetimes, we have been told with certainty that another ice age was coming. And now there is reported certainty around a warming planet and the urgent need to make changes. Despite the impacts, as Dawn has indicated, on the quality of life today and the economies that provide that quality of life, what can we expect from a Biden presidency?

Robert Greenfield:

Well, first of all as I was born in 1950, I’m glad to hear that the scientists agree with my personal assessment of growing up in Michigan, as it was pretty darn cold and exiting that mini ice age was no fun.

Rich Helppie:

So for all of our listeners, all of us on this call walked through snow drifts up to our chin, every day to school, and that was July.

Robert Greenfield:

A little levity there, but I’ve to answer, I do want to say one thing about China and the difference here on the climate approach. And I think you’re right, Rich , the United States has take a leading position one way or the other. But to say, to answer Dawn, maybe she knows or doesn’t know, but actually the US has been sending its garbage to China for years and other places, but to China, and only recently China finally said no, and that’s partly a recycling thing that doesn’t work. So there’s a lot of things that we’re doing that does not work. And to her point about the use of hemp or alternative products is a brilliant idea. And I think Dawn, thank you for saying that because we just cannot keep pushing out the cheap plastic stuff. So that’s on the table and I am I really happy that you, and personal responsibility is good and we should not be mocking people. We should try to understand that there are different ways and we all can make a difference. But on Biden, which is your question, now Biden, let’s go right to the bottom line here. Biden wants to put, he’s not a New Green Deal kind of guy. Again, he’s an incrementalist. He talks about 1.7 trillion, of putting that into clean energies. I already mentioned the half million electric vehicles. I think that he will clearly change away from what Dawn is talking about with his clean coal. Coal does not provide many jobs in the United States anymore, mostly what it does provide is profit. He will clearly stop things like fracking, which while a lot of people talk about energy independence, what kind of energy independence is that if we’re using all of our water that goes beneath that. You’ve talked about water, Rich, a lot-Flint, we all know these issues. So I think the bottom line you’re going to see from Biden is a careful, but very consistent approach, which is going to be that he’s going to look at the alternative technologies pretty heavily. As you know, also Rich , and I’m not sure maybe Dawn you do too, there’s some controversy about that. Not even Michael Moore believes completely in alternative technologies these days. There are other things that need to happen on this planet for the populations to lessen the impact on the planet. But ultimately the United States is going to be, and I think Rich, you said it right, the United States has to be a leader. We are not a leader under Trump. We are a rogue nation doing whatever we feel like doing. And while the Paris Climate Accords are not maybe the greatest, walking out of everything all the time is not a way to victory for the planet.

Rich Helppie:

Let me just wrap this up. There’s a lot more ground to cover today. So Robert I’m relieved that Joe Biden is not embracing the New Green Deal, quite aspirational. But he has said he’s against coal. He has said he’s against fracking. These are two things that have actually changed the ability of the United States to negotiate as it makes us energy independent. And Biden’s going to carry California, which is experiencing rolling blackouts because California has made energy production so difficult. And whether we go to nuclear plants, like those that power most of France, or whether we deal with the up and down of renewables, those are policy decisions that need to get made. And I just would find it much better if both parties would have an adult conversation about this. Actually, I’d like to have an adult conversation about anything, but let’s move on to looking at our society.

Economies and the environment, these are inescapable. They affect our society, but public policy and governing can have immediate impact. We’ve seen months of protest, civil unrest. I’m going to call it exactly what it is-violent criminality in the streets of America. Episode 50 of the Common Bridge was Sheriff Jerry Clayton, distinguished among those three things. We’ve seen Detroit Police Chief James Craig, prominent on the national scene, showing the difference between support for protests and the prosecution of violent law breakers. And of course, Officer Bruce Helppie on Episode 60 and 61 talking about the street level view and how difficult the job of policing is. Robert, the Democratic National Convention was silent about the street mayhem plaguing our cities. There are those that believe that the anarchists and parts of the Democrat party are in league with each other. Democrat mayors supported by Democrat governors have thwarted their own police department, refused help from the federal government. The citizens of those cities have suffered escalating crime rates. BLM, capital BLM, as a movement, and Black Lives Matter as a statement of fact, seemed to have differing definitions. How does a President Biden heal these wounds?

Robert Greenfield:

So let’s get some numbers out there to start, on cities and violence. And I’m not going to give the statistics on violence, but just Trump talks about Democrat run cities. I think that’s part of what you’re talking about. Well, 22 out of 26 largest cities in America are run by Democrats. That’s 40 million people, legal residents, none of the 2-4 million of homeless are counted, versus four cities out of the top 26 run by Republicans with 4 million. So on top of that, the rural-urban split is 270 million urban, 55 million are rural. So if you’re in urban America it’s basically run by Democrat. So if you think that that’s a problem, well then I think people need to start doing things that you’re talking about Rich, all the time, which is you’ve got to start working with people. You can’t send unmarked troops in from Homeland Security to pick up people.

Rich Helppie:

What does president Biden do? And again, they, the Democrat National Convention, never mentioned the topic, and we all know it wasn’t until some of the commentators on CNN, Don Lemon in particular said, hey, these riots aren’t polling well for the Democrats. Then they started talking about it. So we’ve got a problem. We have a doubling murder rate in New York. When occasionally the actual citizens of Portland, Seattle, Chicago, Minneapolis are interviewed they say, we can’t do without the police force. We’re living in terror. These are, I want to know, Joe Biden as president of the United States with influence over Democrat governors and mayors, what does a Joe Biden do about these wounds?

Robert Greenfield:

So actually again, their backgrounds are, they are both from the criminal justice system, particularly Kamala Harris is. So in my view, what’s happening on the Democrat side is this, is that yes, they did not speak about it enough at the Democratic National Convention, I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. but their goal there was inclusion. Their goal was to talk about the United States as a diverse country. And they wanted to talk about healing. Now you could say, well, it’s too early to talk about healing while there’s still violence and looting going on. Their view, whether you agree with it or not, is to say, essentially, we’re not going to stop violence and looting just by going in and picking people up. So that’s their view. Now you know my view on this I’ve lived in Detroit, we both lived there, Dawn also grew up outside Detroit. We’ve seen Detroit burned down to the ground. So there’s no doubt about that violence and looting hurts the people that are-those folks that are living there. Secondly, Biden is definitely not a defund the police guy. Now is Biden going to put resources in different areas, I think definitely so. If you read his platform, if you watch what he’s saying, he’s basically saying he wants to start doing more community intervention. He wants to do less of the battering ram and he wants to do more of people actually policing on the streets. By the way, this works in countries around the world. It does not, everything does not have to be the high tech approach. And I think that’s the real problem that the United States is facing now is the polarization that you’re talking about. You can blame Obama for some of that for taking the military equipment and giving it away, or Bush who started that program, or Trump who’s now seems to put it all on steroids. But at the end of the day, you cannot have a militarized force against people that are protesting. You have to have people that are de-escalating. Trump is not a escalator. My view is Biden is a de-escalator.

Rich Helppie:

Well, look, I am waiting to hear Joe Biden talk about this and what he would do to de-escalate, because it’s unfair to the citizens of those cities. And I’ll call out Chicago where the Ronald McDonald house was ransacked. This is where families of very ill children stay. And yet the mayor deployed the police force to keep these same people off her street. Now, nobody has an objection to any kind of protesting, but as Chief James Craig says, when you throw a railroad spike or rock, a frozen water bottle, that is not protesting. And that’s why Detroit’s been so successful because it’s not about groups. It’s about the act. So Dawn, let me turn to you. President Trump has declared he is the law and order president. And I just heard the echoes of Rich  Nixon of 1968. And there are those, as you know, that have said, look, this mayhem in the street is all Donald Trump’s fault. What happens if Donald Trump wins a second term as it relates to protests, civil unrest, rioting? And is it really all about the very justifiable thought that all black lives matter or the BLM organization? Again, I do want to make sure I differentiate between those two because one’s inarguable, one has other goals if you read their website. So Dawn, what happens in a second term with Donald Trump?

Dawn Asper:

Well, I guess I’m really kind of against the identity politics that keep coming up with the Democrat party. I think that they would get along with us a lot better if we didn’t have to like label everybody as to what they are. But I do definitely agree with Robert on the the tech issue because really what has happened is because we’ve had such a series of war after war, after war, after war. And then you’ve got these legislators who are part of the military industrial complex. They give the money to the contractors and so forth and way more than they need-go ahead and manufacture way more than they need. Then they say, oh, we have an overage, and then it goes to the police departments. And so basically what we’ve done is we’ve circumvented posse comitatus by militarizing the police rather than bringing in troops per se. So I do agree with him on that.

I think though that when I look at BLM, I don’t really look at black lives matter as being the situation that created all of this. What I see is that we were told 50 years ago that communists/socialists/Marxists would not be able to defeat the United States militarily. We’re just too strong. And so from that point on, they had their plan and they looked at the fabric of the United States and they said, where can we attack them? We’re going to have to subvert them. I think it’s along the racial lines of white and black. And so I really do have lots of black friends who would be embarrassed if I said something to them about, oh, what do you think about this looting and so forth? I really believe that what we’re dealing with right now is-with Antifa and Marxism-I think we’ve got Marxism versus capitalism and people are just going to have to decide which system they think is best.

Rich Helppie:

And that’s your view that it’s playing out in the streets and that…

Dawn Asper:

…never let a crisis go to waste.

Rich Helppie:

And if President Trump wins a second term, and he said he is the law and order president, what happens?

Dawn Asper:

Well, I think a lot of prevention has to occur. And I think there will be a lot of see, we tried to do the police reform bill and Senator Scott presented that. And they probably would have gotten about 80% with all the amendments that the Democrats were allowed to add and so forth. I think they would have gotten at least 80% of what they really wanted in police reform and still they wouldn’t vote for it. And he wasn’t the right black man-he was a Republican. So I think until they’re willing to vote, and this is the problem I have with partisanship-our founders never intended for that. They knew that everybody would try to get points for passing this or passing that, they always wanted the personal credit instead of working together and find something that’s workable and pass the 80%, get 80% of what they want. And then if they win the election, then they can go for the other 20% or they can go for the other 20% anyway. But I just don’t see that there’s a consensus on being able to come together when there’s a good idea and go ahead and pass it. It’s just, there’s just too many problems with the bipartisanship.

Rich Helppie:

Well, that would be great. Whoever loses the election, I hope that there’s an olive branch and that we celebrate our ability to protest and we all condemn things that lead to violence.

So let’s look at equal protection as it relates to federal law enforcement. Our society is held together by the belief that our institutions are going to behave with integrity and professionalism, no matter the political winds of the day. And by any objective measure, it’s apparent there’s been a lot of misconduct in the FBI. Episode 40 with Ken Chadwell, along with Episodes 45 and 46 of the Common Bridge with Barbara McQuade, discussed some of these elements. Robert, I’m going to be very direct. Why are the Democrats not outraged by the brazen misconduct of the FBI? You and I both had the experience years ago when the intelligence community was outside the boundaries with the reforms led by Senator Frank Church, what’s going on here, has the FBI become politicized?

Robert Greenfield:

I go back to what Dawn just said. If we were taking the approach of the 80/20 rule, which is 80% of what we agree on, 20%, we don’t. Rich and I have been successful in business, and I assume you too, with your own business. If I try to go for a hundred percent all the time, I get nothing. So you win by putting together deals that work for all sides. And I think this applies to the FBI. I think the Frank Church example is an excellent one. I think definitely at this point, we need to be looking at the FBI once again. There’s no doubt about it, that there are a lot of institutions inside the United States that have been kind of running on their own for a while. And I think partisanship is not helping it, but let me also be equally direct. So my answer to you, why is the Democrats not saying enough about that? I think that it’s a partisan situation now. I don’t think that anybody is cooperating. I’m not going to give Biden like super-duper credit for anything here, but I think that Biden would clearly be the kind of guy that would be open to hearings that would be on the FBI. Again, don’t forget, that’s his background. That’s Kamala Harris’s background.

Rich Helppie:

But has he said anything about that?

Robert Greenfield:

He has talked about police reform. He has talked about FBI in general, nothing specific on that, but I think that this leads to a point where anybody, his ability to reach across the aisle, I’m not saying they get everything done, but I think he’s willing to listen. And I think that that’s really critical at this point in time.

Rich Helppie:

Robert, I’m just going to tell you, I’m having a hard time buying that because Joe Biden was the vice-president United States when these abuses were going on. As outlined in Inspector General Horowitz’s report the FISA abuses were rampant and listen to how it was justified. Carter Page and the Trump administration was not targeted because they pulled 25 random cases for FISA warrants. They all had errors and mis-statement of facts. It’s like we do it all the time to everybody, was their answer. Joe Biden benefited from this as a vice-president of United States. He said nothing. Kamala Harris has said nothing. So I want to say why aren’t the Democrats outraged by this abuse of power? That’s a simple question. Where’s the outrage, because it scares the crap out of me that any party would take something as powerful as the FBI and use it for a partisan purpose, as you’ve just said.

Robert Greenfield:

So unfortunately, I’m going to have to flip it back to you, which is why are there no Republicans who are not outraged about the Justice Department under Bill Barr, where he clearly sees himself as the personal lawyer for Donald Trump?

Rich Helppie:

That’s a talking point.

Robert Greenfield:

It’s not a talking point.

Rich Helppie:

I think that’s a diversion.

Robert Greenfield:

It’s not a diversion.

Rich Helppie:

Dawn, let me turn to you. What troubles you about the conduct of the FBI, the Justice Department and the intelligence agencies in the 2016 campaign through today. And I’ll come back and ask Robert about what his specific views are about the DOJ, after you’ve had a chance to respond.

Dawn Asper:

I would have to include the CIA and all this because of the international involvement of the players. It was just very disturbing to see the complicated web that they wove to discredit and try to destroy a duly elected president. And even before he was elected, a lesser man, I would have to say, in the White House would have given up disgraced and broken. I don’t know how else they would have dealt with this because the different people who were contacted and told things, so then they could say that they were told, and it was just very convoluted. So to see how unaccountable they are, there’s no audio or video recordings of questions and answers when they interviewed Hillary and she wasn’t under oath. And then just clear political favoritism-Comey was said to be a Republican. I couldn’t help thinking much more must be going on in that bureau and that Hillary would be the holder of secrets. Maybe they all had a bunch of secrets and she would be the one to keep everyone from knowing what really goes on in the intelligence agencies. And my mind went back to Filegate when 150 FBI files of Republicans were strewn in the hallway at the White House, they were uploading them. And then to find out that the FBI knew the dossier was bought and paid for by Hillary and the DNC, and that there was this secret FISA court, which I only happened to know about because of another video I had watched from 2003, but it’s unknown to most people. And it was really designed to be focused on supposedly foreign actors, and here we were turning it on a US president. I don’t know, all the data collection warnings from Snowden suddenly were brought back into focus. I just think that data’s the new oil and everything is being used and manipulated to get what they want in a partisan way.

Rich Helppie:

Let me give Robert an opportunity to pinpoint the allegations on the Department of Justice over the last couple of years during the Trump administration.

Robert Greenfield:

By the way, just on Hillary Clinton, just a quick one. All I know is that Goudy and everybody else had hearings on Hillary Clinton forever. I watched her for eight hours but  Dawn talks about how strong Trump is. I got to give Hillary Clinton a lot of credit. She withstood direct questions from tough prosecutors and they never found anything. And if they had, they would’ve come out with it. So in my view the previous attorney general, in particular, Jeff Sessions, did the right thing when he recused himself. Of course he got the eternal damnation from Donald Trump for doing that. Anybody who doesn’t, gets it kind of thing. William Barr is a different person. He has a very clear agenda and I can go through just a very quick list, everything from Roger Stone getting a reduced sentence-that’s an interference; Michael Flynn, a convicted felon, not only getting off, but he wants it expunged, is talking now about cities in the United States are seditious and threatening to cut off federal funds. There is a raw manipulation here of the Justice Department for personal means by Trump and his surrogate Barr. And I think a lot of people are very concerned, and a lot of people are shocked and worried about this. My view is, is that politicization cuts both ways. If you believe that 2016 and previously, that was true under Obama, and I’m not saying it might not have been, but I would say that right now, it’s completely out of control with Barr. Barr is sticking his nose into everything every day. He can’t seem to do his job, which is to run the Justice Department. And on top of that, he calls his own prosecutors, children. I mean, these are people that are career people in that area.

Rich Helppie:

Let me try to bring this topic to a close. I think we should be united as a citizenry of saying no matter who is in the White House or who controls a house of Congress, that the FBI, the Department of Justice, the intelligence agencies need to be playing it straight up. And there’s going to be a debate. Is Bill Barr trying to correct wrongs, or is he trying to operate under a different agenda? Things that we do know, I encourage everyone to read Inspector General Horowitz’s report. We do know that FBI attorney, Kevin Clinesmith altered emails to have a completely different meeting. We know that FBI Director Comey selectively gave salacious information to President Trump to get the special prosecutor appointed. We now know that Comey knew that information was false when he presented it. We know that the special prosecutor knew a year in advance of the 2018 midterms there was no collusion and unequivocally, we know the FBI lied repeatedly in order to spy on Carter Page and by extension the Trump campaign. And I’d encourage everybody to look at the judiciary hearings where Sally Yates and Rod Rosenstein basically threw James Comey under the bus, they said there would be no FISA warrants if we knew then what we know today. And really interesting, they asked Rosenstein straight up, did Robert Mueller play it straight? And his answer was, yes, Robert Mueller ran an honest investigation, and then he paused and without being asked, said, but I can’t speak to the underlying allegations, which I think was really interesting. If you move into the Southern District of New York, from what I can read, most of those so-called charges are really based around somebody putting a different tax value versus a market value, versus an insurance value on property. And there’s probably not a homeowner in America that doesn’t do that. But in any case, we want a level playing field. If Donald Trump’s broken the law, we do want to see him prosecuted. And if somebody else has broken the law, we want to see that.

Let’s move on to international. Of course we don’t exist in this world as a single nation. Which president would be best for international relationships? I’m going to give each of you 90 seconds and ask you to take a country or two or broadly, and talk to us about the Biden administration versus the Trump administration. So Dawn, internationally, what can we expect from a second Trump term.

Dawn Asper:

I actually was very surprised. Foreign policy has turned out to be one of Trump’s shining areas, I think. One thing I’ve noticed that outside the US, CNN seems to be the major source of news to the world about the US and having been pictured as a racist and a buffoon, I can’t imagine the surprise of foreign leaders and diplomats when they actually sat down and talked with him, and very impressed with his ability to bring people together. His foreign relations and trade deals are sort of an amazing blend of the Art of the Deal and the art of war, I would say. But I look at USMCA, garnering peace treaties and normalization for Israel with the UAE and Bahrain, through completely different approach than anyone had tried before. Serbia-Kosovo, the economic normalization agreement after 12 years of failure by the EU. And then of course, “little rocket man” visits-just his ability to go ahead and why not talk with these people because what have you got to lose? You’ve got to somehow bring people together instead of just always calling them crazy and mad men and so on and so forth, like they tried to do in Syria.

Rich Helppie:

Robert your take on a Biden administration and international.

Robert Greenfield:

So what I was going to do is talk about where we were with Trump, but that’s okay. I’ll switch over to Biden. I think what Biden is going to do is be a consensus builder. He will go back to things as NAFTA, not NAFTA, I’m sorry, MCA. That’s a great one. That was a good one. That was also, by the way, bi-partisan, so I think that Trump gets credit, so does the Congress get credit for that. So I think that that’s all good. I think he will go back to things like the TPP. He will continue on with the China side. As you know, Rich, I’m a very strong supporter of the Mike Pompeo, lone ranger diplomat. I think when Trump leaves him alone Pompeo does a very good job. I would disagree with Dawn on the other side, as I live outside the United States, it’s not a CNN issue. It’s hard for me to say I’m an American anywhere because I get blasted by almost everybody. They just don’t feel that Trump has taken in anybody’s considerations whatsoever. They don’t even believe that he is a strong advocate for the United States. So I think that we would see a difference there. I think it was a clever thing for Trump, by the way, with Jared on the UAE Bahrain thing, by Israel making a deal with Israel and not including the Palestinians. Nobody wants to talk to the Palestinians, including the UAE and other sheikhs, they’re more interested in Iran. I think that that was actually also clever of Trump on Iran, that he’s managed to surround Iran. So I think what Biden is going to do here is to start getting people back around the table. I wouldn’t see some massive agreements from Biden about anybody in particular. You’ll see him strong on China. You will see him also very pro NATO. You’ll see him back to the table on the TPP. So you’re going to see a lot of good trade things from Biden, as opposed to kind of like the go it alone, isolationist side of Trump, which I would say to be honest with you, a lot of noise, but not a lot of victories for the United States.

Rich Helppie:

Right Robert, and one thing I do want our listeners to understand, Robert’s been on the program a couple of times talking about his area of expertise with the far East. And he doesn’t like this president, but he’s been very fair minded. And I thought that was just a great demonstration when you complimented Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and frankly, we need more people like Robert, that we can talk about this and let’s come together. And that’s what the Common Bridge is trying to do. So thanks for that, Robert.

You two have been outstanding guests, and before we go into a short lightning round to wrap this up. I’d like you to take out your crystal ball for a minute, and I’m going to ask you to take a minute under two different scenarios. One being, if President Trump wins, one being if Joe Biden wins, and you can pick your candidate first, if you wish. Talk about what does the future look like? And I think about that November, December, January, period, I think about the first hundred days. And then I think what about what condition would we be in leading up to the 2022 midterms. Dawn, do you want to lead us off on it?

Dawn Asper:

Actually, of course I’m in the middle of my own campaign and so I’ve been talking with a lot of different people. I talked to everybody, I don’t care if you’re independent, Democrat, whatever, because I just want to get the pulse of my constituents. But they are very fearful that if, whichever side they’re on, if their candidate doesn’t win, that we’re going to have civil war. And so I do see a lot of fear out there, but I’ve been really kind of putting out there the whole idea, and I wish people would more share that, that we’re really looking more at whether we’re going to go Marxism, whether we’re going to go capitalism, that it’s not a racial thing, because I think that all Americans can come together. And it’s just like in your family, if somebody criticizes somebody in your family, you stick up for them. And I just want to see us get back to that point. I don’t know how we’re going to get there. I just see a lot of people will be thinking that the other side is cheating. That’s what I’m seeing, each side is saying, oh, well, they will win because they’ll cheat. And I just wish that programs like this will maybe make people a little bit more trusting that we are all Americans and that we all do want our country to succeed.

Rich Helppie:

Great, thank you. Robert.

Robert Greenfield:

So first of all, thanks for that Dawn, I think I might vote for you, but I’m not in your district. Sorry about that. A way that I look at it, I want to answer Rich ‘s question, which is the first hundred days. My view is this, if it’s Trump, it’s going to be basically more of the same. I don’t think that we really know if Trump “unbound” has been seen yet. And so I would be pretty fearful if I were on the left, for any kind of retribution, I could be wrong. I hope I’m wrong. I hope that Trump would come out and say some kind of grand reconciliation gesture. And he certainly has the intellect and capability if he wants to do that, he can do it. So if you guys have any kind of pull with Trump, I would be saying open yourself up and open your heart to all of America, not just the so-called base, because he doesn’t have any more to win. And please don’t use that time to start promoting Ivanka, so we can get over that.

Now Biden, and I’m serious about that, if it’s Biden assuming that everything all goes in this transition, it all works out, he’s already laid out his hundred days. Now Biden wants to make it sound big, but I think you’re going to see those four pillars that I talked about, which are going to be infrastructure, I think is going to be a big one, jobs-re-shoring anything using the power of the US government in particular. I think this whole idea with public health is a big deal, and I’m very, very strong about that. And I’m sure both of you would agree that we need a much more robust public health system. Those are the kinds of areas I think, and you’ll also see something with climate change. So I think you’ll see that with Biden, but I really view Biden as an incrementalist. And however, this goes, even if he gets to a 50-50 tie, which I think is the best, in the Senate and Kamala Harris has that tie-breaking vote, that’s the best that he’s going to do. You’re not going to see some great legislation. You’re going to see more of those areas. And I do want to make one point about with Dawn. I’m sorry, Dawn, but I can tell you from living around the world, the United States is so far away from Marxism, I’m sorry, but it’s just not even close. It’s a corporate crony capitalistic system. And that’s the way that it’s been and what we need here is more balance, we don’t need socialism. We need balance and Citizens United and things like that may see a bit of a challenge, although I don’t think it will get by the Supreme Court, but I think you’re going to see a lot in that, Rich and Dawn, you’re going to see legislation that is incremental that it might not get bipartisan support, but it’ll need to withstand a Supreme Court scrutiny, which means that by definition will need to be narrow.

Rich Helppie:

My thoughts on this too, as I’m listening to both of you, would be this, would a President Biden be rewarded for being a guy that’s reaching across the aisle, or would the contours of his party prevent him from doing that or making it more difficult? I said before in this program, the gloating alone in a Trump victory would be something that we’ve never seen before. And both parties today now calling into question the integrity of the election, very, very scary and dangerous documents, the Transition Integrity Project. I’ve read this thoroughly. It advocates street violence in all circumstances, other than a Biden landslide. And today that’s being turned around as this as well, Trump’s going to send out disloyal slates of electors. We need Joe Biden and Donald Trump to come together on that stage on September 29th and say, they’re going to make sure we have an election with integrity and that both will accept the results for the good of the country.

Alright, let’s go to a quick lightning round. So these are quick hitters, 15 to 30 seconds. Alright and Robert, you’re up first and then Dawn, and we’ll kind of alternate. So, Robert, President Trump has led new trade deals with China and North America. Are we better off, worse off or something else?

Robert Greenfield:

Whenever Pompeo was involved, we’re better off. Whenever Trump is going alone, we’re not. So that’s my answer on that.

Rich Helppie:

Dawn, lightening round, same question, better off, worse off or something else with trade deals?

Dawn Asper:

I think we’re better off.

Rich Helppie:

Great. Dawn, is education the key to solving our society issues? Education cartels or free choice?

Dawn Asper:

I believe that it is the answer, but I would say a classical education. I don’t really like revisionist history and what’s going on right now. I just really think that it’s better to help children learn how to think rather than tell them what to think. And unfortunately with all the edu-tainment there is out there, there’s a lot of distractions and, and just feeding on education as opposed to actually thinking and learning and having that passion to learn.

Rich Helppie:

Right. Robert, same question.

Robert Greenfield:

I’m not very keen on calling education cartels-public education-education cartels. But anyway, my answer is I think on education, we need to reform it so that we’re not beholden to a public millage property tax system. And so that we can get a proper funding for education across the board.

Rich Helppie:

We’ll just riff for a second here. In the district that educated all of us we’re seeing the results of that. Now that’s a longer discussion. I’m just going to stop there.

Dawn Asper:

Very quickly though, think about this, when we went to school, Wayne Westland schools were the model school district of Michigan, and Michigan, Illinois, and California were the model states for education.

Rich Helppie:

Exactly. And I’m going to plug-there’s going to be a documentary coming out about Champion’s of Wayne, November 14th. It’s going to be a virtual movie premiere, hope everybody tunes into this.

Robert, the pandemic-much has been said, much has been done. And in my view, it’s going to be years to sort out what happened and where the errors were. There is consensus:  social distancing, masking, and hand-washing do seem to help. My question is this, looking forward is there a policy difference in preparation for the next time between these candidates or have those lessons been incorporated in the agencies and it’ll basically be the same, no matter who’s elected?

Robert Greenfield:

Well I don’t know who wrote this for Biden, but a number one policy for him is rebuild the public health departments. And I think that’s the number one difference between the two candidates in that, even in very poor countries like Thailand, strong public health departments mean that better control of things like a pandemic.

Rich Helppie:

Great. Dawn, going to be any difference between the two?

Dawn Asper:

Well, I think that it was mis-characterized because if we look back, they kept comparing it to the Spanish flu. If we look back then there were 103 million people and 675,000 people died. And so I really think that considering our mobility right now, and everyone going everywhere, planes, trains, everything, that that really he did an outstanding job. He did it early.

Rich Helppie:

But forward, going forward. Any difference between the next time?

Dawn Asper:

Well, I’m not going for a new normal, I think that we need to-there’s COVID, there’s going to be other things. I think we can’t just keep shutting down economies. We can’t do that, because there’s such a thing as living and you can’t live in isolation and be fearful. That’s not my idea of-I would rather just go ahead and allow people to decide for themselves.

Rich Helppie:

I was trying to get to a different place. So is there going to be a difference in the preparation for next time?

Dawn Asper:

Well, I think there already has been, because the cupboards were bare and we know that 67 million people got H1N1 and just thank God that it wasn’t as lethal as COVID has been for the elderly, but that’s what we’re already doing. We’re stockpiling and each state, they can do that themselves as well. So I think we’ll be ready next time. And we’ve got the PPEs and so on and so forth. So I think we’ll be ready next time.

Rich Helppie:

So, Dawn next question is for you. Many on the left take it as an article of faith that Donald Trump has profited illegally from his presidency, call him a criminal. True or false, and why?

Dawn Asper:

It’s absolutely false. He actually has lost money since the beginning-being sworn in to last year. He has about the same net worth this year as he had last year, but it looks like his sons are really selling off assets and just paying down debt. So I don’t think he’s been involved with that at all. He’s basically told them he’s not going to do anything with the business, but the sons are actually taking care of paying down debt.

Rich Helppie:

Robert, article of faith, Donald Trump has profited legally from his presidency, true or false. Why?

Robert Greenfield:

To be honest, I don’t know, and I don’t really care. I would prefer that he gets his family out of the administration, I despise nepotism and I don’t like the idea of a Royal Trump family cult approach. I think he makes money on hotels, golf courses, you name it, but obviously he’s not working day to day on his businesses. So he may or may not be making any more money on this, time will tell, but I think it’s something that we should get off of and just say, okay, fine, he made some money on his hotels, but he didn’t do his day job that he used to do.

Rich Helppie:

Robert, election integrity. Once again, Donald Trump has said, wait and see, and Democrats are calling into question the integrity of the election. Kamala Harris has talked about suppression. Hillary Clinton, of course, has famously said Joe Biden shouldn’t concede. Bernie Sanders says that Trump can only win if he cheats. What do we need to do to get a fair and free election that people trust in this lightening round?

Robert Greenfield:

Follow the rules. It’s simple. And Trump, even today said that he might not concede even if it might be violent, everybody’s got to stop this thing. It is not just the Democrats it’s both sides. Everybody needs to say, I follow the rules, and Rich , you pointed it out, I think, a half a dozen times on this so far, is that everybody needs when they walk up on the stage, the first thing that Chris Wallace should be asking them is, hey, I want both of you guys today to say that you’re going to accept if you’ve lost, that you’re going to call the guy up and concede. That has to be the reality. Both of them have to say it, and somebody should ask them first question on September 29th.

Rich Helppie:

Well, we shall all be tuned in to see if that happens. Dawn, election integrity. What do we need to do to get a fair and free election that people trust?

Dawn Asper:

I think that what’s really brought it into question is the mail-in ballots versus the absentee ballots. Because we know that our voter rolls are not good. They’re about 15% higher than what the registered voters really are. The registered voter rolls, I should say, have about 15% more people on them than the people that actually live in and are registered in a particular area. So, and I think this automatic stuff, just giving a ballot to anybody because there’s multiple names sometimes on these. I just think it just doesn’t make for an election that has obvious integrity.

Rich Helppie:

So you’d want to have more statements about here’s how we’re going to make sure the mail-in ballots are a good ballot.

Dawn Asper:

Well, I don’t know, since we haven’t cleaned our voter rolls, I don’t know how that will be because there’s no signature or ID. So I would really rather say if you’re not going to be there on the day of the election, then go ahead, get your ballot from the clerk, fill it out, give it to the clerk. And then it’s all done. But to have where as long as it’s postmarked by the date of the election, and as long as we get it 14 days after the election and all these different things, it just sounds like people are manipulating. And so it’s the appearances maybe more than what would really happen, but that’s what people go on is the appearances.

Rich Helppie:

Well, let me shift onto a different question. President Trump has helped negotiate normalization of relations between Israel and Bahrain and Israel and the United Arab Emirates. In fact, I think today’s the day that we’re recording that the first commercial flight between Israel and Bahrain is happening. Good thing or much to do about nothing? 

Dawn Asper:

Well, I think, again, it’s a good thing because anything that we can do to get ourselves extracted out of the middle East costs us less money that we can spend on our own infrastructure, our own education, all those things that we’ve missed, because we’ve had to have war over there. I’m not saying we had to, but we did have, and now that we’re energy independent, that’s another way we’re out of there. And then they can just play in the sandbox by themselves.

Rich Helppie:

Great. Robert. Good thing, or much ado about nothing?

Robert Greenfield:

It’s a good thing that there’s much to do about nothing.

Dawn Asper:

I would agree with that. Exactly.

Rich Helppie:

Let’s move on to the next question then. Robert, the 1619 Project claiming that the actual founding of the United States happened in Virginia, not in new England, is that a more factual rewrite of history or a gross distortion or something else? Claiming that our entire nation was founded on slavery as a centerpiece?

Robert Greenfield:

Actually I was a history major in college, so this is my subject. I would have to say that this entire discussion is a big deal. What we need is one history. Currently we have revisionist history, and then I am tired of hearing black history or white history or whatever history. And this will take all of us working together, essentially to sit down and to talk about-giving you a quick, quick example-I’m tired of hearing about states’ rights for the civil war that was something that was fought over to keep slavery has been framed for a long time that way. I’m tired of not hearing about the great migration of the black population coming from the South up North. I didn’t even hear that when I got my history degree. So there’s a lot of things here that have been completely missed in the past. I do not think though that the country was built on slavery. No, I do not. But I do think that we do need to re-look at our history and that actually what we’ve been living with for a long time has been a very narrow view of history. And we all need to be honest about this, and we’re not going to succeed by with either 1776 patriotic, or 1619 rewrite.

Rich Helppie:

Great Dawn, a more factual rewrite of history, gross distortion or something else?

Dawn Asper:

I think it’s both a rewrite of history and something else. Sadly, I think it’s more of a pretext to reparations. And I just think that you’re dealing with people who were never slaves who are writing it, and kind of impugning people who were never slave owners. And so we’re having a conversation now that I really wish that we were just saying, look, this was a horrible thing and let’s move forward and try to understand each other and have those tough conversations, which I had 20 years ago with my friends. I just feel like we keep getting stuck here.

Rich Helppie:

Great, well the writer of that New York Times piece, and I did read it by the way, has backed off the assertions that that’s the founding of the country. And I did read that in a world wide socialist website and in the New York Post. And yes, I have a broad set of things that I read from. So figure if those two can agree, everything else is downhill from there. Alright, very good.

So Dawn, the tax cut and Jobs Act of 2017 cap, the amount of state and local taxes that could be deducted on federal income tax. This is effectively attacks on the very wealthy, especially in the high tax states. The Democrats have tried to reverse this tax code even though in doing so it would only benefit a few upper income households. Why?

Dawn Asper:

Well, actually I saw it as a way of them bailing out California and New York all the time, because they love high taxes, but if their people can’t get the deductions, then they might move out and then they’ve got an even worse problem, like they have now where they have to just keep raising taxes. So I just think it’s poorly run states that they have to have these high taxes. I think they should just reform themselves.

Rich Helppie:

Great. Robert?

Robert Greenfield:

My answer is California is the fifth largest economy in the world, so it’s not poorly run. It’s a very successful state with some of the world’s greatest companies there. So the reality is on this one, as you both pointed out, is that this does affect high net worth individuals. My view is this, that just in general, the idea of changing the tax code so that it benefits one side or the other is a short-term fix. What we need is a federal government that is actually doing more, not less. And I think that’s something that’s fundamental that, may be Dawn and I-her background apparently is libertarian-would not agree with, but in my view is that the states should not be the lead on many of these areas. We should be actually funding from the federal government having block grants and less pressure on the states to pick up some of these services in particular locally.

Rich Helppie

Great. So let’s wrap up. What didn’t we cover today that perhaps we should have discussed? Any action or actions you recommend people take today? Any thoughts about a policy that would be the worst thing we could do? Or any closing thoughts. Robert, please.

Robert Greenfield:

First of all, thank you for the opportunity. My feeling here that we did a great job in covering a broad bunch of areas. Anybody who’s managed to sit and listen to this entire podcast, I want to thank them for sitting through it. I don’t think that there’s anything additionally that we really should act on. I would say action or actions that I would recommend people to take today, I would say, look, just like you said, Rich, look at multiple sources of information. You can talk all you want to about whether news organizations are in the middle or right spectrum or left spectrum. More information is better. I would also recommend that people do not listen to Facebook or take their information from Facebook, their news from Facebook. This is a bad idea.

From a policy perspective, I think the worst thing that we could do at this point is to go anymore towards the extremes. I think what we need now, whether it’s Supreme court or anybody else, we need to be more in the middle. Why? Because I still think the vast majority of Americans are in the middle. I’ll leave you with this thought about the last election, regardless of how we want to say it, only 27% of the eligible voting age population voted for Donald Trump-27. That means 73% did not vote for him. Slightly higher than 27% voted for Hillary Clinton. She didn’t do that great either. So what we really want to say here to people are, if you want to be able to be part of the system, it’s your obligation to get up and to go out and vote, not complain, not have voter suppression. I loved the idea that was-I’m not sure if it was, I think it was Dawn, who said, I thought about this too-when you fill in your ballot, walk in, pick it up, show your ID, walk over to the little table next to you at your clerk, fill in your ballot, put it in your envelope, sign it and turn it in. I think that a lot of this stuff can be taken care of with simple methods and not through complex methods. And Dawn, it has been a real pleasure listening to you and I thank you for your time also. Thank you.

Dawn Asper:

Well, I’d like to thank you as well. Robert, it’s been fascinating to hear your points of view and you just really, I can see why you’re brought onto this program-you’re very well-informed. I would say I would have to go along with much of what you said. I would just say we shouldn’t be looking forward to any shutdowns of the economy. I believe that we need to try to get back to the track we were on before COVID. And I realized a lot of people are talking about a new normal, but to me, a new normal is abnormal. And so I would just like to see our country come more together and trust one another. But I think that could be done if we did go ahead and do the voting the way I was mentioning before. I think I was just rambling on because I was so nervous during all of this, because I just appreciate you, too, bringing us together and being able to talk about this in a civilized manner.

Rich Helppie:

Well, let me say that my heart’s very happy today, and I’m very full of gratitude for both of you because we have had a great discussion. It is a civil discussion. We are a country filled with compassionate and generous people, and people that want peace and prosperity for all of our citizens and throughout the world, as the United States is, and should be, the leader of the world. We are a better people than the two political parties, and we are a better people than the reporting industry. And the two of you today have just reinforced that. I do appreciate you coming on the Common Bridge as we meet each other and try to find solutions. This is Rich Helppie, I’m going to sign off today. I think we’ve said all the can be said. So thank you for listening to the Common Bridge. Robert, Dawn have a wonderful rest of your week.

Brian Kruger:

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