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Thanks!
Richard Helppie
Hello, welcome to The Common Bridge. On The Common Bridge when you hear about a group of people, we often say well, how many people do you know like that? Guess what? I kept hearing about Georgia voters this and Georgia voters that and so I said, I know some Georgia voters...here today - not representing all Georgia voters or all Atlanta voters - an engaged man from Atlanta, Georgia, Thomas Hicks. Welcome to The Common Bridge, thanks for being with us.
Thomas Hicks
Thanks, Rich. I appreciate the opportunity to come on and share my views with you and your audience.
Richard Helppie
It's been a really newsy period over the last several years in Georgia. In recent weeks, of course, we've had the mugshot of the former president, he's claimed that he's shot a 67 to win the club tournament, he claims he was six foot three, weighed 215 pounds - which compares favorably, by the way, to Muhammad Ali, who was six-three, 236 - but I think the best quote I heard this week was Stormy Daniels saying if he's six-three and 215, she's 110 pounds and a virgin. So tell our listeners, our readers and our viewers a little bit about you; where did you grow up, what were some of your early days like? What's your career arc been and what are you up to today?
Thomas Hicks
Well, thanks Rich. Again, I appreciate the opportunity to be here. Born and raised in Atlanta, dedicated in the Atlanta public schools. When I graduated from high school, I decided I wanted to go out on the road so I didn't go directly to college but a few years later, went back, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at Georgia State. Communications was my area. I actually had, from my work at the radio station at Georgia State - 88.5 WRAS - I was contacted by the management team at Atlanta's NPR affiliate, and worked for few years as an announcer and producer at the local NPR affiliate. While working my way through school, I was working in healthcare and that eventually led to my meeting you when I came to Superior back in 1996. So born and raised in Atlanta, I have worked now in healthcare IT for 30 plus years, looking at retirement, possibly in the next decade there about. Employ myself now, mostly traveling, I've seen four continents; I have a bucket list of setting foot on every continent. Folks asked me well, what will you do when you get to Antarctica? I will say that I stepped on another continent as well. But I definitely appreciate the opportunity to share some general thoughts on my view of how politics is playing out across the country, and specifically how it's playing out here in Georgia.
Richard Helppie
Do you vote and have you voted regularly since you were eligible to vote?
Thomas Hicks
I have. I think when I became of legal age, I have voted in every local election, for mayors, for governors, folks go into Congress, and quite obviously, every presidential contest. So yes, I am always willing and determined to let my voice be heard.
Richard Helppie
How do you cast your ballot? Are you an in person, mail-in absentee; how do you cast your ballot?
Thomas Hicks
I have traditionally always cast my ballot in person, even in the last presidential contest, when COVID was still a concern, but took safety measures and cast my my ballot in person. That has been the standard for me. I will probably always cast the ballot in person. I think you and I have had one brief dialogue and I think it was an area where we were in agreement with all of that, that it can be done online. In my way of thinking there has to be a very secure means of allowing people to cast their ballots online. I cannot see any reason why I should not be able to cast a ballot from my laptop at home.
Richard Helppie
We can track lottery numbers, lottery registrations, with great precision, know where the person is located, when they're buying that ticket. The technology is there and could all be counted and do it on a Sunday afternoon. We'd know before Monday morning came, with great precision, how the vote turned out. So under the current situation, how do you feel about the integrity of the voting process in Georgia today?
Thomas Hicks
I never had any reservations about the integrity of the process. I'm of the firm opinion that the folks who questioned the integrity did so for obvious reasons. The Trump campaign, after the presidential contest, asked for a recount. That was done. There was a machine recount and a hand recount. I don't have any issues with what those findings were, from the initial voting of ballots to the electronic recount to the hand recount. I don't have any reservations about the integrity.
Richard Helppie
It wasn't like Trump threw the first punch either. Of course Stacey Abrams, in 2018, claimed that she had won the governor election, continued to say that, she said the election was stolen. She's told The New York Times that she won, she said the election laws were rigged, [it] was not a free and fair election. While she acknowledged that Brian Kemp was the governor, she refused to say he was legitimate. She claimed that the election was stolen from the people of Georgia. I'd like to highlight that - not to debate Stacey Abrams - but it kind of sours the mood, if you will, that we've had close elections. We've had the 1960 presidential election, the 2000 presidential election, I mean, what we haven't had is the amount of contesting. But in your voting, have you ever felt that you were blocked or intimidated in any way? Anybody trying to prevent you from casting a vote?
Thomas Hicks
I've not felt that I was personally targeted or that anyone tried to deliberately prohibit me from voting. I recall, definitely during the last presidential contest, the polling place that I went to [had] very long lines that were moving extremely slowly. There were reports that other polling places in my county had fewer people in lines that were moving very quickly. So it sort of...I suppose it may call into question, well, why is a given area where the voting base is largely black having extremely long wait times versus not so long a wait at a place where the voting base is predominantly white? That was a sort of discussion I heard while I stood in line that day. I wanted to circle back to Stacey Abrams. She called into question - and I believe she had a legitimate reason for doing so when running against Brian Kemp in 2018 - he was running for governor while serving as Secretary of State, essentially overseeing the election. I don't know if there was any opportunity or scenario where it might appear to be justified to stand back or step away from your position as Secretary of State when you're in the actual contest. That looked like a good opportunity to have done so and he did not. (Rich Helppie: Hey, listen, the optics on that would be horrible, right?) Yeah, they were. The only other thing I'll say relative to Stacey, she did refuse to concede. But in her defense - I won't use the term defense, I will say to add some weight to maybe her credibility - she did not take steps to try to illegally overturn the election. She said she felt some of the reasons that he was in office [were] the fact that he was a secretary of state while in the same contest; I think that raised some eyebrows. Like you said, the optics were not good.
Richard Helppie
You guys have had a couple of doozies in the Senate; both Senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, they won by runoff. Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker; how'd you feel as a Georgian, an Atlanta voter, with that contest and as close as it was too?
Thomas Hicks
I will never understand how it was as close as it was. I will just be brutally honest. I felt that Herschel Walker had no qualifications for the office he was being proposed to, he had no record of public service, it was a clear scenario where folks wanted a person in the Senate seat. They wanted that seat to such an extent that they will send anyone to occupy that seat. So I was personally embarrassed, it was difficult for me to watch the debates that he participated in, it was difficult for me to watch his press conferences. That is certainly one contest where I believe the best person won.
Richard Helppie
I think both of your Senators were surprise winners and the Republican challengers were dragged down by the machinations of Donald Trump. Now, you tend to be a democratic voter, correct?
Thomas Hicks
Correct. Rich, I did want to say one other thing. It was one of the few times in my life where I actually agreed with something that Mitch McConnell said. He said, as long as we're putting forth bad candidates, we're going to lose elections. He made that specifically regarding some of the other Senate contests, but also specifically regarding Herschel Walker. It was one of the few times I've ever agreed with Mitch McConnell,
Richard Helppie
I think you and Mitch and I are going to be in agreement. Today, we have a situation where three quarters of Americans do not want to see a repeat of Biden and Trump yet it looks [like it], at the moment, and has a long way to go yet. There's not even been the first caucus but it looks like that's what we're going to get. It seems to me that the processes need to be looked at. Have you ever voted for a Republican?
Thomas Hicks
I have not. I'll add a sort of a disclaimer; traditionally, I have voted for whoever I felt presented ideas and policies that made the most sense. I also have traditionally voted for candidates who I believe were advocates for the working class. Born and raised in southwest Atlanta, middle class neighborhood, my dad worked and went to school, my mom worked and went to school, I worked and went to school. I just like those candidates who propose policy and implement policy that benefit the middle class, the working class, so generally speaking, that has me traditionally aligning myself with the Democrats.
Richard Helppie
Again, I agree with that tradition. We've seen a split in the Union vote where the Union leadership remains the democratic policy, but I'll tell you, a lot of the rank and file are Republicans and a lot of them are strong Trump supporters. I know when the Trump phenomena was beginning, leading up the 2016 election, the first people that ever told me that they were in the camp for Trump were UAW workers, Teamsters, police officers; they were the folks that felt like they didn't have a responsive government. I'm sure you know the same data. I know that the Democrats’ funding tends to come from the coast and from fairly wealthy people. I think that is a phenomena that we need to deal with; who's looking out for middle America and who's looking out for the less fortunate. I think there's a growing sense that we really don't have anybody at this point. The amount of lobbyists writing legislation and the amount of PAC money that's in, and the dark money that's in; we're trying to figure out whose government is it. I think it's a dangerous time and dangerous times can lead to dangerous people. We are going to be talking about a guy that I don't think you have much good to say about, but are there any accomplishments that you would point to of Donald Trump's presidency? (Thomas Hicks: Good or bad?) Here are the things people talk about, for what it's worth...
Thomas Hicks
Actually, I think I know how I want to respond. I'll go back, not so much to looking at his legacy or what he left behind coming out of his presidency, but I will look to what I think possibly or probably led to his presidency. America has a fascination and a preoccupation with celebrity. He was a celebrity. He had been on network TV in The Apprentice, Macy's started carrying a lot of ties. I lamentably admit to this, but I at one point owned a Donald Trump tie. I no longer own it. I don't want to have anything associated with a bill. I think he ascended to that office based largely in part because America is obsessed with celebrity. I also think folks who wanted a change, they said someone who does not have a background in politics maybe will bring something new and fresh. That was disastrous, because he had no concept of anything that's in the Constitution. He had no concept of how anything within DC politics works and that was abundantly clear. All you had to do was watch from day to day when he tried to enact a policy via Twitter. I think so much of his four years in office was disastrous. At the top of the list for me it was the bigotry, immediately imposing a ban on Muslims, making references to African countries being...I think we know the term he came up with for African countries. So in hindsight, no, I don't really see anything good that he did, from my general knowledge of the GOP and ultra-conservative culture and the idea that it promotes fiscal responsibility. I hear very few folks in the GOP referencing the fact that the debt spiked to 8 trillion during his four years in office. So I can't say that anyone could say that represents fiscal conservatism, I think that has pretty much gone out the window. So I know it was a very roundabout way of addressing your question.
Richard Helppie
Well thought out. I wrote a column this past week, published on August 26, where I said that the greatest threat is RITOs, which is "Republicans If Trump Only." One of those subgroups in there are people that just feel disaffected by the non-responsive political system. They said we've got to try something different, there's still a group of those. There are of course the - what I call the disciples - the personality cult folks, which is weird, because the guy's running on the same stuff that he couldn't do the first time. There are the people that are upset about the weaponization of the judiciary. Then there are Democrats that are crossing over in the primaries to vote for the most extreme candidate that they can - in this case, it would be Trump - in order to have an easier time in the general. Some of that, by the way, went on in '16 because [when] it was obvious that Hillary Clinton was going to be the Democratic nominee, people crossed over to vote for Trump figuring she's going to beat him. But I think the Democrats - if I can steal a word from George Bush - "misunderestimated" the antipathy for Hillary Clinton. In my home state of Michigan, Democrats wouldn't vote for her, she never went to Wisconsin, she lost that, and I just don't know enough about Pennsylvania. So we have this fluke president that didn't know the job, didn't seem to want to know the job, and had massive personal issues. I try to imagine if I was ever the president of the United States, on the first day you have this incredibly humbling responsibility; I'm pretty sure my first thought wouldn't be how big is my inauguration crowd.
Thomas Hicks
Absolutely, it started immediately; everything that could go wrong, started at the very beginning,
Richard Helppie
There are a couple of things I would give Trump credit for. First of all, the tax reform, which at long last kept the deduction on state and local taxes; we had people like you and people like me in our states subsidizing these high tax states. So putting a cap on that, I thought, was good. There were no wars. What people won't talk about in terms of the spending is that that spending was really COVID response. I thought that the response from a policy basis was better than the response to the Great Recession. The Great Recession, of course, there was a lot of money [but] it was given to banks - the people that caused the problem. The poor guy that lost his job through no fault of his own, had his credit rating destroyed; he got nothing. At least this time, they gave the money to the people. I mean, COVID relief, that's where that spend came from. Again, that was generally regarded as good spending, not so much the inflationary act. Trump identifies a split from the norms, but also there were some other things that split from the norms. By way of example, Jerry Nadler, very senior member of Congress, on day one said, we're going to impeach this guy. Not, we're going to give him a chance, we're going to work with him but we're going to impeach him. We know that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee funded the Steele reporting, we know that they floated the story about a line between Trump Tower in the bank and Russia. We know that information around COVID was suppressed. We know that the situation in Lafayette Square was misreported. We now know that Anthony Fauci was just making stuff up about lock-downs, masks and the six foot rule. So now we've got dueling sets of lack of integrity, and in my humble opinion, that gave a lane for Donald Trump just to lie his ass off and say whatever he wanted to say, because you can always point to other side and go, well, these guys said this of those hoaxes, the Russian collusion, the line between Trump Tower and a bank in Russia. How many of those did you buy into before they were dismissed?
Thomas Hicks
Probably none, most of them. I reached a Trump saturation point very early on, where it was just more than I wanted to look at or listen to. I will very openly admit, I quite literally don't like the sound of his voice such that when I see him on the television, I change the channel. I hate that he's still sucking up so much oxygen in every room. So much of that just struck me as nonsense. Now, I did believe that there needed to be a thorough investigation of the extent to which Russia did or did not interfere in the 2016 election. So I probably lent more credence to that story than any of the other ones that you just referenced.
Richard Helppie
So did I and I'm well published. I'm like, get to the bottom of it and bring us the facts.
Thomas Hicks
One of the other areas where you and I have split or perhaps looked in slightly different directions, is where the media is. I won't say the role of the media, but more specifically, what media can and should be trusted. I was a communications major. So one thing that's abundantly clear to me, I think probably as to most reasonably prudent citizens, is that ratings drive revenue. So cable news, network news is going to do whatever they can to drive their ratings to build up their revenue. I can accept that. But you and I have split over some other media outlets that are not even for profit, some not-for-profit outlets such as the AP, Reuters, NPR. I recall, in one of our discussions, you said NPR has lost its way. I said, well, this is certainly going to be one of those instances where it's going to be very difficult for us to come to terms or to come to an agreement. You can't assail all media, there has to be somewhere a middle of the road, where some facts make it in. In those instances, in these not for profits - the AP, NPR, Reuters, there's some others that come to mind, BBC - they're not ratings driven. They are gathering and disseminating information for folks like me, who work nine and a half, ten hours a day, and at the end of the day want to have some idea of what happened. So I think that was one area, politics aside, where we did not come to an agreement.
Richard Helppie
I appreciate that measured response. I've had a number of journalists on my program and I've read many books on this. It's not like somebody at NPR or the AP sets out to falsify a story, but they're human beings. It's not like they decide they're going to leave out this fact or that fact, and my proof statement is this. If I said to you, there's an NPR story about Joe Biden, do you think it's going to be a positive or a negative story? If there's a Fox news story about Donald Trump, what do you think you're going to get? You could go down the line and they all have their techniques. The New York Times, by the way, is really adept. Their two favorite techniques are they leave out a key fact and then they put the actual other argument like 40 paragraphs down that changes their whole narrative. That's how they're doing that, to your point, because they need the clicks and the eyeballs and the reactions and the re-posts and such. It's very difficult to get a full picture in today's media model. We've had, again, experts that are well credentialed that continue to work as journalists explaining why that's occurred. It kind of brings us back to Trump too, because all the airtime Trump's been getting lately about these trials, every one of those news outlets needs the guy. If they weren’t talking about Trump (Thomas Hicks: What would they be talking about.) You're in the middle of a historic heatwave; seems kind of important to me. (Thomas Hicks: Absolutely.) Maui, place that's very dear to me. Lahaina, a town being wiped out is a big deal. There are a lot of things going on in the world that are being pushed to the side. So now we've got these four trials going on. Let's just start with New York. The core here is that Trump paid off a porn star. Would you be surprised it was brought to light that Donald Trump paid off a porn star?
Thomas Hicks
Not at all, I would venture to think that he's probably paid off many porn stars [laughter, cross talk] to do with it anyway.
Richard Helppie
To me, it's like yeah, he's a slime bag. You're not a good person, that doesn't surprise me. Let me say this, that New York has invented 34 counts of falsifying records for one act of paying off a porn star. It may not even be illegal because it has to be tied to a felony, which prosecutor Bragg hasn't even said what the felony is yet. Now you have people with the soundbite “there are 91 counts against Trump.” If 34 of them are like, here's the check - that's one count - here's the entry in the accounting books, here's another one; oh, the check cashed, that's a third one...please. All the crap this guy is being accused of [it] just makes them sympathetic and he fundraises off of it.
Thomas Hicks
I think I've read that since the mugshot was released Thursday that he's raised $7 million from proceeds from the mugshot, so...
Richard Helppie
That doesn't even begin to describe it, like, oh, another indictment? Good, like, not good. No. But again, it's what I call one of those categories of the RITOs, the Republicans if Trump Only. There's a constituency that says, I think the Justice Department and the judiciary are being perverted and I'm voting against that. That's horrible because I don't want to see Donald Trump back in the Oval Office. Florida, the Mar-a-Lago case, claims that Trump had documents, wouldn't give them back. His own ex-attorney general, Bill Barr, says he's probably in trouble for this. I'm old enough to remember when all this dispute began, in the Nixon administration there was a fight about what belongs to the president and what belongs to the United States. So the Presidential Records Act came into being in 1978, signed by President Jimmy Carter - God bless the man as he's in hospice - the first person that had an issue with presidential records was Jimmy Carter. Now we find out hey, Biden had documents and he wasn't even the president and so did Pence and he wasn't the president. So they're going to try this Espionage Act thing. I'm thinking, really? If this guy's this bad and that's your best case...so here's the problem. It's kind of like the parable of the boy that cried wolf; [you've] told me enough times from a pee tape to hidden documents and it all turns out to be bullshit [so] it makes me less willing to believe the next thing. How is it affecting you as a politically engaged Democrat-leaning guy in a very important part of the country?
Thomas Hicks
The case with the classified documents, as I see it, is much more significant. It's much more weight here than New York, comparing the porn star. Joe Biden had classified documents, when it came to his attention he turned them in. Mike Pence had classified documents, when it came to his attention he turned those documents over; I think they all turned them over to NARA. When it was identified that Trump had classified documents, he didn't turn them over, he hid them, he took steps to ensure that when the boxes were being moved to be hidden that the footage of the moving of the boxes was to be destroyed. Everything about it is just nefarious, he kept what he was not supposed to have. The US government asked for it but he refused to give it, took steps to cover up his attempts to hide it. We don't know what the classified documents are. We don't know how sensitive the materials are. Nuclear secrets, who knows? So it just, to me, looks a lot weightier than what we saw in New York.
Richard Helppie
Biden and Pence shouldn’t have had them in the first place. How do we know that they actually gave them all back? We don't know. There's no way of knowing because it was never told exactly what they had. We now have the January 6 thing being filed in Washington DC. My preface to this I thought the president's behavior was abhorrent. I was listening to it in real time, was in California when he was talking about Mike Pence needs to do the right thing, which meant violate the Constitution. Mike Pence, thank goodness, stood tall and the Constitution was protected and the election proceeded. I thought President Trump pouting like a big baby and not welcoming the incoming president at the White House was a very low point in our history. But I look at what the media reports that he did and what the charges were and I'm like, huh, there's nothing about a coup, nothing about an armed insurrection. So I'm going to try to go through this quick for things in Washington; a conspiracy to violate civil rights, conspiracy to defraud the government, corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to carry out such obstruction. As the left wing media pundits say, it doesn't really matter. He has to face a Washington DC jury, which lets you question that even handedness. I don't know very many people...in fact I don't know anybody personally, that thought what occurred on the sixth of January 2021 was a good thing. I wouldn't imagine you know anybody either.
Thomas Hicks
I don't. I watched it in real time. I was working from home, TV was on. In looking up I saw what I usually term a siege taking place at the Capitol. In the days that followed, learned more about how it was coordinated, I'll just use that term. It has to be prosecuted such that it doesn't happen again. I will not try to ever get into the head of a prosecutor. I work in IT. The law is not my area of specialty but I say the charges that were brought there has to be - or I'm of the impression that - there was a strategy for bringing those charges. We'll see how the trial plays out.
Richard Helppie
At the time of that happening, I said this needs to be investigated and needs to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. But let's get into Georgia. This is your home area. I know this has got to be a difficult time. Have you looked at what Mr. Trump's been charged with?
Thomas Hicks
I have not read the full indictment, but at the simplest level, conspiracy, meaning that he engaged with a broad network of other people in an attempt to overturn the election. That's what I'm aware of on its face. I suppose what I find fascinating is that the prosecutor who presented the evidence to the grand jury specializes in RICO cases so my thought is she looked at the statutes, she looked at the evidence as it was gathered, presented that to the grand jury. They agree that there is a RICO case here to be tried. So one of the things that I am pleased with in Georgia, we don't know how this is going to play out but I'd like to believe that the trial will be televised. I think that will make it much more meaningful for everyone to get to see those goings-on in real time.
Richard Helppie
Back when we had Court TV, and we had the cases in Florida with Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman, watching that, I think, was a good thing. The case in Kenosha, being able to watch that. Of course, the OJ Simpson trial. I think it lowered the temperature because people didn't have to rely on a knowingly slanted reporting from one side versus the other. So I would like to see that occur. Trump thinks everything's about him so he thought the COVID briefings were about him; apparently, he's going to look at this as a reality TV show. Here's my experience with RICO, by the way, for what it's worth. It's normally a trailing charge. It's like, we caught all these guys doing something - selling drugs, running guns, whatever it might be - and they've been doing it for a long time. So we're going to layer RICO over the top of this thing. It's not like one guy went out and did this; it was, you and I set up a business enterprise to do that. Barbara McQuade, who is a far left legal analyst on MSNBC, she lives here in Ann Arbor. She was on a local television station and she said if the case in Georgia goes, it is not a slam dunk, this may result in acquittal or it may not. I don't know what she said on MSNBC, she gets paid differently there. There's a recall of the prosecutor and I believe she pronounces her name Fani Willis. Georgia Senate Bill 92 says that conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice which brings the office into disrepute, you can bring a prosecutor back, and then the House subcommittee is investigating Fani Willis to see if she was influenced by anybody from DC. Are these recalls good assurances that there's a clean process or more dirty politics or something else?
Thomas Hicks
I think it's playing politics, Trump or anyone else; he uses this very often. First of all, if anyone can be tracked as a history of being a Democrat or a Republican, he will immediately use that as a means of attack, he'll say it's a lunatic far left Democrat who's prosecuting me, it's a Democrat far left judge who's overseeing the case. So that has become part of the standard play. Any judge, any prosecutor, has every right to embrace the political ideologies that they want to embrace and have embraced; that can't be used against them just because the person who's being prosecuted or who's going on trial is of an opposite political party. That's what seemingly is happening with much more frequency now. If you can prove that this person is not a Republican and they're prosecuting you or they are the judge who's to oversee your case, attack them for that reason alone, it's spiraling. I think it's why the two investigations that you referenced into Fani Willis is the only reason they exist.
Richard Helppie
You mentioned spiraling, is that what happens when the shoe goes on the other foot and it's a Republican leaning prosecutor and a Democrat leading state house, do they then get in the middle of the judicial branch of the government? I want to see a clean process. There's been a history of election challenges, and I think this will be part of the defense, leaving aside 2016 and Hillary Clinton. 2004 Senator Kerry, who lost the election challenge in Ohio, talked about having a different slate of electors. Of course we have 2000; can you imagine Al Gore going out to concede when they told him, wait a minute, there has been voter intimidation in Florida. We had all of that going around. I think it was a 500 vote difference and had been recounted multiple times. Gore lost every under court, he won one thing in the Florida Supreme Court and the Chief Justice said that they could not validate that decision based by statute or by precedent; went to the Supreme Court, and they said, yeah, the circuit courts have voted. Of course, we've had recount after recount, it turned out Bush won. Thank goodness...not thank goodness Bush was the president, I'm not trying to say that, I'm saying thank goodness that we didn't have one of those recounts done that said, ah, we missed it. So here we have now this charge with Trump, what happens if he's acquitted?
Thomas Hicks
I personally have not envisioned a scenario, any scenario, where he makes it through these four trials without a conviction in at least one of the four. That's not to say that more are coming. I mean, I'm hearing that there's the potential that a similar case in Arizona might be brought to the case here in Georgia, all based on putting forth slates of fake electors. So there could be many more trials for him to face, but quite literally, Rich, I have not envisioned any scenario where he comes out clean from these four different trials.
Richard Helppie
I don't mean to tell you something not to do then, or maybe you need to do it, because I actually went back and I listened to the entire transcript of the call that he had with Mr. Raffensperger. Of course, we have the media saying “all I said was go find 11,788 votes.” The whole world knows that. But when you go through the transcript now...by the way, I believe Trump - the same guy that said, my inauguration crowd was bigger than Obama's - couldn't get his head around the fact that he lost to Joe Biden. But he went through kind of chapter and verse about why there are 300,000 ballots here with fake addresses, out of state signatures that weren't matched to prior voting records, military ballots coming in, which was also mixed with State Department. There was an explanation for that when you look at it. I'm thinking - if I was a juror - would I have a reasonable doubt? Based on that alone, no. Again, I haven't heard all of it. I would say that kind of sounds like a guy's saying, statistically, in all of these things and based on our polling going in, there's got to be an error someplace. But here's the kill shot that kind of defeats that. In 2020, 28,000, Georgians skipped the presidential race, and yet they voted down ballot in every other race; this is from Mr. Raffensperger. A Republican congressman ended up getting 33,000 more votes than President Trump. That's why he came up short. By the way, that happened to Hillary Clinton in Michigan in 2016. The Democrats wouldn't vote for her. The Republicans in 2020 in Georgia weren't going to vote for Trump. That was really the difference in the election, it's not as it's being portrayed. That's why I would encourage all my readers, listeners and viewers - when they hear a conclusory statement - to listen to the whole thing that might give them context. I'm not saying it would change necessarily what they think, but at least their context. So you can't imagine that he escapes at all. What happens if he's found guilty?
Thomas Hicks
Then maybe the GOP can start the healing process and maybe the country can start the healing process. The reason that's so troubling to me is it's just this ongoing spread of toxicity. He's just poisoning the air, he's angry, he spreads his anger. In my view, he's a bigot, he spreads his bigotry. He's a misogynist, he spreads his misogyny. I'm just ready to not have to hear or see his toxicity.
Richard Helppie
Think about those four voting blocks where he still has the disciples, the people that still haven't had an answer to their populist urges, the people that think that the judicial system is being weaponized. Then the Democrats crossover to strategically vote for Trump. It seems to me three of those four groups aren't going to be happy on a conviction unless it's both done convincingly and that there's further investigations into the Biden side of things. I don't believe a conviction is a cleansing thing. I'm curious if maybe just getting beaten in an election is a better thing. Why go through all this weak legal stuff when you could just keep running the tape of what he was saying on January 6? I don't understand all the time, money, effort being put in to this stuff. I mean, I want my president to be not a criminal and I want [that person] to be of integrity whoever the president might be. Because there's a quote - I don't...you probably know better than I do about it - if you shoot at a king, you’d better kill him. I have a real fear. What would the Democratic left and all the people that were rioting in 2020 say if Trump's acquitted? You think they're going to go, my bad, I'm sorry, I guess he really didn't do anything.
Thomas Hicks
That's a daunting one to try to answer. First of all - I'll start to sound repetitive now - of the four trials that he's facing, I think he'll be convicted in at least one. I see him being convicted, possibly in two: the January 6 row and the Georgia RICO charge. I see convictions there.
Richard Helppie
I had a column that I wrote, it said he's either going to be indicted or not indicted, convicted or not convicted. So now we've already gotten through that gate. He's been indicted. Let's just play this out because we don't know - if he gets acquitted - what's going to happen in the country.
Thomas Hicks
This is where my mind goes next. I can't speak for anyone else. But this is where my mind goes next. So far, anything and everything he has said, since the indictments have been handed down, has been about it being a witch hunt, prosecutorial misconduct, election interference. We have heard absolutely nothing from Mr. Trump regarding what his next term would be seeking to accomplish.
Richard Helppie
Here are three questions. What happens if he's acquitted? What happens if he's found guilty? What do you think the Republicans are going to do to the Democrats at the first time they get the chance?
Thomas Hicks
If he's found guilty, and you want to possibly...you're probably split because - I think I went down this road just briefly a few moments ago - I think the healing process can begin, I think not being subjected to his ongoing toxicity allows for that feeling to start.
Richard Helppie
Again, that's with presupposing that there are people that think it's been a fair process. It's a just decision, because I agree with you, if the populace can be convinced that yeah, you know what, bad guy - we've heard that, by the way, that's why I like the trial being televised - everything we heard on the trial...yep, this guy needs to be punished. Let's just leave out whether it's house arrest or incarceration someplace else. Where the risk is, is that people don't feel like...as of today, the country is not united in the idea that these are going to be fair trials. There are people that have already convicted him, there are people that have already acquitted him. There are people that are saying it doesn't look good. There are people that say, it looks good, let's see what comes out. We're going to remain divided. I don't believe that an acquittal or a conviction does anything for uniting. If he's convicted, it's going to have to be convincing a lot of people; if he's acquitted, it's going to have to have people perhaps like you...could you ever imagine yourself saying it was a fair trial and he was found not guilty?
Thomas Hicks
I wrestle with the question of will there be that jury out there where 12 people can agree. That's a tough question. I believe the trial would be fair, I think the evidence is going to be laid out. In an ideal world the absolute best case scenario for me is when he decides to represent himself. [Laughter]
Richard Helppie
Well, he isn’t running out of lawyers. [Laughter] You brought up another conundrum, too. What happens if he's acquitted ten to two? What do you think the Republicans are going to do when they get the chance? Because my I have a philosophy that says this, the person that starts a fist fight, a lawsuit or a war rarely is the person that gets to decide when and how it ends. The GOP is going to punch back. It's common.
Thomas Hicks
If they regain power, Rich, I honestly believe that they're...I hate to use terms like they/them...granted, the country is divided. I think the GOP is coming down on the wrong side of history on a number of issues that middle America is pretty set on. I think women want the right to decide to make choices with their doctors, control of their bodies. I think the Republicans are the ones on the wrong side of that. I think most Americans want common sense gun reform. I think Republicans are on the wrong side of that. I think everyone...well, I think most reasonable, prudent people want some kind of acknowledgment of climate change to be able to take practical steps to address it. This might sound insignificant, but I get completely enraged when I hear Mr. Trump referencing that he would pardon those who participated in the January 6 riot. He said there were some - I believe he used the term...I think he said there were a couple of people who got violent - but I just think the GOP knows that it's unpopular.
Richard Helppie
So your answer to “would the GOP do something,” you're saying they'll never going to get in power. I hope you watched the debate because there is a consensus forming around the abortion issue. The Republicans are way ahead about the border and immigration, the Republicans are ahead on the economy. The Republicans are hugely ahead on censoring - and this is Republicans in general, not Donald Trump. Donald Trump's not even a real Republican. They are good people that could run a government. I'm not saying they're going to be your favorite candidate but if you watched that debate, you saw there were five or six of them that - these guys were executives - they know how to run a government.
Thomas Hicks
I saw two adults in the room that night. The two adults in the room that night for me were Chris Christie and Nikki Haley. A lot of other folks, for me, were just jockeying and trying to score a few punch lines. But Christie and Haley for me...
Richard Helppie
Look, I wouldn't expect, but by way of example, you would agree on very many policy positions with Mike Pence. But there's no question he's a capable guy. He's been a vice president, a governor and a representative. He's not an idiot. He stood up for the Constitution when his very life was being threatened. Again, I can't imagine you getting behind him, policy wise, but he's a capable guy. So with the others - and Nikki Haley - I happened to have been following her since her first run for governor. She's a high quality individual and has handled some tough things, things that should make her a great president. Now the question is, is the process going to let us get there? Are we going to get served up another Biden and Trump thing which three quarters of Americans don't want? Thomas, it's been a great chat with you, my friend. I dearly appreciate you coming on, you're one of the most reasoned and measured human beings I know. I do appreciate that you're willing to sit down and chat.
Thomas Hicks
I appreciate it. I appreciate the time.
Richard Helppie
Sometimes...I have to take that with all my guests, I have to because of the nonpartisan view of this show. I have to say, well, what about this, the other side of this thing? One of the things that perhaps you and I could come together on would be to have a discussion - maybe we invite some other folks on about what happens under acquittal, what happens if he's found guilty - because I don't see a path out of this mess right now. If there's going to be a conviction, I hope it's clear and convincing enough to have people go, yeah, I knew all that. If he's acquitted, I hope people would go, yeah, I kind of got excited about the Russian conclusion, I got excited about the pee tape. I got tricked, my bad, I'm not going to listen to those news programs anymore that got me so excited. That would be a great outcome, but remains to be seen. You have the last word, my friend, what didn't we talk about that you'd like to make mention to the audience of The Common Bridge, our readers at Substack, our listeners at Substack, and of podcast outlets every place, and our viewers on Substack and a few of them on YouTube as well, 100,000 plus people are going to see this and hear this.
Thomas Hicks
What you just shared with your audience, that Richard and I have a history, that I worked for, not one, but two firms that he has founded and presided over. So in my three decades of IT consulting, I've had the pleasure of working for two of those companies and have had the pleasure to have good dialogues like this one with Rich, where we go into the discussions knowing that we're not always going to agree, in fact, knowing that we're, in all likelihood going to disagree more than we agree, but always fascinating dialogues. I certainly appreciate today to have this time to share my thoughts with you and your guests.
Richard Helppie
Based on that sentiment, I'll take the final word. In the thousands of people that were members of our companies over the years, a few stand out. Thomas, you're one of those guys. I think this, hopefully, is an example that friends and colleagues can think about things differently but we can all want the same thing for a better future. (Thomas Hicks: Absolutely.) With our guest, Thomas Hicks, voter in Atlanta, voter in the state of Georgia, a thoughtful man, this is Rich Helppie signing off on The Common Bridge.
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