#1599 - Tulsi Gabbard

[0] Joe Rogan podcast, checking out.

[1] The Joe Rogan Experience.

[2] Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.

[3] Hey, good to see you, too.

[4] You got notes.

[5] Look at you.

[6] You're prepared.

[7] Yeah, you know.

[8] What are you, Congresswoman or something?

[9] Something like that.

[10] I was.

[11] I was.

[12] Was it feel weird to be a former Congresswoman?

[13] I don't know.

[14] It's a crazy time, and I'm back in Hawaii.

[15] I'm getting a lot of surf in.

[16] yoga, meditation, and yeah.

[17] Does it feel better?

[18] Yeah, yeah.

[19] You know, I'm so grateful to the people of Hawaii that I had the privilege of being able to serve them and represent them.

[20] It's getting crazier and crazier to see the divisiveness in the country and the divisiveness in Congress.

[21] And unfortunately, it's just getting worse.

[22] I mean, it seems to be getting progressively worse over the time that I've been there, but especially now.

[23] The thing that really concerns me is I don't see a way it turns around.

[24] Like I don't, I don't see a method.

[25] I don't see a mechanism where this ship just goes and turns back in the Port of Normaville.

[26] It seems like once the division becomes so strong and so polarizing, the other side wants to destroy the other side.

[27] And the two are locked in mortal combat.

[28] And there's no recognition that we're all part of one gigantic continental community called the United States.

[29] I mean, that's what it's supposed to be.

[30] We're supposed to be a part of this.

[31] We're a country.

[32] We're supposed to be a part of a community.

[33] The United States of America.

[34] We're literally in a, I mean, I want to say completely nonviolent, but semi -nonviolent civil war.

[35] Yeah.

[36] I mean, that's what it seems like.

[37] It's, I mean, it's not rocket science on how and why.

[38] we got here when you look at politicians.

[39] People in both parties capitalizing off of this divisiveness for fundraising for themselves, their campaigns, their political parties, stoking these divisions so that they can win elections and so on.

[40] And then you have so much of the mainstream media doing the exact same thing, big tech and social media doing the exact same thing, stoking these divisions fueling that fire because they figured out it gives them better ratings.

[41] They get more eyeballs watching.

[42] And same thing on social media.

[43] They start pushing so much of this divisive rhetoric towards people that stokes more of these flame and gets more clicks and more attention and more views, which goes to kind of the heart of, okay, so how do we start to turn this ship?

[44] I mean, it comes down to, it comes down to leadership.

[45] It comes down to who we as voters choose through our election.

[46] to lead us in this country, people not motivated by, you know, their hunger for power and also making decisions about, you know, hey, where are we getting our information?

[47] How are we responding to kind of this divisive rhetoric and this hate?

[48] Yeah, I, when I'm in the middle of Matt Taibi's book, Hate, Inc., which is excellent.

[49] It's very good.

[50] Although I sent him a message today, I'm like, why don't you read your own books?

[51] Because I'm listening to the audio.

[52] Those are always best when the author reads their own book, right?

[53] Yes, that's what I think.

[54] Especially when it's someone who's distinct as Matt.

[55] Right.

[56] His voice is very, I want to hear him read it.

[57] But it's probably annoying to do it.

[58] But also, I think a lot of the publishers don't want the authors to read it.

[59] They want to hire a professional to do it.

[60] Really?

[61] Yeah, I've had friends that have written books that have encountered that.

[62] But anyway, the book is excellent.

[63] And it sort of highlights how all these factors sort of co -elike.

[64] together and created this tsunami of shit that we're living in right now.

[65] And it's really confusing because you could sit around with total peace of mind and try to imagine a way that this resolves itself.

[66] And I don't see it other than, like you said, some spectacular leader, like someone who But even that, if you find someone, the other side will find some way to demonize them or distort their positions or, you know, take anything they've said out of context and paint them as the worst person that's ever lived.

[67] We live in this world of no nuance.

[68] We live in this world of clickbait and the social media algorithms that really fuel hate in the most spectacular way.

[69] think that our civilization has ever seen.

[70] I don't think we've ever seen like a force like social media, like the algorithms that people are locked into with Facebook and with all these other platforms that literally send all the things that piss you off your way because those are things that we engage with more.

[71] Yeah, I agree.

[72] There's not been a phenomenal like social media that our country or the world for that matter has dealt with before.

[73] It's going to take more than just one phenomenal leader to unify the country and to start to de -escalate the kinds of divisive tensions that we're seeing.

[74] It's going to take a whole host of leaders at every level that we as voters choose to serve the people and to serve the best interests of the country and who will then take the kinds of legislative action necessary to start to rein in this almost unlimited power that these big tech monopolies have to manipulate the information that people are seeing, the kinds of posts that people are, you know, people are exposed to, again, without consideration for what the consequence is, but instead saying, hey, this will get the most clicks, this is how we can sell this information to get more ads and make money, and so on.

[75] And that's where I've seen as much as politicians today may complain about the censorship that they're seeing through big tech and the kinds of power that they have, and this is on both sides of the aisle, how come they're not actually doing anything about it?

[76] They've held some hearings and they've done some things.

[77] But when you look at the legislative changes that can and should be made to this Section 230 provision that essentially gives, big tech, um, legal immunity to do kind of whatever they want.

[78] Um, why aren't they doing something about?

[79] And this is where you have leaders who take money from all these big tech monopolies and, and, you know, uh, raise money from them and all their friends for their campaigns and whatever.

[80] They're, they're almost beholden to them.

[81] And therefore, I don't expect that we'll see any action on, on meaningful reforms to, to address this unless we get new people in office or we say, you know, hey, you can't, you can't take money from these packs.

[82] We've talked about this before, about the corrosive and corruptive influence that it has on leaders who are supposed to be serving the people rather than Google or Facebook.

[83] Yeah, and Google at this point in Facebook have so much money to be on their bad side, to have them support a candidate that's contrary to your position.

[84] Like if you're in a position of censorship and there's another candidate that's like, listen, we don't have to censor, you know, help me out.

[85] like, I'll let you guys do, I think you're good people.

[86] You're just trying to do your best work, and it's a crazy world.

[87] Like, there's no need.

[88] Yeah.

[89] There's no, no need for Congress to legislatures.

[90] The Senate doesn't have to come down on you.

[91] The president should never say, you're a private company.

[92] And this is the argument.

[93] And I see, I legitimately see both sides of it.

[94] Because when this parlor ban thing came out, I was very concerned.

[95] But I was also concerned that parlor was allowing these people that were on there, organizing violence.

[96] So if there's no moderation at all and they're on and they're saying, hey, we're bringing pipe bombs, I don't know what they were saying, but if they were saying something along those lines, we're going to attack the capital, we're going to zip tie and kill every politician we have.

[97] Like, aren't, you should probably do something about that.

[98] Yes.

[99] So where's the line get drawn as to what you censor and what you don't, what you report and what you don't?

[100] And the argument that Tim Cook laid out was that the things that were on parlor, The reason why they pulled it from the app store is that they need some moderation.

[101] That's what he was saying.

[102] And it was saying once they have that moderation, they'll be allowed back on the app store, which seems fairly reasonable.

[103] The problem is it's kind of a slippery slope.

[104] Like, okay, you take that out, threats of violence, you know, plans of attacks on federal buildings.

[105] But then where does that line get drawn?

[106] Like when do you allow free service?

[107] speech to just rain is it can you dock someone because you know can you like they don't they don't censor anything at parlor right so i don't know the full extent of their rules but i've listened to some of the interviews that the founder uh has done and the CEO is done over the last couple weeks because i shared the exact same concern that um de -platforming an app like parlor could very easily happen to any other entity that is trying to provide an alternative to the big, you know, the Facebooks and the Twitters and the YouTube and so on.

[108] What they have said is that they have, they had some jury system set up where they have like a hundred people who sit on a virtual jury where if a post is reported, this jury looks at it and makes that decision, is this protected speech under the First Amendment or not?

[109] And so what the founder of Parlor said was basically that if there were posts, that were inciting imminent violence.

[110] They weren't up for longer than 24 hours, and it was because they just got backlogged.

[111] Like, there was more than they could handle in moderating it.

[112] This was what he said.

[113] I haven't verified all this or looked into it myself, but that's the argument they're making.

[114] But the bigger argument is whether it's parlor or if this is happening on Facebook or Twitter or any other social platform, is the line is drawn on speech that is protected under the First Amendment.

[115] And as we're talking with this example, that is speech that is inciting imminent violence.

[116] That's the precedence that's been set with the First Amendment and ruled by the Supreme Court as speech that is not protected under the First Amendment.

[117] And there are a few other examples on that.

[118] And I think that's exactly what should happen because under the law right now, this Section 230 that gives these online companies legal immunity, the language specifically says that they have the power to remove quote, otherwise objectionable content.

[119] What does that mean?

[120] Exactly.

[121] It can mean anything to anybody.

[122] Whether it is protected under the First Amendment or not.

[123] And it's shocking.

[124] I don't know how that phrase was allowed to be passed into law, but it's there.

[125] So those two things are the things that can be changed very easily by law, amending that Section 230.

[126] Take away that provision that says that they can censor objectionable content.

[127] But God, so many things are objectionable.

[128] But, you know, something objectionable to you may not be objectionable to me and vice versa.

[129] That's the issue.

[130] And then change that line that basically, says, if it is speech that is protected under the First Amendment, you don't touch it.

[131] If it's outside of the First Amendment, like the example that we're talking about, then you have the power to delete those posts.

[132] And there's, you know, decades of Supreme Court precedents that can be pointed to as the guideway for these tech companies to make those decisions of, okay, is this something that is a violation of the First Amendment or is not protected by the First Amendment or not.

[133] Those are the reforms that I believe need to be made.

[134] Yeah, that is only reasonable.

[135] The idea that otherwise objectionable or something that's objectionable, that is so open.

[136] Exactly.

[137] It's so bananas.

[138] And that's why we're seeing what we're seeing with big tech.

[139] Another big fear of something like shutting down parlor.

[140] And now I'm going to put on a tinfoil hat right now is we know for a fact There are foreign actors.

[141] There are entities that specifically go on to social media with the purpose of stirring up controversy and causing disruption and, you know, having these fake conflicts.

[142] The Internet Research Agency in Russia is a fantastic example of this.

[143] It is only one of many, I'm sure, that exist in multiple different countries.

[144] Rene duress' work on this, and I know you've had an issue with her with some.

[145] something that they did.

[146] Well, her company had done about you previous to this, right?

[147] Yes.

[148] While I was campaigning for president, I believe they were cited as a source, essentially for stories saying that I was some kind of Russian asset.

[149] Essentially, that's really what the heart of it was.

[150] I know she had nothing to do with that, but this was before, I believe, she even became a part of that.

[151] How did they set, how do they set this story up?

[152] Like, says that you are some sort of a Russian asset.

[153] Was this something that was posted on social media?

[154] Was this?

[155] Yeah, you know, it starts with people making unfounded accusations like that.

[156] People like Hillary Clinton, for example, and having that accusation echoed in other parts of the media and by other so -called influential individuals.

[157] And I don't know.

[158] I think they're like, oh, well, we think that there are Russian bots that are helping Tulsi in her campaign.

[159] I have never seen any evidence or proof of that.

[160] And that's, I think that that really is what gets to the heart of it.

[161] Okay.

[162] But if there were Russian bots helping you, that doesn't mean that you had anything to do with that.

[163] And I think there's probably Russian bots that are helping anyone who's contrary to something that they're opposed to.

[164] Or someone, like, if there, if there's a bunch of people that, want Hillary Clinton to be president.

[165] I can guarantee you there's a bunch of people that don't.

[166] Now, if there's a bunch of people that don't, they're going to come up with a reason to support or enhance the profile of a person that's opposed to her.

[167] There's this weird manipulation that's going on with social media that was highlighted by Renee DeReste's work that is beyond if you think, oh, it's probably like a few, no, there's hundreds of thousands of posts they cited.

[168] that were done and there's millions of interactions.

[169] Like this, it has a significant effect of moving the needle and it's memes and it's pages and they were doing this shit and they were manipulating people to try to cause conflict.

[170] And I'm sure there was some of that about every single candidate.

[171] And I don't think it's necessarily as much of supporting one individual candidate as another as it is causing conflict.

[172] And I think if they're, if Russia's playing this long, game and China's playing this long game, which historically, that's what they do, right?

[173] What they want to do ultimately is get us at each other's necks.

[174] The best way to do that is to just raise up the conflict bar.

[175] Like, is it at six now?

[176] Jack it up to nine.

[177] Let's get these fucking people to really hate each other.

[178] And that, if someone says, oh, Tulsi Gabbard's a Russian asset, well, Jesus Christ, you served overseas twice.

[179] Two separate occasions.

[180] You're congresswoman for six years like this year excuse me eight years this is crazy that's crazy talk like do you think she's an embedded spy that just like they planted it from the moment she was born in hawaii like they said oh i got a plan let's take this little baby and groom her to be a russian spy i got a good idea let's have her serve overseas and put her life in danger let's let's have her help wounded veterans when she's over there let's let's have her exposed to the horrors of war so she comes against these interventionist foreign policies that have led us into these countless endless wars that's a good way to construct a Russian agent like that is every that is the tinfoil hat speaking it's so fucking dumb it is so it's such a dumb thing to say but they say it like it's nothing because it's one of those things and I saw them say it on the view like when Joy Behar's reading off her card they say it like it's just a it's a thing that you can say like like you're moving a chess piece you know like you're doing this and then I'll do that Russian agent.

[181] How about that?

[182] You know, oh, you're a toady or you're a this or you're a that.

[183] And the lack of nuance in these conversations and the lack of understanding, like, what is happening when you do things like this?

[184] Exactly.

[185] The consequences are grave for all people, because it's not like this is what people have said about laws.

[186] Like, and one of the things that people said about the Patriot Act is that when Obama was, when they were talking about mass, mass surveillance and.

[187] the things that Snowden revealed and some of the things that the NSA were doing, if you got a guy in office that you love like Obama and you think it's going to be fine because he's in office, understand that there's a guy that's probably going to be there in four years or in eight years that is not going to be your friend.

[188] It's not going to be who you like, and he's going to have access to those same laws.

[189] This is why it's so important that we not change these laws.

[190] This is why it's so important that we don't give the government massive, ability to just look into your emails and listen to your voicemails.

[191] Yeah.

[192] And why it's so important for us, especially now, to stand up for freedom of speech for freedom of the press for that exact reason.

[193] And that's what's so disturbing about a lot of what we've seen starting to play out over the last week or two with an increasing call for people to say, well, you know, maybe we need to start shutting down certain new media entities that are promoting or saying things we don't like or shutting down people's Twitter accounts because they're saying things that we don't like.

[194] This is a double -edged sword.

[195] And you think that you're putting these things in place because it's a good thing, it's a good thing because you only want to hear from people who you agree with.

[196] But as you said, those tables can very quickly and will likely turn at some point.

[197] Very quick.

[198] And if we don't take a stand for freedom of speech, freedom in this country than the threats that we're experiencing, that some are experiencing, this is a threat to us all.

[199] And that's something that I and, you know, friends of mine, I think all service members understand truly in our heart of hearts.

[200] We take that oath to support and defend the Constitution so seriously that we are willing to give our lives to defend people's rights to free speech, whether we agree with that.

[201] beach or not.

[202] And what I was getting into with this parlor thing is we don't know where those threats emanated from and they easily could be from foreign agents, those things that people write, when you have an account and anyone can sign up for it, I guarantee you some of the shit stirring that led to the attack on a capital was coordinated by people that wanted to see chaos.

[203] Maybe, I mean, I'm sure a lot of it was people that really did believe.

[204] that they were patriots and there's a there's a lot of simple -minded people like one of the things you're seeing about the people that were arrested like the the Q &on shaman who lives with his mom who's posted an FBI pedophile theories on on the internet I mean these these people are out there right and they're easily duped and they're easily led and they don't have a lot going on and if somebody riles them up and then they have 30 ,000 or 300 ,000 of their fellow morons that are all together crazy shit.

[205] can happen.

[206] So it's like I don't know what the answer is because on one hand, like yeah, if there's an organizing place where these people are getting together and they're really planning to do something as horrific as what happened, well, you should probably stop that.

[207] But the problem is if you do shut that whole platform down because of these bad agents, you make it so that any platform can be shut down by any bad agents that come in and start doing something along those lines.

[208] So if a new competitor to Facebook or a new competitor to Twitter comes along the easy way to shut them down you infiltrate them with scumbags real or created you have these people that jump on board whether it's Gab or Mines or any of these other alternative social media networks and you can just flood the gates with hate and then everyone's going to be calling for them to be censored and shut down and what you're essentially doing you're reinforcing the monopoly that currently exists It's a strange monopoly, like YouTube.

[209] YouTube has been great to me. I have no problems with YouTube.

[210] My issue is it is very strange when there is one company that does something like you can upload video to it that becomes the predominant company on earth.

[211] And it's owned by Google?

[212] Like, Jesus, that is so crazy that one company has this thing that is, it's not simple in terms of technically.

[213] I'm sure it's very complicated.

[214] but as far as a concept of like you make a video you upload it this is a social network where anybody can upload their videos to why is there only one that's this big that has that kind of power well you couple that with the fact that it's owned by google so if i go online on google and start searching for a video who's whose video platform do you think is going to pop up first yes youtube's and this is this is rumbles rumbull dot com's big i think they're filing a lawsuit against Google right now for that reason because rumble .com is is maybe one of the or I don't know how many alternatives to YouTube there are but it is a alternative to YouTube and they're alleging that Google is consistently ranking their own YouTube pages on videos much higher up in a Google search than they would rank a video that's hosted on rumble .com and that kind of power is is why many of us believe that these big tech companies need to be broken up because you do have essentially a monopoly that is difficult, if not impossible, to break through.

[215] Yeah, that's crazy that they're so intertwined like that.

[216] And also crazy that I've never even heard of Rumble before.

[217] I didn't either until like a week ago.

[218] And then I saw a headline that Rumble .com is suing Google.

[219] And I clicked, I like, this is interesting.

[220] And I heard an interview with the, it's a Canadian company.

[221] And And they do, it's essentially the same thing that Google does.

[222] They got something a little bit different that they deal with copyrights differently or something like that.

[223] But, yeah, what is rumble .com?

[224] Then I started looking up and figuring out who they are and what they do.

[225] But it's very telling that not a whole lot of people know who they are.

[226] Well, it's, you know, I started using Duck, Duck, Duck, Go.

[227] Yeah.

[228] And it's interesting when you look for something on Google and you cannot find it.

[229] Yeah.

[230] And then you look for it on Duck, Ducko, and it's there right away.

[231] Yeah.

[232] I was looking for the story of the doctor in Florida who took a COVID vaccine and died very quickly.

[233] And relatively healthy, 50 -something -year -old doctor.

[234] And, you know, it's an anomaly.

[235] It's rare.

[236] But rare things happen when people take medications.

[237] It's just part of medicine.

[238] They were hiding it on Google.

[239] You could not find it.

[240] I was putting in all the key words, the guy's name.

[241] name, I couldn't remember the guy's name, the guy's age, Florida, doctor, vaccine, death, all these different things.

[242] Couldn't find it.

[243] Duck, duck, go?

[244] Right away.

[245] Yeah.

[246] Usually those would be enough indicators for you to get the right story or something close to it.

[247] No. I mean, these are like NBC News.

[248] A bunch of different, like, you know, local publications that were, that highlighted the story.

[249] I couldn't find it on Google.

[250] Yeah.

[251] So they were trying to suppress any information that would lead people to not want to take the vaccine, which is, you know.

[252] Also dangerous.

[253] Also dangerous.

[254] That even people who are merely asking questions.

[255] Yeah.

[256] Just trying to get information.

[257] Or just a news story.

[258] Right.

[259] I understand the vaccine is important.

[260] I understand controlling the pandemic is important.

[261] I understand this.

[262] All these things make sense to me. But I don't understand the curation of information to the point where you're actually actively hiding something that's contrary to what, you know, the public mainstream idea of what you should be doing is.

[263] Yeah.

[264] It gets real weird.

[265] That's what's so dangerous and kind of makes it hard to believe that this is happening in America.

[266] That is supposed to be this beacon of freedom of speech and freedom of the press and all these other things.

[267] But, you know, you brought up this issue of bots and, you know, divisiveness.

[268] And it's not only the bots, but also just the anonymous.

[269] what do you call them, like the couch, Twitter warriors or keyboard warriors or whatever, trolls.

[270] A simple solution could be just that there is a requirement that when you register an account, that you are a real person and you use your real name.

[271] Yes, that's a great.

[272] But the problem with that is there's legitimate cases where whistleblowers are necessary in large companies where a person's really worried about the repercussions of this, especially if that large company that's doing something terrible can get away with it, And then they actively target the individual that was the whistleblower.

[273] If they're posting, if the whistleblower is posting information, that what you're saying?

[274] Yeah.

[275] So if there's some story, say if you're working for some company and they're doing something awful, they're polluting something, they're doing, they're doing something they're doing something not supposed to be doing.

[276] And you work for that company, you feel compelled to reach out.

[277] If you reach out with your own name, two things happen.

[278] One, you get exposed, and two, you can no longer be working for that company anymore.

[279] You don't have access to it.

[280] So you can't continue to push out all of this information that might be very important to the public.

[281] Fair enough.

[282] I think that they're, you know, if you look at kind of the route that Edward Snowden took in finding a partner in some form of media, whether it's traditional media or new media, to be able to help be your voice to alleviate that kind of targeting could be an answer.

[283] It's a legitimate concern for sure.

[284] But a way to protect yourself.

[285] in that case but it's like what do you but I also see the real value in making people be accountable for their words exactly and and just that and I've seen it and heard it all I've seen it and heard it all of how much people are willing to say obviously online that they will never ever say to your face yeah and I will count members of Congress in that batch yeah well I'm sure there They're just humans.

[286] Yeah.

[287] It's, um, it was it disappointing, like being on Congress, in Congress and, and seeing that kind of behavior?

[288] Like, if you have this ideal of what a representative of our democracy is supposed to be, and then seeing people that are petty and that are sneaky and doing little, was it?

[289] This was my first impression getting elected, uh, got elected 2012, got there and sworn in January of 2013 and I remember calling home.

[290] I think I was talking to my family, my parents or somebody and I was like, this place is like high school.

[291] Even on the house floor, that's the only time we're all together, usually for votes.

[292] When you've got everybody, all 435 members there, and you see the little clicks gathering in their designated corners like the cafeteria tables and, you know, one click is kind of, you know, giving the mean girl's side eye.

[293] to the other click and like oh if you're you're hanging out on that side of the room with those people what's wrong with you really yeah man it's it's i mean it's it's it's funny but it's so terrible when you understand that this is the power base for decision making in our country and you like how is this even possible it's possible because so often people will vote for a candidate because like they have a really cool ad on tv or like yeah that that that that person, you know, is a good looking guy or a good looking girl or they talk good, they talk nice, sounds smart.

[294] Yeah, all right.

[295] Check.

[296] Rather than like, all right, what are your capabilities?

[297] What are your qualifications?

[298] Like, what kind of judgment will you exercise in making decisions that affect literally every single aspect of our lives as Americans in this country and so it's terrible that we have um this kind of makeup in our in our government but also like we as voters have to do a much the powers in our hands ultimately in how we're making decisions uh in choosing who gets to work for us and not forgetting that not forgetting that not forgetting that those people who work in the united states capital they work for us when it comes right down to it.

[299] And so we have the power to hire and fire.

[300] I think that people have developed such a sophisticated way of manipulating folks.

[301] The thing about running for office, particularly running for president, it's one of the weirdest things where the most important job ever, you don't have to be qualified, you just have to be chosen.

[302] So you don't have to have any experience in government you don't even really have to know how government works.

[303] All you have to do is get enough people that are willing to give you a try and you can have the nuclear football.

[304] Like, not saying Trump, I'm not saying Biden, but if someone comes along, some ridiculously popular person that knows absolutely nothing about government, but they're like, Justin Bieber, he wants to be president?

[305] I fucking love that guy.

[306] like that is not outside of the realm of possibility all you if you if you have some incredibly charismatic person and you you like them over marco rubio or whoever the fuck it is ted cruz you're like well that guy sucks this guy can sing his ass off let's go with him like but you're literally giving someone the power to run the greatest army of the world has ever known the the most insanely technologically advanced civilization on earth and the one with the most weapons, you're going to let a person who wins a popularity contest, they can run this.

[307] Yeah, man. I mean, I lived through this.

[308] I literally just lived through this.

[309] But what's the alternative?

[310] Well, people, first of all, need to kind of have the veil lifted on what this is and how both political parties play into this and the media plays into this.

[311] You know, I saw from from the very day that I announced my candidacy for president, you know, I ran for president on, out of concern of some very real issues that our country is facing, wanting to bring voice to those issues and actually do something about it, the, the rise of North Korea's nuclear capabilities, for example, and how we in Hawaii lived through the reality of that threat when we got that, that missile alert that came through.

[312] that caused, you know, families to go and like...

[313] Tell people about that real quick if they forgot about it.

[314] So this was January 2019, early one Saturday morning.

[315] The civil defense alert system on our state sent out a text message to every cell phone in the state, blared warnings on the radios, the sirens on television, saying missile incoming to Hawaii.

[316] this is not a drill take shelter this is not a drill and so the response to that was like holy shit this could be the end an incoming missile to hawaii from north korea would literally mean the destruction not only of hawaii but the the aftermath and everything else would have a much much bigger impact so that's how people responded you know grabbing their little kids and running in like where do you take shelter like going into the bathtub and hunkering down there was a a father's a video of a father who got his like little eight -year -old daughter and lowered her down a manhole and was was i think he said something in the video like if we survive this try to come find me and there there are countless other stories of of i heard from from a father who he had one child who was in downtown Honolulu.

[317] The other was on the west side of Oahu, which is a good 45 -minute drive.

[318] And he was physically in the middle.

[319] And in those moments, he was sitting there knowing he had minutes to live, trying to decide which child he was going to go and drive to and spend those last minutes of life with.

[320] The seriousness of this, is something that has and continues to be lost on the leaders of our country and this was one of the main reasons that I ran for president so that I could do something to make sure that no other American no other family went through what we went through in Hawaii on that day.

[321] I announced my candidacy for president so that we can talk about these very serious issues and on day one immediately literally that very day within minutes mainstream media starts attacking that's when the whole russian asset thing began these seeds were planted to say oh she's some kind of suspicious candidate you better watch out the smears started the building of this caricature of of me as something that is nothing to do with who i am my experience my background my capabilities what i'm advocating for nope the media didn't want to talk about that the the other candidates didn't want to talk about it going on the debate stage okay i'm going to this is a national stage to be able to raise these very serious issues about the the the nuclear threat that our country faces this new cold war and what we need to do to walk back away from the brink of nuclear catastrophe nobody wants to talk about it they want to go towards the the superficial attacks they want to go towards the he said versus she said and ultimately the things that will cause ratings to go up and that will further this popularity contest that you're talking about, which ultimately all of this is the ultimate disservice to voters because it takes away their ability to make this informed decision about who should hold the nuclear football and what experience they bring, what kind of judgment they would bring, what kind of foresight they bring to this most powerful and important job and responsibility.

[322] now having had the moment to step back away now that all is said and done and time has passed what do you think was the catalyst like why did they immediately attack you because i've talked to you about this before i've talked openly about this before if you want a woman president you got one right there i mean you're talking about again a woman who served twice overseas congresswoman all these great accolades you're an attractive woman you're very well spoken like what's what's missing i don't i didn't understand i'm like what is it about you that they decided they were going to attack as this as much as they could try the biggest thing they had was this russian asset shit so it's like this mysterious like this like foggy thing like maybe she's an said to Russia.

[323] That was the best thing they could come up with as much as they were trying to attack you.

[324] So what was it about you?

[325] What was it where they felt like you were a threat?

[326] What was it about you?

[327] Was it that you weren't willing to play games?

[328] Was it that you weren't beholden to the party line?

[329] Like what is it?

[330] So they plant those seeds of doubt to try to get people to be like, I don't know about her.

[331] I don't know.

[332] I don't know if we can trust her.

[333] would they do that to you?

[334] Well, they refuse to engage on the substance to argue against or agree with what I'm saying.

[335] First of all, and second of all, my track record throughout my time serving in Congress pointed to the fact that I'm not willing to play their game.

[336] I'm not willing to be anybody's puppet that I will speak out for ending these costly destructive regime change wars.

[337] I will speak out for ending this new Cold War and nuclear arms race that is literally threatening humanity.

[338] The American people are country and humanity on this planet if it's allowed to continue down the road that we are on, that I'm not taking the money that's coming from all of these different corporate PACs and the political party leadership that they are all in bed with, that ultimately my goal and my motivation is to be a voice for and to serve the American people and actually speak the truth.

[339] Do you think that it's the unwillingness to take money from PACs?

[340] I think it's a combination of all of those things that lead to to the fact that I'm not going to dance their dance.

[341] I'm not going to play their game.

[342] I will not be controlled by anybody else, whether it's the political leadership, the corporate leadership, or whoever it is that's coming in and often has words saying, yeah, you know, I don't know.

[343] If you do that, you might ruin our chances to win in the next election.

[344] If you do that, then you might make it so that this big defense, contractor isn't going to write a big check to fund the convention or whatever the case may be.

[345] And those are very real conversations that happen in Washington all the time.

[346] Have you had these conversations with people?

[347] I have been, I have not directly been threatened with that or had those conversations because I don't take their money.

[348] So they probably look at you like.

[349] But I've been in the rooms where they have those conversations around.

[350] Yeah, I was vice chair of the DNC.

[351] Right.

[352] So when they're looking at, okay, we've got to raise X amount of money for either this campaign, this race, or for the convention that is a multi -million dollar kind of, I mean, it kind of should be like NASCAR where they should have posters up all over the place saying, hey, guys, these are the corporations that are paying for this thing that's supposed to be kind of one of the hallmarks of our democracy so that voters can actually see what's behind it.

[353] Yeah, somebody had that in a comedy sketch, right?

[354] Or was it Robin Williams or someone?

[355] I forget who it was, who had about their jackets.

[356] Oh, totally.

[357] Labels on them, just like a NASCAR car does.

[358] So you've been in the room when people have had these conversations, but they've never brought it up to you.

[359] Do you think that there's an assumption that you're not willing to play those games so it's a risky conversation to have?

[360] Probably.

[361] Probably.

[362] there was one vote there was one vote that i i don't i don't remember what the vote was exactly but um i was not sure on how i was going to vote and the vote was coming uh it was coming up pretty quick and it's you know these these votes are often um not so simple as as you know they're usually complex because they're they're either the bill is very big and there's you've got to weigh the pros and the cons and the benefits and and and the risks and so on and i i was not sure how i was going to vote on this bill and and uh a couple of leaders within the democratic party pulled me off the side of the floor and said you really need to vote with the democrats on this because if you don't then you will help the quote unquote opposition uh beat democrats in the next campaign.

[363] That was essentially what they said.

[364] And, you know, it was at that point that they lost me. That they didn't want to have, they didn't want to come and say, hey, Tulsi, here's why we think you should vote for this bill based on the substance, that this is what this bill will do to help the American people in this country.

[365] Instead, they came at me with a purely political argument and lost me right away.

[366] The conversation basically ended there.

[367] What is that feeling like?

[368] when you're in that conversation?

[369] Because that was the first time you had that kind of a conversation?

[370] That directly.

[371] That directly, yeah.

[372] Was it a feeling of, we disheartened by it?

[373] Was it why am I a congresswoman?

[374] What am I doing here?

[375] Was it upsetting?

[376] It was, it was disheartening because it showed that these people who I had worked with and around for quite some time really had no idea who I was and am and what drives my decisions on the votes that I take, for example, and that something like that would not only not work, but be a, would hurt, would further hurt their cause.

[377] And it was disheartening because, you know, it was yet another indicator of what drives the political decisions being made by some of the most.

[378] powerful people in our country is that what's going to win the next election what's going to help us or what's going to hurt us what can we use against the other guys in order to be more successful and either gain power or hold on to power and that's where if you look it in and there is there's so much legitimate frustration about why isn't congress doing something about this we saw this around the the stimulus checks the direct checks just a few months ago and how how those so -called negotiations dragged on for months and months and months and months, all of a sudden they get an agreement right after the election is over.

[379] It's literally playing politics with people's lives.

[380] You've got people losing their jobs, people stuck at home, people worried about being homeless, who that one -time check of $1 ,400, $2 ,000, whatever it is, that can be the difference for them between food or no food, home or no home.

[381] And yet you have people in Washington playing politics worried about, well, if we do this now, it might help Trump.

[382] Or if we do this now, it might help Republicans.

[383] Yeah, I mean, that was the conspiracy theory.

[384] The conspiracy theory was that part of the reason why the stimulus checks hadn't gone out, part of the reason why, you know, there was so much stricter lockdown and economic damage because of those lockdowns and democratic states was because they were concerned that if the economy rebooted and started going back up again, that it would help Trump and Trump would be able to say hey you know everything's doing great again we're going to make America great once again we're past this COVID and we're going to it's going to keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger and people would be like yep he's right hey he he really did have the economy booming before that COVID hit hey we really were doing better than ever with unemployment and that's a terrible conspiracy it's a terrible it's a terrible thing to even consider and I hate even bringing it up but man it's crazy how much devastation has happened in so many of these communities and some of these cities and how little consideration they've put into the fact that these people are losing everything they've ever worked for.

[385] They seem to think this is the only solution.

[386] The only solution is this.

[387] But you look at other states and you go, well, that's not true.

[388] Other states have managed to save far more businesses by allowing people to make their own decisions.

[389] And it's a horrible conspiracy.

[390] It's horrible to even consider that one of the reasons why the strictest lockdowns have taken place in the blue states and the blue cities is because they were concerned with the economy rebounding.

[391] Yeah, I want to talk about the lockdowns in COVID, but just on that point that it's not such a stretch as to call it a conspiracy because things like this happen in Washington all the time.

[392] And one of the clearest examples was around this bill called the First Step Act, which was a criminal justice reform bill that essentially if passed would result in a lot of people who are in prison for a very long time for nonviolent minor drug violations.

[393] Or, for example, like the girlfriend of a drug dealer who got caught on conspiracy charges, literally because she was in the room and around whatever her boyfriend was doing, this bill would have made it so that these people got to go home to their families.

[394] As we were working to try to pass this bill, and it was a bipartisan bill, both in the House and the Senate, and it had the President Trump's support, there were very prominent Democrats who publicly were saying, don't support this bill because it's not perfect and because if it was passed, then Donald Trump would be able to say he did it, that this was a victory and, you know, a feather in his cap, and that he'd be able to go across the country and say, hey, look what I did.

[395] So they were openly advocating for, hey, let's not do this right now.

[396] Let's wait until after 2020 and then do it so that it could be done under a Democratic president.

[397] Never mind all of the people who are locked up and who have been locked up for over 20 years away from their families and their kids, unable to see their kids grow up.

[398] Never mind the consequences of that.

[399] It's about politics and we don't want that guy to get a win at all.

[400] That's crazy.

[401] It is absolutely crazy.

[402] So, I mean, there's a good ending to this story in that this bill did eventually get passed.

[403] So those people who are advocating for that lost.

[404] But it It provides a window into that mindset of, that dangerous mindset of leaders in both political parties who are willing to sacrifice the well -being and the lives of the American people to advance their own political ambition and cause and power.

[405] It's so disgusting.

[406] It's so scary, too.

[407] It's so scary to think that this is something they can justify.

[408] These people that are representatives of the American people, they think that this is the way to go about business.

[409] because Donald Trump is bad.

[410] You know, this is their mind.

[411] No matter what you do, don't help Donald Trump.

[412] Yeah.

[413] And but this, I mean, this, we've seen this, I think, exacerbated over, over this, this past administration, but this is not something new either.

[414] I mean, this is something that has, I think, been increasingly becoming more and more of a problem that's gotten us to this point of where we are.

[415] That's so hard to hear.

[416] It's so hard to hear because what you just said.

[417] should be criminal because that is not representing people it's not representing innocent people it's not representing people that are unjustly accused it's not representing our legal system in the the best form of it possible yeah it's awful it is um i just i want to keep going back to because i don't i don't want to just be all about we have to be about solutions as well And I think that if we look back to the country that our founders envisioned for us and those foundational pillars that are put in place, the central part of that is our democracy.

[418] And so as we may feel hopeless at times like there's like what in the world can we do against these powerful forces of darkness and greed and power and so on, The mechanism that is in place for us to change this is through our elections.

[419] And as many people who, you know, there are.

[420] I mean, people feel hopeless.

[421] Like, why even bother to go vote?

[422] Why even bother because I'm just one person or my voice doesn't have power?

[423] This is the power that we have in our hands to start to change this.

[424] There is nothing stopping us from going to the ballot box and saying, like, you guys had your chance and you have not fulfilled that incredible trust and responsibility that we as voters have placed in you, you're out and choose leaders who are, who are committed to that mission of service, that servant leadership, looking out for the best interest of the American people in our country.

[425] I think there's also a problem where people don't know whether or not their leaders are looking out for the best interests of the people.

[426] They don't know.

[427] They want to believe.

[428] and they don't really have enough time to find out either.

[429] Most people are filled, their days are filled, right?

[430] They have a job, they have a family, they have a mortgage, they have a crisis of their own, they have their own hobbies and needs, and then they have to vote for mayor.

[431] Like, oh, shit, like, what's this guy doing?

[432] What's his deal?

[433] Oh, I heard some bad things about him.

[434] I heard he's a Russian asset, right?

[435] I mean, that's literally the kind of cursory examination that most people have of elected officials.

[436] This is why it's so important for us to be able to have fair and balanced and unbiased sources of information and media to turn to because people are busy and they don't have time.

[437] Like, you know, I go through a ton of different news sources every day and try to figure out the reality of what may be happening here or in different parts of the world.

[438] Most people aren't, they don't have the ability to focus on that.

[439] I introduced legislation called Reinstate the Fairness Doctrine Act, which the Fairness Doctrine was in place essentially to hold the news media that uses our public airwaves accountable to provide balanced information to the American people, where if you're reporting one view on the news, the fairness doctrine said you have to report the other view as well so that the viewer or the listener at home can say like, okay, this is what that side is saying on this issue.

[440] That's what that side's saying.

[441] I'm going to figure out what I think is what actually makes sense.

[442] The fairness doctrine was repealed.

[443] We need to reinstate the fairness doctrine.

[444] When was it repealed?

[445] I believe it was repealed during the Reagan administration.

[446] Makes sense.

[447] And it would go a long way towards providing more of that balanced news coming from those, again, who are using the public airwaves.

[448] And secondly, I think that the more people are aware that we have an incredibly biased corporate media that is driven by profits, not by actually a sense of responsibility to the public, then I think there's opportunities to look for, and I think we've got to do our best try to create those those balanced news platforms that not only just report facts and information, but also represent views from across the spectrum.

[449] Now, would that apply to only broadcast television like NBC, ABC, CBS, like that kind of stuff?

[450] Yeah, but that's a problem because nobody's watching that shit anyway.

[451] Isn't it a problem?

[452] I mean, cable news is where the meat is, right?

[453] That's where the, that's where the real battle's going down.

[454] And you have two entities.

[455] And, One of the things that Taibi outlined so well in his book is what went wrong with the Trump thing is that initially Trump was this buffoon who was running for president and was saying a bunch of crazy shit and everybody thought he was not going to win.

[456] And so they would highlight how ridiculous he was thinking that what that would do was going, it was going to make people dismiss him as a real candidate.

[457] And even, you know, respectable newspapers and respectable television shows.

[458] like CNN in New York Times are saying Hillary Clinton's like 96 % likely to win.

[459] So they had put all of this emphasis on what an idiot Trump was.

[460] They had highlighted all the outrageous things he was saying.

[461] They showed the videos from all of his rallies.

[462] And what they had done was they had inadvertently given him massive amounts of publicity.

[463] And they painted him as a buffoon.

[464] Then he wins.

[465] And then once he wins, they shifted.

[466] gears.

[467] I go, okay, we have to change and now just attack him at every turn.

[468] And during that time, this is one of the things of the book where they're describing the record profits they were making because it's extremely profitable to put something on television that everybody's watching.

[469] Right?

[470] If Trump is saying Mexicans are all rapists, everybody's like, holy shit, he said what?

[471] And the ratings would go up.

[472] So every time he would say something ridiculous like that, they would make money.

[473] And then the money, went from that to the money got made in highlighting everything that's wrong with him.

[474] And then the money came from turning him into this it wasn't that hard, we're turning him to this mega villain, right?

[475] And then the money on Fox was highlighting how bad the liberals were, highlighting how ridiculous they were being about all the different, how Trump derangement syndrome is ruining our democracy.

[476] And to watch those two things play out against each other simultaneously.

[477] It's a wild thing to say.

[478] And, I mean, the politicians were doing the same thing.

[479] You know, you just pointed out you've got cable news that hates Trump, cable news that loves Trump, the same thing that they're doing all that they're doing, ultimately, for ratings, more money.

[480] You have the same thing happening in Washington with one party that hates Trump, the other party that loves Trump, and using all of this fodder, you know, reporting like historic levels of fundraising for their party of one party or another.

[481] All of it centered around this Trump consciousness, this obsession with Trump every single day.

[482] And we've, you know, we've gone through this now for not only the last four years, you go back to the campaign.

[483] You say the last five, six years that we as a country have lived through this profiting essentially off of Trumpism.

[484] And meanwhile, while this is happening, they're incredibly important issues that are not being talked about, not being reported on, not being acted on by Congress.

[485] You look to North Korea, for example.

[486] North Korea has, over this period, been increasing their nuclear capabilities to the point where now they have nuclear submarines.

[487] You have this, this basically tearing up and destroying these nuclear non -proliferation treaties that are supposed to keep us in the world more safe from a potential nuclear war.

[488] Those are all gone, and there's a nuclear arms race that is ensuing now.

[489] In a new Cold War between the U .S. and Russia and China, these two other nuclear armed countries, you have, you know, our agriculture, our environment, you have, you know, bees and bugs, and butterflies now being destroyed and posing a great threat to our ability to grow crops, not only here, but around the world.

[490] There are so many different issues, very, very real serious issues.

[491] Have you heard much about that at all over the last few years?

[492] No. Have you seen action by Congress to address these very real issues?

[493] No. Why?

[494] It's because they're all looking at, hey, how do we profit off of Trump?

[495] So I think today is the perfect day to leave this Trumpism, this Trump consciousness, this obsession behind, and focus on the future, focus on these real issues, focus on these real challenges and how we as a country need to come together to be able to solve them and not contribute to the mess and the destruction and the nonsense that we've seen play out.

[496] over these last several years.

[497] I don't see, I agree with you.

[498] Because they're going to try to play it out longer because I'll bet you anything.

[499] People are sitting around in these cable newsrooms right now saying like, oh shit, how are we going to make money?

[500] Like what are we going to focus on now?

[501] What are we going to talk about now?

[502] And yeah, I just, I think the more of us who choose not to contribute to be a part of that and contribute to that and lend our eyeballs or our mind or our time to that, the more quickly we can try to force the conversation towards things that actually matter to us.

[503] Yeah, I completely agree with you, but I don't see anybody else agreeing with you.

[504] This is what bothers me the most.

[505] There's more of us than them, though.

[506] That's the thing.

[507] I think you're right, but it's not a popular thing that gets distributed.

[508] It's not a popular thing that gets, that it's not out there.

[509] Yeah.

[510] This is not, you have a pretty, you got a lot of eyeballs and ears on your platform, sir.

[511] So I think we can spark something to make, make, really seriously, makes some real change and point, take the spotlight away from where it's been and focus it where it should be, which is on, on the people.

[512] Yeah.

[513] Whose voices really have not been heard throughout this time.

[514] Well, they still would like there to be some representative that they can hang their hat on, like someone who's like, that's my guy, she's my woman, like this, this makes sense.

[515] I like the way they think.

[516] And I don't see a lot of that out there right now.

[517] I don't see someone who's not particularly invested in the party, but more so invested in all these problems that you're talking about.

[518] And about, you know, saying that we have to abandon all this partisan bullshit, all this pettiness and all this divisiveness that we've lived off the last four years.

[519] Yeah.

[520] And particularly these organizations, like you're saying, like cable news, like, that's their business model.

[521] Like, what are you asking them to do?

[522] like start becoming a charitable organization like what are they going to do this is what they do they stir shit up so we can impact that though we can impact that by not by not buying their shit that they're selling it's going to happen and and exactly and this is where this is where I think we've already seen a trend of people who are taking their attention away from that model and the crap that they're selling and instead you know they're looking for new media, alternative media, other voices, other platforms that are actually going in depth and talking about real things that matter, about real issues that matter, having real conversations.

[523] Yeah.

[524] Mom, that's what we would hope for.

[525] Another thing I heard, this is really crazy, that Trump is going to start a third party that he's been talking about starting a party called the Patriot Party, which is like, holy shit.

[526] I don't know anything about that.

[527] again rearview mirror rear view mirror I don't believe he's going to be in the rear view mirror I just don't I think people are going to get bored I think it's going to a few months will go by or whatever it is until he's in the news again and then it just won't be exciting without him and then I think we need a foil we need someone look the fucking 2021 season it's going to be pretty boring if Trump's not involved at all like if this was a long run show like Ozark or something like that right and we get to we get to the new season when he steps down like this can't be it no I see what they're going to do they're going to pretend that everything's going to be fine we got Biden we got Harris we got a lot of really diverse people in the cabinet this is going to be wonderful we got it we nailed it everything's great and then something that's what the worry is yeah well I mean look there there are sadly a lot of lot of really important and serious things that we could and should be talking about that should capture our attention and be able to as the people provide that pressure to our leadership and hold them accountable for whether or not they're doing their job and actually working for the people or not but you're talking about like a reasonable you're talking like a reasonable responsible person.

[528] That's not human.

[529] There's not that many of you out there.

[530] I think there are, Joe.

[531] I think there are.

[532] I think we're a bunch of grown -up babies with phones and they just, we're just tweeting up a storm and watching YouTube videos.

[533] That's what I think.

[534] I think people are so addicted to this drama.

[535] I mean, my God, watching Twitter over the last few days has been watching people complete an ultramarathon.

[536] Like they're, they're going to the finish line.

[537] We're there.

[538] the line.

[539] And yeah, we made it.

[540] We did it.

[541] We did it.

[542] It's over.

[543] Fuck you.

[544] Like there's so many people like playing, you know, having memes and this and and these like self -aggrandizing posts about like to directly to Trump.

[545] Dear Mr. President, fuck you and this and that and celebrities are doing and all these people are getting in on.

[546] And it is a fascinating thing to watch because I'm like, okay, you made it across the line.

[547] Now what?

[548] What happens next?

[549] What are you to do with all this?

[550] You got to You like the fight.

[551] You like the conflict.

[552] What are you going to do with all this energy?

[553] You get this conflict energy.

[554] Let's re -channel that.

[555] Let's re -channel that.

[556] To actually fight for the people against those who wield the power.

[557] Yeah, but that's not fun.

[558] What's fun is a bad guy.

[559] Bad guys are fun.

[560] We need another bad guy.

[561] We got plenty of those.

[562] Trust me. We got plenty of bad guys.

[563] I know, but we don't have a bad guy like Trump.

[564] But here's the thing is, and I agreed, like people who have been looking forward.

[565] to January 20th as though this is going to solve all of the, all of the problems that our country has faced, are missing the reality that the way we got here are because of some some deeply seated problems that have pre -existed the previous administration and that still exist in our country today, which is why I think it's so dangerous.

[566] for some leaders, especially in the Democratic Party and in the media over the last few days, who are so easily dismissing the 70 plus million people who voted for Trump, as though they are all the KKK or they are all this or that, throwing them into that bin that Hillary Clinton called the deplorables.

[567] And this is the reality of how dangerous that train of thought, I think, is going to continue to reveal itself unless, look, you know, Joe Biden gave a very unifying speech for his inauguration.

[568] It is that the pressure is on him to deliver.

[569] For the country's sake, I wish him well in working towards that.

[570] But it's not going to be an easy task.

[571] And ultimately, he will be held accountable for for his own actions in whether he is is able to be that unifying force or if we end up seeing and address some of these deeper seated problems you know he said in his speech that whether you voted for him or not that his goal is to serve you the american people um you know that again the pressure will be now on on him to actually show that is true through his actions and and actually actively reaching out to those 70 plus million people who didn't vote for him.

[572] Yeah, I mean, it would be wonderful if we all got together united and said, let's wish him well and let's cheer him on and hope he does a fantastic job.

[573] And all of you Trump supporters who thought that he was a puppet of the institution, wish him well.

[574] For our country's sake.

[575] Be happy.

[576] Be happy if he's right and you were wrong.

[577] My concern is that one of the things that Trump did that was really disturbing was this narrative that the elections were stolen and that he won by a landslide and even using certain things as an example that were easily disproven.

[578] Like one of the things that he used as an example, Kyle Kalinsky actually discussed it on the show.

[579] We did an election day show and Kyle Kalinsky was explaining Pennsylvania.

[580] And he said the way Pennsylvania works is the first votes they count are the walk -up votes, the people that actually go to the polls.

[581] Those votes are going to be, they're going to lean heavy in Trump's favor because he's put out this narrative, go vote in person, whereas the Democrats have put out this narrative to mail in your vote.

[582] So the first votes that get counted are going to be the votes of the people that walk up.

[583] It's going to skew heavily towards Trump.

[584] But then once they count those and they start counting the mail -in votes, it's going to lean much heavier towards Biden.

[585] And people are going to call shenanigans, but this is why it's happening.

[586] So, Karl Kalinsky lays this all out on the show day of the election.

[587] Right.

[588] It plays out.

[589] Exactly.

[590] Exactly.

[591] Like he said, Trump was way ahead.

[592] Then they started counting in the mail -in votes.

[593] The mail -in votes lean very heavily towards Biden.

[594] Biden ultimately winds up winning.

[595] But the way Trump describes it is if it's this grand scheme.

[596] We go to bed and all of a sudden, you know, we go to bed way ahead and then all of a sudden they magically find all these votes and then it leans towards Biden.

[597] Like, no, no, no, no, no. This is how it was going to go.

[598] If you are a political pundit and you understand the system and how it works, this was how it's going to go.

[599] So all the people that are the same people like, well, I heard she's a Russian asset, the people that give a cursory examination of all these different things that don't have the time to go on these deep dives.

[600] They're all going to hear that story and go, do you hear what they did in Pennsylvania, those sons of bitches?

[601] In the middle of the night, they came in with trucks of fucking ballots and all went to Biden mysteriously.

[602] Or the thing that happened in Georgia, when they were saying, oh, they were hiding ballots underneath the table.

[603] And then when the people that were observing left, then they pulled the ballots out.

[604] But no, you hear from the actual Georgia official.

[605] And he goes, that's not what happened at all.

[606] Here you can see them bringing, here's the video of them bringing in those ballots.

[607] They store them under the table because you've got a limited amount of room to move.

[608] They stored it under the table in clear view of these observers.

[609] They were told that they were going to go home and then they got a phone call saying, no, you need to keep counting.

[610] So after these people left, that's when they get the call and they say, okay, let's keep counting.

[611] So they pull those ballots out.

[612] But it gets talked about by Rudy Giuliani and all these other people like, oh, this is this nefarious plot.

[613] They hid these ballots underneath the table.

[614] And if you're just looking at the video footage from a surveillance camera and you don't know exactly what happened, that scenario makes sense to you.

[615] So there's so many people that have this distorted perception of what went down, and they really believe that this was all stolen.

[616] Now, here's another problem.

[617] The amount of voter fraud is not zero.

[618] It's never zero.

[619] That's true.

[620] It's not zero.

[621] So if you ask them, is there any voter fraud?

[622] They have to say yes.

[623] Because it is, there's some voter fraud.

[624] There's probably voter fraud left, and there's probably voter fraud right.

[625] And Nancy Pelosi was saying that the election was rigged in 2016.

[626] She was saying that it was a scam.

[627] She put it on her Twitter.

[628] This is the same exact thing that Republicans are doing today, and they're calling for them to resign from Congress.

[629] So you see how political parties use certain narratives to their advantage, depending on if it is.

[630] if it's their name, their party, their candidate that's on the block or not.

[631] And again, this goes back to how dangerous this hyper -partisan divisiveness is when you've got people in positions of power and influence manipulating the narrative according to serve their own interest.

[632] The hypocrisy of this is very evident, and the hypocrisy of, these same leaders in talking up a big or making a big stink about these things when it serves their interest but turning a blind eye when it doesn't is also very real and again like this is where we have the opportunity to hold people accountable there is a major issue that I brought up over a year before the 2020 election about how there are certain states that don't have any paper backups to their electronic systems So in theory, if any of these systems were hacked in any kind of way where you could manipulate the outcome of, you know, manipulate people's votes to swing the election one way or the other, there would not be an auditable paper trail that, you know, election officials could use to point to, okay, well, this is actually how many people voted for this candidate or that candidate, but this is where the electronic system was manipulated and got it wrong.

[633] So the bill that I introduced was called the Securing America's Elections Act.

[634] It was a bipartisan bill that very, very simply, still allowed supported states in their responsibility that they have to run elections that's constitutionally provided.

[635] But it said if you have an electronic system, you have to provide a voter verified paper backup, meaning like in Hawaii you have like I've gone and I used the machine there before and you punch it in.

[636] and before you submit your ballot, it's got a printout that says, okay, these are all your candidates.

[637] If it's correct, you submit, and they keep that paper backup on hand, or you just use a paper ballot.

[638] Either way, you have an auditable paper trail, and it would have provided federal funding for states to be able to implement this and put it in action.

[639] Made the case to Republican and Democratic leaders.

[640] Pass this bill.

[641] 2020 is a big election coming up.

[642] We want to make sure that we reduce the amount of vulnerabilities that exist, and maintain the integrity of our election so that people aren't raising these concerns or even there's no question, there should be any question in people's minds that these electronic systems have any vulnerability at all.

[643] Congress chose not to pass the bill.

[644] Was there arguments against it?

[645] Not that I heard.

[646] So what was the reason why they passed, why they went against it?

[647] I mean, it just wasn't done.

[648] There were no legitimate arguments against it.

[649] I heard some states saying like, oh, well, we don't.

[650] know if we want to change it or whatever but if the the federal government had the ability to go in and and that's what my bill did it tied this change to federal funding to administer the elections to provide that as an incentive so the point is to have some foresight and have leaders with foresight in Congress to say you know what 2020 is going to be a big election it'll be a lot of eyes on it critical outcome one way or the other let's take action now in order to uh uh prevent people questioning the integrity of our election and therefore a democracy.

[651] Many of those same people who are complaining or raising concerns about this today are people who chose not to take action that could have prevented us in large part from being in the situation that we are in.

[652] So holding these leaders accountable and calling them on their crap is essential if we want to actually start to see some change.

[653] I don't understand what the incentive would be to not pass this.

[654] Is there a financial burden that's attached to this?

[655] Is it prohibitively expensive?

[656] I mean, it is not prohibitively expensive.

[657] I mean, some states just went and did it on their own because they recognize, I believe Virginia was one of them.

[658] They hold off -year state elections in the odd years.

[659] And they recognize the threat of this because there's like a hacking convention in Vegas every couple of years or something and they bring in like all of these even young you know teenagers and they they had this thing called election village and they showed they used replica electronic voting systems from different states and some of these kids hacked into these systems within 10 minutes 15 minutes an 11 year old changed election results on a replica Florida state website in under 10 minutes look at her yep wizard done I wonder if that's the real kid because that's kind of fucked up if it is that is the real kid oh my god why are they showing these kids faces oh my god right the fucking russians are right now knocking on our door good evening like to talk to child is 11 years old we have questions what you loan and how you learn that right there though that is um states like virginia said like that is a serious problem and they spent the money and they fixed it and and i some Virginia election officials came before Congress and said, hey, we did this.

[660] It worked really well, and it's the first time we've not had any complaints about the integrity of our election systems.

[661] Did you ever see hacking democracy, the HBO documentary?

[662] No. It was about the Diebold machines, the same issue that happened in the past.

[663] And it showed on the documentary that they could adjust the results.

[664] They could adjust the results because there was a built -in, into the DiBolt systems, there was a built -in access for a third party.

[665] Wow.

[666] Yeah.

[667] What's the big deal, Tulsi?

[668] Just our democracy.

[669] Let's talk about pronouns because that's what's important.

[670] Like, people are, the amount of distractions that people are subject to today, too, is also unprecedented because of social media.

[671] So concentrating on these key issues and really important things like murder hornets, it's hard, it's hard to do because there's so much shit going on.

[672] It's like, Your news feed is constantly inundated with things.

[673] And you look at the first thing, the first thing that this new Congress did, 117th Congress, right after being sworn in the first week of January, instead of, say, passing a bill that would mandate that limited resource of vaccines that we have go directly towards the most vulnerable seniors who, are right now dying at the highest rates because of COVID, instead of doing something real and important that would actually save people's lives and reduce hospitalizations in this country, the thing that they passed was this administrative rules package that deleted all mention of mother, father, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, son or daughter, and instead changed it to say in the House of Representatives, when you're right.

[674] referencing anyone who holds, I don't know what you call it, this title, this position, it's not mother or father, it's now parent, it is now parent -in -law, not mother -in -law or father -in -law, it is now child.

[675] What do you do for aunt and uncle?

[676] Or sibling.

[677] You say parents' brother, I think, is what they said, or parents' sister.

[678] Which parent?

[679] Exactly.

[680] Which one?

[681] I don't know.

[682] You can say parents' brother?

[683] Right.

[684] So that's gendered, though.

[685] Right.

[686] What if she chooses to now be a woman?

[687] It would be parents sibling.

[688] That's what it would be.

[689] But this is all very important.

[690] But this is what I'm talking about, though.

[691] And this is where people just like, give me a break.

[692] Give me a break.

[693] This is the most important thing that you feel is the highest priority to take action on in this new year and this new Congress.

[694] Well, if you're on Twitter, that is the most important thing or the least important thing, depending upon what Twitter feed you follow.

[695] Yeah.

[696] I'm concerned.

[697] And like I said, I'm concerned about the way.

[698] way Trump rejected the election results, that they're similar to the way a lot of the Democrats rejected the 2016 results, and that they, I don't think, I understand that they want their side to win, but I don't think they understand the ultimately corrosive impact this is going to have on the confidence that people have in democracy.

[699] In election results, people right now, Republicans, there's some ungodly number.

[700] It's like in the high 70%.

[701] This is what the most recent...

[702] See if you can find this.

[703] Republicans that believe the election results were illegitimate.

[704] I think it was in the 70s, which is just bananas.

[705] I mean, even if you asked Democrats after 2016, I don't think it would be that high.

[706] Maybe if you said how many people believe Russia had a part in Donald Trump being elected, maybe that would be a little higher.

[707] But at least they probably thought that the people, voted voted like that it was probably ultimately representative of how the people voted they thought those people had been misled they probably thought propaganda was involved and there was a bunch of you know really incorrect stuff that was said that led people to vote the wrong way but I think they probably more or less believe that Donald Trump won it's probably very disheartening I don't know I mean if you talk to Hillary Clinton she won I don't talk to that lady Well, anybody who does.

[708] Yeah.

[709] Well, she did win the public.

[710] I mean, she won the popular vote.

[711] She really did.

[712] I mean, that's a fact, right?

[713] So that kind of goes against the Russian narrative right there.

[714] It's like, what a slippery game you're playing.

[715] You're going to let more people vote for Hillary, but just the right amount in the swing states so that you get the electoral college vote?

[716] The danger of overall eroding people's confidence in our elections and the integrity of our elections.

[717] And also, I mean, and I think the whole kind of cancel culture goes along with this, and the censorship and the suppression of people's free speech is because if they feel that they don't have a voice to speak on whatever they want to speak on, and if they don't have a voice through their votes, then what's left?

[718] Right, right.

[719] And this is where, and I think we've seen this over, you know, what happened on January 6th, but also over this past year where people feel that the only way that they can bring about changes through violence.

[720] Yeah.

[721] And this is the dangerous consequence of where this partisan divisiveness takes us.

[722] And it also points to the dangerous normalization.

[723] of this kind of politically driven violence where one side kind of says, well, it's okay if I agree with your motivation for going and burning down buildings and rioting and looting and whatnot.

[724] But it's not okay if I disagree with the motivation of these other people.

[725] And that normalization of taking kind of the conflict culture that exists online and is now being embodied and manifested in reality in different ways, again, as a symptom and a byproduct of this hyper -partisanship and this divisiveness, this is the dangerous reality that is coming about because of people who are more interested in their power than they are interested in the well -being of our country, our freedom, and the American people.

[726] So much of this just comes down to leadership or the lack thereof and people who are more interested in serving their own selfish interests rather than fulfilling this huge obligation and responsibility to serve the interests of the people first.

[727] Not just selfish interests, but also tribal interests, the interests of the Democratic tribe or the Republican tribe.

[728] That's, like I said, what I'm really worried about with the way Trump is addressing his loss is that there are this January 6th thing that we saw is indicative of that.

[729] like and then you know i mean and then he like denounced the people who did it like he's telling them that you have to be strong you need to show a show of force and these people stormed i mean the ultimate show of force they literally knocked over security guards beat a guy to death storm the capital the whole thing is so fucking strange and hearing that he wants to start another party like oh jesus christ and call it the patriot party remember the patriot act yeah that's that's unpatriotic and not only that like calling it the patriot party is such like but it's so it's almost like what i would expect out of this whoever's writing this goofy fucking script for this wacky show we're on like yeah that's what it would be the the guy who left off and he's going to start the patriot party and all the true patriots are going to line up for him look there's a lot of people out there that are dying for someone to tell them what to do.

[730] And that's scary.

[731] That's a real problem.

[732] It's a real problem.

[733] There's so, I mean, look, there's so much fear that's out there.

[734] There's a lot of pain, a lot of frustration.

[735] And my hope is, I want to be really optimistic here.

[736] My hope is that by getting to a place where we can see each other once again as Americans and not one side and you talked about tribalism like my tribe is the good guys and your tribe is the bad guys you're the enemy we're not is that when we can get back to a place where we see each other as Americans and respect each other and go back to the fundamentals of this country then we have the ability to have a real dialogue and not to say that we're going to agree on everything, not to say we're not going to have fierce debates on substance around how we solve the great problems of our time.

[737] But when we come from that place of saying that we know we need to solve these problems for the sake of the people in our country, then we know we will end up in a good place with a positive outcome.

[738] One thing that does give me hope is online pundits, is that the ones that are not beholden to these gigantic corporations the ones that aren't a part of a network they can speak more freely and more honestly and one of my favorite shows is the hill rising on the hill those guys are great crystal and saga are right and left okay she's left he's right and the two of them are super reasonable and honest and objective and they talk about things in a in a very reasonable manner and even if they disagree it's polite and it's like it's possible to do and it's also clearly honest and clearly objective.

[739] This is possible to do.

[740] And I think that shows like that, and they're showing...

[741] Which is doing very well, by the way.

[742] Very well.

[743] Which shows there's a hunger for this.

[744] There's a starvation.

[745] Yeah.

[746] And I think shows like that can lead the way.

[747] Because this is the way we need to behave with each other.

[748] You used to be, your neighbor was a right wing nut.

[749] And, you know, and you were growing alfalfa sprouts, and you could all get along.

[750] Yeah.

[751] Like, you're like, hey, Mike, how's the gun collection going?

[752] You know, you could be friends.

[753] Yeah.

[754] You could be friends with people that have different opposing points of view and I have some pretty fucking crazy friends like and I love them to death yeah I mean what what happened like why does America have to be so so separated divided on this imaginary line that we create because most of us if you look at our core beliefs what do we really want we want friendship we want love we want community we want our family we want to have opportunities for our businesses and we want to have the freedom to express ourselves and the freedom to practice whatever cultural rituals or religions that you choose to practice.

[755] And this is what we all agree on.

[756] And then there's economic disagreements.

[757] And then there's disagreements on education and health care.

[758] But God, those are the small ones.

[759] Those are not the big problems that most people encounter in their everyday life.

[760] Most people in their everyday life have a very, have a reasonable set of beliefs that they all kind of can meet in the middle.

[761] Yeah.

[762] And even on those big ones that you're talking about, and I found this throughout my campaign for president in the town halls, hundreds of town hall meetings that we had where, you know, at different town halls, I had guys coming in wearing their red maga hats.

[763] I had Ron Paul voters, Bernie voters, people from all across the political spectrum.

[764] And we had the most amazing conversations.

[765] And it was a conversation.

[766] Because around so many of these issues like health care, for example, what it boiled down to was while, people had different ideas on the best way to, like, what our health care system should look like.

[767] It came down to, like, if your child is sick, you want to be able to make sure that your child gets the best care possible.

[768] Yes.

[769] That if your mother comes down as, is diagnosed with cancer, that her job or your job or your social status is not going to affect her ability to get the best care.

[770] possible with education.

[771] Tell me one parent that doesn't want their child to get a good education.

[772] I know a guy.

[773] Do you?

[774] Like, you do have crazy friends, Joe?

[775] I'm just kidding.

[776] I'm just kidding.

[777] We got some other issues we've got to deal with there.

[778] But you get the point, right?

[779] Yeah.

[780] No, I do get the point.

[781] And so, you know, the economy, you know, what what person doesn't want to have, you know, just a great opportunity to earn a good living so you don't have to fear for your yourself or your family's safety and economic security.

[782] So yes, we are going to have wildly different ideas perhaps on how we can achieve these things, which is okay.

[783] That's not a bad thing, that we come up with some of our best ideas when we have these debates with an openness and a respect to know like, hey, I got this idea, let me hear yours.

[784] And maybe there's some good ideas that came from mine and from yours, and we can kind of figure out, you know, the right path forward for all of us.

[785] And that this is where, you know, it all stems down to being able to have the conversation.

[786] And that is so much of what's missing in Washington.

[787] Yeah.

[788] Where, you know, I don't know, this was in my first few years in Congress.

[789] People unwilling what to speak of have a conversation, even like just say hello.

[790] You know, there's a, there's a gym in the basement of the house that a lot of members are going and work out in.

[791] Members of Congress go out and work out in.

[792] Who gets after it?

[793] Who really gets after it in Congress?

[794] Well, I mean, other than me, of course.

[795] You do, you do.

[796] You get after it more than any of them.

[797] You might be the only Congresswoman that ever puts workout videos online.

[798] Maybe.

[799] That's actually probably true.

[800] But they're impressive.

[801] There's, there's, there's, um, I'm impressed.

[802] I appreciate that.

[803] It's, it's important.

[804] You do hard stuff.

[805] It is important.

[806] But you do, you do difficult stuff.

[807] Like, you get after it.

[808] Yeah.

[809] Like, you're not like doing like curls.

[810] No, no, no. You're doing box jumps and shit.

[811] Yeah.

[812] Yeah.

[813] You're doing pliometrics.

[814] I love it.

[815] I watch you.

[816] It's such a great way to, I mean, for me, it's such a great way to start the day, you know, kind of clean the slate and get that physical exertion out.

[817] I mean, yoga, for me, it's yoga, meditation and working out that, yeah.

[818] But there's a group of us in Congress when I was there, a very good friend of mine, Mark Wayne Mullen from Oklahoma, Congressman.

[819] He actually used to be an MMA fighter and wrestler.

[820] And so that's how we became really good.

[821] friends.

[822] Small group of us.

[823] There's a bipartisan group.

[824] He craps the whip.

[825] He cracks the whip.

[826] He's invited Randy Couture there.

[827] Randy's like led a work out there.

[828] Oh, wow.

[829] It's such a great way to just bond as people.

[830] And some of those like our, our core of our workout group, Democrats and Republicans, they all came out to Abraham and my wedding in Hawaii and like we're actually really good friends.

[831] That's cool.

[832] And it all was centered around just kicking each other's ass in the morning and talking shit and all the other stuff that happens in the gym.

[833] That's awesome.

[834] But what I was going to say is one morning there was a yoga class happening in there.

[835] And then Speaker Bainer was participating in the yoga class.

[836] And I saw him on the house floor later.

[837] He was walking down the main aisle and just as he was about to leave, I was like, Speaker, I saw you in yoga this morning.

[838] That's awesome.

[839] Good job.

[840] I put my hand up and I high fived him and he smiled and laughed a little bit.

[841] but as this was happening there was another democrat who was like waiting to pass and we were getting in her way and when she passed once the high five was done she started muttering like something to her staff she's like I can't believe Tulsi would do that and gave me the look of like utter absolute disgust that this simple basic human interaction was the ultimate offense going back to once again how unfortunately so much of Congress is like high school and how at a most basic level like come on we're people let's treat each other like people and you know you can have and i'm there's a number of things that i disagree with john bainer on on on issues but let's have those conversations and also be able to say you know what i recognize that you're a person too and yoga is a good thing for everybody oh yeah yeah yeah but that's just you know it's one example of many it's a good thing for everybody and it's also a good thing to find out what someone's made out of yeah because you could kind of like be a man like we're and go work out hard and grunt and everything like that and like oh that guy really works out hard but go to a yoga class and you find out how long you hold that pose for before you quit yeah when do you put your foot down.

[842] You know, Wendy, you know, like, that's a different kind of strength.

[843] And just also, mental strength.

[844] Exactly.

[845] Exactly.

[846] And the ability to, you know, just stop and find that focus and that piece in yoga breathing, yoga meditation.

[847] And like, stop looking in the mirror and checking out how big your muscles are.

[848] You know what I mean?

[849] You know, it's another thing my yoga instructor said once that I'll never forget.

[850] she was saying that one of the most difficult poses is in the dead body pose because you want to move the corpse pose yeah she's like you want to move but you can't she goes just lay there and breathe and it is hard to do really it's hard to do in a weird way do you I usually fall asleep at the end well there's there's a couple of those poses that are in the middle there's one of them that's in the middle where you you lie down and when you do the beakrum series there's one of them in the middle where they used to call a beacrum now the place that I was going to they changed it to just hot yoga because he's a scumbag yeah yeah and also he didn't really invent those moves oh no not at all they've been around for thousands of years exactly yeah and even that pattern and even doing it in hot climate yeah he didn't invent any of that he just went and made a bunch of money for himself hilarious but when you're exhausted and your body's overheating and you're lying there it's fucking it's hard to just lay there you want to move around oh yeah you know you like oh you want to do all these different things yeah but you just got to chill and it's hard to do it's hard to just lay there yeah but it's so so I mean it's it's it's life -changing if you allow it's it's very good for you yeah and in physical for you for high -fiving them yeah and and you know the thing about them treating it like high school the problem is most people live their fucking lives like it's like high school.

[851] Yeah.

[852] You know?

[853] I mean, I know people that are growing adults with children that treat life like high school.

[854] You know, when they pick their kids up at school, you know, this one's over there with that.

[855] Look at how she's dressed.

[856] I can't believe her.

[857] Husband lets her get out like that.

[858] It's like fucking high school, you know?

[859] Oh, that is, that is a whole other thing.

[860] Yeah, well, it's people.

[861] It's like humanity, responsibility and awareness and, you know, the effect of our actions and our words on other people and and especially if you're a parent on your kids what kind of example you're setting it's also just not seeking growth as a human being like it's being satisfied with the mindset that you have you know 10 years ago or 15 years ago and just maintaining that nonsense for the rest of your life yeah there are grown babies you know they're literally like a 55 year old baby man and that's out there treating life like they're a 12 year old storm and temper tantrums and acting like an idiot and they and they don't get any better there's no self -reflection and if you come visit them in 10 years it'll be more of the same they just have less energy and probably more bitterness and more angry yeah angry at the world didn't give them their just do sons are which is so sad really because it um i mean life is so short it is real short and and to be alive and to be in a place where look we're you know have have so many blessing and blessings and opportunities and comforts that people in a lot of other parts of the world don't have.

[862] And it's just, it's unfortunate to waste all of that opportunity.

[863] It is.

[864] And ultimately, the benefit of those people is you get to learn from their failures.

[865] Yeah.

[866] You get to learn from their mistake.

[867] And it's a horrible thing to learn from someone's literal wasted life.

[868] But you can learn.

[869] Absolutely.

[870] And if you know people like that, like when I was in high school, I had a friend and And his cousin, I've talked about too many times, but I'll say it one more time, his cousin was a Coke addict.

[871] He was selling Coke.

[872] And I learned from watching his life fall apart, like, whatever I do is stay the fuck away from that stuff.

[873] Yeah.

[874] Because it was like knowing someone who got bit by a vampire, like watching his whole life wrap around this drug and selling it and then just withered away, lost a bunch of weight, looked all fucking scrawny and shit.

[875] You can learn from other people's failures.

[876] You can learn from their lack of growth.

[877] And when you see it and it makes you uncomfortable, there's a value in that.

[878] Like, people say that experience is the best mistake or is the best teacher.

[879] I think other people's failures are the best teacher.

[880] Like, I don't want to be that guy.

[881] So you don't have to go through it yourself first.

[882] Yeah, I don't want to be like her.

[883] I don't want to be like him.

[884] That's the best.

[885] I don't want to be like they if I want to non -gender it.

[886] Are you into that now, Joe?

[887] Oh, that's my new thing.

[888] Yeah, I don't believe in gender anymore.

[889] When I buy a puppy, I don't even ask.

[890] You let the puppy name itself.

[891] Let the puppy decide.

[892] Yeah.

[893] If it lifts its leg to pee, I see.

[894] It's going to be interesting.

[895] A whole new world.

[896] It's a whole new world.

[897] Yeah, it is.

[898] It's a weird one.

[899] Yeah.

[900] You know, we're going to get through it.

[901] But I think there's going to be some real hiccups along the way.

[902] There always are.

[903] There always are.

[904] And speaking of learning from other people's experiences, I think this is, you know, what we've gone through as a country and as a people, this is a teachable moment.

[905] for us like if you don't like what's happening around you right now take a moment pause and whether it's individually ourselves or um i mean really collectively stopping for that introspection to say how did we get here yeah and how can i be a positive force for shifting it's not easy it doesn't happen overnight it doesn't happen because one person has been elected president it happens when we collected start to make those better choices about the impact that we are making on others, the kinds of things we're saying, the things that we're tweeting out.

[906] And, you know, instead of just like, whatever you're thinking on social media or whatever, you know, just taking that, like, okay, just think about it.

[907] Just think about it.

[908] What kind of impact do you want to make?

[909] This is where, this is where I think we have the opportunity to shift.

[910] And this is something that I want to be able to, that I plan to be able to do, to help, to, now that I'm not in Congress, is to be able to kind of create a platform for sharing real in -depth information so that people have a place to go, to look at different issues that we're dealing with at any given time, share my own insights based on the experience that I've had on both the problem as well as how we can work towards a real common -sense solution, but also just have a platform for, for these kinds of real conversations, much like the ones that I've had, you know, throughout my presidential campaign, throughout my time in Congress, throughout my time in the military, both with people here and around the world, that show when it comes right down to when you actually sit across from someone, maybe over a meal, that we have so much more in common than we realize, just like my friends I work out within the morning in the gym.

[911] We have so much more in common than we realize at the superficial level.

[912] And so this is one of the things that I'm going to be doing is launching a podcast show.

[913] That's crazy.

[914] You're going to do a podcast?

[915] I know.

[916] I actually looked back at, I looked back, I think it was the last time I was here with Jocko, right?

[917] That was the last time I was on your, on your show was, you're like, Tulsi, you should do a podcast and actually have a long form platform to talk about.

[918] issues because you know as we saw throughout the debates and other things it's the soundbite it's the tweet it's the superficial yeah and they're they're you know at that level there's only an interest in sound bites and caricatures and not an interest in actual real conversation and in -depth focus um on substance yeah long -form discussions yeah it's the really the only way to find out how a person actually thinks you take a little snippet of things you can mischaracterize it And that's the problem with Twitter.

[919] I mean, I see so many people arguing with people on Twitter.

[920] And I watch them arguing, I go, I got to believe that they were alone in a room.

[921] They wouldn't be hashing it out like this.

[922] Yes.

[923] They'd probably find some common ground.

[924] Yes.

[925] Yeah.

[926] You know, hopefully they'd be able to communicate in a way where they would be able to relate each other's thoughts without having to insult each other and say horrible shit.

[927] You know, just.

[928] I've seen it happen.

[929] I've seen it happen over and over throughout my presidential campaign in those town halls.

[930] Sometimes they were small rooms.

[931] Sometimes they were rooms with thousands of people.

[932] Always had a Q &A session at the very end of the town hall after I said what I wanted to say.

[933] And time and time again, even when people came with that combative kind of attitude and spirit, when they're heard and they feel heard.

[934] and there's an openness to have a discussion oftentimes that combativeness and those tensions I've seen brought down where people are actually open to having that kind of conversation and open to hearing a different perspective that they may not have considered and also recognizing again like we talked about with all these different issues like at our core no matter who we are where we come from the color of our skin all of those things who we voted for, who we voted against, at our core, we really do have more that we agree on than we disagree on.

[935] We have more in common.

[936] I think that also speaks to you because I think that if you went to Trump's town halls and they had a Q &A, they would not have the same result.

[937] I don't think you would have people reaching across the aisle and having reasonable discussions.

[938] You're a reasonable person.

[939] I think that is one of the more important aspects of leadership, like who the leader is.

[940] I'm sure when you're giving out this town hall and these people who are in this room together, they're feeding off of that kind of energy.

[941] It's not this like divisive, combative energy that's other politicians put out.

[942] And I think that fosters this idea of community.

[943] And it allows people to have the confidence to maybe be a little more kind than they would be if they were insecure.

[944] Like, I ought to lash out this fucking liberal before they come at me with some Nazi shit.

[945] And, you know, and that's what happens with people.

[946] If you put them in an environment where they feel like, you know, I think the thing here is to be nice.

[947] If this is the thing to do is.

[948] And then they'll try it.

[949] And then the other person goes, I can't believe he's being nice.

[950] Yeah.

[951] I'm going to be nice too.

[952] That's true.

[953] And then they're nice to each other.

[954] And then, you know, I thought I was going to not like you.

[955] I thought I was going to not like you.

[956] And they shake hands.

[957] That's a beautiful feeling.

[958] It is a beautiful thing.

[959] And this is something I started to do at these town halls where to make people feel more comfortable.

[960] I said, okay, I want to see a show of hands.

[961] Raise your hand if you're a Democrat.

[962] You know, a bunch of hands went up, I'm Democrat, said, okay, raise your hands if you're a Republican.

[963] And it usually started with one person kind of like looking around, raising their hand, and then slowly more hands started going up and everybody's sitting up a little taller.

[964] And they're like, oh, my God, I'm not alone.

[965] I'm not the only one.

[966] Raise your hands if you're an independent.

[967] Raise your hands if you're a libertarian.

[968] And just taking a few minutes to do that, immediately people were just like, wow, this is a representation of America.

[969] We are all sitting here in this same room and all here because we care about our country.

[970] And that's the starting point for those discussions.

[971] The starting point is also being able to have a reasonable discussion and being calm about it.

[972] You know, like I brought up your appearance on the view.

[973] But that was one of my favorite appearances on the view because you were one of the only people that didn't actually get upset.

[974] You just corrected them.

[975] Like you slowly but surely.

[976] And you could see Joy Behar, her glasses were shaken.

[977] She's pulling out her cards and she had notes of different things, insulting things to say to you.

[978] It was kind of hilarious.

[979] And you kept your shit together and you just calmly refuted all that and explained who you are.

[980] And that kind of energy that you brought to the table as a presidential candidate was very exciting to me. And that kind of energy at a town hall, I guarantee you it is a large part of why people were willing to have these reasonable disagreements and discussions.

[981] and that's what we need.

[982] Yeah.

[983] This idea that we're separated and there's a red and a blue and we're team this or a team I'm on team donkey.

[984] Fuck you.

[985] I'm an elephant.

[986] Like that is crazy.

[987] This is most of what we agree on or disagree on is we can work these things out.

[988] And a lot of people that either on one side or the other, they decide that they're a part of this tribe because they don't want to be out on their own.

[989] They don't want to be independent.

[990] They don't want to be a drift in the wind, and they want to have the social connection to other people that have like -minded beliefs.

[991] And so they'll alter their beliefs, to fit their community.

[992] They'll alter their beliefs to fit in with other human beings.

[993] Yeah.

[994] I mean, it's what people do.

[995] It's a common thing.

[996] Yeah, it's, yeah.

[997] And being able to create those spaces like you do here, I mean, I've, I lost track of how many people who came to my campaign because, like, I heard you on Joe Rogan.

[998] You have all kinds of people that you bring in here to talk to and have meaningful discussions with, which is, I think, what draws people to your show because, uh, they know that it will be a fair and open and respectful dialogue, whether you agree with who you bring in or not.

[999] It's kind of not even really the point.

[1000] But so many people came and people from across the spectrum is this one woman who came at the end of the town hall and she's like, I don't know, maybe 70 years old, she's like, Tulsi, I'm here because I saw you on Joe Rogan.

[1001] I was like, that's awesome.

[1002] That's crazy.

[1003] I don't think you're the kind of person people think of when they think of the Joe Rogan audience, but it just shows that there's such a cross -section of Americans.

[1004] again, who are hungry for this dialogue and to be able to reach out and and to hear different perspectives.

[1005] And so, so yeah, I mean, this is something that, that, that I, I want to be able to, to help contribute to being that voice for, for common sense and facts and truth and freedom and to create that space where, where we can actually get to know each other better.

[1006] Well, the world needs a whole lot more of that.

[1007] So when are you going to do this?

[1008] Uh, in the next few weeks, it is, um, people can go on now.

[1009] I've got a trailer up.

[1010] The show is called this is Tulsi Gabbard.

[1011] Can we watch it right now?

[1012] You can listen to it.

[1013] I don't know if that's going to be as interesting.

[1014] I am.

[1015] I am.

[1016] Video and audio.

[1017] Where are you going to do it out of?

[1018] You're going to do it from Hawaii?

[1019] So you're going to do it remotely with guests.

[1020] I'm going to do it.

[1021] I'm going to do it out of Hawaii, but I'll maybe in when COVID stops being such an infectious thing a little bit later.

[1022] I'd love to do as much in person as possible and just kind of do it like a do it like a road show, a weekly road show.

[1023] Yeah.

[1024] And there's something about the in person.

[1025] Oh, totally.

[1026] So much better.

[1027] Yeah.

[1028] I mean, like, I've, yeah, that would be my preference.

[1029] So I'll invite people to come out to Hawaii, take a vacation.

[1030] We'll film, we'll film a show there.

[1031] Yeah, I'll do, I limit my Zoom ones now to people on other continents and people that are older.

[1032] Right.

[1033] Like really can't travel.

[1034] They're worried about their health.

[1035] Right.

[1036] Because it's just, the conversations are always so, it's like they're hollow.

[1037] It's like a hollow Easter bunny.

[1038] Remember you just get those hollow ones?

[1039] You go, damn, it's a hollow one.

[1040] Yeah.

[1041] And you get those other ones that are solid.

[1042] You're like, oh, you got all the chocolate.

[1043] You know those?

[1044] Yeah.

[1045] Yeah, that's what it's like.

[1046] It looks like a podcast, but it's a hollow chocolate bunny.

[1047] Yeah.

[1048] Yeah.

[1049] So there's, yeah, we'll get to do in -person ones when it's a little bit more safe to do it.

[1050] But in the meantime, you know, it'll be a mix of, of, it's not going to be primarily conversations, it'll be conversations, but it'll also just, you know, North Korea, for example, I'm going to do a piece just talking about North Korea and really getting into depth about how we got here and the failures that have caused us to reach this point.

[1051] And I think where, where we can go on these sorts of, where we can go and address, address a lot of the issues like this that people aren't really getting in the news.

[1052] Are you going to do all this completely independent?

[1053] Yeah.

[1054] Yeah, that's the move.

[1055] Because if you, you know, there's a lot of podcast networks out there and there's a lot of production houses that put together podcasts and they'll, they'll lure you in with talks of we already have advertisers, we can do this.

[1056] So we'd like to offer you 60 % of the revenue and, you know, you can, you know, we'll take the rest.

[1057] I think with everything happening especially now, but even, you know, leading up to what we've seen in the last few weeks, just putting yourself in a position where someone else has the power to tell you like, man, I don't like what you said there.

[1058] Yes.

[1059] Yank.

[1060] Exactly.

[1061] I don't want to be in that position.

[1062] Yeah.

[1063] No, you don't want to be in that position.

[1064] Yeah.

[1065] It could, it's also like be in as many platforms as possible.

[1066] Right.

[1067] It's a good move, too, especially in the early days.

[1068] Exactly.

[1069] It's, uh, you know, it's a weird time when someone can just decide that they don't like you or they, that what you're doing is problematic.

[1070] And just find a reason.

[1071] Yeah, yeah.

[1072] Find or create a reason to be able to, to de -platform you.

[1073] Yeah, it's one of the reasons why I went to Spotify is because they had a vested interest in me succeeding.

[1074] Sure.

[1075] Like instead of worrying about me being pulled for their network, like, it's not that I never really worried about that with YouTube.

[1076] But it's always possible.

[1077] It is possible.

[1078] And there was some weird shenanigans they would do with demonetizing specific episodes just randomly.

[1079] And we would, like, we would question it.

[1080] What does that mean to demonetize?

[1081] It means you don't make any ad revenue.

[1082] Oh.

[1083] You don't make the ad revenue from that episode.

[1084] And they just decide.

[1085] And so it's a way, it's a way, and I'm not necessarily saying that this is why they did it.

[1086] But this is what happens because of it.

[1087] It's a way of censoring people without censoring people.

[1088] because you say, oh, were you guys talking about COVID?

[1089] Oh, yeah.

[1090] No, we can't put ads on that.

[1091] Yeah, why would you want to put ads on something that's one of the primary concerns of the entire fucking planet?

[1092] Yeah, why put ads on that?

[1093] Right.

[1094] You know, oh, did you guys swear?

[1095] Did you swear?

[1096] Oh, yeah, we're going to have to demonetize that.

[1097] There was a lot of weird stuff like that.

[1098] Yeah.

[1099] And so I was like, listen, they're great overall, but the arbitrary decisions that are oftentimes done by people that work there.

[1100] Yeah.

[1101] So someone has like the ability to decide whether you make money off something or whether you don't make money off something.

[1102] And it's not the primary concern, but it points to an issue.

[1103] And the issue is someone being able to dictate what you can or can't talk about or someone incentivizing you to talk about something or not talk about something.

[1104] Exactly.

[1105] It's the principle of the matter.

[1106] And I don't want to be a part of that.

[1107] Yeah.

[1108] It's not that I distrust YouTube.

[1109] I think the problem is not them.

[1110] I think the problem is managing at scale.

[1111] I think they are dealing with billions of minutes of time that's just being thrown at them and uploaded constantly.

[1112] And I don't know how many employees they really have, but it can't be enough.

[1113] And there's no way they can watch every minute of every show that gets uploaded on their network.

[1114] They don't have that kind of time.

[1115] it's not physically possible how many different people upload on youtube we've figured this out before but it's in the millions right jamie 500 hours of video are uploaded to youtube every minute worldwide wow wow 500 hours every minute yeah 720 000 hours of video uploaded every day to youtube well good luck getting someone to watch all that shit exactly it's not even that it's their fault It's like, how do you get all the ISIS beheading videos down?

[1116] How do you get all the Nazi videos down?

[1117] How do you find all that stuff?

[1118] Yeah.

[1119] I mean, I don't know.

[1120] I don't know how they do it.

[1121] But the danger, like you said, the danger of the principle of the matter is that, let's say they don't have the means to, I don't know how their process works.

[1122] But let's say somebody clicks on your video or my video and reports it as, you know, whatever.

[1123] Let's say they report it as a video that's supporting.

[1124] Yeah, problematic.

[1125] I don't know what YouTube's process is to have any kind of fairness in seeing whether it is problematic or not, or is it just like, oh, somebody reported it, we're going to yank it because it's safer to yank it and, you know, therefore put the person whose show it is in a pretty difficult situation.

[1126] Yeah, I don't know what you would do differently either if I was them.

[1127] Right.

[1128] I mean, how would you manage that kind of time?

[1129] Right.

[1130] Yeah, I don't know the answer to that.

[1131] Right.

[1132] I don't know the answer.

[1133] I mean, ultimately, we want them to have, I'm just actually, I wasn't going to show this here, but my husband sent me the edit of the video trailer.

[1134] I don't know if, I don't have Jamie's number.

[1135] You can eardrop it to them.

[1136] Oh, okay.

[1137] um yeah i mean ultimately it comes down to being able to make sure that these big tech monopolies are making decisions about content like we talked about yeah based on the principles of of the first amendment right based on the principles of not inciting violence and there's press like there's there's there's literally decades of precedence for this which provide very clear guidelines and markers um that big tech or or frankly any platform can look to and have those be the boundaries that are transparent and clear to everyone so that users or content creators aren't left questioning and wondering like, why the heck did, why did this get pulled?

[1138] I don't understand.

[1139] Right.

[1140] Which is what's happening now.

[1141] And it's also, you really can't answer every one of those people.

[1142] That's another problem.

[1143] If you have that many people uploading stuff constantly, how are you going to answer all those people?

[1144] Exactly.

[1145] So my thoughts of going with Spotify.

[1146] besides the money, was that it seemed like it made more sense to have someone who has a vested interest in the show succeeding and they have no interest in pulling me off their network.

[1147] They actually want me to be on there.

[1148] Yeah.

[1149] And they want more people to see.

[1150] What's you doing?

[1151] If you do your show, are you planning on a video element of it?

[1152] Yeah.

[1153] You are.

[1154] This is a Dropbox link.

[1155] Should I just give you my phone?

[1156] I wouldn't trust him.

[1157] He's going to go right to your pictures.

[1158] it's okay look for some secret folder you might have surfing and whatever you're boring surfing and like food and what's in the book all the stuff this is literally just like notes on what notebook um but you had it open when you sat down yeah yeah no i mean there's there's just some of the things that like we talked about a lot of things that i was open to talk about some things that i wanted to be reminded of yeah yeah um a lot of the the, you know, the cancel culture, the freedom of speech, Bill of Rights issues, and things like that.

[1159] Yeah, I think the cancel culture is just a big part of what we were talking about earlier with social media is just so like this, it's so easy to gravitate towards hate.

[1160] It's so easy to be angry.

[1161] It's so easy to lash out.

[1162] It's like, it's a weird way to communicate.

[1163] It's not healthy.

[1164] And it's the primary way that most people express themselves in a public forum.

[1165] And one of the dangers of this right now is just the, you know, you know, casting broad aspersions against people.

[1166] We were talking about this as I was walking in this morning of, you know, people are talking about racism a lot, but they're not referring to kind of the, the racism and assumption of guilt against, like, white male Americans right now.

[1167] And I, that clip from, from Congressman Steve Cohen on CNN from the, Yeah, that's what we talked about.

[1168] Explain that.

[1169] So, so Congressman Steve Cohen was on CNN talking about potential insider threats from the National Guard who are deployed to our nation's capital right now to over 25 ,000 of our National Guard soldiers, I believe from every single state.

[1170] And the point that he was making was that because only 20 % of white males voted for Joe Biden and well, that means, you know, the rest obviously voted for Trump.

[1171] and the military is still a predominantly white male.

[1172] Is that true in the culture?

[1173] 25 % of the white males voted for Joe Biden in the country?

[1174] That's what Steve Cohen said.

[1175] Not just in the National Guard.

[1176] No, no, no, in the country.

[1177] What?

[1178] Is that real?

[1179] I haven't verified that.

[1180] But that's what he said.

[1181] We need to verify that right now because that doesn't even make sense.

[1182] That seems way off.

[1183] In saying that, he says, well, therefore, given the military is predominantly white male, It's safe to assume that most, 75 % of the Guard has likely voted for Trump and therefore could not be trusted to uphold their oath to support and defend the Constitution and fulfill the mission that they've been tasked with in our nation's capital.

[1184] And the troubling statement that he used was, given these numbers, quote, the suspect pool is large.

[1185] So casting doubt and suspicion on the vast majority of the National Guard in this case because of their race and their gender and who they may have voted for as though they cannot be trusted to uphold the responsibility and the oath that we all take for wearing this uniform is one example of this.

[1186] I mean, it is.

[1187] It's blatant racism and tribalism that is incredibly, incredibly dangerous.

[1188] Yeah, it's also virtual signaling.

[1189] You know, it's also a thing that you can say where people go, yes, and they give you a little heart.

[1190] You go, boy, they like it.

[1191] You know, it's a thing.

[1192] He got criticized for it, but he didn't apologize.

[1193] his comeback was like well I support the National Guard like I've been in the National Guard for over 17 years by you saying by you making this assumption that the people I've served with are 75 % racist yes yeah you don't support the National Guard don't even pretend and you shouldn't be in Congress saying things like that is so common today it's uh there was another disturbing um moment where they were talking about the rollout of the vaccine and jammy who is that guy that was he was advocating for not rolling it out to elderly people because elderly people are predominantly white and that we should instead do it give it to people that are essential workers first because essential workers are more often people of color and that this will balance things out like literally say if more white people die, it'll be better because we'll have more of a balance.

[1194] This came from the CDC's advisory committee responsible for deciding who should get the vaccine first or not.

[1195] Yes.

[1196] Who was the guy that said it though?

[1197] There was one per and everybody blew a fucking gasket because that is really a crazy thing to say.

[1198] The problem is I don't remember the name of who said it, but all members of this advisory committee supported it, except for one guy who was like, this is not based on science.

[1199] Because if you look at the statistics, over 80 % of people dying in this country from COVID are people over the age of 65.

[1200] If you want to save lives, you would give it to the old.

[1201] And like 50 % of people being hospitalized over 65.

[1202] So yes, if you want to save lives, if you want to make it so our ICUs aren't like at max capacity, then give the vet, prioritize the vaccine based on age instead of.

[1203] occupation.

[1204] There is a concern, though, that essential workers are the ones who spread it more easily because they have to be in contact with people.

[1205] I'm glad you mentioned that.

[1206] So it's not that cut and dry.

[1207] So these essential workers that are getting it, like these folks have to be at work.

[1208] So if they have to be at work, they're more likely to contract it.

[1209] If they get the vaccine and they're protected from it, then it will spread less likely.

[1210] So there's two things there.

[1211] First is who the CDC designates as an essential worker.

[1212] I'll get to that in a second, but all of this is built on the assumption that this vaccine will prevent the transmission of the virus, which is what we're hearing from some so -called health experts, which we're hearing from some in the media.

[1213] It's not been scientifically proven.

[1214] I've gone back and looked at the applications and the data that was put forward to the FDA to get approval from Pfizer.

[1215] and Moderna.

[1216] And these vaccines have been scientifically established to largely prevent serious health complications and death from COVID once you're vaccinated.

[1217] That has been scientifically established.

[1218] Nowhere in their trials was it scientifically established that these vaccines would prevent the transmission of the virus.

[1219] And so I see it almost every day and it's incredibly dangerous where media outlets and some people who are health care professionals are propagating this this I mean it's a lie it's not true but they're basically saying that that well you know people who have to go and work in these jobs that are essential workers they need to get vaccinated so they don't spread it or even you know first responders we had we had a local news station in Hawaii who shared a really emotional interview from from a first responder, younger woman who had just gotten vaccinated.

[1220] And she said, like, finally, I can go and visit my grandmother and not be worried that I am going to give her the virus because I'm taking care of people who have COVID every day.

[1221] And what is so dangerous about that is she got the vaccine.

[1222] If she has then gone and visited with her grandmother, she could still, and Dr. Fauci's talked about this and others, because this virus is, lives inside your nasal passage, you can be vaccinated and you can still pass it on.

[1223] And it could have a devastating effect on someone, for example, who is elderly and who is vulnerable to this and who has not gotten the vaccine.

[1224] So anyone who is saying that, well, we have to vaccinate these people or those people based on their occupation because we don't want the virus to spread, it has not yet, it has not been scientifically established that the vaccines prevent that.

[1225] And this is why they're all, you know, Fauci and these other guys, they're like, even if you're vaccinated, you have to still wear the mask, you still have to do social distancing because of the potential for that.

[1226] So I think that's such an important thing for people to know, especially as people are getting vaccinated, not to have this false sense of security that just because you've gotten the vaccine, now you can go visit grandma in the nursing home because you're not going to expose her potentially or put her at risk.

[1227] But the second issue is if you actually go on the CDC, I've gone through all the CDC slides that the advisory committee put forward on who is a frontline essential worker and who's an essential worker.

[1228] health care professionals and first responders obviously yes they are so overworked they are overtaxed they should be getting the vaccine right alongside our elderly over 65 but if you start getting past them and the people who are listed as frontline essential workers according to the CDC you're talking about anybody who works in manufacturing anybody who works at a grocery store anybody who works at a oh gosh what were some of the other ones uh in agriculture in any sector.

[1229] Basically, you're talking about, I don't know, half of all working people in front -line essential jobs.

[1230] And then you go on to the essential workers, teachers and daycare workers, they're included in that as well.

[1231] And then you go on to essential workers, people who work at banks, people who work in the media, basically almost everybody else who is in the workforce as essential workers.

[1232] So this goes back to the thing that you originally.

[1233] said is that part of their decision -making process was this kind of justice component and making decisions based on who gets the vaccine first, not based on who is most likely to die or get seriously ill, but instead based on occupation.

[1234] I kind of understand why you would want the people that are forced to work to get vaccinated before people that are not forced to work.

[1235] That makes sense.

[1236] You know, it's just, it's very difficult when you hear that you want essential workers to get vaccinated and they could still spread it.

[1237] Because that seems to me to be, that needs to be really expressed.

[1238] Clearly.

[1239] Very clearly.

[1240] It's not being expressed clearly much at all.

[1241] It is because, again, you, let's say you have that example.

[1242] I mean, you know, people over 65, my parents included, like, you're, you're.

[1243] you're pretty much stuck at home because of the very real danger that if you go out and you get infected, you could die.

[1244] The danger of this fact about how the vaccines have not been scientifically established to prevent the transmission of the virus, that that's not being directly told to every single person who gets it is a real problem because then they go home.

[1245] Or they go and visit their parents who they haven't seen for a long time or their grandparents.

[1246] and could be carrying the virus and transmitting it unknowingly because they think, like, I'm good now, I'm safe.

[1247] And so that has to be part of this.

[1248] I mean, to me, there's a direct scientific correlation based on facts that if you look at the people who are dying and who are being hospitalized, predominantly they are people over 65 years old.

[1249] If we want to reduce those numbers, those are the people who should be prioritized to get this limited number of vaccines that we have.

[1250] First, then followed by younger, healthy people.

[1251] I mean, to me, it's, and by doing that, you know, really, we could reduce the numbers of COVID -related death by about 80%.

[1252] Reduce the numbers of COVID -related hospitalizations by I think it's like 48, 49 % that would have a massive, massive effect on people's lives and on our country.

[1253] Yeah, well said.

[1254] And weird that that's not being said more often.

[1255] Yeah.

[1256] I've been pushing, I've been pushing both our state leadership in Hawaii and also the Trump administration.

[1257] So the Trump administration, just in the last few days, I think, it was at January 12th, I think.

[1258] The Department of Health and Human Services did actually adjust their recommendations.

[1259] And they said vaccines need to urgently go towards people over 65.

[1260] It is something that they have strongly recommended to the states.

[1261] At this point, it's up to the states to choose whether to implement it or not.

[1262] Texas has.

[1263] Texas is one of those states that has, and there are a few others.

[1264] But at this point, kind of the last, lives of our parents and grandparents are in the hands of the decisions being made by the governors and state health officials in each state.

[1265] How is Hawaii had a quarantine for a long time, right?

[1266] Had quarantine for a long time.

[1267] Recently that quarantine is lifted for travelers, whether you're a resident or a visitor, if you're coming in with a negative COVID test taken within 72 hours prior to arrival.

[1268] so um how's that worked out you know it's our our we have amongst the lowest number of uh i think our infection rate is amongst the lowest in the country uh slowly visitors are starting to come back it's still i mean it's nowhere even close to what it would be uh otherwise or what it was um but you know i think it's this is something this is an approach now that you know i think anybody coming to the u .s now from a foreign country now has to do something similar.

[1269] So it's not 100 % protection, but it provides that layer of protection to make sure that, yeah, people aren't getting, I mean, people shouldn't be getting onto airplanes if you're sick.

[1270] Right.

[1271] Have they seen cases jump up since this has been implemented since they have a lot of people to come with a COVID test?

[1272] Not significantly, no. I think there may have been, I don't know the exact numbers, but, you know, it's kind of, the numbers are quite small.

[1273] the spikes that we've seen in our daily reports seem to come after, you know, holiday weekends, times when people are gathering in large numbers and so on.

[1274] Is there any discussion in Hawaii about health and nutrition and exercise and the importance that that plays in the immune system?

[1275] Not enough.

[1276] Not enough.

[1277] It's, you know, I think because it's, because it's, you know, I think because it's, Hawaii there's I mean out out to being outdoors surfing hiking swimming you know this is such a big part of life but yeah I mean this is not been a focus by our health department or in Hawaii and I think even even nationally there's it's it's unfortunate that just basic health and wellness has not been more of a focus in talking about prevention yeah well the economic impact for the state has to be Massive.

[1278] I mean, it's so much relying on tourism, right?

[1279] Complete.

[1280] I mean, it's a number one driver of our economy.

[1281] And it's not just the people who are working in hotels, right?

[1282] It's all of the other people in that economic chain, you know, all the way to the farmers who are growing food, who usually are able to sell to the restaurants in the hotels, the restaurants, in the community.

[1283] It's, it's, yeah, it's had a really devastating effect.

[1284] And how to, like for a state like Hawaii, it seems like the only way that it bounces back is to let tourism back in.

[1285] If that's the number one driver of the economy, it's not like there's a bunch of other variables that can be put into play, right?

[1286] You're right, but it's challenging, well, first of all, I think a lot of local people are saying like, you know, it's kind of nice not being flooded with, you know, millions of tourists every day and maybe there's a way to take a more balanced and sustainable approach to welcoming people back into the state that also is more more sustainable in that you know marine life are thriving our reefs are doing much better than they ever have um it's just the environment in Hawaii like you know people who are out in the water every day they're like my gosh it's like mother earth finally got a chance to breathe that's so great but also so disappointing yeah it's it's eye -opening, though.

[1287] And so, you know, they're having conversations like, hey, maybe there's like a month out of the year or some period of time where we should just kind of maybe put a pause on things, let the environment reset.

[1288] I don't know.

[1289] There's different ideas being put forward, though, unfortunately.

[1290] Ten months is really what it needed.

[1291] Well, it's gotten it's gotten it.

[1292] And this is really just the beginning, right?

[1293] If you left Hawaii alone for 10 years, then you would see what's up.

[1294] I have a giant concern with.

[1295] fishing practices and what's happening with the ocean because I don't think it's nearly being regulated enough and it's terrifying and when you think about the possibility of them literally pulling every fish out of the ocean inside of the next 150 200 years that I mean that's really possible yeah we could see the almost the the numbers that things are down like there was a documentary that I watched about a Japanese tuna fisherman and they were talking about what it used to be like when they would, you know, have these tuna halls and they would come in and the sushi restaurants, all these different places would come in to look at the fish versus what's available now.

[1296] And it's a radical decrease in the population of fish.

[1297] Yeah, that overfishing.

[1298] I mean, I think a lot of what, a lot of what's happening with, you know, I don't know all of the mechanics of how they do it, but it's kind of like the ocean version of factory farming, essentially.

[1299] where you see in both cases an incredibly devastating long -term effect on the environment as a whole, which has a direct impact on all of us.

[1300] You know, in the ocean, on the air we breathe, on the water we drink, on our land and our ability to have, you know, good soil to actually grow food, you know, that people can eat.

[1301] There has to be a change in the policies and the laws that govern these industries because otherwise we're going to get to a place, like you said, like there just won't be any more fish in the sea.

[1302] It's just such a crazy thing to think of that it's a giant percentage of the earth's surface and we suck all the living things out of it and stick them on plates.

[1303] Yeah.

[1304] And there's, I mean, there's got to be a global approach to this because we live with this planet's not very big.

[1305] Right, but that is the problem, right?

[1306] There's some people in some countries that are like, not interested, sorry, kind of keep wailing, sorry, not interested, kind of keep burning coal.

[1307] And there's, I think there's economic incentive given how much more we are all connected as countries in the world because of our economies.

[1308] You know, I think it gets harder and harder if, you know, a country like ours were to say, hey, let's work with you on this.

[1309] I think it's harder to kind of silo yourself out.

[1310] It's tough.

[1311] Look, I'm not saying it's going to be an easy thing, but leadership.

[1312] Yeah.

[1313] Taking leadership.

[1314] So this podcast that you're doing, when you launch this and you, especially after COVID, relaxes and you take it on the road, do you have.

[1315] an end goal with this?

[1316] Is this something you're going to do in in addition to other things that you're planning on doing with your time?

[1317] Yeah.

[1318] Yeah, this I think will end up being one of a number of things that I'm doing.

[1319] Really as a means taking the experience that I had, especially from my campaign, where my interest and goal was to really talk about and focus on the great issues of our time, but finding that the mainstream media is really only interested in creating a caricature and the soundbite and the smears.

[1320] It's kind of what motivated me to create this platform as a means to, that's why I called it, this is Tulsi Gabbard, this is me in my voice, sharing my views and my insights and my experience on all these different issues, and also capturing that beauty that I experienced both during my campaign and just over the years of all of these different people I've met with such different and diverse views and backgrounds, but finding the beauty of that commonality that's captured to be able to highlight and showcase that through different conversations, I think can have a really positive effect in inspiring people to do the same, to dig deeper, to look for the truth, to maybe challenge their own perspective or view on something by considering someone else's and to spark those conversations in their own in their own circles.

[1321] We are just so fortunate that there's an opportunity now that you can express yourself like that where you can't be misrepresented and that, you know, and if people want to misrepresent you, other people just have to listen to you and go, that's not who she is at all.

[1322] Right.

[1323] You don't listen to this is Tulsi Gabbard.

[1324] Yeah, exactly.

[1325] Yeah, like that's what'll happen.

[1326] If you want to know, just listen.

[1327] That is what will happen.

[1328] It's interesting that you say the mainstream media misrepresented you because don't you think that the mainstream media had to have been guided to misrepresent you?

[1329] It's not as simple as they just decided to pick on you.

[1330] Like there are some other players involved in that.

[1331] Oh, absolutely.

[1332] Has to be.

[1333] They wouldn't have decided that because I think if there was no opposition, they would decide to support you because people are looking for a woman president for everyone.

[1334] we're probably going to get in about four months but they've been looking for a woman president I mean how long do you think he's going to last let's be honest I hope he lasts forever I do too I hope Joe Biden lives forever and becomes a god but I wouldn't go that far that's what I hope I'm different than you but if I had a bet to place I don't think he gets it to two years well let's not bet on the man's life I'm not saying his life I'm saying as president I just said I want him to live forever.

[1335] But if I have to make a bet, how long he's going to stay in office.

[1336] But you saw that one conversation that he's had where he was talking about him and Kamala that if they had a disagreement, he would just say that he had an injury or an illness.

[1337] I did not see that.

[1338] You never saw that?

[1339] It is the most bizarre thing.

[1340] What?

[1341] It is, oh, please find that, Jamie.

[1342] You know, you know what I'm talking about Jamie?

[1343] No. Joe Biden saying that he would fake an illness or say he has an illness yeah do you want to try one of these uh pineapple jalapeno drinks i will try it's got CBD in it no THHC though okay it's got my face on it too even better yes my my flavor we uh I worked with Kilcliffe to develop this tell me what you want whether or not you like it okay no pressure pineapple is my hair the pineapple and jalapeno I like on pizza I'm just I know that that's a controversial statement but I love pineapple and you're a vegetarian but I like pineapple and anchovies pineapple and anchovies is the bomb dig I know it seems like it would be disgusting.

[1344] This is good.

[1345] That's good, right?

[1346] That is good.

[1347] That's not bad.

[1348] No, that's really good.

[1349] Yeah.

[1350] I like that.

[1351] No sugar.

[1352] Yeah, no sugar.

[1353] 25 milligrams of CBD.

[1354] B vitamins.

[1355] Do you find it, Jamie?

[1356] Yeah, okay.

[1357] Yeah, that's it.

[1358] That's exactly it.

[1359] What?

[1360] You got to listen to this because it's bananas.

[1361] Listen to this.

[1362] The first lady to be told me she holds them for you.

[1363] Yes, she does.

[1364] But not with if she's because she and Kamala have become friends.

[1365] But all kidding aside.

[1366] it's a matter of the thing we are sympathico on our philosophy of government and sympathico on how we want to attach approach these issues that we're facing and so I don't have and when we disagree it'll be just like it's so far it's been just like when Barack and I did it's in private she'll say I think we should do A, B, C or D and I'll say I like A I don't like B and C and let's go okay but and I like I told Barack if if if I reach something where there's a a fundamental disagreement we have based on a moral principle, I'll develop some disease and say I have to resign.

[1367] We don't have that I'm...

[1368] He's talking about when he was vice president.

[1369] Yeah.

[1370] That's what he's talking about.

[1371] And I think his expectation that Kamala does the same.

[1372] But he said, just like...

[1373] I know, I know.

[1374] To me, it's clear he's talking about when he was VP, though.

[1375] Me, it's fun to pretend it's not clear.

[1376] I'm sure it.

[1377] It's a bonkers thing to say.

[1378] The guy's saying he's going to fake a disease.

[1379] That's what I heard.

[1380] Is that what you heard, Jamie?

[1381] You heard that too, right?

[1382] The guy's going to fake a disease.

[1383] I have this disease of reading context, and I cannot...

[1384] Well, you've got to stop that if you want to work for me. Listen, that's going to be a real problem.

[1385] Context nuance, bananas.

[1386] What are you doing?

[1387] What are you, a communist?

[1388] I think we should have a pool.

[1389] We should have a JRE pool where we bet how long you lasts.

[1390] I say two years.

[1391] I think two years is a reasonable amount of time for a 78 year old man to ask someone to work after 80 I think that's unreasonable I'm not even going to go here man I'm not going to go here I hope he lives forever and again becomes a god like Thor or something and just rules the country in a perfect way I don't want anybody like Thor running the country what about fat Thor remember when he got fat and he was drinking a lot of beer that was pretty funny that was kind of cool Thor that was a little sad though man What, he got fat?

[1392] Yeah.

[1393] Well, he just lose the weight.

[1394] Don't say that.

[1395] Now you're fat shaming all the people that are fat.

[1396] They're all like, what?

[1397] It's sad that I'm fat.

[1398] Fuck you, Tulsi.

[1399] Oh, is your number one supporter.

[1400] And they're crafting a little tweet right now to you.

[1401] What do you say to that?

[1402] What do you say?

[1403] Get up and do something about it.

[1404] Yeah, do something about it.

[1405] Get healthy.

[1406] Well, did you see the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine that had all these overweight women that said this is healthy?

[1407] No. Oh, good Lord.

[1408] I don't read enough Cosmo apparently.

[1409] Tulsi, you've been living in some sort of a cave.

[1410] I was going to post about it on my Instagram, but I'm like, I legitimately feel like an asshole if I talk badly about people that are fat.

[1411] As long as there are guys, I'm okay with it, but I feel bad talking bad about fat women.

[1412] It was a fat guy, but like, get the fuck out of it.

[1413] It's not healthy.

[1414] It's a fat guy.

[1415] But fat, I don't know why.

[1416] It's like, because I look like a douchebag.

[1417] It's a problem.

[1418] And obviously, I'm a meat head.

[1419] Only if it's a woman, though, not a man. Yeah.

[1420] If it's a man, I'm like, fuck you fatso.

[1421] But if it's a woman, I'm like, I can't.

[1422] I was going to, I had a thing I was going to post on Instagram.

[1423] I'm like, this is just me. You know, I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings.

[1424] Yeah.

[1425] I mean, there's, look, there's health issues and complications that can contribute to, you know, people gaining weight and, you know, I have friends and I know people who have other underlying issues that make it difficult for them to either whether follow a certain diet or, you know, be physically active or whatever.

[1426] So it's not, it's not to make fun of people, but it's, it's to encourage overall health and well -being.

[1427] I think that's really what it is.

[1428] And doing what you can, and if what you can do is go for a walk every day, go for a walk every day.

[1429] Yes.

[1430] I couldn't agree with.

[1431] And, you know, make better choices as it relates to food and nutrition and what you can put in your body.

[1432] I just don't think it does anyone any good to lie and say this is healthy.

[1433] It's also the number one comorbidity factor when it comes to COVID death.

[1434] You got a picture for me?

[1435] Oh, no, I just want to, I want to show it to her just so she could see how fucking crazy it is.

[1436] I have it saved you.

[1437] This is healthy.

[1438] That's not the one, but there's another one that had, well, the one, the biggest one is the lady in the blue and they got one for her.

[1439] So they had a series of them.

[1440] Well, that is healthy.

[1441] Well, see, it says women.

[1442] Okay.

[1443] So they're doing a bunch, but, yeah, okay, they had a bunch of different women, but they agree with that.

[1444] It says women on why wellness doesn't have to be one size fits all.

[1445] Yeah, for sure.

[1446] That's true.

[1447] That's true.

[1448] But they had morbidly obese people that they were saying, this is healthy.

[1449] Yeah.

[1450] And there was one where the lady, like, her, she had no neck.

[1451] Like, her head started here, and she was just this big, overweight body.

[1452] There are clearly health issues.

[1453] A giant, it's, you're literally morbid the obese.

[1454] Yeah.

[1455] Like, that's, that's terrifying to say to a person that this is healthy in a major publication.

[1456] You're hurting them.

[1457] You're hurting them by doing it.

[1458] And I think that's kind of part of the bigger thing, and I've seen this around, around COVID as well.

[1459] Like, give people the truth.

[1460] Yeah.

[1461] Give us the truth and let us take actions based on that information.

[1462] And just like this, like, you know, there are serious health complications and issues that are there if you are morbidly obese.

[1463] That is a fact that's based on science.

[1464] You know, early on, early on in the COVID pandemic when they were saying like, oh, masks won't do anything to help protect you or others.

[1465] from getting COVID.

[1466] Right.

[1467] And obviously it comes out later that, oh, well, he only said it because there weren't enough medical grade masks to go around.

[1468] So he had his own motive for saying it, even though he knew it wasn't actually true.

[1469] Just give people the facts and the information.

[1470] You're crying wolf.

[1471] You're doing a terrible thing because no one's going to believe him now.

[1472] Now he could say, well, you have to wear a mask now.

[1473] Well, why would I believe you?

[1474] Back in March, you said no one should have to wear a mask.

[1475] And it's just like the, you know, well, you can't, you know, COVID spreads more rapidly if you have people gathering in close quarters.

[1476] Yeah.

[1477] Shoulder to shoulder.

[1478] Large groups of people.

[1479] Don't do it.

[1480] But it's okay to do it if you are, you know.

[1481] Protesting.

[1482] Exactly.

[1483] If you're at a protest and, and, you know, people agree with the cause.

[1484] But you can't go to a funeral.

[1485] You can't, you know, bury your loved ones.

[1486] Right.

[1487] Because that's not a just enough cause.

[1488] De Blasio had the craziest one.

[1489] It was saying you can protest, but as long as it's a Black Lives Matter protest.

[1490] That's the only protest.

[1491] Yeah.

[1492] But all of these things, like these things and then, you know, you have Gavin Newsom going and having dinner at a fancy restaurant, and then you have freaking surfers getting arrested for going out and surfing by themselves on the beach.

[1493] Yeah.

[1494] Literally police chasing them down the beach, like trying to arrest this guy who's not in a large group of people in a public place.

[1495] This is the hypocrisy that people, you know, absolutely lose faith.

[1496] and trust in the decisions that they're making.

[1497] And again, points to like, well, this is what happens when you have people who are incompetent in positions of power and leadership.

[1498] Well, it's also their attitude towards everyone else.

[1499] It's they don't want to follow the rules they're asking other people to enforce.

[1500] This is the same man that was telling people to wear a mask in between bites of food.

[1501] And he also lied about being outdoors.

[1502] It was outdoors?

[1503] No, it wasn't.

[1504] There's a fucking chandelier above you, man. something bad even worse.

[1505] Like once he got found out because of that video or the picture, whatever it was.

[1506] No, no, no, no. He got found out and then the pictures came out after he said it because he was saying it was outdoors.

[1507] And then the people saw the pictures like, there's a chandelier above you, bro.

[1508] Yeah.

[1509] You're supposed to be the stars.

[1510] Like, that's outdoors.

[1511] Outdoors is space.

[1512] It's not a fucking chandelier, you frackhead.

[1513] And they also right next to people.

[1514] No social.

[1515] distancing, no masks.

[1516] It's like, come on.

[1517] It's so gross.

[1518] And what we were talking about earlier, the people that are in the restaurant business really feel like political pawns.

[1519] They don't feel like it makes any sense.

[1520] There was another one I saw in California where this woman had been told to shut down her restaurant.

[1521] I think it was when they shut down both indoor and outdoor dining not too long ago.

[1522] And her restaurant was right next to some big film production.

[1523] and that was feeding the crew and doing what they're doing going on with their production, but her little restaurant was not allowed to keep their doors open.

[1524] Made no sense.

[1525] Absolutely no sense.

[1526] No sense.

[1527] There's no science behind it.

[1528] Also, there's no evidence.

[1529] There's no evidence that it spreads outside.

[1530] There's no evidence.

[1531] The whole thing is bananas.

[1532] And to see her crying and furious that she spent all of her hard -earned money that she didn't even have because she was locked out for so long of her business.

[1533] Now, finally gets open, She's doing some outdoor dining, just trying to stay alive.

[1534] They make her shut down with no evidence whatsoever.

[1535] It doesn't make any sense.

[1536] And the woman who made the decision to shut down all outdoor dining dined outdoors the very day she did it.

[1537] No kidding.

[1538] Yes.

[1539] And lied about what she did it for.

[1540] She said that she did it to say goodbye to the restaurant workers at her favorite place.

[1541] They talked to them.

[1542] No one talked to her.

[1543] She didn't say goodbye to anybody.

[1544] She just wanted to eat like everybody else does.

[1545] It's a great restaurant.

[1546] I want to eat outside.

[1547] It's, I just don't, you know, my friends who run Felix, my friend Janet Zucorini, she's the owner of Felix, it's my favorite restaurant in LA, it's in Venice, it's an amazing place.

[1548] She had the perfect statement, she said, they're just throwing shit against the wall, hoping something sticks.

[1549] There's no evidence that it's coming that the COVID spread is coming significantly from restaurants.

[1550] They just, they need to do something.

[1551] So they go, we're going to shut this down.

[1552] We're going to shut that down.

[1553] Colorado recently had a study that showed there's no evidence that the spread is coming.

[1554] from gyms.

[1555] They're like, there's no evidence.

[1556] These are healthy people.

[1557] These are people that are exercising and working out hard.

[1558] Where you're getting it from is people in tight groups where they're on top of each other, like you're forced to be when you're stuck at home.

[1559] Yeah.

[1560] That's when people are getting it.

[1561] Yeah.

[1562] The leadership that is making decisions not based on science or basic common sense, but instead making these decisions that are seemingly completely arbitrary and not only making arbitrary decisions but are being total hypocrites in doing so and not following and abiding by the very rules that they set is it is what is causing so much angst and frustration and a loss of faith and trust in these officials that we are supposed to trust to guide us through public health crises like the one that we are facing and why we as a country are doing I think so much worse off than many other countries or other countries who've handled this whole situation far more responsibly making decisions that are based on science and common sense.

[1563] Yeah, we've handled it the worst.

[1564] Yeah.

[1565] It's bananas.

[1566] I would like an alternate ending.

[1567] You know, I would love if you know, you don't have some DVDs that give you the option of an alternate ending.

[1568] When I was a kid, I read those books where you got to choose your own adventure.

[1569] Like you get to pick, there's like five different options on how you get to choose how the book ends.

[1570] I would have loved to have seen, what would have happened in these states if Obama had been president?

[1571] Like, what if this had happened instead, during the Trump administration, what if this had happened in 2012 or 2014 or something like that?

[1572] Like, what would be different?

[1573] How would they allow things to open?

[1574] How much of what happened was people using people's businesses as political pawns, was using the economy as a political pawn?

[1575] I really wonder, and I hate that I do, because it does.

[1576] doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility.

[1577] Yeah.

[1578] I don't know the answer to that.

[1579] It's a pretty powerful hypothetical.

[1580] We've got to get the DVD.

[1581] But yeah, right.

[1582] Click alternate ending.

[1583] Get the Blu -ray.

[1584] You get the alternate ending.

[1585] But that politicizing of this crisis has been a major contributor to the problems that we're seeing.

[1586] You know, and, yeah, I mean, so many of these things we're talking about, they kind of all go back to this same root cause where we have people.

[1587] whether they're elected or the bureaucrats that the elected people put into power making decisions not based on what's in the best interest of the people.

[1588] That's what it comes down to.

[1589] Whatever the motive is, power, party politics, campaigns, money, you know, all of these different things, it all points to that same place where the concept of servant leadership, people in these positions, actually being motivated to make decisions based on how they can best serve the people and our country, it's just, it's lost on so many levels.

[1590] And that's what we've got to bring back.

[1591] Now, when you were a congresswoman, how much time did you spend in D .C. versus time in Hawaii?

[1592] I got back to Hawaii as often as possible.

[1593] On average, like two to three times a month.

[1594] What is the flight from D .C.?

[1595] It's a good 12, 13 hours from takeoff to landing.

[1596] um not including like it takes about 45 minutes to drive the airport in dc and do you have to fly to l .A and then fly to hawaii my usual stopovers were like from dc to hawaii was usually la or san francisco honolulu to dc was usually uh like houston or denver okay long long flight the jet lag was probably the you know six five or six hour time difference yeah that was um that was a bigger challenge, but it just made a world of difference to me to get back home, be on the ground, be able to go out and see people, listen, see what's going on, get in the ocean, and just like have that reset as often as possible so that I never wanted to get in a place where I felt comfortable in Washington or where I felt like somebody asked me that in an interview early on or year, year one or two, they're like, oh, so do you feel like you fit in?

[1597] in now in Washington?

[1598] I'm like, God, no. I don't ever want to feel that way because unfortunately Washington is like this bubble that's so disconnected from reality that it makes it so that these decisions that are being made are, they are disconnected from reality, the reality that people are living every day.

[1599] Do you plan on living the same way when you're doing your podcast?

[1600] Do you plan on living, basing in Hawaii and then traveling?

[1601] But just going a lot of different places yeah yeah and i you know with with once once things start to come down a little bit with some timing and travel and i think it'll just be cool to be able to go out and meet people where they are whether it's their home or they work or or whatever and be able to talk to them about um a whole host of different things not just politics you know this is i want this to be about life life you know there's there's so much about who we are as individuals i think we can like you said we can learn a lot we can gain a lot and we learn more about who we are as people.

[1602] Yeah.

[1603] I know you're an optimist.

[1604] So give me the optimist perspective of how you think this country bounces back from COVID, from the lockdowns, from the economic disaster that we're currently enveloped in.

[1605] My optimism points to the hope that we find, and this is what I hope happens in Hawaii as well, is that we find some innovation and ingenuity.

[1606] in how we can move forward, move forward together as a country.

[1607] In Hawaii, having a predominantly tourism -based economy is a recipe for failure should something like this happen.

[1608] And it happened before after 9 -11, where everything tanked because people weren't flying.

[1609] So the lives and the livelihood of people in places like Hawaii, and there are others, cannot be dependent on a massive event like this.

[1610] So let's diversify the economy.

[1611] Let's look at how we can invest in, you know, new industries, entrepreneurs, innovators, in different areas in different sectors.

[1612] And so from an economic perspective, I hope that we come through this maybe with different ideas on how we approach things and how we can better harden ourselves.

[1613] some of it.

[1614] Some of it is not possible, but I hope that there are new ideas.

[1615] And I hope that I really think that we as a people are becoming more health aware because of this.

[1616] And we'll look at our own health and that of those around us so that we are better protected as people in situations like this.

[1617] Yeah, I really, really hope so.

[1618] I really hope people start taking on a regular exercise routine, start eating healthier, and start supplementing their diet with vitamins, I think nothing could be better to protect you from something like this happen again.

[1619] And I think in a lot of ways we got lucky with this disease and it sounds like a terrible thing to say, but this disease, relative like you saw my friend who was here earlier, she got it.

[1620] She got over it like that.

[1621] She didn't even know she had it.

[1622] Wow.

[1623] That's not the case of the plague.

[1624] Like there's no asymptomatic versions of the plague, right?

[1625] You get it and you're a horribly ill and most people don't live.

[1626] We're lucky.

[1627] We got lucky with this one.

[1628] Yeah.

[1629] You know, this is not like the swine flu.

[1630] This is not like some of the worst pandemics the world's ever seen.

[1631] It's not Ebola.

[1632] We got fairly lucky.

[1633] It's still horrible.

[1634] It's not minimizing the deaths and the sorrow and the sadness of people that lost loved ones.

[1635] But this could have been far worse.

[1636] And I think that's part of the problem is that we expected it to be far worse when the pandemic was first arriving on our shores and then we never really made the adjustments to treat it for what it really is.

[1637] Yeah, and that focus both for the short term and the long term on health and wellness, I think, is at the heart of all of this.

[1638] I think it is, you know, you've done a lot on this show to talk about vitamin D, for example, and how important it is that, you know, we're taking it, that we're taking these different supplements.

[1639] that help strengthen our immune system and protect us specifically from this virus, but just help us be healthier overall.

[1640] I went and looked, I looked on the CDC website to see what they had to say about it.

[1641] Nothing.

[1642] I think they recently had something about vitamin D. Did they?

[1643] Yeah, fairly recently.

[1644] In December.

[1645] Okay.

[1646] In December, like somebody sent it to me, oh, look, hey, the CDC has finally posted something about implementing vitamin D into your diet.

[1647] Yeah.

[1648] Yeah.

[1649] All I could find, like the initial thing that came up was like, this has not been proven to blah, blah, blah.

[1650] Well, they don't want you running around and letting people cough in your mouth, but.

[1651] Right.

[1652] But there's a better way to be able to say, hey, here are some things you can do to better improve your health and your immune system.

[1653] There's a whole list of them.

[1654] Yeah.

[1655] I mean, there really should be.

[1656] And we have talked about this in the podcast.

[1657] And I had Dr. Mark Gordon on recently.

[1658] And he talked to me about quercitin, which is an ionophore and zinc.

[1659] and the two of them in combination.

[1660] I could send you this study, but there's a peer -reviewed study on quercetin and zinc.

[1661] Apparently, zinc when you take it, zinc has powerful antiviral properties to it, but it's difficult for it to get in the cells.

[1662] It doesn't absorb as easily.

[1663] But with an ionophore, like quercetin, it allows it to get into the cell more.

[1664] And he said this also could be the case for curcumin and turmeric, which are, you know, they have anti -inflammatory properties, and they could also help absorb it to get.

[1665] but he recommends quercetin and you can get it from Amazon from any vitamin store or whatever it's not expensive it's a normal vitamin but you uh coercetin you take a thousand milligrams of quercetin and 30 milligrams of zinc my friend andrew mar who is here with him uh he does jujitsu and he did jujitsu with a guy who was feeling like shit and uh he got tested after he was rolling like felt weak and fatigued and so after he's rolling he went to the doctor got a test and then called Andrew, I'm sorry, but I'm positive for COVID.

[1666] Andrew never got it because he's taking Corsetan and zinc.

[1667] And Andrew is a veteran and he's a part of Mark Gordon works with him on the Warrior Angel Foundation.

[1668] It's basically treating soldiers with traumatic brain injuries and treating him with a series of anti -inflammatory nutrients as well as some, you know, different hormones and medications that helps these guys.

[1669] but one of the things that he recommends highly is quercetin and zinc.

[1670] Interesting.

[1671] Yeah.

[1672] And that the two of them in combination probably protected him from getting COVID from a guy who's doing, you're doing jiu -jitsu.

[1673] I mean, it's pretty intimate.

[1674] You're sweating on each other.

[1675] Yeah.

[1676] You're right on each other.

[1677] Exactly.

[1678] Yeah.

[1679] And he didn't get it, which is pretty crazy.

[1680] That's incredible.

[1681] Pretty crazy.

[1682] I mean, obviously it's one anecdotal.

[1683] Yeah.

[1684] I'm not saying go do jujitsu with people who are COVID positive if you take zinc and quercetin.

[1685] That's important clarification.

[1686] That's pretty important because people are like, hey, I'm going now.

[1687] Bobby says he's sick, but now I'm going to fucking kick his ass because he's tired.

[1688] And because I took, was it called Corsetton?

[1689] I took Corsetton once.

[1690] I'll send you the study.

[1691] Yeah, yeah, and I'd be interested to see it.

[1692] I mean, this is all legit stuff.

[1693] But also just how it's helping people, soldiers and service members with traumatic brain injury because so many people, you know, come back and are struggling with the side effects of that and are just given like these hardcore prescription drugs that aren't ultimate.

[1694] helping address the underlying problem and just end up causing more sickness or side effects and more drugs and more side effects in that endless cycle to be able to have a really holistic response to be able to help what are you doing there fella what happened you're watching some stuff while we're doing the show it's uh coercetin is a part of dr gordon's protocol he's a large protocol of different nutrients and vitamins and things that will help these guys.

[1695] And one of the things that happens to a lot of these soldiers that have experienced traumatic brain injuries or they've been hit by blasts from kicking open doors and things along those lines is a lot of inflammation.

[1696] Inflammation is like the root of evil for everything.

[1697] It really is.

[1698] And Dr. Gordon is, I mean, he's a saint of a human being.

[1699] I mean, he literally dedicates all of his time to working with these soldiers.

[1700] that have experienced traumatic brain injury, treats most of them for free.

[1701] And the money that he does raise literally pours right back into the organization.

[1702] He's a man of, like, he's like, this is what he says, this is quote.

[1703] He goes, I need a bottle of scotch a month.

[1704] You know, that's how I need this.

[1705] It doesn't have any needs.

[1706] So he's completely dedicated, but he's a brilliant guy who, you know, when he's on the show, he just rattle off study after study off the top of his head incredible, and explain why these things work well in conjunction, but he takes Corsetin and zinc.

[1707] Yeah, that's something that just before I was leaving Congress, I was talking with some Department of Defense officials who are responsible for health and wellness, and they're starting to shift more, they're talking about shifting more towards a holistic approach to care, both preventive care for service members, as well as how people are being.

[1708] cared for when they come back after having gone through, you know, TBI and a whole host of other physical issues, you know, overexposure to different metals and everything else.

[1709] I think there's a long way to go, but I was really pleasantly surprised to see at least the language is starting to change.

[1710] The mindset is starting to change to say, you know, I mean, the amount of money that we as taxpayers spend on health care for our service members alone is pretty astronomical.

[1711] chemical.

[1712] We need to provide our service members of the best health care possible.

[1713] The health care that's being provided right now is not the best health care possible.

[1714] In many cases, it's just like, okay, here's more drugs rather than actually solving, figuring out why are so many of our service members getting sick?

[1715] Why are so many service members coming back for multiple deployments maybe in their late 30s getting sick and dying from cancer or coming down with serious respiratory problems.

[1716] Like actually, you know, there's now, okay, toxic burn pits are a serious issue that's contributing to this.

[1717] Okay, so how do we deal with this?

[1718] How do we, how do we try to minimize or prevent the ramifications of this exposure and stop, you know, you can't mitigate every single risk.

[1719] Obviously, if you're going in a war zone, there's going to be, there's going to be some things you're exposed to, but how do you try to minimize and mitigate the impacts of those things in a preventive way and also like let's do this right away and not wait five, 10, 20 years like our Vietnam veterans did who were exposed to Agent Orange and then so many dying off from cancer directly related to that exposure.

[1720] So that kind of change in mindset needs to change within the DOD as well as the VA.

[1721] Yeah, I wasn't even aware of toxic burn pits until people on the podcast explained.

[1722] Yeah.

[1723] I think it was Evan Hafer, right?

[1724] Was it Evan Hafer?

[1725] I listened to that one.

[1726] Yeah.

[1727] Yep.

[1728] It's crazy.

[1729] I think the numbers of service members who have had prolonged exposure to massive toxic burn pits are underestimated.

[1730] I think so too.

[1731] When you look at the millions of troops who've deployed not once but multiple times, we had a massive toxic burn pit on the camp where I was that soldiers were literally assigned to pulling security around this burn pit.

[1732] So their place of duty every day was next to this burn pit breathing everything.

[1733] in and that was literally everything from you know paints plastics construction waste human waste like metals everything uh and it just you know i mean there was a huge like um what do you call it just a huge cloud of this this uh ashy soot kind of fog that was over our camp all the time it's crazy it's crazy that that's their solution for dealing with garbage yeah and that this i mean we're talking about this post -911 era alone what to speak of the Gulf War guys, but it's a big, it's a big, big problem.

[1734] And the DOD and the VA have not done anywhere near enough to acknowledge that this is a problem and to link that acknowledgement with actually providing care and support to service members who are getting really sick because of that exposure.

[1735] And their family members, you know, husbands and wives who are, quitting their jobs because now they have to become full -time caregivers.

[1736] I've introduced Congressman Brian Mass from Florida, who's also a veteran.

[1737] He lost both of his legs and an arm.

[1738] He was an explosive ordinance disposal guy.

[1739] He and I've worked together on this introducing legislation, basically pushing for more transparency so we know exactly how many people who have been exposed so that there's a better handle on how we can make sure that if these people start getting sick, then you're getting the care and the compensation that you deserve because of this risk that you obtained while you were serving.

[1740] Now, before I'll let you go, we have to talk about our boy, Max Holloway.

[1741] Yes.

[1742] Did you watch that?

[1743] Oh, my gosh.

[1744] Did you watch that?

[1745] Yes.

[1746] It's like he's on another planet.

[1747] That was incredible.

[1748] He's in the matrix.

[1749] That was incredible.

[1750] He's literally on another planet right now.

[1751] I just, I've just, I've just, I would.

[1752] was, like, so stoked and so excited and so mind -blown watching him.

[1753] It was incredible.

[1754] And that guy he was, like, how he was, like, dodging these, like, looking away.

[1755] And, like, I was, like.

[1756] And Calvin Cater is a killer.

[1757] Yeah.

[1758] I mean, he's never.

[1759] I don't know much about him.

[1760] Oh, my God.

[1761] He's elite.

[1762] He was the guy in the division on the, on the outcome, where a lot of people looked in him and he goes, that guy's a future champion, including me. I mean, he is a killer.

[1763] Calvin Cater is a killer.

[1764] It's not just Max Hawley.

[1765] performance is that he had that performance against Calvin Cater.

[1766] That's what was so spectacular about it.

[1767] And the fact that Calvin was widely considered the best boxer in a division before that fight.

[1768] And the fact that Max beat the brakes off of him.

[1769] I mean, he landed more strikes than anyone has ever landed in the history of the sport in one fight.

[1770] Incredible.

[1771] And he holds number one, number two, and number three now.

[1772] Yeah.

[1773] Max is a freak.

[1774] He's amazing.

[1775] And couldn't be a nicer God, couldn't be nicer.

[1776] We're, I mean, we're like all of Hawaii.

[1777] Like, we're so proud of him and Puna Hele, Soriano.

[1778] He also had a great fight that same night.

[1779] Like, these fighters coming out of Hawaii, obviously, we love them.

[1780] We're proud of them because they're coming from Hawaii.

[1781] But you look at Max, and he represents what we call Aloha, which is that respect and that kindness.

[1782] and um you'd like no you ain't rolling over for anybody but like when it's time to fight you're going to fight but you don't lose that sense of respect and aloha and that kindness he's such a likeable guy too do you know he learned how to fight learned how to strike from watching ufc video games i did not know that playing video games he would do something in the video game and it would work and then he would try it out and then he would try it out sparring i'm not kidding i'm not kidding He literally didn't have, like, a legit striking coach in the beginning of his career.

[1783] He talked about it on the podcast.

[1784] That's incredible.

[1785] And I was like, what are you talking about?

[1786] He goes, yeah, he goes, I would try it in the game.

[1787] Is this kid out in Y and I like, oh, bra?

[1788] Yeah, exactly.

[1789] That's exactly what he's like.

[1790] Wow.

[1791] He was in the shadow of BJ Penn, initially.

[1792] Because BJ was one of the all -time greats.

[1793] And he was the man out of Hawaii.

[1794] Yeah.

[1795] But I would say that Max's eclipsed.

[1796] But BJ's strength was in grappling, more than striking, right?

[1797] Yes.

[1798] Well, no, his strength was very high in striking, too.

[1799] I mean, he knocked out Matt Hughes with one punch.

[1800] He stopped Sean Shirk with strikes.

[1801] B .J. fucked a lot of people up with strikes.

[1802] But, you know, his problem was, you know, ultimately, I think it was more of a discipline and a conditioning problem.

[1803] Max has no problems like that.

[1804] Max's conditioning is off the charts.

[1805] I mean, it's something that's redefining what people in the sport think is possible.

[1806] possible in terms of like output right it's he's insane yeah like watching that fight i watched it again yesterday i was like this is bananas the amount of strikes he's landing and again on an incredibly dangerous guy in calvin cater and he's still under 30 this is the thing like kebib nergo medev watched the fight and kabib said max holley has a potential to be the greatest fighter ever that's that is huge coming from kabee coming from arguably the greatest fighter ever Yeah.

[1807] Like the guy, Kabib is, I mean, if he's not, if it's either John Jones, him, or Mighty Mouse, those are the three widely discussed goats, the greatest of all time.

[1808] Right.

[1809] And I kind of lean towards John Jones because of his accomplishments, because he's beaten more people over a longer period of time.

[1810] But Kabib has barely lost a round.

[1811] Yeah.

[1812] He locked like a couple of rounds in his whole fight, in his whole career, never been dropped, dominated everybody, and he's undefeated at 29 and no. which is madness in a division like 155.

[1813] Is he still, is he retired?

[1814] He's not sure.

[1815] He's not sure.

[1816] Because I thought that last fight, I thought he was like, this is it.

[1817] He said, but he's decided that if something spectacular happens on Saturday night with Connor and Dustin Poeier, he might make a comeback.

[1818] He's going to make a comeback.

[1819] He's in his prime.

[1820] He's a destroyer.

[1821] He's going to be bored.

[1822] I think he promised his mom after his father died.

[1823] His father died from COVID.

[1824] Oh, wow.

[1825] Yeah.

[1826] Yeah, and his mom made him promise that this was his last fight.

[1827] And so he beat Justin Gaichie, who was thought to be the most dangerous guy in the division.

[1828] He beat him.

[1829] And, you know, but you know what?

[1830] This Connor and Dustin Poir fight is going to be so huge.

[1831] Are you calling that one way together?

[1832] No, I'm not going to Abu Dhabi.

[1833] I'm right here, Tulsi Gabbard.

[1834] I have a show with Dave Chappelle.

[1835] Are you like, are you putting the odds on one guy or another on that?

[1836] Oh, I never do that, Tulsi.

[1837] I never do that I think it's a very interesting fight I think Dustin's a far better fighter than the first time they fought but I think Connor's better too you know and Connor I know a lot of people that have witnessed his training camp and I've seen a lot of videos and I've seen a lot of conversations about his training for this he's very very well prepared I mean he's very focused I think he felt under I think he felt like he fucked up in the Kabib fight he didn't he wasn't focused enough he had too many distractions and he just didn't fight his best.

[1838] That said, even if he was in tip -top, Magoo, in the best shape of his life, Khabib's Khabib.

[1839] And ultimately, Kibib's strength and grappling is so overwhelming.

[1840] He does that to everybody.

[1841] Right.

[1842] Everybody gets mauled.

[1843] Yeah.

[1844] Like, that's what you're signing up for.

[1845] I'm signing up to, I want to take a chance and winning, but also most likely going to get mauled.

[1846] Read the fine print.

[1847] Yeah.

[1848] I am so excited about Max Holloway.

[1849] And Max reached out today to try to get on the shows where I'm going to try to get him on as soon as possible.

[1850] Good.

[1851] But I am - Catch him on his way back, maybe.

[1852] Maybe.

[1853] Yeah, I'm just blown away by him.

[1854] I don't even understand it.

[1855] Yeah.

[1856] I mean, it was so damn good.

[1857] It was humbling, you know, like to watch an, sometimes you watch an athlete, and they put out a performance that's so far above everybody else, you just got to go, wow.

[1858] Like, like, everybody was calling it through the performance of the decade.

[1859] Like, everybody.

[1860] Yeah.

[1861] I can see why.

[1862] I can see why.

[1863] And I was surprised in some of his post -fight interviews when he started talking about how he wasn't really sparring in his training for the fight.

[1864] No, he didn't spar at all, at all.

[1865] And to have that kind of performance without sparring and why he said he's not sparring, right?

[1866] Well, I think he had decided, I think possibly after Dustin Poirier fight, that he had taken too many shots in sparring and that it was not necessary.

[1867] He's like, I already know how to fight.

[1868] Unnecessary risk.

[1869] And I think there's a real good argument for that.

[1870] I think sparring initially is very important for fighters because you've got to learn timing and distance.

[1871] But there's a way to do that when a guy has as much experience as Max does.

[1872] Obviously, it worked.

[1873] Yeah.

[1874] You know, I mean.

[1875] But that is a, that's a raging debate in fighting, whether or not sparring is important.

[1876] It's certainly important initially.

[1877] Right.

[1878] To get the fundamentals, to get the muscle memory and to get the movement, right?

[1879] Yeah.

[1880] But there's ways to do it.

[1881] you're not hitting each other right you know there's drills that you can do and there's drills with pads um there's there's quite a few guys that have implemented that though yeah and it's it's controversial but i don't know with with max i'd say whatever you just did keep doing that if it's not sparring then never spar again yeah because i mean that was phenomenal i saw that side -by -side meme somebody did with uh mohammed ali and max holloway did you see that no i didn't see that with they're almost in exactly the same stance like that wide front back leg stance where they're just like dodging the other guys oh really punch and it's uncanny how similar they are in the pose yeah in the pose and just how they're uh there you oh there it is oh that's crazy look at that yeah that's yeah they're like mirror images of each other even even they're the the opposing fighters almost mirror images of like big miss that was nuts in the last round when he dropped his hands and it was talking to the commentators like I'm the best boxing UFC while he's dodging punches like what the fuck man he was just feeling it yeah he was clearly completely there and again couldn't be a nicer person I fucking love that guy yeah yeah same here so he did um he did I think this was after he first very got the belt for the first time came back and they organized a hometown parade for him in Y and I um I went and like you know like just to congratulate him and just celebrate him and Yancey Maderos who had fought that same night.

[1882] But it was the coolest thing to see Max at home in his hometown and to see how many kids and young people were so inspired and so excited to see one of their own go out and freaking get it done and never forget his roots in where he came from.

[1883] That's awesome.

[1884] And it was, it just embodied, um, it embodied who he is and why people at home are so proud that he goes out and he fights, you know, the most, the greatest fighters and all parts of the world, but he never forgets where home is and who his family is and, you know, what made him who he is.

[1885] That's awesome.

[1886] Yeah.

[1887] That's amazing.

[1888] Good for him.

[1889] And good for you.

[1890] So here's the, this is Tulsi Gabbard.

[1891] Let's hear it.

[1892] Aloha, everyone.

[1893] I want to tell you about a new project that I'll be launching.

[1894] very soon.

[1895] Over the last several years, one of the most beautiful things that I have experienced and appreciated throughout my service in public office and in the military are the people I've met from all across the country, from around the world, and the incredible conversations that we've shared.

[1896] So whether it was visiting a farmer in Iowa or a pastor in South Carolina or a small business owner in Syria, we are all connected, children of God, brothers and sisters, and we have so much more in common than we may realize.

[1897] Now more than ever, during these dark and divisive and dangerous times, we have the opportunity to be a positive force, to help heal the divide, to treat each other with aloha, with respect and love, and better understand each other.

[1898] other.

[1899] So on my show, I will go beyond the soundbite and share in -depth information, insights, and thought -provoking discussions.

[1900] And I'll answer your questions, whether they are about foreign policy, politics, the environment, or maybe just questions you have about life, yoga meditation, music, surfing, or food.

[1901] We will tackle the great challenges of our time together.

[1902] We will go where others want, gain new perspectives, and we will never shy away from the tough conversations.

[1903] So I hope you'll join me. Click subscribe and I look forward to seeing you soon.

[1904] Aloha.

[1905] There it is.

[1906] There it is.

[1907] Look forward to seeing you soon.

[1908] I look forward to seeing you as well.

[1909] Congratulations on your new venture and I can't wait to see it.

[1910] Great to catch up with you.

[1911] Always great.

[1912] Always great to see you.

[1913] Next time, hopefully it's out in Hawaii.

[1914] Yes, sounds good.

[1915] Let's make it happen.

[1916] All right.

[1917] Thank you, Tulsa.

[1918] Thank you, Joe.

[1919] Bye, everybody.