Transcript for #1599 - Tulsi Gabbard

Um, I don't know. It's, uh, it's a, it's a crazy time. And I'm back in Hawaii. I'm getting a lot of surf in and yoga meditation and.

Yeah, I'm so grateful to the people of Hawaii that I had the privilege of being able to serve them and represent them. It's getting crazier and crazier to see the divisiveness in the country and the divisiveness in Congress. And unfortunately, it's just getting worse. I mean, it seems to be getting progressively worse over the time that I've been there, but especially now.

Yeah. That's what it seems like. It's, I mean, it's not rocket science on how and why we got here when you look at politicians, 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, 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. They get more eyeballs watching and and same thing on social media. They start pushing so much of this device of rhetoric towards people that that stokes more of these flaming 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? It comes down to leadership. It comes down to who we as voters choose through our elections to lead us in this country. People not motivated by their hunger for power and also making decisions about where are we getting our information? How are we responding to this divisive rhetoric and this hate?

Those are always best when the author reads the book, right?

Yeah, I agree. There's not been a phenomenal like social media that our country or the world for that matter has dealt with before. It's going to take more than just one phenomenal leader to unify the country and to start to deescalate the kinds of divisive tensions that we're seeing. 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 reign 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 exposed to, again, without consideration for what the consequences, 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. 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? They've held some hearings, and they've done some things. But when you look at the legislative changes, that that can and should be made to this section 230 provision that essentially gives big tech legal immunity to do kind of whatever they want. Why aren't they doing something about this is where you have leaders who take money from all these big tech monopolies and you know raise money from them and all their friends for their campaigns and whatever their They're almost beholden to them and therefore I don't expect that we'll see any action on meaningful reforms to address this unless we get new people in office or we say, you can't take money from these packs. 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.

So I don't know the full extent of their rules, but I've listened to some of the interviews that the founder has done and the CEO has done over the last couple of weeks, because I shared the exact same concern that D platforming an app like Parler 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. What they have said is that they have, they had some jury system set up where they have like 100 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. And so what the founder of Parler said was basically that if there were posts that were inciting him in an violence, they weren't up for longer than 24 hours and it was because they just got backlocked. Like there was more than they could handle. in moderating it. This is what he said. I haven't verified all this or looked into it myself, but that's the argument they're making, but the bigger argument is whether it's parlor or 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. And as we're talking with this example, that is speech that is inciting imminent violence. 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. And there are a few other examples on that. 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. Exactly. It can be anything to anybody. Whether it is protected under the first amendment or not. And it's shocking. I don't know how that phrase was allowed to be passed into law, but it's there. So those two things are the things that can be changed very easily. by law, amending that section 230, take away that provision that says that they can censor objectionable content. And take away things are objectionable. But, you know, something objectionable to you may not be objectionable to me and vice versa. That's the issue. And then change that line that basically says if it is speech that is protected under the first amendment, you don't touch it. 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. And there's decades of Supreme Court precedents that can be pointed to as the guide way for these tech companies to make those decisions. Okay, is this something that is a violation of the first amendment or is not protected by the first amendment or not? That is those are the reforms that I believe need to be made.

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

Yes, while I was campaigning for president, I believe they were cited as a source essentially for story saying that I was some kind of Russian asset. Essentially, that's really what the heart of it was.

Yeah, you know, it starts with people making unfounded accusations like that. People like Hillary Clinton, for example, and having that accusation echoed in other parts of the media and by other so-called influential individuals. And I don't know, I think they're like, oh, well, we think that there are Russian bots that are helping Tulsi in her campaign. I have never seen any evidence or proof of that. And that really is what gets to the heart of it.

Yeah. 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. 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. This is a double-edged sword. And you think that you're putting these things in place because, you know, it's a good thing. It's a good thing because you only want to hear from people who you agree with, But as you said, those tables can very quickly and will likely turn at some point. And if we don't take a stand for freedom of speech, freedom in this country than the the threats that we're experiencing that summer experiencing this this is a threat this is a threat to us all and that's something that I and and you know friends of mine I think all service members understand truly in our heart of hearts 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 speech or not.

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 who's who's video platform. Do you think is going to pop up first? Yes. YouTube. And this is this is rumbles rumble.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 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.

I did neither until like a week ago. And then I saw a headline that rumble.com is suing Google. And I clicked, I like, this is interesting. And I heard an interview with the, it's a Canadian company. And they do, it's essentially the same thing that Google does. They got something a little bit different that they deal with. Copyrights differently or something like that. Yeah, I, I just, what is rumble.com that I started looking up and figuring out who they are and what they do, but it's very telling that not a whole lot of people know who they are.

You usually, yeah. Right away. Yeah. Usually, those would be enough indicators for you to get the right story or something close to it.

That even people who are merely asking questions, just trying to get information. We're just a new story.

Yeah. That's really dangerous and kind of makes it hard to believe that this is happening in America. That is supposed to be this beacon of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. And all these other things, but you brought up this issue of bots and divisiveness, and it's not only the bots, but also just the anonymous, what do you call them like the couch, Twitter warriors, or keyboard warriors, or whatever, trolls? 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.

If they're posting, if the whistleblower is posting, can I mention that what you're saying?

Fair enough, I think that there, you know, if I 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. It's a legitimate concern for sure, but a way to protect yourself.

Exactly. And I've seen 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. And I will count members of Congress in that batch.

This was my first impression, getting elected, got elected 2012, got there and sworn in, and January of 2013. And I remember calling home, I think I was talking to my family, my parents, or somebody, and I was like, this place is like high school. even on the house floor that this the only time we're all together usually for votes 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 side eye 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 Yeah, man. 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've 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 person you know is a good looking guy or a good looking girl or they talk good they talk nice sounds smart yeah all right check rather than like all right What are your capabilities? What are your qualifications? 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 this kind of makeup 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 in choosing who gets to work for us and not forgetting that not forgetting that those people who work in the United States Capitol they work for us when it comes right down to it and so we have the power to hire and fire

But where are we? Well, people first of all need to kind of have the veil lifted on on on on what this is and how both political parties play into this and the media plays into this. 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 rise of North Korea's nuclear capabilities, for example, and how we and Hawaii lived through the reality of that threat when we got that, that miscellular that came through, that caused, you know, families to go and like, so this was January 2019, early one Saturday morning, 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, uh, missile incoming to Hawaii, uh, 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 aftermath and everything else would have a much, much bigger impact. 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 I 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 a father who he had one child who was in downtown Honolulu. The other was on the west side of Oahu, which is a good 45 minute drive, and he was physically in the middle. 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. 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. I announce 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 me as something that is nothing to do with who I am, my experience, my background, my capabilities, what I'm advocating for. No, the media didn't want to talk about that. The other candidates didn't want to talk about it. going on the debate stage okay I'm gonna this is a national stage to be able to raise these very serious issues about 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 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 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.

So so they plant? They plant those seeds of doubt to try to get people to be like, man, I don't know about her.

I don't know why I can trust you. Why would they do that to you? Well, they refuse to engage on the substance to argue against or agree with what I'm saying. First of all, and end 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. I'm not willing to be anybody's puppet that I will speak out for ending these costly destructive regime change wars. I will speak out for ending this new Cold War and nuclear arms race that is literally threatening humanity. 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 packs. and the political party leadership that they're 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.

I think it's a combination of all of those things that lead to the fact that I'm not going to dance their dance. I'm not going to play their game. 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, ah, you know, I don't know. If you do that, you might ruin our chances to win in the next election. 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. And those are very real conversations that happen in Washington all the time. If you had these conversations with people, I have been, I have not directly been threatened with that or had those conversations because I don't take their money.

But I've been in the rooms where they have those conversations around. I was Vice Chair of the DNC. So when they're looking at, okay, we got to raise X amount of money for either this 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 of our democracy so the voters can actually see what's behind it in a comedy sketch right or was it Robin Williams or someone I forget who it was who had about their jackets should have totally labels on them just like a NASCAR car does so

Probably. There was one vote. There was one vote that I don't remember what the vote was exactly. But I was not sure on how I was going to vote. And the vote was coming up pretty quick. And it's, you know, these votes are often not so simple as, you know, they're usually complex because 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 the risks and so on. And I was not sure how I was going to vote on this bill and 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 beat Democrats in the next campaign. That was essentially what they said. 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, tell us he hears 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. Instead, they came at me with a purely political argument and lost me right away. The conversation basically ended there.

That directly, that directly, yeah.

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 would further hurt their cause. And it was disheartening because it was yet another indicator of what drives the political decisions being made by some of the most 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 at it and there is, there's so much legitimate frustration about why isn't Congress doing something about this? We saw this around 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. It's literally playing politics with people's lives. You got people losing their jobs. People stuck at home. People worried about being homeless, who that one time check of $1,400 dollars, $2,000, whatever it is, that can be the difference for them between food or no food, home or no home. And yet you have people in Washington playing politics worried about, well, if we do this now, it might help Trump or if we do this now, it might help Republicans.

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. 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 past would result in a lot of people who were in prison for a very long time for nonviolent drug minor drug violations 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. 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 past 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. So they were openly advocating for, hey, let's not do this right now. Let's wait until after 2020 and then do it so that it could be done under a democratic president. Never mind all of the people who were 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. Never mind the consequences of that it's about politics and we don't want that guy to get a win at all. It is absolutely crazy. So I mean, there's a good ending to this story in that this bill did eventually get passed. So those people were advocating for that lost, but 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.

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

It is. I want to keep going back to because 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 those foundational pillars that are put in place. The central part of that is is our democracy 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. There, the mechanism that is in place for us to change this is through our elections. And as many people who, you know, there are, I mean, people feel hopeless, like, why even bother to go vote? Why even bother because I'm just one person or my voice doesn't have power, this is the power that we have in our hands to start to change this. 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 interests the American people in our country.

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 like, you know, I go through a ton of different new sources every day and try to figure out the reality of what may be happening here or in different parts of the world. Most people aren't, they don't have the ability to focus on that. 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. reporting one view on the news. The fairness doctrine said you have to report the other view as well so that the viewer, the listener at home can say like, okay, this is what that side is saying on this issue. That's what that side saying. I'm going to figure out what I think is what actually makes sense. The fairness doctrine was repealed. We need to reinstate the fairness doctrine. I believe it was repealed during the Reagan administration. It would go a long way towards providing more of that balanced news coming from those, again, who are using the public airwaves. 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 balanced news platforms that not only just report facts and information, but also represent views from across the spectrum.

And I mean, the politicians were doing the same thing. You know, you just pointed out you've got cable news that hate Trump, cable news that loves Trump, the same thing. Then they're doing all that they're doing ultimately for ratings, for money. 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, all of it centered around this Trump consciousness, this obsession with Trump every single day. And we've gone through this now for not only the last four years, you go back to the campaigns, they the last five, six years, that we as a country have lived through this profiting, essentially off of Trumpism. 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. You look to North Korea, for example. North Korea has over this period been increasing their nuclear capabilities to the point where now they have nuclear submarines. You have 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. Those are all gone and there's a nuclear arms race that is ensuing now in a new Cold War between the US and Russia and China, these two other nuclear armed countries. You have our agriculture, our environment. You have 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. There are so many different issues, very, very real serious issues. Have you heard much about that at all over the last few years? No. Have you seen action by Congress to address these very real issues? No. Why? It's because they're all looking at, hey, how do we profit off of Trump? 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 not contribute to the mess and the destruction and and the the nonsense that we've seen play out over over these last several years don't see I agree with you wholeheartedly because they're going to try to play it out longer because I bet you anything people are sitting around in these cable newsrooms right now saying like, oh shit, how are we going to make money? Like, what are we going to focus on now? What are we going to talk about now? And yeah, I just I think the more of 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.

Yeah, this is not When you have a pretty, you've got a lot of eyeballs and ears on your platform, sir. So I think we can spark something to make really seriously make 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. Yeah. Whose voice has really have not been heard throughout this time.

So we can impact that, though. We can impact that by not buying their shit. That they're thinking it's going to happen and we're glad it or not. Exactly. And 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 of matter, having real conversations.

Yeah. Well, I mean, look, there are sadly a lot of really important and serious things that we couldn't should be talking about that should capture our attention. Yeah. 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 or not.

I think there are Joe. I think there are.

But here's the thing is, and I agree, like people who have been looking forward to January 20th, as though this is going to solve all of the problems that our country has faced. are missing the reality that the way we got here are because of 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 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 deplorable. And this is The reality of how dangerous that train of thought I think is going to continue to reveal itself unless Joe Biden gave a very unifying speech for his inauguration. It is that the pressure is on him to deliver for the country's sake. I wish him well in working towards that. But it's not going to be an easy task. And ultimately, he will be held accountable for his own actions. in whether he is able to be that unifying force or if we end up seeing and address some of these deeper seated problems. He said in his speech that whether you voted for him or not, that his goal is to serve you, the American people. Again, the pressure will be now on him to actually show that his true through his actions and actually actively reaching out to those 70 plus million people who didn't vote for him.

So You see how political parties use certain narratives to their advantage, depending on if it is. If it's their name, their party, their candidate that's on the block or not. And again, this goes back to how dangerous this hyperpartisan divisiveness is when you've got people in positions of power and influence manipulating the narrative according to serve their own interest. the hypocrisy of of this is very evident and the hypocrisy of these same leaders in talking up a big are making a big stink about these things when it serves their interest but turning a blind eye when it does end 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. 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, but this is where the electronic system was manipulated and got it wrong. So the bill that I introduced was called the Securing America's Elections Act. It was a bipartisan bill that very, very simply still allows supported states in their responsibility that they have to run elections that's constitutionally provided. 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 use the machine there before and you punch it in and before you submit your ballot it's got a printout that says okay these are all your candidates if it's correct you submit and they keep that paper backup on hand or you just use a paper ballot 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 made the case to republican and democratic leaders pass this bill 2020's a big election coming up 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 should be any question in people's minds that these electronic systems have any vulnerability at all Congress chose not to pass the bill

I mean, it just wasn't done. There were no legitimate arguments against it. I heard I heard some states saying, like, oh, well, we don't know if we want to change it or whatever, but if the federal government had the ability to go in 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. We'll be a lot of eyes on it. Critical outcome one way or the other. Let's take action now in order to prevent people questioning the integrity of our election and therefore a democracy. 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. So holding these leaders accountable and calling them on their crap is essential if we want to actually start to see some change I don't understand what the incentive would be to not pass this is there a financial burden it's attached to this is it prohibitively it is not prohibitively expensive I mean some some states just went and did it on their own because they recognize I believe Virginia was one of them They hold off your state elections in the odd years 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 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. And I'll let you know. And I'll let you know. And I'll let you know.

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 it was some Virginia election officials came before congress and said hey we did this it worked really well and it's the first time we've not had any complaints about the integrity of our election systems did you ever see hacking democracy the HBO documentary

And you look at the first thing, the first thing that this new Congress did, 117th Congress, right after being sworn in, 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. 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 referencing anyone who holds, I don't know what you call it, this title, this position, It's not mother father. It's now parent. It is now parent in law, not mother in law, father in law. It is now child. What did you do for auntie or sibling? You say parents, brother. I think is what they said or parents sister. Which parent? Exactly.

It would be parents.

But this is this is what I'm talking about though. And this is where people just like give me a break. Give me a break. This is the most important thing that that you feel is the the highest priority to take action on in this new year in this new Congress.

I mean, if you talk to Hillary Clinton, she won. I don't talk to that lady.

that the danger of overall eroding people's confidence in our elections and the integrity of our elections. 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? 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. And this is the dangerous consequence of where this partisan divisiveness takes us. And it also points to the dangerous normalization 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 riding and looting and whatnot. But it's not okay if I disagree with the motivation of these other people. 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 hyperpartisan ship and this 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. 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. Not just always.

I mean, look, there's so much fear that's out there. There's a lot of pain, a lot of frustration, and my hope is, I want to be really optimistic here. 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, your 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. 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.

Yeah, 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. I had Ron Paul voters, Bernie voters, people from all across the political spectrum and we had the most amazing conversations and it was a conversation because around so many of these issues like healthcare, for example, what it boiled down to was while people had different ideas on the best way to like what our healthcare system should look like. 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. Yes. 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 possible with education. Tell me one parent that doesn't want their child to get a good education. I know a guy.

Yeah. No, I do get the point. And so, you know, the economy, you know, what what person doesn't want to have You know, just a great opportunity. You're in a good living, so you don't have to fear for yourself or your family's safety and economic security. So yes, we are going to have wildly different ideas, perhaps on how we can achieve these things, which is okay. That's not a bad thing that we come up with some of our best ideas when we have these debates with an openness center. And I respect to no, like, hey, I got this idea. Let me hear yours. 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. And that this is where, you know, it all stems down to being able to have the conversation. And that is so much of what's missing in Washington. Where, you know, oh, I don't know, this was, this was in my first few years in Congress. people unwilling what to speak of have a conversation even like just say hello um you know there's the there's a gym in the basement of the house that that a lot of members are going and work out in members of congress go out and work out and it's after it

Well, I mean other than me. You could have turned one of the video.

There's I'm impressed. I appreciate that. It's it's important. You do hard stuff is important.

It's such a great way to I mean for me, I've it's such a great way to start the day, you know, kind of clean clean the slate and get that physical exertion out that I mean yoga for me. It's it's yoga meditation and working out that But there's a group of us in Congress when I was there, a very good friend of mine, Mark Wayne Mullin from Oklahoma, Congressman. He actually used to be an MMA fighter and wrestler, and so that's how we became really good friends. Small group of us, there was a bipartisan group. He grabs the WIP, he grabs the WIP. He's invited Randy Couture there, and he's like, let it work out there, and it's such a great way to just bond as people. And some of those, like, our, the core of our workout group, Democrats and Republicans, they all came out to Abraham and my wedding and Hawaii and, like, we're actually really good friends. That's cool. 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. But what I was gonna say is one morning there was a yoga class happening in there. And then Speaker Banner was participating in the yoga class. And I saw him on the house floor later. 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. That's awesome. Good job. I put my hand up and I high-fived him and he smiled and laughed a little bit. 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 something to her staff. I can't believe Tulsi would do that and give me the look of like utter absolute disgust. 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 there's a number of things that I disagree with John Banner on on on on on issues but let's have those conversations and also be able to say you know what I recognize that you're you're a person too and yoga is a good thing for everybody oh yeah

Exactly. And the ability to, you know, just stop and find that focus and that peace in yoga breathing, yoga meditation and like stop looking in the mirror and checking out how big your muscles are.

Yeah. He didn't invent it.

But it's so, so I mean, it's, it's, it's life-changing. If you allow it. It's very good for you. Yeah.

That is that is a whole other thing about people. It's like humanity, responsibility and awareness and the effect of our actions and our words on other people and and especially if you're a parent on your kids or kind of example you're setting and

and probably more bitterness and more angry.

Which is so sad, really, because it, I mean, life is so short. It is, you know, and to be alive and to be in a place where, look, we're, you know, have so many blessing and blessings and opportunities and comforts that people in a lot of other parts of the world don't have and it's just, it's unfortunate to waste all of that opportunity.

Like I don't want to be bad. So you don't have to go through it yourself first.

They're always are. And speaking of learning from, you know, 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. for us. If you don't like what's happening around you right now, take a moment, pause and whether it's individually ourselves or, I mean, really collectively stopping for that introspection to say, how do we get here? 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 collectively 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. And instead of just like, whatever you're thinking on social media or whatever, just thinking like, okay, just think about it, just think about what kind of impact do you want to make? This is where we have the opportunity to shift. And this is something that I want to be able to, that I plan to be able to help contribute 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, 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 to have a platform for these kinds of real conversations, much like the ones that I've had 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 that gym. We have so much more in common than we realize at the superficial level. And so this is one of the things that I'm gonna be doing is launching a podcast show.

I actually, I looked back at, I looked back. I think it was the last time I was here with Jocco, right? That was the last time I was on your show was, um, you're like, Tulsi, you should do a podcast. and actually have a long-form platform to talk about issues because, you know, as we saw throughout the debates and other things, it's the sound bite, it's the tweet, it's the superficial. And 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 on substance.

I've seen it happen over and over throughout my presidential campaign in those town halls. Sometimes they were small room. Sometimes they were rooms with thousands of people. always had a Q&A session at the very end of the town hall after I said what I wanted to say 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 And there is 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, and we have more in common.

Totally. That's a beautiful feeling. It is a beautiful thing. And this is something I started to do at these town halls where to make people feel more comfortable. I said, OK, I want to see a show of hands. Raise your hand if you're a Democrat. You know, bunch of hands went up. I'm Democrat. said okay raise your hands if you're Republican 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 and they're like oh my god I'm not alone not the only one raise your hands if you're an independent raise your hands if you're a libertarian and just taking a few minutes to do that immediately people were just like wow This is a representation of America. We are all sitting here in the same room and all here because we care about our country. And that's the starting point for those discussions.

Yeah, 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. 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 They know that it will be a fair and open and respectful dialogue. Whether you agree with you bring in or not, it's not even really the point. 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, tell see, I'm here because I saw you on Joe Rogan. I was like, that's awesome.

I don't think you're the kind of person people think of when they think of Joe Rogan audience. But it just grows that there shows that there's such a cross section of Americans. Again, who are hungry for this dialogue and to be able to reach out and to hear different perspectives. So yeah, I mean, this is something that I want to be able to help contribute to being that voice for common sense and facts and truth and freedom and to create that space where we can actually get to know each other better.

In the next few weeks, it is, um, people can go on now. I've got a trailer up. The show is called This is Chelsea. Yeah, we watch it right now. Can listen to it. I don't know if that's going to be an extra studio.

I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. 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. Um, I'd love to do as much in person as possible and just kind of do it like a do it like a roadshow a weekly roadshow Yeah, and something about the in person totally so much better. Yeah, I mean like I I've Yeah, that would be my preference. So I'll invite people to come out to Hawaii take a vacation We'll film we'll film a show there.

Yeah, we'll get to do in person ones when it's a little bit more safe to do it, but in the meantime, you know, it'll be a mix of of it's not going to be primarily conversations with 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 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.

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've said there. Yes. Yank. Exactly.

And just find a reason. Yeah. Find or create a reason to be able to, to de-platform you.

Means you don't make any ad revenue.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I don't know how they do it. 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. But let's say somebody clicks on your video or my video and reports it as, you know, whatever. Let's say they reported as a video that's a problem. Yeah, problematic. 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, well, somebody reported it, we're going to yank it because it's safer to yank it. And, you know, therefore put the person who's show it is in a pretty difficult situation.

I. Yeah, I don't know the answer to that. Right. I don't know the end. I mean, ultimately, we want them to have, um, I'm just actually I wasn't going to show this here, but my husband sent me the edit of the video trailer. I don't know if I don't have Jamie's number. You can drop it to him. Okay. 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 based on the principles of of the first amendment right based on the principles of not citing violence and there's press like there's there's there's deck literally decades of precedence for this which provide very clear guidelines and markers that big tech 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 why did this get pulled understand which is which is what's happening now and it's also you really can't answer every one of those people that's the problem

Yeah, and they want more people to see what they're doing.

Yeah, you are. This is a Dropbox link. Should I just give you my phone?

Um, yeah, but you had it all the time when you sat down. Yeah. Yeah. No. I mean, there's just some of the things that like we talked about a lot of things that I was hoping to talk about and some things that I want to be reminded of. Yeah. Yeah. Um, a lot of the, you know, the cancel culture, the freedom of speech, bill of rights issues and things like that.

And one of the dangers of this right now is just the, you know, casting broad aspersions against people who 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 racism and assumption of guilt against like white male Americans right now. that clip from Congressman Steve Cohen on CNN from the other day. 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. And the point that he was making was that because only 20% of white males voted for Joe Biden, And what that means, you know, the rest obviously voted for Trump. And the military is still a predominantly white male.

No, no, no, in the country. What? I haven't, I haven't verified that. But that's what he said.

That seems very odd. 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. And the troubling statement that it used was given these numbers, quote, the suspect pool is large. 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, I mean, it is, it's blatant racism and tribalism that is incredibly, it's incredibly dangerous.

But he didn't apologize. 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, 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.

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

Well, 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 because if you look at the statistics over 80% of people dying in this country from COVID are people over the age of 65.

And like 50% of people being hospitalized over 65. So yes, if you want to save lives, if you want to make it so our eyes use aren't like at max capacity, then give the vet prioritize the vaccine based on age instead of occupation.

Glad you mentioned that.

So there's two things there. First is who the CDC designates as an essential worker? 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, it's not been scientifically proven. I've gone back and looked at the applications and the data that was put forward to the FDA to get approval from Pfizer and Moderna. And these vaccines have been scientifically established to largely prevent serious health complications and death from COVID once you're vaccinated. That has been scientifically established. nowhere in their trials was it scientifically established that these vaccines would prevent the transmission of the virus and so I see it almost every day and it's incredibly dangerous where media outlets and some some people who are healthcare 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 a local new station in Hawaii who shared a really emotional interview from a first responder, younger woman who had just gotten vaccinated. 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. And what is so dangerous about that is she got the vaccine. 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. 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. 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 been scientifically established that the vaccines prevent that. 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. 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. 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. 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, in agriculture, in any sector, basically you're talking about, I don't know, half of all working people in front line essential jobs. And then you go on to the essential workers, teachers and day care workers, they're included in that as well. 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. So this goes back to the thing that you originally 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.

Let's say you have that example. People over 65, my parents included, 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. 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 or they go and visit their parents who they haven't seen for a long time or their grandparents and could be carrying the virus and transmitting it unknowingly because they think like I'm good now I'm safe And so that has to be part of this. 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. 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. First, then followed by younger healthy people. 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%. reduce the numbers of COVID-related hospitalizations by I think it's like 48.49 percent. That would have a massive, massive effect on people's lives and on our country.

Yeah, I've been pushing, I've been pushing our both our state leadership in Hawaii and also the Trump administration. So the Trump administration, just in the last few days, I think it was at January 12th, I think, the Department of Health and Human Services did actually adjust their recommendations. And they said vaccines need to urgently go towards people over 65. It is something that they have strongly recommended to the states. At this point, it's up to the states to choose whether to implement it or not. Texas has, Texas is one of those states that has, and there are a few others. But at this point, kind of the 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.

Had quarantine for a long time 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. So how's that worked out you know it's our art we have amongst the lowest number of I think our infection rate is amongst the lowest in the country Slowly visitors are starting to come back. It's still I mean, it's nowhere even close to what it would be otherwise or what it was. But, you know, I think this is something, this is an approach now that, you know, I think anybody coming to the US now from a foreign country now has to do something similar. So it's not 100% protection, but it provides that layer of protection to make sure that, you know, people aren't getting, people aren't getting, people shouldn't be getting on airplanes if you're sick.

Not significantly, no. I think there may have been, I don't know the exact numbers, but you know, the numbers are quite small. 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.

Not enough. Not enough. It's, you know, I think because it's Hawaii, there's, I mean, out, out, being outdoors, surfing, hiking, swimming, you know, is such a big part of life. But, yeah, I mean, this has not been a focus by our health department or in Hawaii, and I think even, even nationally, it's, it's unfortunate that just basic health and wellness has not been more of a focus in talking about prevention.

I mean, it's a number one driver of our economy. And it's not just the people who are working in hotels, right? 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. It's had a really devastating effect.

It's 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 sustainable in that, you know, marine life are thriving. Our reefs are doing much better than they ever have. It's just the environment in Hawaii, like, you know, people were out in the water every day. They're like, my gosh, it's like Mother Earth finally got a chance to breathe.

Yeah, it's eye-opening, though. 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. I don't know. There's different ideas being put forward.

Oh, it's gotten, it's gotten it.

Yeah, that overfishing. I mean, I think 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, 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. In the ocean, on the air we breathe, on the water we drink, on our land and our ability to have good soil to actually grow food that people can eat. 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 they're just won't be any more fish in the sea.

And there's got to be a global approach to this because we live with this plan. It's not very big. There's so much in it.

And I think there's economic incentive given how much more we are all connected as countries in the world because of our economies. 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. I think it's harder to kind of silo yourself out. It's tough. Look, it's not saying it's going to be an easy thing, but leadership. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah this this I think will end up being one of a number of things that I'm doing really as as a means taking the experience that I had especially from my campaign where my interest in goal was to really talk about and focus on the greatest use of our time But finding that the mainstream media is really only interested in creating a caricature and the sound bite and the smears. 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 a 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 circles.

Well, let's not bet on the man's life. It's not saying his life. I'm saying as president.

Pineapple and jalapeno. I like on pizza. I know that's a controversial statement, but I love pineapple.

Yeah. That's what he's talking about. And I think his expectation that Kamala does the same.

I know, I know.

Yeah. I mean, there's, look, there's health issues and complications that can contribute to, you know, people gaining weight. And, you know, I, I, I have friends and I know people who have other, other underlying issues that are difficult for them to, either with a follow-up certain diet or, you know, be physically active or, or whatever. So it's not, it's not to make fun of people. it's it's to encourage overall health and well-being. I think that's really what it is and doing doing what you can and if what you can do is go for a walk every day, go for a walk every day. Yes, I couldn't agree. You know, make make better choices as it relates to food and nutrition and I just want you to put on any good to lie and say this is healthy.

See, it says women. Okay.

It says women on why wellness doesn't have to be one size fits all. Yeah.

You're hurting them by doing it. And I think that that's kind of part of the bigger thing. And I've seen this around COVID as well. Like give people the truth. give us the truth and let us take actions based on that information. And just like this, there are serious health complications and issues that are there if you are morbidly obese. That is a fact that's based on science. You know, early on early on in the the COVID pandemic when they were saying like oh masks won't do anything to help protect you or others from getting COVID right and obviously it comes out later that oh well he only said it because there weren't enough medical grade masks to go around. Maybe he had his own motive for saying it, even though he knew it wasn't actually true. Just give people the facts and the information. You're trying wolf.

and it's just like the you know what you can't you know covid spreads more rapidly if you have people gathering in close quarters shoulder to shoulder large groups of people don't do it but it's okay to do it if you are you know exactly if you're at a protest and and uh... you know people agree with the cause but

You can't go to a funeral. You can't, you know, bury your loved ones, because that's not a just enough cause.

Yeah. But all of these things like these things and then, you know, you have Gavin Newsome going and having dinner at a fancy restaurant and then you have frickin' surfers getting arrested for going out and surfing by themselves on the beach. 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. This is the hypocrisy that people, you know, absolutely lose faith and trust in the decisions that they're making. And again, points to like, well, this is what happens when you have people who are incompetent in positions of power and leadership.

There's a fucking shit in the lear above man. Make something bad even worse. Yeah. Like once once he got found out because of that video or the picture, whatever it was.

There was another one I saw in California where this woman had been told to shut down her restaurant and it was when they shut down both indoor out and outdoor dining not too long ago. and her restaurant was right next to some big film production 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.

Yeah. 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 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.

When I was a kid, I read those books where you got to choose your own adventure. Like you get to pick, there's like five different options on how you get to choose how the book ends.

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

Click alternate ending. Get the blue ray.

But that politicizing of this crisis has been a major contributor to the problems that we are seeing. I mean, as so many of these things we're talking about, they kind of all go back to the same root cause where we have people, whether they're elected or the bureaucrats that they elected people put into power, making decisions not based on what's in the best interest of the people. That's what it comes down to. 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 in our country. It's just, it's lost on so many levels. And that's what we've got to bring back.

I got back to Hawaii as often as possible.

It's a good 12 13 hours from takeoff to landing. Not including like it takes about 45 minutes to drive the airport in DC and you have to fly to LA 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 like Houston or Denver.

Long flight, the jet lag was probably the, you know, six, five or six hour time difference. That was, that was a bigger challenge. But it just, it 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, getting 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 a year one or two they're like oh so do you feel like you fit in now and Washington 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.

Going a lot of their places. Yeah. And 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 whatever and be able to talk to them about a whole host of different things, not just politics, you know, this is, I want this to be about life, you know, 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, we learn more about who we are as people.

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 in how we can move forward together as a country. In Hawaii, having a predominantly tourism-based economy is a recipe for failure, should something like this happen. And it happened before, after 9.11, where everything tanked because people weren't flying. 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. So let's diversify the economy. Let's look at how we can invest in new industries, entrepreneurs, innovators in different areas and different sectors. 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 some of it. Some of it is not possible, but I hope that there are new ideas and I hope that I really think that we as a people are becoming more health aware because of this 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.

Yeah, and that 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. 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 that help strengthen our immune system and protect us specifically from this virus, but just help us be healthier overall. I went and looked, I looked on the CDC website to see what they had to say about it. Nothing.

Yeah. Oh, I could find, like the initial thing that came up was like this has not been proven to blah, blah, blah.

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. There's a whole list of them.

And because I had to court, was it called courses? I could of course have one.

Yeah, not really. This is all legit stuff. But also just how it's helping people, soldiers and and service members with traumatic brain injury because so many people You know, come back and are struggling with decide effects of that and are just given like these hard core prescription drugs that aren't ultimately helping. Yeah. 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.

Yeah. That's something that just before I was leaving Congress who was talking with some Department of Defense officials who were 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 cared for when they come back. after having gone through, you know, TBI and a whole host of other physical issues, you know, over exposure to different metals and everything else. 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. The mindset is starting to change to say, you know, I mean, the amount of money that we as taxpayers spend on healthcare for our service members alone is pretty astronomical. We need to provide our services with the best healthcare possible. The healthcare that's being provided right now is not the best healthcare possible. 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? Why are so many service members coming back from multiple deployments, maybe in their late 30s getting sick and dying from cancer? or coming down with serious respiratory problems. Like actually, you know, there's now a toxic burn pits or a serious issue that's contributing to this. Okay. So how do we deal with this? 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. 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. So that kind of change in mindset needs to change within the DOD as well as the VA.

I listened to that one. Yep. It's it's I think the numbers of of service members who have had prolonged exposure to massive toxic burn pits are are underestimated. I think so too. 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. So they're a place of duty every day. Was next to this burn pit breathing everything in. And that was literally everything from, you know, paint, plastics, construction waste, human waste, like metals, everything. And it's just, you know, I mean, there was a huge, like, what do you call it? Just a huge cloud of this, this, this, ah, she, set kind of fog that was over our camp all the time.

Yeah, and that this I mean we're talking about this post 9 allera my post 9 11 era alone what to speak of the Gulf War Guys, but it's a big it's a big big problem 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 and their family members, you know, husbands and wives who are quitting their jobs because now they have to become full-time caregivers. It's, I've introduced Congressman Brian Mass from Florida who's also a veteran. He lost both of his legs and an arm. He was an explosive ordinance disposal guy. 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.

Oh my gosh. Did you watch it?

Yeah. I was like so stoked and so excited and so mind blown watching him. It was incredible. And that guy was dodging these like looking and like I was like and Calvin Kader is a killer.

where I mean we're like all of Hawaii like we're we're so proud of him and uh... punahele uh... soryano he also had a great fight that same night like these fighters coming out of Hawaii obviously we love and we're proud of them because they're coming from Hawaii but but you look at max and he represents what we call aloha which is that respect and that kindness and you'd like, no, you ain't rolling over for anybody, but like when it's time to fight, you're gonna fight, but you don't lose that sense of respect and a low-hunt and that kindness. He said something like that.

That's, that is huge.

Are you like, are you, are you, are you putting the odds on one guy or another on that?

Yeah, I can see why I can see why and and I was surprised in some of his post-flight interviews when he started talking about how he wasn't really sparring in his training but it's far at all at all. and to have that kind of performance without sparring. And why he said he's not sparring, right?

To get the fundamentals, to get the muscle memory and to get the movement, right?

I saw that side by side meme somebody did with Muhammad Ali and Max Holloway. Did you see that? I didn't see that with they're almost in exactly the same stance like that wide front backleg stance where they're just like dodging the other guys. Oh really? Punch and it's uncanny how similar they are in the pose and just how they're there it is.

Yeah, even though the opposing fighters almost mirror images of like big miss.

So he did. He did, I think this was after he first 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, just to congratulate him and just celebrate him and Yancy Madero who had fought that same night. 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 and where he came from. And it was, it just embodied, and embodied who he is and why people at home are so proud that he goes out and he fights, you know, 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.

So here's the, uh, this is Tulsi Gabbard. Hello, everyone. I want to tell you about a new project that I'll be launching very soon. 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. 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. 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. So on my show, I will go beyond the sound bite and share in-depth information, insights, and thought-provoking discussions. 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. We will tackle the great challenges of our time together. We will go where others want. Game new perspectives and we will never shy away from the tough conversations. So I hope you'll join me. Click subscribe and I look forward to seeing you soon. All right. There it is. There it is. Look forward to seeing you soon. I look forward to seeing you as well.

Great to catch up with you. Always great. Always great to see you next time.