Sept. 8, 2019 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
01:11:58
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unidentified
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(upbeat music) | |
| All right, welcome to the Rubin Report. | ||
| I'm Dave Rubin, and before I do anything else, make sure that you're subscribed to our channel and be sure to click the bell that's right over there somewhere. | ||
| It's here in this area, I think, so that you actually get notified as long as we're going ahead and doing these videos. | ||
| We're going to talk about why I just said that in just a sec. | ||
| Today is our first ever Sunday live stream. | ||
| You might even call it a Sunday special. | ||
| But when a Democratic presidential candidate says they're in town and they want to swing by you, make it work. | ||
| Congressman Tulsi Gabbard, welcome to the room. | ||
| I appreciate it. | ||
| Thank you for making it work. | ||
| It's great to be here. | ||
| Yeah, we've been trying to make this happen for a while. | ||
| I know you got a crazy day in California, so I'm going to give you like the most focused hour imaginable. | ||
| You ready to roll? | ||
|
unidentified
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Let's do it. | |
| Okay, so we're doing this on YouTube. | ||
| YouTube is owned by Google. | ||
| You're suing Google. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes. | |
| What's going on? | ||
| They've got too much power. | ||
| They've got too much power. | ||
| I think the short story is, after the first debate, as well as the second debate, but after the first debate, I was the most Googled candidate of the night. | ||
| This is what we were obviously hoping for as a campaign, had prepared in advance, gotten our Google ads ready and approved and ready to rock and roll, when all of a sudden, mysteriously, right at the peak of that time where people were paying attention, our account was suspended. | ||
| So you couldn't roll ads? | ||
| People weren't seeing the ads that we wanted them to see was the bottom line. | ||
| We weren't really given any clear explanations. | ||
| The answers we got were very different from person to person to person. | ||
| And then once that peak period passed, our account was magically reinstated. | ||
| And to this day, we still have not gotten any kind of meaningful or even an attempt | ||
| to provide a satisfactory explanation for it, which just points to the need for change. | ||
| We filed this lawsuit not just because of what happened there, but because of the kind | ||
| of power that Google has as this huge tech monopoly to interfere in our public discourse, | ||
| interfere in what people are seeing when they're going and looking, using their search engine, | ||
| and really how they can impact our fair elections. | ||
| How do you decide when that moment is that you want government intervention? | ||
| Because you know, this is where I lean a little more libertarian. | ||
| And I think people on both sides of this can take totally moral, responsible, well thought out positions. | ||
| But there's like just that spot where it's like, okay, now we have to make a move. | ||
| Yeah, it's at that point where we are now, I think, as a country where people, regardless of your political ideologies or how you are using these platforms, are in a position where our freedom of speech is threatened. | ||
| and you have such a big tech monopoly with the power to provide undue influence, | ||
| both through their algorithms, as well as suppressing people's freedom of speech | ||
| in their accounts, even as Google has said themselves, when they are in compliance with their terms and use | ||
| agreements. | ||
| So even though you're a congresswoman and a Democratic presidential candidate, | ||
| you've contacted them, and have you just heard nothing back from them? | ||
|
unidentified
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I mean, there was a huge... I wish I could say that's surprising, but... You know a little bit about this as well. | |
| There was a huge delay, and then when we got responses, again, different responses from different people that... Obviously, our question was, what happened? | ||
| How do we fix it so we get our account back up? | ||
| Plain and simple. | ||
| And that simple question wasn't answered. | ||
| And so really our lawsuit is making that point. | ||
| That if this can be done to me as a member of Congress, running for the highest office in the land, that means it can be done to anyone running for any office anywhere in the country. | ||
| It can be done to any individual in this country. | ||
| What do you think they're actually up to? | ||
| Like, do you think that Google actually has a political ideology or that they're getting pressure from either other candidates or the DNC, which we know has done some shady stuff? | ||
| And we're going to talk about the debates in just a sec. | ||
| Some of these things are listed in our lawsuit of how in the past you've had Google executives and people who are very high up in their chain of command talking about how they can use Google to impact or influence. | ||
| The election, who they want to win the election. | ||
| So, you know, again, this goes down to where do we draw that line? | ||
| We have antitrust laws in place for a reason to protect consumers. | ||
| And that's where I come from, is we need to be able to protect the rights and freedoms of the American people. | ||
| And when you've got an entity, a private corporation that becomes so powerful that they have that So there's a pretty obvious through line to Google potentially censoring you or whatever it is that they're doing. | ||
| their interests or goals are to the detriment of the consumer, I think that's where government | ||
| should have a role to come in and, again, advocate for the consumer. | ||
| So there's a pretty obvious through line to Google potentially censoring you | ||
| or whatever it is that they're doing. | ||
| And the real disconnect that I see between the conversation online and mainstream, | ||
| 'cause if you look at the online conversation, I would say you and Andrew Yang are basically | ||
| sort of the two hot candidates. | ||
| And the ones, more than anything else, that libertarians kinda like you | ||
| and lefties kinda like you, and there's this really interesting mix | ||
| of things going on. | ||
| But if you listen to the mainstream, well, now you're not in the latest debate. | ||
| So what do you account for with that? | ||
| Is that just purely just tech? | ||
| That disconnect is also what we're seeing with people on the ground who are coming out to campaign events, town hall meetings, who are engaging in our process. | ||
| We're seeing that same thing that you're talking about online being reflected in real life, where we have a broad spectrum of ideologies of people who are coming to my campaign, who are supporting my candidacy, because we're about unifying the country. | ||
| Because we love our country. | ||
| We care for each other as fellow Americans, respect each other, and understand that by bringing our diverse ideas together and standing united, we can do great things for our country. | ||
| It's interesting that you just said we love our country, because I briefly mentioned this in the green room, but I had Glenn back in here a couple days ago and he said, he didn't even know that you were coming on because this just happened in the last day or so, but what he said was, I disagree with Tulsi on almost everything, but it's very obvious that she loves this country. | ||
| And I think one of the things that's happening for sort of mainstream liberals, let's say, not progressive, but sort of old school liberals, and then pretty much everyone on the right, is they're watching the candidates, the Democratic candidates, and there's this sense that they don't really love the country. | ||
| Like, they really think it's so fundamentally broken, or wrong, or historically awful, or some version of that, but that doesn't come across with you. | ||
| I am unabashed in my love for our country. | ||
| It's what's motivated all these major decisions that I've made with what I want to do with my life. | ||
| 9-11 was a pivotal moment for me. | ||
| When I was much younger, I decided that I wanted to pursue a path of service somehow in my life, but it was that attack on our country and our people on 9-11 that really Shifted the course of my life, and I chose to enlist in the Army National Guard because of that. | ||
| Because I wanted to go after those terrorists who had attacked us on that day and took those thousands of lives. | ||
| Something that I and so many others in this country continue to remember as we approach the anniversary of 9-11 here in just a few days. | ||
| Yeah, so speaking of that, so I wasn't planning on going there, but since we're only four days away from the 9-11 anniversary, Would you have ever imagined that the sort of level of discourse and the way that we seem to be fraying and that the sides are, you know, running off in different directions and the middle keeps getting whittled away, do you think you could have envisioned that way back when? | ||
| Probably not. | ||
| Especially the unity that we saw in this country after that attack took place. | ||
| It was a beautiful thing. | ||
| I think it really represented what we're talking about. | ||
| That as different as our ideas may be, as different as our backgrounds and stories may be, as diverse as our country is, we stand united as fellow Americans. | ||
| and we are there for each other, especially during those darkest of moments. | ||
| But increasingly we are seeing these divides further tearing us apart as a people | ||
| and a loss of that remembrance of what that unity is and why it's so important, | ||
| that common ground that we stand on as fellow Americans and how integral that is to our identity. | ||
| How do you think we get back to that? | ||
| 'Cause there's a feeling that we should get back to it. | ||
| Everyone's kind of like, oh, I'm tired of the hate, I'm tired of destroying everybody and the rest of it, | ||
| but no one's sort of leading us there yet. | ||
| I think that's the problem, is we have people in positions of power and influence, and yes, politicians, people in the mainstream media and others who profit or benefit in some way, shape, or form off of further deepening these divides and fanning those flames of hate that really undermine who we are as a country. | ||
| And I think the vast majority of people in this country are sick and tired of it. | ||
| They're sick and tired of the gridlock in Congress. | ||
| So does that sort of explain a little bit of the media coverage around you? | ||
| Because I noticed after that first debate, when you were getting Googled and everybody was going, well, who is this? | ||
| that will bring us together. | ||
| So does that sort of explain a little bit of the media coverage around you? | ||
| Because I noticed after that first debate, when you were getting Googled, | ||
| and everybody was going, "Who is this? | ||
| "Who is this?" | ||
| That suddenly, some of the mainstream outlets, so like BuzzFeed and HuffPo and the rest of them, | ||
| they were trying to link you to the alt-right and the trolls | ||
| and she's secretly being supported by conservatives Now, me and the people that are doing the online thing, it's like, we see this all the time. | ||
| If you step out of anything that sort of the modern left doesn't want you to do, you're automatically the bad guy. | ||
| But then when I saw it going after you, I was like, see, they just do this to everybody. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| I mean, it started before that, to be honest. | ||
| It started the very day that I announced my candidacy for president. | ||
| As if being anti-war, which is your number one piece, as if that is conservative. | ||
| I mean, that's what they're trying to sell now, which is bizarre. | ||
| A reporter asked me this question literally just yesterday after the New Hampshire Democratic Convention. | ||
| She said, well, you know, she's talking about how I've made it a central focus of my campaign that we need to end these wasteful counterproductive wars, work to end this new Cold War and arms race and redirect our taxpayer dollars That we've wasted for so long, to the tune of $6 trillion since 9-11 alone, redirect those resources back here to serve the needs of our people, to take care of the urgent concerns people have, whether it's healthcare, infrastructure, education. | ||
| And her point was, well, this sounds like a conservative message. | ||
| I said, what are you talking about? | ||
| Right. | ||
| She said, well, you know, the conservative message of how do you pay for things? | ||
| I said, are you kidding me? | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| I said, I'll tell you what. | ||
| Americans across this country are sick and tired of hearing from politicians and from | ||
| their government that there's not enough money to make sure that kids in Flint, kids in Newark, | ||
| kids in communities across this country can't have clean water to drink because the government | ||
| can't make sure that that infrastructure ensures clean water. | ||
| You know, they're sick and tired of hearing that, you know, levies are failing and there's | ||
| massive flooding in rural Iowa that's ruining farms for their entire year of crops, and | ||
| they're told, "Well, you know what? | ||
| Sorry, there's just not enough money to make sure that this infrastructure is holding to | ||
| keep you and your family safe." | ||
| So this is not a conservative concern. | ||
| This is an American concern. | ||
| And it is a call to action to change our priorities. | ||
| Bring about this sea change. | ||
| This is why I'm running for president. | ||
| To bring the leadership and the conviction to stand up to the foreign policy establishment, the military-industrial complex, bringing the experience that I have, both as a soldier as well as in Congress, to shift our priorities. | ||
| To stop this waste. | ||
| Well, it's just such a fascinating flip. | ||
| They're suddenly anti-war. | ||
| They want to sell it as conservative. | ||
| Most people are actually anti-war. | ||
| I mean, I think most people don't really want to go to war. | ||
| That being said, is Trump complicating the issue for you particularly a little bit? | ||
| Because Trump At least from where I'm sitting, has not been pro-war. | ||
| You may not be happy with some of the things he's doing, but he wants to get us out of Afghanistan. | ||
| It doesn't seem like we're going to be nation building. | ||
| So that being the anti-war candidate is a little trickier as opposed to if he was just more of a traditional Republican maybe. | ||
| I don't think it makes it tricky at all. | ||
| Trump campaigned a lot on this message of ending stupid wars, bringing our troops home, calling out Saudi Arabia for being one of the biggest supporters for terrorism that they are. | ||
| The problem is after he got into office, after he got elected, he chose to surround himself with The very same neocon war hawks that have been pushing for more of these counterproductive regime change wars for a very long time. | ||
| People like John Bolton, people he has now, Secretary Mike Pompeo. | ||
| And I think we find ourselves in the position that we're in where, in fact, Trump hasn't carried through on the promises that he made. | ||
| The rhetoric that he was using during that campaign. | ||
| And that's where I find so many people who are coming to our town hall saying they feel betrayed because of that. | ||
| Because he has not only not brought our troops home, and yes, he's working on getting our troops home from Afghanistan, and that is good for America. | ||
| I wish him success in doing that. | ||
| They should have come home a long time ago. | ||
| But we've got more troops in Syria. | ||
| He and his administration has pushed us very close to the brink of war with Iran, deploying more troops to Saudi Arabia and to the region, escalating tensions there. | ||
| While even though he says on television that he doesn't want to go to war with Iran, every one of his actions has pushed us to that brink where we sit today, where just a match could light the whole thing on fire. | ||
| How do you balance the rhetoric of saying, I'm against war, without sort of tipping to the enemy, whoever it may be, that you're not a pushover? | ||
| That seems to be one of the things. | ||
| Because I don't, yeah, because I don't, I don't say that I'm against, I mean, nobody wants war, trust me. | ||
| And as a veteran, I've seen the cost of war firsthand. | ||
| But I'm very specific in saying we need to end We've got to stop being the world's police trying to go around the world and pick off which dictators we don't like and keep and prop up the authoritarian dictators that we do like, as we've seen happen throughout our country's history. | ||
| End the wasteful regime change wars. | ||
| Maintain our national security by having a ready and capable military. | ||
| All right, so I want to do a whole bunch on all the issues. | ||
| who threaten the United States continue to work to defeat terrorist threats like | ||
| al-Qaeda and like ISIS and doing so in a smart and effective way. | ||
| All right so I want to do a whole bunch on on all the issues we'll just check off a whole bunch | ||
| but I got to just go backwards a little bit here. | ||
| Let's just talk about what's generally happening with the DNC because I think there's just a belief out there, whether for Democrats, Republicans, it doesn't matter, that the DNC just strikes people as deeply corrupt. | ||
| They basically screwed over Bernie last time. | ||
| There's a feeling now that even with you not being in the debate that it's just unclear which polls are allowed to be looked at and which aren't and how they accumulate all of them and look at the numbers and all that. | ||
| Do you think the DNC is actively working against you? | ||
| Do you think it is corrupt? | ||
| Do you think it is in bed with one of the other candidates or several of the other candidates? | ||
| What is happening? | ||
| What's clear is that this system lacks transparency. | ||
| The whole process is lacking transparency. | ||
| And that's the change and that's the reform that I'm calling for from the DNC in this. | ||
| Because if they're not transparent with their process, and you pointed out some of the issues that are coming to light here is, you know, well, these Small number of polls are qualifying. | ||
| These other ones are not. | ||
| Why is that? | ||
| Who are they actually talking to? | ||
| How many people are they talking to? | ||
| There are credible, accurate polls that they're choosing not to recognize and questionable polls that they are. | ||
| So the problem with all of this, and I speak as a strong Democrat, is that it creates a lack of trust. | ||
| Democratic voters that the DNC is actually working for their interest in | ||
| creating a very fair and transparent process and when you've got a lack of | ||
| trust then you've got people who wonder whether or not they should even be | ||
| involved at all whether or not they should show up to the caucuses and the | ||
| primaries if the fix is already in. | ||
| Yeah and that that is sort of how it feels. | ||
| I mean, even this whole thing with superdelegates that ultimately could, you know, override what the people voted for and the rest of it. | ||
| And I don't know, I know that there was a lot of turnover from four years ago, but I don't know that they've done the internal checks and balances. | ||
| Yeah, you know, there were a lot of people who were frustrated with what happened in 2016 who ran for, you know, those delegate positions to sit on the rules committee to try to bring about some of these changes, you know, I've been calling for an end to superdelegates for a while now, calling for open primaries, make it so that our system and our primaries are open, transparent, and actually representative of the votes that people are casting. | ||
| We're not anywhere close to where we need to be. | ||
| They got rid of superdelegates just in the first ballot at the convention, but if there is a challenge ballot, as you know, given a crowded primary, there may likely be, then in the second and any ongoing ballots, superdelegates will come into play. | ||
| Right, so ultimately the superdelegates still could override the will of the people. | ||
| Which is the whole problem with that whole superdelegate system. | ||
| What do you make just more broadly about just the general process? | ||
| Like when you're on stage and you had that moment that really caught fire when you were really taking Kamala Harris to task on some of the decisions she made related to criminal justice reform, and like that caught fire. | ||
| And then it's like, you have to just sort of do that to catch fire. | ||
| But that's the whole problem that I think with these debates is it's all about the media, their ratings, and ultimately profits. | ||
| You know, media is money. | ||
| Is that just us, though? | ||
| Like, I complain about the media all the time, too. | ||
| No, no. | ||
| But you don't think it's just that all of us sort of... Like, when I saw that moment, I was like, that's it! | ||
| That's the moment of the debate. | ||
| It's the soundbite, right? | ||
| But when you have the candidates who are on the stage, and you're given anywhere from 30 to 60 seconds To make your case to the American people about any one of a number of really important issues that we're facing, are voters really walking away with a good sense of a depth of understanding on an issue, the clear contrast between the positions that we hold? | ||
| You know, there are maybe, let's say, top ten things you would do to reform immigration, for example. | ||
| You don't get to make those points and make those differences when you've got these quick little soundbites, and the only thing making news at the end of it, the only thing people are promoting or remembering, are those flashpoints, are those soundbites that the media promotes. | ||
| And no, I don't think it's just us, because I've been hearing from folks who we're seeing out in the Labor Day parades, and people are saying, you know, gosh, you did great at the debate, but I really want to hear more. | ||
| really have an in-depth conversation with candidates, allow us to be able to make our case, | ||
| to share our experience, the positions we hold, the vision that we have for this country | ||
| in a meaningful way, and voters aren't getting that. | ||
| And you see some of them saying, "I don't have time for this. | ||
| "I don't get anything by spending two hours "watching that debate, so I'll go somewhere else." | ||
| Right, you don't feel more educated after, and that's how generally mainstream media | ||
| So these debates end up being kind of a charade about this is a providing a fair transparent process for voters to become educated but none of that's actually happening. | ||
| Yeah, well, I saw something that said that you basically won the climate change debate because you weren't in it. | ||
| Just by not being there, you know, that oddly was enough. | ||
| Do you think you'll be able to get back in? | ||
| I mean, do you think you're going to be able to make enough noise? | ||
| I honestly don't know. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| We'll see. | ||
| Because it's not about, you know, are we going to be able to get to where we need to in the polls. | ||
| There are 27 polls that are out, credible polls that show that I've met the standards set by the DNC, but they've just chosen not to recognize most of them. | ||
| What do you make of the general state of where the Democrats are right now? | ||
| Where it seems to me that Biden doesn't really want to run. | ||
| That's just my feeling is that he didn't run when he, you know, after Obama left and that they sort of brought him in because I think whoever the powers that be are, they kind of think, well, the progressives are really taking over. | ||
| And if there's any last chance for a more centrist democratic party, we've got to throw it. | ||
| To this guy. | ||
| Do you see that split in the party, that there's sort of like this ever-diminishing, more old-school Democrat or liberal versus the Democratic Socialists or something like that? | ||
| I wouldn't say that. | ||
| No, I wouldn't say that as it relates to Biden. | ||
| I don't doubt that he wants, I don't doubt that he wants to do this. | ||
| It's something that he's done, I don't know, what, three times before? | ||
| I don't know if this is his third or fourth time running. | ||
| Yeah, this is at least his third time. | ||
| Yeah, so I don't, I don't doubt his intentions. | ||
| I think there's a bigger question here about all of the different factions that exist within the Democratic Party. | ||
| And I think that a lot of the inward-facing attacks From one section to the other that we're seeing is not good for the Democratic Party, it's not good for the country. | ||
| All of these different labels and boxes, whether they are within the Democratic Party or outside of it, further divide us. | ||
| They further tell us, and this is one of the challenges that people in Washington have had with me from the very beginning, is I don't fit cleanly in any one of those categories or those labels, and they're scratching their head like, well, we can't figure her out. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Which is incredible, because it's very simple. | ||
| That's how most of us are. | ||
| It's how most of us are. | ||
| We look at things, look at issues, like, does this make sense or does it not make sense? | ||
| But for me, it's... | ||
| I'm motivated, not by an interest to serve my party or to get somewhere politically, but I really actually want to serve my country. | ||
| I really want to serve the people of this country. | ||
| I'm going to do my best to do that. | ||
| And that's how, that's the lens through which I view these different issues. | ||
| Does this action or policy, in my view, best help people? | ||
| Does it best help solve a problem? | ||
| Or is it something that's going to be harmful or cause further stress or struggle or pain and suffering? | ||
| I'm trying to remember, in that first debate, did you speak Spanish? | ||
| I did not. | ||
| You did not. | ||
|
unidentified
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No. | |
| Okay, so that to me was sort of like the perfect example of, I think you know this about me, like, I mean, identity politics to me, I truly believe that it is the most dangerous force in American politics today because it is what will turn us, it's the reverse of what the American dream was founded on, that we would look at each other by skin color and gender and sexuality and all those things. | ||
| And watching the other candidates do it, and if you had done it too, I would still be saying the same thing, it struck me as the worst sort of pandering of like, do these people not speak English? | ||
| And if they don't speak English, perhaps we should speak English so that they learn English so they can be more assimilated and integrated and all of those things. | ||
| And yet identity politics seems to have completely taken over. | ||
| Yeah, there was a woman, we did a 4th of July parade, a bunch of them actually in New Hampshire. | ||
| It was right after that first set of debates and it made an impact on me. | ||
| There was a woman who was sitting with her family and friends at the end of one of the parades and we stopped and we said hi. | ||
| She was from Central America and she made it a point to pull me aside and she put her hands on my arms. | ||
| She was very serious and she said, whatever you do in a future debate, don't speak Spanish. | ||
| She found that to be so patronizing and blatantly so. | ||
| And I think that the identity politics that are being used, again, to further divide us, to further drive separations between us, and purely for selfish political gain, is a real danger. | ||
| I agree with you. | ||
| It undermines that unity that we have that doesn't come with groupthink or saying, well, hey, we're all Exactly the same. | ||
| We think the same way. | ||
| Not at all. | ||
| It's that unity that we have in recognizing our diversity and our strength and who we are as Americans and the principles and freedoms that make up the bedrock of our country. | ||
| So it's interesting that that's how you ended that because I just, when I was tweeting out that you were coming on, I retweeted one of your last tweets which was, you know, like a 30-second clip where you talk about freedom and liberty and things like that. | ||
| I love all those words, but those words now have been really associated with the right and not with Democrats. | ||
| Do you find it odd that, I mean, right in there, there's a giant American flag in my control room and all of those things, and I've got the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence in there. | ||
| Like, do you find it odd that it seems that the Democrats aren't embracing those things? | ||
| There's a weird running from them. | ||
| I'm disheartened by it. | ||
| Because of all of those who have sacrificed for our freedoms. | ||
| Just yesterday morning, I went back and read Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address again. | ||
| You know, that short, I think it was less than two minutes, where he very powerfully laid out how best we can honor those who gave their lives on that battlefield to birth a new nation based on those principles of | ||
| freedom and liberty and equality and that we have a government that is truly of, | ||
| by and for the people. | ||
| And that's where as, as some folks in the media and others are saying, | ||
| "Oh, well Tulsi, you didn't make it to the debate. | ||
| Obviously you're going to drop out of the race." | ||
| I'm not quitting. | ||
| I'm not dropping out of this race because it is that same inspiration that Abraham Lincoln spoke of, | ||
| of how we best honor those who sacrificed all. | ||
| My brothers and sisters in uniform who didn't come home with us from Iraq. | ||
| That inspires me and motivates me to continue forward in this campaign because when it comes right down to it, it is the people in this country who have the power to decide the election and who have the power to make the kind of change I believe we need to see. | ||
| All right, so on the libertarian side, they love you on the war stuff, right? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| One of the things, I was getting a lot of tweets today, well, you gotta ask her about guns, you gotta ask her about guns, because the general feeling, you know, they want their guns, basically. | ||
| So can you just sort of lay out your position? | ||
| Yeah, I think that I stand up for Second Amendment rights. | ||
| I don't think it conflicts with the need. | ||
| I feel we also need to have sensible gun safety regulation. | ||
| I think that the fact that we have not seen any kind of legislation pass for a very long time is because on one side you have people who say there should be absolutely no regulation whatsoever on guns and who can own them, and on the other side you have folks who are saying that they want to repeal the Second Amendment. | ||
| and they want to get rid of guns completely and take everyone's guns away. | ||
| And you have those two extremes on both sides, kind of pointing their arrows at each other, | ||
| with no real, real substantive dialogue and conversation happening with that entire space | ||
| in the middle, where we recognize that there is no conflict between upholding our Second Amendment | ||
| rights while also making sure that these guns are not put into the hands of those who would seek | ||
| to do incredible harm to other people. | ||
| So what would be a sensible law that isn't passed already? | ||
| Because it always seems to come down to that. | ||
| Well, the background checks. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| I mean, that's one that we just passed with some bipartisan support from the House. | ||
| It's sitting in the Senate now waiting for movement. | ||
| What would it do? | ||
| It would strengthen background checks? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Or extend them? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| And that's where I think that was recently pointed out, the shooter in El Paso. | ||
| That if that law had already been enacted, that it was likely that would have prevented him from being able to purchase the guns that he bought. | ||
| What would you say to the people that would say, well, no matter how many laws you put in place, the bad guys aren't the ones that follow the laws, and that we already have so many guns out there, that yeah, you can pass whatever you want, you can say whatever you want, but actually, bad guys don't follow laws, and these things are just gonna keep happening. | ||
| Well, I think there's a few elements to this. | ||
| There is some of these cases in these mass shootings where they are going and purchasing guns, you know, whether it's from a dealer or a gun show or whatever it is. | ||
| These are not people who are going and, you know, buying a gun from the trunk of a car. | ||
| So there's the issue of how we can improve or strengthen our laws to make sure that those loopholes are closed. | ||
| But you're right, there is a problem with the guns and the kinds of shootings that are happening every single day in cities like Chicago. | ||
| You know, people, families who are impacted. | ||
| So is that the weird thing, though? | ||
| Because Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws. | ||
| Yeah, no, it is. | ||
|
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It is. | |
| And we've got to recognize that. | ||
| You know, I think that's unfortunate sometimes that those who are calling for gun safety reforms often turn a blind eye to the reality of what's happening to families every day in cities like that. | ||
| You know, where kids are being shot on their way to school. | ||
| There's incredible violence that's happening in some of these inner cities that we as a country have to recognize. | ||
| This is a deeper challenge that we have as a country that goes beyond passage of legislation. | ||
| That is one piece of it. | ||
| But it is not the only thing that's going to help make sure that we're protecting our kids and that we're protecting our loved ones. | ||
| When you hear things like the city of San Francisco designating the NRA a terrorist organization, do you think that's helping or hurting? | ||
| I don't think. | ||
| I think that further deepens the divide. | ||
| I don't support the tactics that the NRA uses at all. | ||
| I think that they are part of the problem, not part of the solution. | ||
| I think that what we need as a country is for more dialogue to happen. | ||
| Between people who feel like they sit on opposing sides of this camp because they actually just talk to each other. | ||
| I think most sensible folks would be able to come together and say, you know, when it comes right down to it, I think our goals and objectives are probably closer together than we realize. | ||
| What's your general philosophy on sort of usage of power? | ||
| Because one of the things I keep seeing, and this has now gone on for years, but every president uses more and more executive actions, and then what happens is the next president just reverses them with the same pen. | ||
| Kamala Harris, I mean, every day she's tweeting another thing about my first, you know, they always do everything on the first day of office, which nobody does. | ||
| But, you know, first day of office, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that, I'm gonna take the guns away, all these things. | ||
| And it's like, even if you wanna take all the guns away, you shouldn't want it to be done by the president just signing a piece of paper. | ||
| I agree completely. | ||
| What's your general philosophy on how much authority the president should have and how you would govern? | ||
| Yeah, I mean the Constitution provides some very clear limitations on what the responsibility and role of the executive branch is and what the responsibility and role in Congress has. | ||
| So you look at that as the framework to be able to make those decisions. | ||
| But you also look at this... Do you think in a weird way, people don't care, sorry to interrupt, but do you think in a weird way people have sort of made the presidency into such a King-like, celebrity-like role that they actually, in a weird way, they almost want the president to be able to do everything, where they don't even realize that it's just a third of the government. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And they want the president to be able to do everything until the presidency falls into the hands of somebody you disagree with. | ||
| And you're like, hold on a second. | ||
| What are you doing? | ||
| You're abusing your power. | ||
| And that's the hypocrisy that we're seeing right now with some of my fellow Democrats who are running for president. | ||
| They're criticizing Trump for how he has abused his executive power and his executive authority. | ||
| And in my view, in many of those cases, how it's turned out badly in hurting people, but then going in and saying, well, you know what? | ||
| If I were president, I would do X, Y, and Z because, you know, in my opinion, this is what's going to be good for people. | ||
| You can't have it both ways. | ||
| It's important at a practical level as well, because you see how Trump has gone in and much of his executive authority, or the things that he's been pushing, has been to try to undo things that President Obama has done. | ||
| Now, agree or disagree, wherever you fall on both sides of that, | ||
| that creates a problem for the American people. | ||
| It creates a problem for our economy and business. | ||
| It creates a problem when you have this uncertainty. | ||
| It creates a problem with our foreign policy, where things can go quickly, shifting one way or the other, | ||
| where it ends up doing a disservice to the people. | ||
| It's necessary to be able to do-- | ||
| to respect the responsibilities that both branches of the government have, all three branches of the | ||
| government has, and to be able to work in a bipartisan way | ||
| to pass legislation that will be lasting, rather than something that will quickly be overturned | ||
| or repealed as soon as the hands of political power shift one way or the other. | ||
| Would you try to kick more power back to the states? | ||
| Because I think that's one of the things that's been lost. | ||
| We literally don't talk about it anymore. | ||
| I mean, we just talk about the president coming in and this is what I'm going to do and every state will have Medicare or every state will have this gun law or anything else. | ||
| I think it's an important part of this is what we're talking about, the constitutional authorities, and making sure that at the federal government, the federal government is providing those services that the federal government is responsible for, but also looking at what are the states best equipped to do in serving their people. | ||
| funding for education. I use that as an example. | ||
| Right now in New Hampshire, as I just left there, I talked to a bunch of teachers who are teaching special | ||
| education and their education is funded purely through real property | ||
|
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tax. | |
| Now in the wealthier communities, that's not a problem and they have a | ||
| plethora of funding to be able to provide the service they need to our kids. | ||
| But in the more rural communities, there are more people living in poverty, and they end up paying much higher real property tax just to be able to cover the basic needs for the kids in their schools. | ||
| To me, that's a big problem. | ||
| Our kids, ultimately, they're not getting the resources that we need. | ||
| So that's a role that I think the federal government can come in and play in making sure that our kids are getting their resources that they need. | ||
| So you wouldn't want the federal government to run education in every state, per se, but just kind of fill the gaps, where in cases like that it's not quite working? | ||
| Right, because every state's different. | ||
| In Hawaii, for example, Providing education to kids about Native Hawaiian culture is something that's really important to us. | ||
| That's something that's important to our state, but not going to be important here in California. | ||
| They may have something else that they would like to do for kids in their state. | ||
| So, you know, it's always a balance. | ||
| I think it's important to have this debate and this conversation about the role of the federal government and the state government that, you know, again, we see overreach happening too often. | ||
| With that in mind, are you worried that we just never talk about cutting spending anymore? | ||
| Well, the Republicans talk about it and never do it. | ||
| The Democrats never even talk about it anymore. | ||
| How would you deal with that? | ||
| Because I don't believe it's a tax issue. | ||
| I believe it's a spending issue. | ||
| I agree. | ||
| I mean, this is why ending the wasteful war spending has been such a central focus of my campaign, because unless we do that, unless we deal with the cost of war, then we're not going to have the resources that we need to deal with all of these other things. | ||
| It's not a situation of where you think there's an endless amount of money and we can sit here, we can do anything, we can do everything. | ||
| There are limitations. | ||
| People in this country work very hard and they pay their taxes with the hope, diminishing hope these days, but with the hope that those tax dollars will be used to serve them in the way that they're intended. | ||
| What we see for so long now is just the opposite. | ||
| You see a lot of waste and you see a lot of poor decisions being made about how those dollars are not going to serve the needs of our people. | ||
| So one of the ones that I thought would be interesting for us to talk about is abortion because I think you and I actually are evolving in different ways, oddly, because you used to be pro-life and now you're pro-choice. | ||
| I've been pro-choice my whole life. | ||
| I still am, but I always say I'm begrudgingly pro-choice. | ||
| And part of it is because it seems to me that the Democrats are going so crazy with pushing how much later the abortion can be. | ||
| Quite literally now, we have the phrase post-birth abortions. | ||
| And now, you know, you only have to talk to one doctor. | ||
| And, you know, often they won't even admit that a week before a nine-month pregnancy is coming to term, that that's still not a human. | ||
| I mean, some really, really radical stuff that is really making me challenge my own beliefs. | ||
| But since you went the other way on this, how did you evolve on this? | ||
| Really just in understanding the role of government and I take a more libertarian position on this issue that government really shouldn't be in that place of dictating to a woman the choice that she should make. | ||
| I think that there should be some restrictions, though. | ||
| You know, for me personally, I would not make that choice for myself, but I don't believe that I should be telling anybody else the kinds of decisions that they should make for themselves or for their family. | ||
| And therefore, a woman should have the right to choose, and I will stand up and fight to protect her right to do so. | ||
| I think the third trimester unless a woman's life or severe health consequences is at risk then there shouldn't be an abortion in the third trimester. | ||
| Does that seem to be the issue more than anything else that the two sides just cannot Get close on like to me it seems because it's dealing with I mean it's dealing with the most existential questions that there are I mean the very nature of life and then it starts getting into obviously religion versus secularism and a whole bunch of other things. | ||
| It seems to me the one where I always say it's like just because you think one way it doesn't automatically mean everyone else is evil on the other side and you can flip that and yet we really have a hard time doing this one with abortion. | ||
| I think that that right there is The necessary kind of conversation to have because it is the assumption, right, that if you're not on my side on this then you are evil. | ||
| Right, that somehow Republicans hate women and Democrats hate babies. | ||
| Right, exactly. | ||
| That's really not the case. | ||
| I disagree with Hillary Clinton on a ton of things, but when she came out and she said abortion should be safe, legal, and rare, that's something that I agree with. | ||
| The deeper questions, the philosophical questions that you're talking about, I think are discussions that we need to have, but ultimately, in my | ||
| view, the government should not be the one dictating which side of this, whether | ||
| you're, you know, you're saying that you're taking away a woman's right to | ||
| choose or you are mandating that they take another, that they actually have | ||
| an abortion. I don't think that that's a role government should play. And so | ||
| what would you say to the people that would say, "Well, wait a minute, the | ||
| government's supposed to protect life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." | ||
| What about the life of the fetus? | ||
| You're just having that supersede. | ||
| You're having the woman's rights just supersede. | ||
| A woman is the one who's got to live with whatever decision that she makes. | ||
| And that's where I draw the line and say that the government should not be in the position of telling that woman what choice she must make. | ||
| Where are you on reparations? | ||
| I supported the bill, H.R. | ||
| 40, that's in Congress, a lot of people have been talking about, that really would bring a discussion forward about our country's past, the injustice, the terrible injustice of slavery, and what impact that has had across generations. | ||
| I think it's the right point to make in how we move forward together in a country to bring together a commission of people so that we can have this discussion as a country. | ||
| Do you think, when I've heard Democrats talk about it, and you know, they'll sort of come up with numbers. | ||
| I had Marianne Williamson in here, and she sort of just mentioned X billion, I don't even remember the number. | ||
| And it was just sort of like, oh, you're just, like, it just seems imaginary to me. | ||
| Like, so what are you gonna say? | ||
| We're gonna give all... | ||
| African Americans, $10,000 or something. | ||
| And then are they going to sign a piece of paper that says, we're good to go? | ||
| Or what would stop the generations after them from saying, well, Grandma, you sold me out for $50,000. | ||
| I mean, you could just pick a number. | ||
| It almost seems sort of antithetical to human psychology or something. | ||
| I think that's where being arbitrary about this does a disservice to the whole objective of this legislation itself. | ||
| The point of this is to bring to light and bring to the forefront in our society today what happened in the past and recognizing that it's not all just sequestered in the past. | ||
| That there have been generational impacts based on the decisions made by other people previous to our time, but we've got to recognize what this is and what this means as a country and have this conversation, not just in one small subsection or another, but have this conversation together about how we move forward. | ||
| And so I think it does harm to that objective to kind of arbitrarily point out, well, this or that, or this is going to be the way that we're going to do it. | ||
| I think that In the meantime, we continue to work towards bettering the quality of life of all Americans, recognizing there are people who are really, really struggling and suffering in this country, and not sitting around and waiting for that commission to be able to tell us exactly how to do that and for whom. | ||
| Yeah, so we talked a little bit about spending, but on the tax side, what's your general philosophy on taxes? | ||
| How do you decide who you're going to tax, how much you're going to tax them, who you're going to give it to? | ||
| I mean, it's got to be fair. | ||
| And this is something we'll be releasing later on through the course of our campaign as far as a detailed tax plan. | ||
| But we know one thing that the tax system we have right now, the tax code that we have is not fair. | ||
| It's not fair and it's hurting the people who are struggling the most and benefiting the very few who are living the most comfortably and who frankly don't need the help. | ||
| You know, we often talk about the Amazon example of how now, not just for this year, but for previous years, they've gotten by with paying no taxes and actually getting a pretty sizable tax credit. | ||
| As a small businessman, paying more in taxes than Amazon does seem wrong to me. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| And others will say, well, you know, it's legal, but that's the whole point. | ||
| The fact that they have tax loopholes, serious tax loopholes that they can exploit, that have put them in this position, while you as a small business owner and many others across the country have no tax loophole that you can exploit to get the same good deal that they got, points to the heart of the problem. | ||
| And this is where I talk about everywhere I go, One glaring example of what happens when you've got a government of the rich and powerful rather than a government of, by, and for the people. | ||
| So the reform we need to bring about to our tax code has to be a fair one that does level the playing field and makes it so that we are not benefiting the very few at the expense of everybody else. | ||
| So one of the things I noticed, you know I was on tour with Jordan Peterson for most of last year and I went to Hawaii literally for the gig and I was like I want to see Tulsi but it didn't work out and I flew back that same night. | ||
| But one of the things that I noticed just from an outsider going to a hundred some odd cities in the United States was that where Republicans were in control. | ||
| The cities, this is just what I saw, was that the cities seemed cleaner and, you know, Salt Lake City and Dallas, all of those sort of more Republican-leaning cities. | ||
| And the places that seemed the worst, San Francisco, I mean, a lot of the cities here in California, even just where I live now in Los Angeles, the homelessness is way up, all of these things. | ||
| And I think people are starting to pick up on this, that there's a certain rhetoric like, oh, we should give more to poor people, which I think most people in their hearts want to do, but that it doesn't necessarily work. | ||
| So how do you make sure that if you want to tax certain people who are doing well to help other people, how do you make sure it actually works and it's not just this thing that you're saying, because you kind of feel good, you know, it feels good, we're going to help poor people, that feels good. | ||
| But how do you make sure that it actually works? | ||
| Because I didn't really see that. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| When I went to all these different cities. | ||
| Well, I'll challenge the premise that you're laying out for a minute because the homeless crisis you brought up. | ||
| I mean, this is a homeless crisis that is impacting our whole country. | ||
| And on the financial services committee that I sit on, we have jurisdiction over HUD. | ||
| And therefore affordable housing. | ||
| And we've had some pretty impactful hearings focused on how we deal with this affordable housing crisis. | ||
| And there are Republicans who are just as passionate about how we do this and the need for it as there are Democrats. | ||
| I think recognizing that this isn't just an issue affecting blue states. | ||
| This is an issue that's affecting the country. | ||
| And we've got to come together to resolve it. | ||
| The debate is about how. | ||
| How best do we do that? Some say that there should be only federally funded housing projects that are truly affordable, | ||
| for example, versus public-private partnerships that bring together, say, | ||
| you know, if we can get a government lease for a dollar a year on a | ||
| plot of land, make a deal with the county, and you and you can bring in a private developer to do it at a | ||
| cheaper price so that that cheaper price is passed on to the consumer. | ||
| These are the kinds of conversations that we're having. I like that conversation. | ||
|
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That's where I can go, "Okay, well then we can get the government involved." Right, and that gets to the point, | |
| which I think is an important one, is | ||
| it's not about if we're helping people who are poor or in poverty, | ||
| it's about making sure that what we are doing is actually helping. | ||
| I think that's really important. | ||
| It's both important from a fiscal responsibility perspective, but really most importantly, if we are sincere about wanting to help people, let's actually make sure that they're able to be helped in the way that they need it most. | ||
| Is the problem though that often when we're helping people, we're actually just trapping them? | ||
| Because they're- How do you mean? | ||
| Well, that they get in affordable housing, and then it's like, all right, well, now I'm paying, say, $300 to be in an apartment in a decent area, and then if you look and you go, well, wait a minute, now if I get a better job and I'm making more, which gives me dignity and respect and all of those things, well, I'm gonna lose the affordable housing and now I'm gonna need a second job just to move out. | ||
| I mean, we see this. | ||
| I lived in New York City my whole life where half these buildings were rent-stabilized versus market value, and then you'd see, quite literally, families that were there for generations And it was like, why would you go anywhere? | ||
| That is a problem that I think needs to be fixed, where there is no bridge. | ||
| Someone came to a town hall meeting the other day and raised this issue about Medicaid, that a family who had qualified for Medicaid because of the income level that they had, felt trapped because if they started to do well and make a little bit more they were fearful that they would lose their health coverage and then they wouldn't be able to get the medicine that they needed. | ||
| So they catch 22. | ||
| So I think that generally, while there are always unfortunately some that abuse the system, I think generally people want to do well for themselves and their families. | ||
| They want to be able to continue to grow and improve their own quality of life. | ||
| I think there are these problems within our system that creates this Catch-22 | ||
| where they're either comfortable in the situation that they're in, but if they start to do | ||
| just a little bit better, then they risk losing their house, | ||
| they risk losing their healthcare, they risk losing that security | ||
| that they need for their families. | ||
| Where if we did make it incremental or provide this bridge that doesn't just say, | ||
| well, you either got help or you're out on the street on your own. | ||
| I think there's a practical way to solve this. | ||
| Yeah, so we'll just do one or two more big issues, then we'll do some sillier fun stuff. | ||
| How about that? | ||
| So immigration, I think there's a general sense that the candidates, the Democrats are basically trying to outdo each other for open borders, something like that. | ||
| A, do you think that's a fair way to start the question? | ||
| And B, where do you sit on that? | ||
| I don't support open borders. | ||
| Without secure borders, we don't really have a country. | ||
| And while some of the other Democratic candidates will say, well, open borders, that's a conservative argument, and that's not really what's being advocated for, if you look at the practical implications of some of the things they're pushing for, it is essentially open borders. | ||
| I think there's a few things that we've got to do when we're talking about immigration reform. | ||
| One is, we've got to have secure borders. | ||
| This is not Trump's wall from sea to shining sea. | ||
| It's about seeing again what makes sense. | ||
| I look at things from a practical, objective-oriented standpoint. | ||
| I'm a soldier, so I look at what's our objective? | ||
| Secure the borders. | ||
| In some places, it may make the most sense to have a wall or some kind of physical barrier in place. | ||
| In other places, it won't make sense. | ||
| So you use technology and use all the other tools that we have ultimately to accomplish that objective | ||
| of security at the borders. | ||
| Wait, let me pause you there. | ||
| So is the problem though, just from that starting point, which seems so obvious, I think the average person | ||
| watching this is going, of course, countries exist because there are borders. | ||
| But even that starting point, you're gonna get people that are further to the left, are you going, | ||
| well, there's some level of racism or xenophobia there, or, I mean, that's what you, there's always that subtext | ||
| Which is, I think it's a big problem. | ||
| Because it takes away from, again, be very clear-eyed and pragmatic and practical about this. | ||
| If you want to advocate for open borders, that's fine. | ||
| Stand on that platform. | ||
| Make that argument. | ||
| And have your facts and your evidence to back it up. | ||
| I don't believe that's smart. | ||
| I think that our country needs secure borders, just like we need to reform our completely broken immigration system. | ||
| Our legal immigration system is not working for anybody. | ||
| It's not working for our economy. | ||
| It's not working for our businesses. | ||
| It's not working for our farmers. | ||
| It's not working for our families, and our broken legal immigration system is only worsening | ||
| the problems that we're having with people who are then coming to this country, whether | ||
| it be on tourist visas or other visas and then overstaying, or you have people who are | ||
| trying to come into our country between ports of entry. | ||
| For those who are seeking asylum in our country, we're going to have to do something about | ||
| it. | ||
| asylum in our country. | ||
| We're seeing so much of what's happening at the border because of a severe lack of resources going towards those judges and administrators who are there to adjudicate and take these cases and make their assessments and make those decisions. | ||
| I think broadly those are the three things that right away we need to work towards doing and I think if we did so If you take away all the political noise and the rhetoric and the flamethrowing, I think we'd actually be able to get legislation passed. | ||
| We'd actually be able to solve some of these problems. | ||
| Is this one of those weird ones where it's sort of what you said before about how when you're in power you act one way and when you're not in power you act another way? | ||
| Like almost putting aside the strange way that Trump speaks, the things that he says about the border, actually you can find videos of Obama And Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer saying almost the exact same thing. | ||
| And then everyone just takes the opposite position because now they're the ones in opposition. | ||
| I think this is the epitome of the hyper-partisanship and why there's gridlock in Washington. | ||
| And it's something that, when I first got elected to Congress in 2012, we had 84 of us who were elected in that year. | ||
| There were, I think, 50 Democrats and 34 Republicans. | ||
| For a couple of days, we all went to Washington. | ||
| We're getting oriented around the place. | ||
| And we spent a lot of time together. | ||
| And then all of a sudden, it was like a flip switch. | ||
| And the Democrats went one way. | ||
| The Republicans went the other way. | ||
| And everything was separate after that. | ||
| And we were told some of the same things, which was, all right, look, you're going to—here's the Democratic agenda. | ||
| You're not going to work with Republicans, and especially these ones who are in these districts that we want to beat, | ||
| because you might make them look good, and so on and so on. | ||
| We don't want that to happen. | ||
| And my Republican friends told me they were told basically the same thing, pointing to, | ||
| hey, regardless-- two things. | ||
| Regardless of whether the substance of a bill is good, if it's got the other guy's letter next to the bill | ||
| or next to the name, you shouldn't vote for it. | ||
| But if we reintroduce the same idea or the same bill, and it's our guy or our gal, then yeah, by all means, | ||
| go and champion that forward. | ||
| And I think this is exactly the problem. | ||
| And this is, I mean, I'm frustrated with this. | ||
| This is what the American people are so frustrated with, is they're like screaming and yelling from the sidelines saying, hey, what about us? | ||
| In all of this, you have two hugely powerful political parties more interested in battling each other and seeing how many wins they can get in their columns so that they can win the next election at the expense of the well-being of our people. | ||
| That is the biggest problem here. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| This is total non sequitur, but it just reminded me that when I tweeted out that you were coming on, that a whole bunch of people wanted me to ask you about Syria because you said you would talk to Assad. | ||
| You have talked to Assad? | ||
| I did. | ||
| You did talk to Assad? | ||
|
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Yeah. | |
| Okay. | ||
| So I think a lot of people then think, okay, now she's supporting Assad and supporting the things she's doing, and then you get the articles, oh, she's a Russian, all that. | ||
| All that nonsense, let's put all that stuff aside for a second. | ||
| How do you balance the ability to build bridges wherever you want to build them versus empowering somebody that is actually truly dangerous? | ||
| There's one thing I know very clearly and deeply, that the only alternative to diplomacy is war. | ||
| So we've got to have the courage to have those conversations, to have those meetings in the interest of pursuing peace and strengthening our national security, and I'd be willing to meet with Brutal dictators, adversaries, whomever I would need to meet with if it meant there was a possibility of preventing more of my brothers and sisters in uniform from being sent to fight in a war that had nothing to do with our national security, that had nothing to do with furthering the interests of the American people. | ||
| So it's a risk you just have to take, you think, ultimately? | ||
| It's a political risk, but this is the problem. | ||
| We've got to be able to put the well-being of our people ahead of politics. | ||
| I didn't make that decision because I thought, oh, this is going to be great for my re-election campaign. | ||
| Not at all. | ||
| I went and I had that meeting for the same reason that I make the decisions. | ||
| All the decisions that I make is really trying to do my best to serve our country and, once again, to prevent more of our troops from unnecessarily being sent into harm's way. | ||
| And look, there are important examples of this for us to point to, of presidents who | ||
| have done this in the past, Reagan and Gorbachev, for example. | ||
| You have JFK and Khrushchev. | ||
| You know, you've got Nixon going to China, meeting with Mao, going and meeting with people | ||
| who were responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands, if not millions of people. | ||
| But why did they have the courage to do that? | ||
| Because it wasn't politically popular at the time, but they had the courage to do that because they were looking out for the best interests of the American people and to further the cause of peace and safety and security on this planet. | ||
| All right, I have no segue to get to these last two from Peace. | ||
| Now we're going to talk about the most important things, the two final questions. | ||
| I know you have a hard time because you've got a town hall in town, and I know LA traffic, so I want to make sure you get there in time. | ||
| Your workout routine. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| I just saw the video. | ||
| You're in some pretty damn good shape. | ||
| I work at it, man. | ||
| I work at it. | ||
| I'm still in the army, so I still have like a PT test that I gotta pass, and plus it just, it helps clear the mind, and helps me sleep better at night, and it's just, I think it's important to be of good physical and mental fitness. | ||
| Yeah, and then, okay, just one more. | ||
| This is the question that all of the internet needs the answer to, and I think as someone from Hawaii, you should have a particular insight into this. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Pineapple on pizza. | ||
| Oh, geez. | ||
|
unidentified
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I like it. | |
| This, the whole thing could depend on this. | ||
|
unidentified
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I like it. | |
| No, I know. | ||
| Yeah? | ||
| I like it. | ||
| I like it. | ||
| But here's the misnomer, is that just because we grow the most beautiful, sweet pineapples in Hawaii, pineapple on pizza is not a Hawaiian thing. | ||
| Like, I know it's average, like, you go to Domino's, like, everyone's like, oh, Hawaiian pizza. | ||
| Like, we love our pineapples. | ||
| You're blowing my mind right now. | ||
| To my knowledge, this did not originate in Hawaii. | ||
| We eat pineapples in a different way there, trust me. | ||
| Are you grilling pineapples? | ||
| What are you doing with pineapples? | ||
| Yeah, actually. | ||
| Yeah, you can grill pineapples. | ||
| They're beautiful. | ||
| But you just eat them fresh, and that's the best way. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| All right, well, it's been a pleasure talking. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Oh, no, they're giving us more time. | ||
| I guess they're giving us a little more time. | ||
| So tell me about your workout. | ||
| That's what I want to know. | ||
| My workout is not as impressive as you. | ||
| Can I ask you how old you are? | ||
| I'm 38. | ||
| You're 38. | ||
| So I'm 43. | ||
| So I got five years out of you. | ||
| But I was I was watching your workout. | ||
| I was like, man, she moves. | ||
| Well, I've got something going on with my shoulder right now. | ||
| And I need to I need to I do a lot of cardio now because that's good. | ||
| My shoulder's been bothering me. | ||
| I haven't been lifting that much. | ||
| I grew up doing martial arts and surfing a lot, so I've always just loved being physically active. | ||
| But yeah, I posted a couple of these videos and people have been asking for more, posting comments like, oh my god, I just ate three donuts now. | ||
| I think I better get off my butt and go to the gym, but I think it is, again, we talk about healthcare and we should be pushing preventive health measures that we can take just so we can be healthier people. | ||
| Is that the fun part of this? | ||
| There's such craziness and you're fighting your own party in a certain way to get back into the debates and the rest of it, but the fun part, that you're posting videos working out and that's what catches on with people? | ||
| Yeah, I don't know. | ||
| There's a lot that's fun, actually, that I really appreciate about going on this campaign and being able to travel to different parts of the country, seeing and learning about. | ||
| You know, we were at this sweet corn fair and festival in Adel, Iowa. | ||
| And it's such a cool thing because we walked in this parade and this farmer there in Adel, he grows an entire acre of corn every year so that he can give it away for free at the Adel Sweet Corn Festival. | ||
| And he built this massive corn steamer and this whole contraption himself so that he could steam, you know, Thousands and thousands of ears of corn. | ||
| It's just a huge deal in that community, and it's so much fun to be able to go and to hang out with them, to eat their sweet corn with them, and just to be reminded again of, like, we live in a really great country with amazing people who have so much love for each other and for our country. | ||
| And that's where I remain inspired about the bright future that we have before us. | ||
| That's why people do have to get out and travel more, because I think one of the reasons that I'm hopeful, despite the amount of time I spend in the online world where it's just a constant battle, is that when I'm traveling and wherever I go, it's like everyone that I meet is friendly, is nice. | ||
| Have you even had any really negative experiences on the campaign trail? | ||
| Not super negative. | ||
| I mean, again, there's a lot of toxic poison that comes out online, but probably the worst thing I've gotten is Walking down a parade route for the Fourth of July, and the guy with the MAGA hat on giving me a thumbs down as I'm walking by. | ||
| Like, eh. | ||
|
unidentified
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I told him, and I responded to him, I was like, aloha, brother. | |
| It's like, it's cool, man, don't worry. | ||
| Your thumbs down's not gonna... No, I'm not worried about that. | ||
| Yeah, that's not what's gonna get ya. | ||
| Let's just jump back to that incident with Kamala. | ||
| Were you setting up for that? | ||
| No, no. | ||
| I mean, you know, I was obviously aware of the different issues. | ||
| Criminal justice reform is something that I've been working on throughout my time in Congress and I feel really strongly about. | ||
| And, you know, it's something that she talks about being very proud of, her record. | ||
| Uh, as Attorney General and, um, you know, the role that she had as prosecutor for San Francisco. | ||
| And I felt it was, uh, important that she speak about how she is proud of the record that has, uh, really inflicted such harm on people and actually, uh, undermined the kinds of changes that we need to see in our criminal justice system. | ||
| You know, she's Because it speaks to the whole underpinning of her campaign. | ||
| She's running to be prosecutor, a prosecutor president, a prosecutor for the people. | ||
| When she was actually the prosecutor for California, the decisions that she made actually ended up hurting people. | ||
| So what would you do for the non-violent drug offenders that are in jail now? | ||
| I think we need to expunge their records and to send them home. | ||
| I think they're in jail because of a failed war on drugs. | ||
| And we've got to recognize now how many generations have gone by who have fallen victim to this failed war on drugs. | ||
| I've got the only bipartisan bill in Congress to end the marijuana prohibition. | ||
| And we had a whole group of people who came out when we held the press conference to announce the introduction of this bill. | ||
| And one of them, you know, there were veterans there who were talking about how folks coming back from multiple combat deployments, dealing with chronic pain, dealing with post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury, coming back to the VA only to be told, well, look, your only option is OxyContin or highly addictive opioids. | ||
| ...being federally prohibited from even giving them a referral in a state where medicinal marijuana is legal to go to a dispensary. | ||
| They can't even do that. | ||
| Right, because that's all run by the Fed, where it's still illegal. | ||
|
unidentified
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Right. | |
| So that still supersedes the state on that? | ||
| Right, exactly. | ||
| And so we talked about states' rights. | ||
| I mean, this is a perfect example of how it's over 30 states at this point that have done some form of legalization of marijuana, whether it's just medicinal or full recreational. | ||
| But all of those dispensaries, as well as the people who go there, the financial institutions, a huge problem. | ||
| They're all running on a cash market because banks are federally regulated. | ||
| and are afraid of federal prosecution. | ||
| But that dark cloud of prosecution at the federal level hangs over everyone who touches any part of this. | ||
| And, but, you know, veterans are being hurt in the process. | ||
| But there was a guy there, we was talking about criminal justice reform. | ||
| He was there, he was what, probably about 30, early 30s. | ||
| and... | ||
| And a little over 10 years ago, he was a college student studying computer science in Virginia. | ||
| And he was charged with two marijuana violations. | ||
| And because of Virginia's mandatory minimum laws, he got two back-to-back five-year sentences. | ||
| 10 years of his life, gone. | ||
| And he took full responsibility for his actions, wasn't trying to point fingers at anybody else, but he was there just to share his story because there are so many people with similar stories that just show how terrible our broken laws are. | ||
| And how this is a very sensible change that we can and should make very quickly that will immediately have a huge impact on people's lives. | ||
| Can you just talk a little bit more about generally how your service has affected your decision-making abilities and sort of what it was like, what you were maybe like beforehand and how that actually changed you? | ||
| Growing up in Hawaii, I'm so grateful to have had that experience and that upbringing to be able to cruise around and go surfing and to grow up in such a beautiful place. | ||
| My passion as a kid and growing up was really about protecting our environment. | ||
| protecting water and air and just a special place that we call home. | ||
| And, you know, 9/11, like for all of us, it just changed everything. | ||
| And I was serving in the state legislature in Hawaii at the time. | ||
| Our brigade combat team was activated for a deployment to Iraq, | ||
| which is the first deployment for our unit since Vietnam, really. | ||
| So most folks had not seen any kind of combat, even for those who'd served for a very long time. | ||
| My name was not on the mandatory deployment roster when that came out. | ||
| And I called my commander. | ||
| I said, hey, what's going on? | ||
| I don't see my name on the list here. | ||
| And he said, hey, good news. | ||
| You get to stay home. | ||
| You get to stay in the state house. | ||
| You can be here when we all come home. | ||
| I just, I knew that there was no way that I could stay back. | ||
| You know, I had a nice little office and a nice little life and all this stuff and I just knew there was no way I could wave goodbye to them, my brothers and sisters from my unit, not knowing if they would all come home. | ||
| So I stepped down from my re-election campaign at the time, volunteered to deploy, got trained in a job that they needed. | ||
| in the field medical unit and embarked on that deployment. | ||
| It was 18 months long, about 12 of which we spent in Iraq. | ||
| It's an experience that changed my life completely, where every single day I was confronted with the high, the terribly high human cost of war. | ||
| Never forget the first soldier from our unit who was killed Inaction and the small gathering that we had there in the desert to pay tribute to his life and never forget those who didn't come home with us and coming back from both of those deployments really fueled me with a couple of things. | ||
| I knew that I couldn't go back to the life that I had left behind That I knew so much more, that I understood so much more, both about the cost of war, about the detrimental and devastating cost of our failed foreign policy of these regime change wars. | ||
| Yes, on our troops. | ||
| Yes, on our taxpayers with the money, the trillions that's been wasted. | ||
| But also on the people in the countries where we wage these wars. | ||
| You know, the lives that have been destroyed and taken. | ||
| You know, entire communities Gone, completely destroyed, and came back wanting to be in a position where I could make decisions to stop this trend that we've seen for too long, to make sure that we don't continue these wasteful wars that don't serve the interests of our country. | ||
| And that gets to what we started out talking about, about the role that Congress has to play. | ||
| You know, Congress, by the Constitution, is the body that declares war. | ||
| Because you know very well that hasn't happened since World War II. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And instead, you see this power grab from the executive branch, but you also see... On both sides. | ||
| On both sides. | ||
| And you also see members of Congress who lack the political courage and will to do their job because they don't want to be blamed or criticized one way or the other for making this most important decision. | ||
| I introduced legislation called the No More Presidential Wars Act that would do exactly what it says. | ||
| Make sure that the responsibilities of the executive maintain and the responsibilities that Congress has to declare war are actually upheld. | ||
| What do you actually consider yourself politically? | ||
| I know the labels are all changing and everyone's kind of all over the place right now and maybe it doesn't matter that much. | ||
| But it's like after an hour with you, you have a little bit of everything, which I do think is where most people are at. | ||
| But do you think there is some label or some term that kind of captures where you are? | ||
| I haven't found it if there is one. | ||
| I mean, Democrat, Independent, Conservative, Libertarian. | ||
| I mean, I don't know. | ||
| I think it points to where I hope we go as a country where you have people who are less defined by the labels or the affiliations that they have and are more focused on How much we have in common and the things that we really do share and not see these descriptions as ways to divide us, but ways that we can bring our unique ideas together to serve our country. | ||
| Alright, well now I'm really gonna let you go because they're telling me that you gotta go, but for the people that want to see you get back into the next debate, what can they do? | ||
| Well, I hope that people come and support our campaign because debate or no debate, we are pushing forward and pushing forward strong in moving our grassroots people-powered campaign all the way to the convention. | ||
| So we're going to continue spending a lot of time on the road and just reaching out to people through every platform possible, coming and doing interviews like this, social media, digital ads. | ||
| We're putting up yard signs, making phone calls. | ||
| So if folks want to come and help us, You can make a contribution or volunteer your time. | ||
| Tulsi2020.com. | ||
| By the way, I got to give you credit because as you probably saw, you know, we were going to have Buttigieg on and then HuffPo went after him and a bunch of others. | ||
| I didn't see that. | ||
| So a bunch of them went after him saying that he shouldn't sit down with me and then he canceled on me. | ||
| But, you know, I was thinking that maybe a good play for you in the midst of this debate nonsense could be that as they sort of shed the other people they don't want or as the polls kind of change and Yang maybe disappears or some of these other guys, you guys should just be doing these things on YouTube at the exact same time as they're doing it on network television and then let's really see where the chips fall, you know, because something's shifting here. | ||
| Yeah, something is. | ||
| There's a lot of energy and things are moving. | ||
| Yeah, it's been a pleasure. | ||
| I thank you for coming in and good luck with the town hall tonight. | ||
| Yeah, we'll have fun. | ||
| Where do you go after you leave California? | ||
| Back to D.C. | ||
| Early tomorrow morning. | ||
| Wait, you're going to do work in D.C.? | ||
| There's something to do in D.C.? | ||
| There are some things to do. | ||
| There's some things to do in D.C. | ||
| All right. |
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