Speaker | Time | Text |
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I had a hard time believing it when I actually, I need to go and actually read the legislation. | ||
I went in and read it and it did just that to somehow believe that it is a good thing to remove all references of mother and father, brother and sister, son and daughter from essentially the administration of the House, from the legislative rules. | ||
And not only does it not make sense, it is a dangerous step towards undermining, | ||
you know, who we are and the existence of men and women. | ||
unidentified
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(upbeat music) | |
Joining me today is an army veteran, a former democratic US president. | ||
presidential candidate, and now former Congresswoman, Tulsi Gabbard. | ||
Welcome back to The Rubin Report. | ||
Hey, good to see you, Dave, always. | ||
So there's obviously a ton to talk about here and a lot of stuff happening right now as we tape this. | ||
But first off, do I have to refer to you as former congresswoman? | ||
Do you keep being called congresswoman forever? | ||
How does that work? | ||
When you're mayor, they always call you Mr. Mayor or Mr. President. | ||
Are you Congresswoman Tulsi forever, even though you've stepped away? | ||
I think so, but I don't know the answer to that. | ||
My staff, former staff asked me that yesterday. | ||
I was like, you know what? | ||
I actually don't know the answer to that, but Tulsi is always great. | ||
Tulsi will work. | ||
Okay. | ||
So, Look, we're taping this right now as the Capitol is literally being stormed. | ||
I mean, that is happening right now. | ||
I know you were seeing it right before we started, just as I was. | ||
I wasn't planning on starting here, but what do you make of what's going on right now? | ||
I mean, it's heartbreaking to see this happening at our nation's capital, but it is also indicative. | ||
This is a symptom of much deeper issues and challenges that have been stewing for a long time and a lot, especially as of late over this last year. | ||
You know, where this conflict culture that we have seen growing in our society, whether it's online and now it's being embodied or actioned offline, it results in something like this. | ||
What's driving this? | ||
What's fueling it? | ||
You can look at politicians, political leaders who are more interested in fueling and, yeah, fueling divisiveness, riling people up for their own personal or political benefit. | ||
You see the media doing the same thing for ratings. | ||
You see big tech, these big tech monopolies and Facebook using their algorithms and social media to continue to push and push and put fuel on the flames of this divisiveness. | ||
Well, you see what is happening here today at the United States Capitol before our very eyes is the manifestation of that, that is the symptom of these deeper problems. | ||
And from a leadership perspective, I think this is where you've got to look to the kind of leadership we need but don't have in this country right now, which is leadership that puts the well-being of the people and country before themselves, before political power, before their selfish ambition. | ||
Are you kind of shocked as someone that was in the government that just not only our leadership in terms of government, but our leadership sort of across the board, our academic leadership, our intellectual leadership, you know, there's podcasters and stuff like that, but that we don't have sort of like a trusted group of people anymore that kind of bring us together across the board. | ||
It almost just simply doesn't exist anymore. | ||
I think that's right, and I think that it's become such a segmented thing where you have, whether it's political leadership, those in the media or those in new media, whatever it is, you have these quote-unquote influencers that are only speaking to their segment of people who agree with them or believe the same things that they believe. | ||
And there's no exposure, real civil discourse or dialogue to people who might have different views, different opinions, different beliefs, different political positions. | ||
And I think it's not only not a good thing for our country, but it, I think, also contributes, especially when you're using this divisive rhetoric and language that can help fuel Those who then get riled up and say, oh, actually, you know what, I'm gonna go take action on this because those people, they are my enemy. | ||
That's the dangerous thing. | ||
So does this, what's happening right now, and then we'll move on to some other stuff, does it sort of feel like this was inevitable in a weird way? | ||
Like once I started seeing it this morning, it was just kind of like, oh, yeah, of course this is exactly what was gonna happen. | ||
And in a weird way, it's almost like we all deserve it for being part of it or something like that. | ||
Well, you know, I was, gosh, months ago, months ago was maybe one of a few people who warned of civil war if we continue down the path that we are on. | ||
And I think that what we are seeing now with this divisiveness that exists very much online now being translated into action | ||
for their points in that direction, unless we as a country do something about it, | ||
we as the American people, we as leaders in this country, | ||
unless we shift course and start leading for the interests of the public, | ||
the American people, servant leadership, leaders who are in positions of power, | ||
whether they're elected or not elected, saying I am here to serve this country | ||
and the American people, not my party, not my political interests, | ||
not my political ambition or selfish money, whatever that selfish driver may be. | ||
We need servant leaders in place leading with what we in Hawaii call Aloha. | ||
You and I have talked about this before. | ||
Aloha is saying, hey, I respect you, I open my heart, and I love you as a fellow person, as a child of God. | ||
As a fellow American, and whether we agree or disagree on different issues, whether we come from different backgrounds or not, we've got to be able to come together on this shared common ground and work for the betterment and the well-being of the country. | ||
So what do you think? | ||
Go ahead. | ||
I was just going to say one last note on the danger of what we are seeing playing out today is this normalization of violence, where violence and a lot of the riots that we've seen over the last year occurring, that violence is somehow okay if it aligns with your view of what these people are, quote unquote, fighting for. | ||
And that's a very dangerous thing, because when I say leading with aloha, I don't mean just, okay, we're just going to sit back and not do anything. | ||
Leading with aloha means standing up and fighting for what is right, but doing so within the construct of the institutions that we have in this country. | ||
For example, if you are concerned about the legitimacy and the integrity of our elections, | ||
take action to do something. | ||
I introduced a bill called the Securing America's Election Act, | ||
that if our country's leaders had passed, would have prevented a lot of the angst | ||
that people are feeling and seeing right now with this election, | ||
saying that you have to have a paper trail. | ||
You have to have an auditable paper backup for any electronic system | ||
so that there's no doubt or question in mind if there has been a hack attempt | ||
or some attempt to manipulate our votes as voters. | ||
If all of these people in Congress, Democrat and Republican, had taken that issue seriously and passed that legislation, those who are now saying, hey, we have to stand up for the internet, why didn't you do something about it before? | ||
We do need to stand up and fight for the wellbeing of this country, stand up for our constitution, uphold it, but we need to do it in a way that is constructive and within the institutions that have been set up in this society that is America. | ||
So I have no doubt that probably every single person watching this right now is agreeing with you and going, okay, that all makes sense. | ||
I'm on board. | ||
So Tulsi, why'd you get out? | ||
Like, you're exactly what we need, right? | ||
I mean, I've tweeted it a million times. | ||
If Tulsi Gabbard was the future of the Democratic Party, I could honestly consider myself a Democrat. | ||
I can't do that anymore. | ||
I don't consider myself a Republican. | ||
But what you just said there, I think most people agree with, yet at the same time, you are getting out. | ||
So, tell me about that. | ||
I had to make a decision, Dave, and I had to make a decision. | ||
I made this decision last fall of 2019 as I was campaigning for president. | ||
It was, frankly, a practical decision where I could not both run for re-election to Congress and continue running for president at the same time. | ||
And I made the decision to run for president. | ||
It was a very serious decision that was well thought through, and I made the decision to continue that campaign for the presidency because of the grave issues that I was raising in that campaign and the kind of change in leadership that I really believe our country needs. | ||
So I'm going to continue to fight. | ||
I may not be in Congress anymore as of a few days ago, but I'm going to continue to advocate for freedom. | ||
I'm going to continue to advocate for common sense solutions in our society and in our government and to continue to bring the truth to the conversations that we as a country should be having. | ||
So speaking of the truth, I mean, I'm just putting my cards on the table. | ||
I find you to be one of the last, I guess you're not a politician anymore, but one of the last somewhat honest politicians, right? | ||
I sense that you're really trying to do something decent here. | ||
Can you just talk about what it was like to go through the Democratic machine during the primary process and go through the media machine during that, you know, the way the media treated you and that insane comment that Hillary made about you, and that little tussle that you got in with Kamala, all of those things, while it was like I was seeing so many people online that were like, you know, I can't be a Democrat anymore, but I kinda like her, like that's the direction, and yet the party, the way the party, in effect, treated you. | ||
Yeah, we could do a whole show just on this, but I'll point to a couple of the major takeaways that I had from that experience is the danger and the threat that is posed to our democracy by the power of our political parties, both of them, And the power that the media has. | ||
A lot of people talk about needing to reform our money in politics and make sure that it's more transparent. | ||
I agree with a lot of all those things. | ||
They are necessary, but nobody points to the effect that the media has and the billions of dollars that that exposure, that narrative that they're pushing is worth in how they are filtering | ||
what kind of information voters are getting access to. | ||
I'll throw big tech in with this as well, because they're to Google, Facebook, | ||
they're doing the exact same thing and deciding, hey, this or these are the candidates | ||
who we want you to hear from. | ||
Here's the narrative that we want you to hear or see. | ||
And in my case, they chose their narrative, they chose their candidates and ultimately they decided | ||
that they didn't want voters to hear from me. | ||
-But who is they? | ||
Because I feel like it always comes down to this, like certain people will be like, okay, it's the Clinton machine that runs the Democratic Party, or maybe that's kind of crumbling now, it's more the Obama machine. | ||
Like when you say that, like that the party didn't want you there, in effect, or big tech, all those pieces, like who is they, do you think? | ||
People ask me this all the time. | ||
I don't know that anyone has a good answer. | ||
Ultimately, it is, whether it's the people who hold these positions of power, literally, you know, the heads of these media institutions, these for-profit corporations who are supposedly, you know, generating news, but also it's both the people who are in charge of political parties, but also the people who are maybe more institutional people, like the Clintons, for example. | ||
You know, I came and spoke the truth about a lot of different issues from our foreign policy and how destructive this foreign policy has been, largely led by people like Hillary Clinton and others, and the cost that it has carried both to soldiers and friends and veterans who I know and who I've served with, but also to every single American. | ||
Bring the truth and calling out big tech, calling out the media. | ||
This is something that they felt that they didn't want to happen. | ||
And so those two areas really Take away the opportunity, whether you're talking about the power the political parties have through the money that they're able to raise, unlimited amounts of money essentially, and leverage those dollars to pressure individuals, members of Congress, state political parties to do what they want, as well as the power that the media has. | ||
These are the things that are getting in the way of the American people being able to get the truth. | ||
And to be shown, hey, here are the choices that you have to vote for in this election. | ||
Let's have a fair hearing of what they stand for, what kind of leadership they bring, the qualifications, experience that they bring, what kind of judgment they'll exercise. | ||
Frankly, that's not happening. | ||
That's not happening in our election. | ||
So speaking of the big tech thing, are you still involved in that lawsuit with YouTube? | ||
With Google, no. | ||
We ended up having to drop the lawsuit. | ||
Actually, no, I think with that one, I've been involved in a couple here, I think the Google lawsuit, a judge did not rule in our favor. | ||
So that's something that legislatively I've continued to push through either abolishing or reforming Section 230 so that big tech monopolies like Google and Facebook do not have this legal immunity that allows them to do whatever they want, essentially, and defying the whole purpose of what Section 230 was created for, which was to say, hey, you know, let's have fair and neutral platforms online for people to Kind of have this public square. | ||
Google and Facebook and others have taken that and abused it and have turned themselves into publishers by picking and choosing what information, you know, those online actually get to see and sequestering or censoring others. | ||
You know all about this. | ||
Yeah, I know a little bit. | ||
But they're not held to the same standard that a New York Times is held to, where New York Times picks and chooses what stories, what letters to the editor, what op-eds they choose because they are publishers. | ||
These big tech monopolies are acting as publishers, but they're not held to the same legal standard that any other publisher is held to. | ||
And those were the reforms that I was pushing through my legislation. | ||
Do you sense though that the ship has probably just sailed on that? | ||
I mean, Trump was sort of trying to do it and the Republicans were always threatening about it, but they don't, you know, and having hearings, but they just never did anything. | ||
Do you sense that? | ||
There's just no reason at this point. | ||
I don't think we should give, I don't think we can give up this fight because there's so much at stake here. | ||
Social media has become such a part of so many people's lives. | ||
And as we are seeing here today, what is happening at the Capitol where, you know, I know the updates are still coming in, but before we started, I saw there was at least one person shot, multiple Capitol police have been injured. | ||
The algorithms that these social media companies are using to intentionally manipulate and control the information that their users are getting has a direct role to play in inciting this kind of Frankly, anarchy and violence that we're seeing. | ||
And so we can't just say, well, man, you know, it's too late. | ||
We can't hold them accountable. | ||
I think we have to continue to push our leaders, those who on the one hand are saying, hey, we're against censorship by big tech, but on the other hand are not backing that up with action and actually passing legislation to do something about it. | ||
I think it's because a lot of them are getting a lot of freakin' money from the Facebooks and the Googles at their fundraisers that they're doing at night and saying, oh yeah, you know, don't worry, I'll just talk about it, but we're not actually gonna do anything about it. | ||
Yeah, so to that point, when you were doing congressional hearings on quite literally anything, did you often feel, and I, cause I think a lot of people now feel this way, that the whole thing is just theater, that it's not really- So much of it is. | ||
That, you know, because I, believe me, I watched enough of the social media stuff especially. | ||
And it's like there are guys up there saying things that I agree with on the social media front, especially Ted Cruz kept hitting the stuff that I really think is right. | ||
And yet I'm going, but nobody's doing anything. | ||
So you're saying, okay, Jack from Twitter broke the law because he lied under oath about shadow banning or whatever the specific thing might be. | ||
But it's like, no one does anything. | ||
So it's just like this dog and pony show. | ||
Like, oh, we're all pretending to go to work and then we have drinks together and then that's it. | ||
Yeah, so much of it is absolutely political theater and just for show and I think that there's an opportunity to hold more leaders accountable given how much more access to I think this is where social media can be used in a positive way is to be able to not allow this kind of stuff to go unchecked and say, hey, you know, yeah, we're tracking. | ||
So, okay, you're complaining about this. | ||
Where's the bill? | ||
Have you talked to your colleagues about trying to pass this legislation? | ||
Are you building support for it? | ||
Rather than just saying, okay, well, I'm going to put out a statement and then fundraise off that statement. | ||
But not actually do anything about it. | ||
And again, this elections thing, I just keep going back to it because, you know, we're living through it now. | ||
And if all the people who were complaining about it now had actually stepped up as leaders and said, OK, we have a big election coming up. | ||
Let's fix these problems before the election happens. | ||
There's bipartisan agreement that this is a big issue. | ||
Yeah. | ||
It should have been fixed before this massive election in 2020 that we all knew was coming. | ||
It's so interesting, because I said on the show this morning, it's like, I'm completely against violence, political violence, either way, for sure, full stop, like, no doubt. | ||
And yet, the people that are doing some of this stuff, who've been called Nazis and racists, who said, okay, you know, who see videos online of what may be election tampering and all this stuff, and they're told they're not supposed to see what they see, or they don't see it, or they're conspiracy theorists, and then we'll get to more of this in a moment, but like, then we lock people People in their houses and we don't let them to go to work. | ||
It's like, that's what I mean when I said earlier, like, it sort of all felt like it was gonna end up here in a weird sense, that we've just ramped up the crazy in so many ways that, well, people storming the Capitol, again, not condoning it, but it's like, of course it was gonna happen. | ||
Well, we have to understand how we got here and why we got here. | ||
One of the things that has so frustrated me in our politics that I've seen throughout my time in Congress is how reactive our so-called leaders are. | ||
They're not actually leaders who are exercising good judgment and foresight to see, okay, if we do this, Then it's likely to end up with a certain consequence. | ||
And in situations like this, I think we'll see a lot of reactions start to come out of it, but probably not a whole lot of introspection to say, hey, how did we get here? | ||
Make sure that we shift course, that we correct course and try to get back on track to prevent this kind of situation from worsening or happening again. | ||
That's really where the leadership comes in that we the American people need. | ||
We've needed all along and we especially need at this moment. | ||
Yeah, so I want to go into a couple of the things, because you kind of went out in a blaze of glory, just like saying everything that you believe, at least a whole bunch of it at the very least, and putting these bills forward and everything else. | ||
But before we get into the specifics of that, I'm curious, do you sense that someone like you, has a future in the Democratic Party. | ||
I get your frustrations with Democrat, Republican, left, right, and all that kind of thing, but do you sense that sort of the more moderate, anti-war, don't-want-government, doing-absolutely-everything Democrat, does that exist anymore? | ||
It's becoming more and more rare in Washington, I think. | ||
And I don't think this is a recent phenomena. | ||
But if I look at the interactions that I've had with people throughout my campaign for president, The conversations and the social media and discussions that are occurring across the country with people scratching their heads at kind of the crazy things that Congress is choosing to prioritize and take action on. | ||
I think that there are a majority of people, maybe most people, who are hungry for some leadership based on common sense. | ||
and leadership that values our fundamental freedoms as Americans in the United States of America. | ||
You know, we're not all going to agree on everything or maybe even many things, but I know that we are better when we are able to come together and have honest and real discussions, even bringing our differences to the table when we are centered and focused on what we can do together for the betterment of our country. | ||
So do you sense though that can happen with kind of the new wing of the Democrats? | ||
Like, I don't know if you were ever in like a sit down with AOC and Ilhan and Rashida and the rest of them, but do you sense if you came in like on what I would call your extremely moderate position on abortion that almost everyone on the left would have agreed with, you know, literally five years ago, certainly 10 years ago, Where now you would just be, you'd be called an evil Republican or an evil conservative or worse for having that position. | ||
Do you sense that they're willing to have those conversations? | ||
I don't think it's the moderates that are having the problem with the conversation. | ||
I don't. | ||
I don't think that there is really even an interest there, sadly. | ||
I think that it's indicative of a group of people who are, you know, you're either all or nothing. | ||
You are either pure enough in their eyes, whatever that means, and whatever barometer with which they're choosing to measure a person by. | ||
Or, you're cancelled. | ||
And it's a dangerous place, and it's something that doesn't represent the freedom of thought and the freedom of speech that we should celebrate in this country. | ||
So with that in mind, I saw an awful lot of people on Twitter, and although I do say Twitter is not real life, I saw a lot of people when you were campaigning saying, man, if Tulsi would just say she's a Republican, she'd have a lot more support. | ||
That in essence, you would be sort of a more libertarian-minded, centrist Republican, something like that. | ||
And again, I get it, the two-party thing and all that, but if you were to have a political future, would that make some sense to you? | ||
It's not something I've given thought to, and I don't know. | ||
I think, again, I point to some deeper challenges that we need to address as a people and as a country, and that we need to look to our leaders to bring about this deeper kind of spiritual change that's got to come from the heart. | ||
Where there's a shift towards working for and serving the people rather than purely being motivated by political ambition, greed, power, and all the selfishness that frankly is driving so much of our politics today. | ||
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
Can you talk a little bit more about how your faith plays a role in this? | ||
Because it's pretty rare to hear anyone that's thought of as somewhat left to talk about faith. | ||
And I know even during Christmas week and a few times over the last couple of months, you've tweeted out a few things, a little bit talking about your faith. | ||
And I do sense we're in some sort of very odd spiritual war right now, you know. | ||
It's not like my favorite language, but we are in something where everyone's obsessed with politics, but that's really just a replacement for something else. | ||
You know, this is for me personally, you know, my relationship with God and my striving daily to develop my love for God and to be pleasing to God by serving and taking care of God's children and protecting our planet. | ||
This is what motivates me in my life. | ||
Regardless of the name with which people choose to call God or how one worships God or whatever, this is not about religion or one religion versus another, one sect versus another. | ||
This is, to me, about the recognition in a very deep way of who we are and seeing past all of the Different labels that are so often used to divide us. | ||
And if we see each other for who we are, that we are all children of God, regardless of all of the things that, again, those labels, those things that are used to put us in different boxes, then we can come from a place as individuals and especially as leaders in this country who carry a great responsibility to make an impact on people's lives, positive or negative. | ||
When we come from this very deep spiritual place of a recognition of who we are, | ||
then we're motivated by the most perfect motivation, which is really truly to care for each other | ||
and to help each other, to help make that positive impact from wherever we sit, | ||
whether you're sitting in the halls of Congress or sitting as we are in a conversation here today. | ||
Good God, I can't believe they went with Kamala instead of you. | ||
All right, well, with that in mind, I think you tried to add a little honesty and decency and everything that you just described in your last few weeks in Congress. | ||
So I wanna go through a few of the things that you were really talking about and trying to make happen. | ||
Let's talk about the COVID vaccine, because you've been pretty outspoken about how we've really butchered some of what we're doing here. | ||
In terms of the rollout. | ||
This may shock people but I really strongly have been pushing our CDC and their advisory committees as well as our state leadership here in Hawaii, leaders across the country to make their decisions based on medical science. | ||
About who should receive this vaccine? | ||
What's the priority given the limited amount of vaccine available? | ||
Who needs to receive it first? | ||
If you look at medical science, you would find that based on all of the trials that have been done, it has been scientifically established that this vaccine is effective in preventing serious health complications from COVID and even death. | ||
It has not been scientifically established that this vaccine is effective in stopping this virus from being transmitted from one person to another. | ||
So if you look at both of those facts that have been scientifically established, you would draw the conclusion that The first priority of people who should get this vaccine are our frontline healthcare workers and elderly Americans. | ||
Those who are over 65 years of age and who have been proven throughout this entire pandemic are many, many times more likely to die if they get this virus than those who are younger and healthy. | ||
Unfortunately, the recommendations that are coming out of the CDC do not reflect what has been established by science. | ||
And this is the warning that I'm calling out. | ||
Right, so what is that? | ||
What they're recommending essentially is, they have, they're making politically driven decisions | ||
that are essentially putting the lives of elderly American seniors at risk, | ||
where they're saying, okay, well, yes, frontline healthcare workers are getting it first | ||
as they should right now. | ||
But those who are getting it next are people who they deem as essential workers, | ||
which is about 87 million Americans. | ||
and those who fall under everything from people who are working at the grocery store, | ||
people who are manning the cash register at a liquor store, to lawyers, to people working in the media, | ||
to people working in transportation, construction, corrections. | ||
There's essentially a laundry list of people who they have deemed as essential workers of any age | ||
who they're saying should either get the vaccine before our seniors or who our seniors need to compete with | ||
in order to get this vaccine. | ||
And this is what is, it's just mind boggling because this is coming from people who claim to be medical experts, but they're not making their decisions based on science. | ||
They're instead making politically motivated decisions. | ||
Where do you fall generally on lockdowns and the rest of it? | ||
I mean, you know, we're coming up unbelievably on basically almost a year. | ||
I mean, it's been about 10 months already of sort of lockdowns, masks, the whole thing. | ||
We were told two weeks to flatten the curve. | ||
And now we're being told, oh, maybe a hundred day federal mask mandate. | ||
I'm in California where everything is locked down. | ||
I mean, the main street I live off of, it looks like a ghost town. | ||
I mean, it genuinely looks like a ghost town. | ||
Do you believe this should have been left to the states? | ||
And are you kind of shocked at how it's now 10 months later and we kind of forget where we started from? | ||
I mean, there's no question that this is a major public health issue, given not only how infectious this virus is, but also the recent mutation that we've seen occur in the UK and other places. | ||
And now I think Colorado has gotten the first view of an even more infectious version of COVID. | ||
So, I think that there, you know, the baseline standard of public health precautions do need to be taken, which, you know, it is. | ||
It's, you know, wear a mask, protect yourself, protect others and wash your hands and socially distance. | ||
The lack of a national strategy with regards to testing. | ||
has worsened the situation where still as we sit here today, it is incredibly difficult | ||
to get a test. | ||
If you test more frequently and more people, then you have the ability for people to act | ||
on that information and take precautions themselves. | ||
There's no reason why we shouldn't have these capabilities deployed all across the country. | ||
There's no reason why we shouldn't have medical grade masks available to every American, which | ||
are actually most effective versus the cloth masks that so many people are forced to use | ||
because they can't get medical masks. | ||
And then, you know, the issue with... | ||
the nonsensical decisions that a lot of state and local leaders are making. | ||
For example, in California, I saw, I think it's a viral video at this point, | ||
where this guy is out paddle boarding in the water by himself | ||
and was apprehended by police both in the water and on land. | ||
How does that make any sense? | ||
We had here locally, there was a decision made for a while, like no one's allowed to go outdoors. | ||
No one is allowed to leave your home unless for, you know, you're going to the doctor or you're going to the grocery store. | ||
But we know that people who are able to get out in the sunshine. | ||
How's the weather in Hawaii again? | ||
Usually pretty nice. | ||
Pretty sunny. | ||
Pretty sunny. | ||
Yeah. | ||
Which we know is better for increasing your immunity. | ||
Exercise is good for you. | ||
They said, okay, we'll let people out, but we'll open up the hikes again, but you can only go by yourself. | ||
You can't go with anybody. | ||
Like, okay, so I can't go hiking with my husband. | ||
We live together. | ||
And how safe is it for one person to go out on a hike in the mountains by themselves? | ||
There's so many different examples of really nonsensical decisions that, again, have not been made based on science and how best to help protect our communities and protect people's health and well-being. | ||
And then, of course, the last I'll mention is how We are all told nationally by these so-called medical experts that gathering in large groups of people creates a great harm and a great risk. | ||
But all of a sudden, if there's a mass gathering for a political purpose that these experts agree with, then it's okay. | ||
And it's fine. | ||
And so there's no surprise in my mind why so many people are throwing like the BS flag on the field and saying, you know, I don't trust you guys. | ||
I don't trust you guys. | ||
How can we trust what you were telling us is true and that this will actually help protect our neighbors and friends and community when there's no consistency and these decisions are not being made based on proven medical science? | ||
What do you think just sort of philosophically about lockdowns in general? | ||
I mean, they haven't been proven to work. | ||
California is clearly an example of that. | ||
I spent last week in Florida where everything was open and the numbers are actually less and people are out there and they're living their lives. | ||
But philosophically, just sort of the amount of people that we've just put out of work and we know depression is up and alcoholism is up and drug use is up and all of this stuff, It's almost like people are just kind of forgetting what freedom is. | ||
Like, you really, within 10 months, you can completely forget it. | ||
I think that there's, I don't think that one can say yes lockdowns or no lockdowns as a broad statement. | ||
I think that there are certain things that could and should be done in a public health crisis like the one that we are seeing to try to contain a virus like this. | ||
But again, those decisions should be made based on the science and what we know will be most effective. | ||
I think one of the ineffective things that we've seen occur is how big box retailers, for example, have been allowed to remain completely open and conducting their business as per usual with large numbers of people going in and out every single day. | ||
And yet, you know, the small mom and pop shop on the corner has been forced to shut down because They are not essential. | ||
How are you choosing who is essential and non-essential? | ||
Who gets to stay open and who gets to close? | ||
And frankly, it's been the biggest corporations who have benefited the most, who've been allowed to stay open throughout this pandemic, whereas the small businesses, the restaurants and small shops in our communities have not been allowed to open their doors, again, points to politically motivated decisions rather than decisions made in the best interest of the people. | ||
Do you think we ever get back to something that will feel like the good old days of February of last year, meaning that even if tomorrow they said, okay, we cured this thing, everyone's got the vaccine, we're good, that just because of sort of what you talked before, we're in sort of an information war, people are so untrustworthy of, of sources that people just either won't go out, or if you were a businessman, how would you say, okay, I'm gonna open a restaurant now? | ||
90% of restaurants, I think, fail in the first year anyway. | ||
How would you take the risk to go out and do that stuff? | ||
It seems to me that the normal, people are like, oh, we'll get back to normal. | ||
I don't think so. | ||
A friend of mine recently had the guts to open a restaurant just a few months ago there in Southern California. | ||
And I've been keeping in touch with him. | ||
They've had to shut down a couple of times because someone came in and had tested positive and had to go through all of the things to make sure that everyone was okay. | ||
But, you know, they're losing something like $15,000 a day just to keep the doors open and they're trying to persevere through. | ||
And I know there are so many others who are either doing the same or who have not been able to sustain that kind of loss. | ||
It's hard to say at this point. | ||
I think that even going beyond what you're talking about, just the basic level of consciousness now about hygiene and health and other things, Are changing the way that we will all live our lives and the kinds of things that we do. | ||
I think some of the things that we've seen in Asia where people wear masks a lot more just by choice. | ||
I think that's something we'll probably see, especially for those who travel. | ||
I know I was wearing masks on airplanes before this pandemic began just because it's like, you know, you don't know who's on the plane. | ||
There's a lot of sick people and I don't want to get sick. | ||
unidentified
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You mean you were wearing masks before it was cool? | |
I will wear that badge with pride. | ||
All right, so let's jump through a couple of the other things that you did, because I think it gets to my point that there was a moderate, sane Democrat at one point, and unfortunately she's not in Congress anymore. | ||
They just passed this gendered language situation in the House of Representatives. | ||
They're removing gendered language. | ||
which Nancy Pelosi pushed through. | ||
Although hilariously, I think it's still in her Twitter bio that she's a mother and a grandmother, which are both gendered terms. | ||
But they want, in essence, they're taking gendered terms should not be used in the House of Representatives anymore. | ||
And you were trying at least to get that to not happen. | ||
Yeah, I had a hard time believing it when I actually – I need to go and actually read the legislation. | ||
I went in and read it and it did just that to somehow believe that it is a good thing to remove all references of mother and father, brother and sister, son and daughter from essentially the administration of the House, from the legislative rules. | ||
And not only does it not make sense, it is a dangerous step towards undermining who we are and the existence of men and women. | ||
And this is where I see such great hypocrisy is that this is coming from so many people who proudly proclaim that they are champions of rights for women. | ||
How can you claim that while simultaneously taking steps to undermine the fact that a biological woman exists? | ||
And again, we can take this back directly to science and biology and this is something that more people should be talking about and not running away from. | ||
But even putting aside the specifics of it, just the fact that there's so much going on in the country right now, and that any legislator actually spent 10 seconds crafting this nonsense, while there's so much more important stuff to deal with. | ||
That, as someone in Congress, must have drove you crazy, because I'm sure you saw all sorts of things like this over the years. | ||
You know, I introduced a resolution, one of the bills that I introduced right before I left, with Congressman Greene, a Republican and a fellow veteran, that basically said, hey, we as Congress need to take action to make sure that the CDC immediately starts to make sure this vaccine is available to our elderly Americans who are dying at higher rates than anyone else from COVID. | ||
If there is a first act that Congress, this new Congress, could have and should have taken, it should have been that. | ||
By recognizing that people's lives are at stake and we have the opportunity potentially to help save people's lives, how about that be getting your priorities straight and putting the lives of the American people, our elders, our moms and dads and grandparents first? | ||
What do you think Pelosi would say if she was watching this right now, if she's sitting next to you right now, and you said to her, well, why did you bother doing this right now? | ||
What do you think she would say? | ||
I don't know, to be honest. | ||
I don't know what she would say. | ||
I don't know. | ||
I don't know. | ||
But the fact that this action was not an obvious one to take, coming right out of the gate, coming out of the new year, where every single day people are concerned about their parents and grandparents and when they can get the vaccine so they can not be imprisoned in their homes. | ||
They can go out, they can go to the doctor, they can go and see and spend time with their families. | ||
The fact that that was not the obvious first choice, I think, really says it all. | ||
Yeah well it's sort of a perfect segue because you also tried to put forth this trans athlete bill and for some reason the trans issue and particularly related to sports this has become like the third rail thing you can't touch it if you even say anything remotely close to what you just said that there are Biological differences between men and women. | ||
You'll be called a transphobe and everything else. | ||
But you put forth a bill to, in effect, say, yes, there are some differences and we have to acknowledge it. | ||
And for those who actually read the bill, and it's not that long, I know this is usually a thing. | ||
People are like, oh, this bill does this. | ||
Like, actually, just read it. | ||
It's pretty simple and very direct and straightforward. | ||
And basically, it doesn't mention trans people at all. | ||
It is called the Protect Women's Sports Act. | ||
I introduced it with my Republican friend, Mark Wayne Mullen, who has three little girls who love to wrestle. | ||
The oldest, Lara, is 12. | ||
The younger twins are 10. | ||
They all love to wrestle and they're really good at it. | ||
And he recognizes that it would be neither fair nor safe For his little girls to go and compete on a mat against a biological boy. | ||
There are physiological differences that exist between boys and girls and men and women. | ||
And when you look to, and this is what our bill does, it clarifies, upholds, and strengthens Title IX. | ||
Which was enacted in 1972 out of that recognition that there are biological and physiological distinctions between boys and girls, men and women. | ||
And Title IX ensures that girls and women are able to play in sports and compete in sports on a level playing field. | ||
Title IX is being undermined and weakened in some areas as states are interpreting what it does in very different ways. | ||
And as a result, as we've seen in places like Connecticut, you have girls who are, you know, they're about to graduate from high school. | ||
They're vying for scholarships to college and losing in track and field competitions because they have all of a sudden now been faced with a competitor who has a Very direct physiological advantage as a biological male. | ||
And they're seeing their scholarship hopes and dreams be taken away from them. | ||
And so this really just says, hey, this is about making sure that all of those opportunities that were provided to women and girls because Title IX was in place are allowed to continue for this generation. | ||
And the next, it doesn't discriminate against anyone. | ||
It just simply says if you're a biological female, you shouldn't be forced to compete in sports against a biological male. | ||
Do you want to make any comments about trans people before the haters get in here? | ||
Because I know you have no problem with trans people, but I know that they'll hear what you just said and say, she's a transphobe. | ||
So do you want to just, just clean it up for them before they get to it? | ||
I think that people are allowed and free to be able to make their own choices and live in this country as Americans and be treated justly under the laws as we all are. | ||
If you again look at my legislation, you'll recognize that this very simply points to biological differences between men and women and upholds the incredible game-changing and life-changing | ||
opportunities that Title IX created back in the early '70s. | ||
All right, so the next one that you went for, because you really just pulled out all the stops | ||
on your way out the door, you tried to pass an abortion bill. | ||
And we have a similar, we talked about abortion last time you were on the show, | ||
and we have a similar stance on it. | ||
My position before I wrote my book was 20 weeks, because at that point, we know that the fetus can feel pain. | ||
Now there's actually a little evidence that it's closer to 18 weeks. | ||
But then in my book, I took the first trimester position, which is about 12 weeks in effect. | ||
And I talk about, I concede that I believe it's a life. | ||
I tried to talk about as many of the moral and philosophical and religious issues and all of those things. | ||
I think you know that David and I are in the midst of surrogacy right now. | ||
So I'm like well aware of all of the stuff related to this, right? | ||
You put forth a bill that, as I said earlier, was the democratic position for pretty much the last three decades or so, but is not the democratic position anymore. | ||
So can you lay it out for us? | ||
Sure. | ||
I introduced two bills. | ||
One is the Late-Term Abortion Ban Act, and the other is the Born Alive Survivors Protection Act. | ||
There were similar pieces of legislation that were introduced previously in Congress | ||
that had some issues, some minor issues with the bill that I felt that I needed to vote against it. | ||
For example, the Late-Term Abortion Act. | ||
There had been a similar bill that was introduced previously | ||
that provided an exception to the bill if the life of the mother was at stake, | ||
but it did not allow for any exception if there were severe and irreversible | ||
health and physical consequences at stake for the mother. | ||
So I felt that I had to oppose it at that time because it did not provide that exception. | ||
The bill that I introduced included that, essentially, but was mostly the same as the other bill. | ||
Look, for babies who are born alive, even after an attempted abortion, there are laws in place that should be strengthened to make sure that any doctor and healthcare provider in that situation must do all that they can to save that baby's life. | ||
No matter how that baby got to that situation, just as they would be required to do under law for a baby that was born prematurely, maybe at that same age. | ||
To me, these are bills that every American, frankly, should support. | ||
Right, so I could get not supporting it if you were completely against abortion, because you just wouldn't want those bills to exist, but for the group of people that have some gray area there, what's your actual position on the cutoff of your first trimester also, if I'm not mistaken? | ||
The bill is 20 weeks. | ||
It is modeled after, as you mentioned, there's been a lot of science that's based around when the baby can start to feel pain and that's what the bill is based on. | ||
Yeah, do you find that even on abortion, that it's easier in an odd way to talk to Republicans? | ||
I think the average Republican or conservative, let's say, is gonna disagree with you on this. | ||
They absolutely disagree with me on this. | ||
The amount of letters that I got saying, Dave, I loved your book, you're wrong on abortion, but it's okay. | ||
We can agree to disagree. | ||
Do you find that even people who completely disagree with you on this, on the right are still willing to talk to you about it, where to take that 20-week position on the left is pretty much impossible these days. | ||
Yeah, which is unfortunate. | ||
I mean, for me personally, I am personally pro-life. | ||
I would never make that choice to have an abortion. | ||
It's often one of the most difficult decisions that any woman may make in her life. | ||
And it really comes down to, you know, what role does the government have to play into this? | ||
And so this is a much, much bigger topic that we as Americans should come together and talk about and discuss. | ||
Because when you implement laws, there are consequences that come with those laws. | ||
And there's a country, I believe it might have, I think it was Argentina. | ||
There's a South American country that, for example, had very strict laws in place where they ended up actually arresting women who had had miscarriages because it was a violation of their anti-abortion laws. | ||
So we've got to go through this question morally as a society and the decision that people are making for themselves. | ||
And the impacts of that personally, but also what role government should have in this incredibly personal decision that a woman may make for herself and her family. | ||
I've seen, just going back to your question, there are Democrats and people who consider themselves progressives who really believe that there should be no restrictions whatsoever on abortion. | ||
I completely disagree with that. | ||
I think that to a certain point, women need to be able to make this decision for themselves, but there should be very clear restrictions in place. | ||
And that we as a society should come together to find ways to make it so that this is a rare decision that is put in place. | ||
And unfortunately, that's not something that is being pushed, especially by Democrats. | ||
Yeah, and that's so unfortunate because it's like, man, if you guys would just show us a little of that gray area, you could still keep people. | ||
But I always, you know, I've debated abortion with plenty of pro-life people on my show, Ben Shapiro and Dennis Prager and a whole bunch of others. | ||
And I always say to them at the end, you know, you guys make compelling arguments, but in a weird way, it's the craziness of the left that has made me slightly more pro-life. | ||
Because if you're gonna tell me you can have an abortion at eight months, I just can't get there. | ||
I agree. | ||
Let's do a little bit of future stuff before we let you go. | ||
First we'll do some quick political stuff, then I want to do some personal stuff. | ||
It does look like Joe Biden will be the president, Kamala Harris will be vice president. | ||
Do you sense, despite everything we've talked about here and obviously what's unfolding in DC right now, that this idea of healing, I know you want it to happen, but you know, we're being told now it's the time to heal and all of this stuff. | ||
Do you sense that we're really gonna get there or is it just kind of, you know, a little bit of lip service? | ||
For now. | ||
I think the jury is still out right now. | ||
Again, I very much hope that we see a major shift in our leadership. | ||
And yes, the tone that the president sets is very important, but it's got to be bigger and more far-reaching than that. | ||
So, you know, we'll see what happens there. | ||
We'll see what happens through the nomination process, the kinds of people that we've seen Biden choose as his nominees to serve in his cabinet. | ||
To me, some of the problems that I see very directly are that many of them represent The same kind of legal corruption in Washington that we've seen for a long time, where you have people who rotate through this revolving door of working in government, then you go work as a lobbyist, then you go get money from a defense contractor, then you go back in and work in the Department of Defense. | ||
And this is what we see in who he's nominated to serve as Secretary of Defense. | ||
He was yanked off the board of Raytheon to go and now be the nominee for Secretary of Defense. You | ||
see this with the Secretary of State nominee, Tony Blinken, who's just made a whole | ||
bunch of money from defense contractors in the time between the Obama administration and now. What | ||
to speak of the policies that a lot of these folks represent, which are really centered around | ||
looking at their track records, continuing these costly, warmongering regime change interventions that | ||
have proven to be incredibly destructive. | ||
And costly both for us here in this country, our troops, our people, as well as the people in the countries where these wars have been waged. | ||
And that's something that's of serious concern to me. | ||
And again, something that I'm going to continue to be very vocal on trying to shift our country's policy into one that actually works best for our country, the American people and for peace. | ||
I think what you just said there is that the swamp is real, in effect. | ||
When people talk about the swamp, this rotating group of people that come in and out and never really kind of do much or anything. | ||
All right, so that's the political part. | ||
But what about for you personally? | ||
Because I know people would love to have you back in politics. | ||
I know you want to take a little break and do some other things. | ||
What's going on with Tulsi? | ||
I'm in Hawaii right now. | ||
I am going to go surfing hopefully in a few hours. | ||
I don't know specifically yet, but I do know that I am going to be continuing to be a strong voice and a strong advocate for a lot of these issues that we're talking about that really center around upholding our fundamental freedoms as Americans in this | ||
country that are under threat, that we cannot take for granted, continuing to push for and | ||
advocate for common sense policies and solutions, and frankly, just conversations where we can | ||
bring people together who may have different views and backgrounds and have a sincere | ||
exchange of ideas based on respect in that spirit of aloha, of really caring for each other | ||
and caring for the future of this country and the world for that matter. | ||
That feels like a good ending to me. | ||
What about you? | ||
I think so, I think so. | ||
There's no better way to open and close a conversation than aloha. | ||
There you go. | ||
All right, well, it was good seeing ya, or whatever these digital things are. | ||
I hope I'm gonna work on getting out to Hawaii. | ||
I do need a little escape from California, so I'm gonna work. | ||
I think so. | ||
I'm gonna work on that, but good luck with everything. | ||
unidentified
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You let me know. | |
We'll go out in the water. | ||
You know, I've only surfed once, so you're gonna have some serious, you got some teaching skills? | ||
unidentified
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It's okay. | |
I know you do. | ||
I do, I do. | ||
You'll be in good hands, trust me. | ||
I do have a torn ACL in my knee, but that's a separate issue. | ||
You'll be fine. | ||
Alright Tulsi, thanks so much for doing this and I look forward to seeing what's next. | ||
Thank you. | ||
If you're looking for more honest and thoughtful conversations about politics instead of nonstop yelling, check out our politics playlist. | ||
And if you want to watch full interviews on a variety of topics, watch our full episode playlist all right over here. |