Jan. 15, 2023 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
48:12
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| Speaker | Time | Text |
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| The fact that there has been no accountability with regards to the whole COVID debacle. | ||
| But the other example that comes to mind as well is there's been no one held accountable for the debacle that was the withdrawal from Afghanistan. | ||
| And I'm sure we could come up with a short list very quickly of other major disasters of zero people being held accountable. | ||
| No one was held accountable for the lies that they told around the Hunter Biden laptop. | ||
| Uh, you know, we could go down the list that that goes to the heart of your point, which is so, so important. | ||
| We as voters get to hold our elected leaders accountable at the ballot box, right? | ||
| That is our primary way of being able to make our decisions about who we hire and fire in those positions. | ||
| Um, it is up to us to hold their feet to the fire to bring about that accountability. | ||
| Congresswoman from the great state of Hawaii and now a former Democrat. | ||
| Tulsi Gabbard, welcome back to The Rubin Report. | ||
| Nice to see you, my friend. | ||
| It's been a little while. | ||
| It has been a little while. | ||
| Tulsi, this is my first interview of 2023, so you really got to bring it today. | ||
| I know you're busy. | ||
| I'm on it. | ||
| You're doing your Tucker thing all the time, but I know you got to you got to bring it for me. | ||
| Can you do that? | ||
| No, I'll do my best. | ||
| I'll do my best. | ||
| Let's start real quick. | ||
| I don't want to belabor the point with leaving the Democrat Party, and you've obviously talked about it quite a bit, and I was kind of trying to nudge you in my own way for a while. | ||
| Is there anything you want to comment on related to that at this point? | ||
| You left, you campaigned with some Republicans, obviously the wave didn't happen, but we are seeing sort of wholesale changes on both sides right now. | ||
| Anything as we start the year off on that front that's on your mind? | ||
| Yeah, sure. | ||
| As I think back to when I announced I left the Democratic Party on October 11th, and I listed out some very specific and clear reasons why I made that decision to leave the Democratic Party, what's wrong with today's Democratic Party, and my decision to become an independent. | ||
| And frankly, the things that we have seen play out since then and are continuing to play out, unfortunately, just further highlight and underline those very real concerns that I have. | ||
| And frankly, since making that announcement, I've heard from a lot of people, maybe some people who are well-known names, but it's also a lot of just everyday Americans who have expressed how they have felt or are feeling the same frustrations that I am, and that they were grateful to have somebody actually voice those in a way that a lot of folks across the country heard. | ||
| You know, there's a lot happening, as you know very well, Dave, below the surface that doesn't make it into, you know, the big headlines of the mainstream media at all. | ||
| But it really is this underlying frustration. | ||
| And frankly, it's not just with the Democratic Party, as we're seeing happen now. | ||
| It's with the Republican Party as well. | ||
| And frankly, it points to just the American people. | ||
| Pissed off, frustrated and disenfranchised with those who are in power, period. | ||
| What was it like for you when you, cause you basically made the announcement and then you started campaigning with some people. | ||
| I mean, when you were going to these rallies, obviously people, people liked having you there and all that stuff, but you do have some differences with traditional Republicans. | ||
| Was, was there tension there or? | ||
| I found personally that yeah, people just get over it. | ||
| Yeah, there was no tension and I think it was, and, and sometimes those, That statement was made, well, we're not going to agree on everything, which we're not. | ||
| Who actually does? | ||
| But all of those candidates that I went and supported, none of that was planned beforehand. | ||
| And my phone just started ringing off the hook, coming from different candidates across the country who recognize exactly what we just talked about, is that there are a lot of folks who, whether they identify as independent or not, are independent minded people and who are maybe struggling, | ||
| especially in those last weeks before the election, about trying to decide who they | ||
| want to cast their vote for, given their frustrations with people in both political | ||
| parties. | ||
| And so that was where the requests I got came from. | ||
| Frankly, it was it was Republicans. | ||
| There were no Democrats, I think, who had the courage to, even those who I know agree with my same frustrations and concerns with the Democratic Party, didn't have the courage to step up and actually say those things. | ||
| So the request I got came from Republicans across the spectrum of the Republican Party. | ||
| And regardless of differences on other issues, ultimately, I chose to go out and support those who value freedom. | ||
| and who are committed to the constitution and who recognize the need for leaders to step up and lead | ||
| and speak the truth, whether that is about leaders in the Democratic Party | ||
| or the Republican Party, but actually step up and speak for | ||
| and fight for the American people. | ||
| Does that seem like sort of an obvious extension of the way that your campaign, | ||
| when you were running for president, sort of ended in that you were the last one besides Biden? | ||
| Everyone else cut the deal, whatever they had to do to get into what would be the future administration. | ||
| You stuck and fought. | ||
| You didn't cut the deals. | ||
| You had Hillary Clinton literally claiming you were, in essence, a Russian operative. | ||
| So that where you sit today as an independent seems fairly obvious. | ||
| For anybody who's been paying attention, right? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, I've always been an independent minded person, you know, for as long as I, you know, chose to become a Democrat back in 2002 when I first ran for state house here in Hawaii, because at that time I was drawn to the Democratic Party because especially here in Hawaii, I saw a party that was really rooted in inclusiveness and civil liberties and standing up for free speech. | ||
| Diversity of thought in the big tent party and, and, um, and frankly, there were a lot of voices in the democratic party that were voices for peace. | ||
| Uh, that's changed almost wholesale since then. | ||
| Uh, but from that point throughout, as long as I've been in and out of politics since 2002, uh, I've always been an independent minded person and always really done my best to try to make decisions, policy decisions or otherwise based on how Well, what's in the best interest of the American people? | ||
| What's in the best interest of the country? | ||
| So let me ask you one that's that's actually purely on policy, because I mentioned to my locals community this morning that I was having you on today. | ||
| And basically, my audience loves you. | ||
| Even even the people that are, say, more right than you are. | ||
| They say, OK, well, we can have an honest conversation with her. | ||
| She's trying to talk about this stuff. | ||
| All good. | ||
| The one that keeps coming up with you is they still are afraid you are going to come after their guns if you were to go back into government, that that they see as somehow the piece of you that is still a Democrat or something like that. | ||
| I'm honestly not even totally sure of your policies on all of that, so I just leave it to you to answer their question. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| I've always supported the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms. | ||
| What I will say has changed over the last few years is You know, previously, you know, growing up in Hawaii, we have one of the most restrictive laws, one of the most states with restrictive laws in the country as it pertains to gun ownership. | ||
| It takes weeks to be able to go and apply for and get a permit and actually be able to take the firearm that you purchased home with you. | ||
| It's a pretty tough and rigorous process. | ||
| So I didn't grow up around, you know, shooting a lot of guns and a different culture than maybe a lot of folks have in other parts of the country. | ||
| Um, and so as I looked at what I felt were common sense policies around, uh, you know, making sure that we can try to prevent mass shootings in schools and so forth. | ||
| Uh, that was what was informing my judgment and my decision making as a member of Congress. | ||
| Um, the thing that has changed in a very, very, uh, impactful way for me is seeing how The danger of this, of anyone in government overstepping their boundaries and violating our rights and really understanding in a visceral way our founders' intent to put the Second Amendment in place was not only to defend your safety and your family, protect your family against those who seek to do you harm, but also for us as a people | ||
| As a line of defense to protect ourselves against a tyrannical government. | ||
| And when you look at what has happened since 2020, in so many respects, we see more and more authoritarian leaning decisions and intentions and policies being put forward by our own federal government. | ||
| And you start to see again why the Second Amendment is important. | ||
| That's what I started to see and better understand. | ||
| There are a number of things that happened. | ||
| There was the Supreme Court. | ||
| Um, decision that was made with regard to the New York concealed carry permit case. | ||
| Um, I read, actually read through a lot of the comments and the remarks, uh, that went on throughout that case and also the decision. | ||
| And there were some things there that, uh, provided for me some, some fundamental insight, uh, and, and caused me to look at, look at the second one in a way that frankly I'd never had. | ||
| And very simply, which is, um, The Second Amendment must be protected as strongly and fiercely as we protect the First Amendment. | ||
| You don't have to get a permit to go, and I don't have to go to get a permit to go and stand on a street corner with a megaphone and start telling people what I think. | ||
| Not yet, but that exactly is the point, right? | ||
| That exactly is the point, is we are seeing this infringement on our right to free speech. | ||
| We're seeing people in very powerful positions in our federal government pointing to the fact and questioning, well, I don't know if the First Amendment is relevant anymore. | ||
| It is necessary, and frankly, people are even saying it shouldn't exist in order to protect people from what they call so-called hate speech, or from people being offended, or whatever the case may be. | ||
| And then, again, for me, seeing these policies, these statements, this kind of direct undermining of our fundamental God-given rights that are enshrined in the Constitution, further highlighted and really brought home for me in a way that I hadn't Um, that hadn't happened for me before with the importance of the second amendment and why it says our rights shall not be infringed. | ||
| Is that, is that why, uh, you know, when you're a guest on Tucker or now you, you fairly often guest host, that that alignment makes sense to you because even though if you would have said five years ago, well, wait a minute, here's a democratic Congresswoman from Hawaii and here's Tucker Carlson, you know, basically in the Trump camp, let's say, There's a reason that it makes sense now because so many people have woken up to all of these infringements on our rights. | ||
| Like, is that basically the genesis of what kind of brings these orbits together? | ||
| I think that's one of them. | ||
| I think that there are, the more people see, and I think a lot of people saw it through the COVID restrictions, people who maybe weren't even involved politically or don't really pay much attention to a lot of things or never watched Tucker's show, Maybe yours or didn't pay attention to me or whatever. | ||
| I think more and more people are like, well, hold on a second. | ||
| Um, these decisions are causing, uh, my family and my community to suffer my small business to fail and so on, but it doesn't really make sense. | ||
| These are not science based decisions. | ||
| These aren't decisions that are actually, uh, respecting our civil liberties and freedoms. | ||
| And really it just got to the heart of the fact that we had people who got a little bit of power, And decided that they weren't gonna let it go and started abusing that power and making decisions that were more about themselves and their power than it was actually about helping people. | ||
| And so I think there were and are a number of different contributing factors to that. | ||
| You see people who are frustrated by corporate America abusing their power at the expense of working people. | ||
| You see I think, you know, you see impingement on religious freedom in this country and also policies this administration is putting forward in different parts of the world. | ||
| So I think there's a lot of different factors and people look at, well, hold on, what are the fundamental principles this country was founded upon? | ||
| And are those who took an oath to support and defend the Constitution actually fulfilling that oath? | ||
| And I think people are seeing more and more that we have Democrats and Republicans in | ||
| power in this country who care more for themselves than they do for the people. | ||
| And that's where you see a lot of folks from across the political spectrum, I think, coming | ||
| together, putting aside the political labels and just saying, hey, this this is not right. | ||
| And this is not what this country and our principles are all about. | ||
| Is that sort of what stops you from just saying, hey, I'm a Republican at this point, because you just feel like it's just like an old game. | ||
| So what's the point, really? | ||
| Because most of the things that you're saying, they do line up more with Republicans. | ||
| I get Republicans usually fail on those things, but at least it's the stuff that they talk about, which really the Democrats just simply don't talk about anymore. | ||
| It's not frankly, it's not something I'm thinking about. | ||
| Being an independent, I am continuing to do what I have been doing, which is to speak the truth and to call it straight, whether it's Democrats or Republicans. | ||
| I think that there are, obviously I've been very clear in outlining the problems that I've seen with today's Democratic Party. | ||
| If you look at today's Republican Party, especially what's playing out right now on C-SPAN, I think there's probably a lot of Republicans who are asking, well, what does the Republican Party stand for? | ||
| And like you said, one example is on the issue of civil liberties. | ||
| There are different factions within the Republican Party, people who might say, yes, we stand for freedom and the Constitution and civil liberties, but these are the very same people who will stand up and defend all of the egregious provisions within the Patriot Act that undermine our civil liberties. | ||
| We see the pro-war machine, Uniparty in Washington, leaders in both political parties, I will say there is a glimmer of hope on the Republican Party side because unlike the Democratic Party where there apparently are no voices now saying, well, hold on, we should exercise restraint. | ||
| We shouldn't be going and trying to get ourselves into new cold wars and nuclear arm races and nuclear war with other countries. | ||
| At least on the Republican side, there's a small but growing number of elected leaders in Congress who have the courage to stand up against the military industrial complex and the war machine in Washington and their own leaders in their own party. | ||
| Saying this is not good for the American people. | ||
| This is not good for our country. | ||
| So, you know, I think it's most important for us to look to holding leaders accountable | ||
| from both political parties and actually try to bring about that systemic change that brings | ||
| us back to the Constitution, not just in words, but in reality, and also brings us back to | ||
| what I think is the most important premise that our leaders should use in making these | ||
| decisions, whether on domestic or foreign policy, is what is in the best interest of | ||
| the American people? | ||
| What is in the best interest of ensuring the safety, security, and freedom of the American | ||
| people in this country? | ||
| Are you worried that just too many people don't believe that that could happen? | ||
| So, you know, if you were to look at the $1.7 trillion spending bill and we're going to defend the borders of Oman and Jordan, but not our own borders, that at this point there's been a certain blackpilling, at least at the federal level, where people are just like, It just does not work period. | ||
| As I say on my show all the time, I live in Florida where everything is highly functional and competent and decent. | ||
| So I have a very weird disconnect between my day-to-day life and sometimes the things that I'm talking about on the show because here it's freaking working. | ||
| Maybe we can export some of that, but I think a lot of people feel they look at a bill like that. | ||
| They look at the amount of people. | ||
| Well, I guess I'll ask it to you this way. | ||
| Would you have voted for that freaking thing? | ||
| I would not. | ||
| No, I would not have voted for it. | ||
| There's no question in my mind for a whole host of reasons. | ||
| But that bill is, I think it's right that that bill and all that it represents is something that is at the heart of this whole debate around who the next House Speaker will be. | ||
| I think some of the problems are that we're seeing play out is that I don't know that the, again, I'm not in those rooms at all. | ||
| I'm not privy to private conversations at all that are going on there. | ||
| But what is being reported, it doesn't seem like the The peripheral changes that are that they're talking about in those negotiations are getting to kind of what the heart of the problem is. | ||
| And so, you know, we'll see how that all shakes out. | ||
| But I think that some of the issues raised by people like Congressman Chip Roy are important. | ||
| And those are not necessarily issues that are owned by, quote unquote, conservatives or Republicans. | ||
| I think there's a lot of people in the country who just look at this from a common sense perspective | ||
| and say, well, no, it doesn't make sense for Congress to pass this $1.7 trillion bill | ||
| that very few, most I would say, didn't take the time to read and look at | ||
| and actually analyze. | ||
| I'm pretty sure we can say zero. | ||
| You've signed a couple of these type of things, right? | ||
| Like nobody read this thing, right? | ||
| Plus you get what, barely 72 hours, like not even working hours, like 72, | ||
| I guess clock hours before you actually have to vote on this thing. | ||
| And oh, by the way, there's no open amendment. | ||
| So you can't, you know, as a member of Congress, I, I would not have been able to go in there and say, I have problems with these and these and these provisions and then offer an amendment on the house floor. | ||
| Uh, they stopped allowing that a long time ago. | ||
| Um, there's no actual open opportunity to debate what is in the bill. | ||
| So it just goes to just how broken, how broken the process is. | ||
| Um, I think you started the question by asking, You know, is it too far gone, basically, right? | ||
| Can it be fixed? | ||
| I think as messy as it is, what we're seeing happen, play out now with this House Speaker question, is the kind of thing that needs to happen. | ||
| in order to start bringing about the changes that actually fix what's wrong. | ||
| Yeah, and just for the record, we're taping this on Friday afternoon. | ||
| I think they're in their 12th round right now, and a few people did switch to McCarthy, | ||
| but we're posting this on Monday, so Lord only knows what'll happen | ||
| with the rest of the votes. | ||
| I want to back up to something that you said earlier was sort of about the bureaucratic state and the people who failed us and did trample on our civil liberties during COVID and all that. | ||
| What do you think, if anything, should be done? | ||
| I'm not a particularly the type of guy that wants to have retribution against people, but it seems to me that the people that forced the vaxes and the and the mandates and now we're finding out all of this stuff about heart problems and a litany of other issues. | ||
| Nobody's been fired at the CDC. | ||
| Nobody's been fired at HHS. | ||
| Fauci did, I guess, resign in effect. | ||
| Was allowed to retire, right? | ||
| Right, was allowed to retire. | ||
| Walensky is still wandering around the Capitol. | ||
| Should we do anything? | ||
| Do we need to do anything? | ||
| Otherwise, to me, it's just like, we'll do it all over again because nobody will have paid the price. | ||
| I agree. | ||
| I agree that the fact that there has been no accountability with regards to the whole COVID debacle. | ||
| But the other example that comes to mind as well as there's been no one held accountable for the debacle that was the withdrawal from Afghanistan. | ||
| And I'm sure we could come up with a short list very quickly of other major disasters of zero people being held accountable. | ||
| No one was held accountable for the lies that they told around the Hunter Biden laptop. | ||
| Uh, you know, we could go down the list that that goes to the heart of your point, which is so, so important. | ||
| We as voters get to hold our elected leaders accountable at the ballot box, right? | ||
| That is our primary way of being able to make our decisions about who we hire and fire in those positions. | ||
| Um, it is up to us to hold their feet to the fire, to bring about that accountability in, in kind of the, the, uh, Uh, you know, the security state in some elements, the bureaucratic state, the administrative state, whatever, whatever you want to call it. | ||
| Congress plays an incredibly important role in that with an administration that fails to hold its own, uh, both appointed leaders accountable as well as those who are bureaucrats in the system. | ||
| This is where the house of representatives and the Senate come into such a critical role and why we have this co-equal branch. | ||
| Why, who we vote for in those positions. | ||
| matters so that the oversight committee can do its job so that they can bring people in so they can establish select | ||
| committees to actually hold those | ||
| responsible accountable and with transparency to the American people about what they're doing why they're doing | ||
| it and frankly exposing the dangerous situation that we have now | ||
| where we have these unappointed unelected people in positions of power making | ||
| decisions changing rules within the government that have a very | ||
| real impact on our lives the lives of our kids and families and businesses across this country | ||
| But somehow they're allowed to essentially make law through administrative rule changes | ||
| again without any kind of legislative process without any input on the America from the American people through our | ||
| elected representatives Do you think that some of the other Congress people, when you were serving, they kind of liked that fact? | ||
| They liked the fact that their decision-making was outsourced and basically they didn't have to do anything? | ||
| I mean, that's, yeah? | ||
| Yeah, because what answer do they have then when they go home? | ||
| Maybe they have a town hall meeting or they answer their constituents, like, well, why has this happened? | ||
| Like, oh, sorry, it's that guy's fault. | ||
| Sorry, it's their fault. | ||
| No, this didn't go through Congress. | ||
| It's not on our plate. | ||
| But in reality, they're abdicating that very essential and important responsibility that Congress has. | ||
| And it has happened over time in so many different aspects of our government. | ||
| And it allows people who we as voters elect to basically sideline themselves because then they carry no responsibility for those decisions that are being made. | ||
| Congress should be fighting to claw back their own power, right? | ||
| Congress should be bringing, trying to bring that back, roll back the power that's been | ||
| given to the executive branch to just basically do whatever they want. | ||
| But unfortunately again, and this is, you know, who's responsible? | ||
| Well, guess what? | ||
| Both Democrats and Republicans have been in charge, you know, one way at one time or another, | ||
| and we don't see that kind of, the recognizing kind of what, what's the underlying issue | ||
| And instead we see a lot of leaders, people who are in leadership positions just reacting and saying, well, we'll just, we'll just pass a new law for this, pass a new law for that. | ||
| But, but not actually getting to, well, how did we even get here in the first place? | ||
| And let's, let's get back to the cause. | ||
| So, to that point, you were one of the most outspoken anti-war congresspeople in the country while you served, and you paid the price for it. | ||
| I mean, literally, again, Hillary was calling you a Russian stooge or whatever they were saying about you, because you were anti-war. | ||
| So right now, with this Ukraine situation, we are not at war, Congress has not declared war. | ||
| But we are funding a war to over $100 billion at this point, another $40 billion just in the $1.7 trillion bill. | ||
| We're funding a war. | ||
| We're giving weapons. | ||
| We're giving intelligence. | ||
| We're training soldiers. | ||
| To me, that kind of sounds like we're at war. | ||
| It essentially is a proxy war. | ||
| And this is yet another way that this administration and Congress, Democrats and Republicans in Congress, have once again bypassed their constitutional responsibility. | ||
| If they want to go to war with Russia, which they've made very clear that that is what they want, both directly and verbally, and also indirectly through their actions, make your case. | ||
| Make your case to the American people about why you feel that that is so important, why they feel it is in the best interest of our country and the American people, and why the American people should be willing to pay the price for it. | ||
| As you said, it's already over $100 billion. | ||
| Meanwhile, you look at a lot of folks who are still Struggling and suffering here at home, both those who have been impacted by natural disasters, those in Mississippi, for example, who are still under a boiled water policy because they don't have access to clean drinking water that they can use for their families. | ||
| I mean, there are so many basic, basic challenges here that we are too often told we just we just can't afford it. | ||
| We don't have the money for it. | ||
| And yet we, the people, have had no say in this hundred billion dollars that's gone over to fund this proxy war with Russia via Ukraine, what to | ||
| speak of the suffering of the Ukrainian people. So what do we do, I think, is the big question | ||
| right at this point, because we all have great compassion for the people of Ukraine. | ||
| What Putin did is wrong, absolutely wrong, in invading Ukraine. | ||
| These are not disputable things. | ||
| The problem is that we have politicians in Washington and the Biden administration, as well as in Congress, who even though they say they care for the people of Ukraine, are not doing what is necessary to bring about an end to this war, instead seeking to escalate it further and further, and doing so through their actions, which again really just shows their true motives, true intentions, which is feeding into the military-industrial complex. | ||
| It's not about bringing about peace, because if it were, all the way back in February and in March and in subsequent months since, they would have been supporting a peace process rather than actively trying to block it. | ||
| Were you shocked when Zelensky gave that speech to Congress a couple weeks ago, and in essence said there will be no compromise? | ||
| I mean, it's a little odd to say, and I agree with you on the... First off, at Locals, we had an office in Ukraine. | ||
| We had to move our guys out. | ||
| We've gotten some of them to the United States, but some of them are in Macedonia right now. | ||
| I have complete sympathy for everyone there. | ||
| But the guy that's in the war shows up here and says, I will not compromise with the guy with nukes. | ||
| And everyone applauded. | ||
| It's like, do you know what happens when the guy with nukes thinks he's losing? | ||
| Exactly, exactly. | ||
| There was so much that was deeply disturbing about that speech and how most members of Congress reacted with applause, with adoration, treating him as though he is some hero or rock star. | ||
| I think one of the things that In addition to the point that you mentioned about we have actively, and I hold our leaders responsible. | ||
| Zelensky is going to do what Zelensky is going to do. | ||
| But I hold our leaders responsible, President Biden, Democrat, Republican leaders in Congress responsible for the decisions that they have made that have put the American people in our country at risk by escalating this war against a nuclear armed power. | ||
| Pushing us to the brink of nuclear catastrophe with no plan, with no investment, saying, OK, well, here we are. | ||
| Good thing we went and invested trillions of dollars in underground bunkers for every American citizen to go and take shelter because we've put you in this situation. | ||
| They've not done that at all. | ||
| If anything, they've done it for themselves, but not for the American people, which leaves us in a position of perish in that scenario. | ||
| But the other thing, in addition to that, that was so disturbing about his speech was how he spoke about freedom and he spoke about democracy. | ||
| And he's not only putting himself in the position as being this champion of democracy around the world, but our own leaders have lionized him and made this whole war about, well, we have to defend democracy and freedom in Ukraine or else democracy and freedom in the world will be assaulted or attacked. | ||
| Well, let's look at what kind of democracy Zelensky is leading in Ukraine. | ||
| You know, he not only jailed his political opponents very, very, very early on, he banned their entire political party. | ||
| You know, there are so many different, you know, he shut down any media that was not controlled by him and his government, essentially. | ||
| So no free speech, no room for any political opposition. | ||
| And then he went after religion. | ||
| No religious freedom in this country. | ||
| He shut down the second largest Christian church in that country. | ||
| And for what? | ||
| Under the guise of democracy and freedom? | ||
| How is this representative of the kind of democracy that our founders envisioned? | ||
| It doesn't. | ||
| And so what I reflected on, what I think every American should think about as they watch this, This is the guy they have put as the figurehead of democracy. | ||
| And we saw Republicans and Democrats cheering and applauding for this person who doesn't believe in free speech, doesn't believe in freedom of religion, doesn't believe in freedom or democracy really at all. | ||
| And so we should not therefore then be surprised if this is what they believe democracy is. | ||
| Then we shouldn't be surprised at the kinds of things that they're doing to undermine our own freedoms here at home and our own democracy here at home because it's happening. | ||
| It's not a question at this point. | ||
| And this should be This should be alarming for everybody and not surprising that this is the direction that they're taking, which is not representative of democracy at all. | ||
| It's more representative of a dictatorship or an authoritarian government. | ||
| Yeah, and the funny part is I don't blame Zelensky for coming here and demanding money and demanding no compromise because... | ||
| Why the hell not? | ||
| And then you walk away with everything you asked for. | ||
| So he's doing what he believes is right for himself, or his party, or his country. | ||
| And you've got a bunch of people here that are like, oh, how much can I write on that check? | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| And that's the thing that's so crazy to me. | ||
| Even after that speech, I think it was a couple of days ago, there was a story that popped up where Zelensky was basically saying that his quote unquote allies have no excuse not to send him these light Armored vehicles. | ||
| There's no excuse why they aren't just sending him exactly every single thing that he demands. | ||
| That's crazy to me. | ||
| And it's crazy. | ||
| What's even crazier than his demands, though, is he knows what power he has because he has the most powerful people in the United States of America bowing to him and giving him whatever he wants. | ||
| And President Biden essentially ceding our country's foreign policy decisions to this guy in Ukraine. | ||
| When people ask the President, when does this war end? | ||
| When do we stop? | ||
| When is enough enough? | ||
| And he says, well, you know, we're in it. | ||
| I'm not going to quote him directly because I don't have the quote, | ||
| but he basically has said, we'll do whatever it takes. | ||
| We're in this until, what, this is up to Putin to decide. | ||
| Like, we're in this until, What about your leadership, your responsibility as the President of the United States? | ||
| What about the leadership of the head of the House, the head of the Senate, from both political parties? | ||
| Where is their leadership and their responsibility coming into play? | ||
| Because they are certainly not serving the best interests of the American people. | ||
| Our security in our country with these decisions. | ||
| So with that in mind, if we were to flashback to say, you know, what is it, about six years ago, we sat down for the first time at my house in L.A. | ||
| when you were running. | ||
| It was just at the beginning of the campaign. | ||
| Gosh. | ||
| And it seems like many lifetimes ago, right? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| It's many states ago for me. | ||
| You were obviously frustrated with the squad. | ||
| And I think you were one of the first, at least sitting Democrats, to talk about that publicly, like a lot of online people were talking about it. | ||
| But you were frustrated with that. | ||
| But then that thing went rampant throughout the party. | ||
| Do you think there's any who, like, is there any calm voice there that's saying anything that makes sense to Biden or Kamala or it's just it just is gone now? | ||
| It's a good question. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| Really, frankly, I don't know. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I know that there are people there who who I worked with before who take a more common sense approach. | ||
| And who are concerned about a lot of the same things that I'm concerned about. | ||
| But whether or not they actually, whether or not they have fallen into that same wave of so-called woke-ism, and whether or not they actually have the courage to have these conversations, even in private, even if they're not willing to say these things in public, even in private, I don't know. | ||
| But what we do know is how they are carrying themselves publicly, the things they are saying publicly, and the decisions that they are making in the votes that they cast. | ||
| And the fact that we don't have people in the Democratic Party today who are speaking out against things like infringing on free speech. | ||
| Standing up for free speech is not a thing in the Democratic Party anymore today. | ||
| Or if you say something that is offensive to anybody, then you shouldn't be allowed to say it, which is just insanity. | ||
| I don't know if you've had Ira Glasser on your show, but he, as the former head of the ACLU, for decades, and who's somebody who considers himself a very left-progressive person, is, to me, the lone voice that I've heard in those political circles, who is calling out this insanity for what it is. | ||
| Because he's literally lived through it, and he has seen what happens when you carry through, when you carry out some of the policies that, or the Yeah, I haven't had him on, but I had his predecessor, I think it was Nadine Strassen, and when I had her on she talked about how the ACLU used to defend the rights, I know you know this, to defend the rights of Nazis to march in Skokie, Illinois, where they had more | ||
| Holocaust survivors than anywhere in the United States that was once the ACLU the defender of free speech So that that's actually a good Segway to the big tech stuff because you've been fighting the big tech stuff for a long time and actually during your campaign I think you were in a lawsuit with Google at the time. | ||
| Yeah So a did did anything come of that and be then just broadly like Twitter files the whole freaking thing What is going on the whole freaking thing? | ||
| Yeah Judge a judge throughout so so for those who don't know I filed a lawsuit against Google because, frankly, of their interference in our elections through my campaign. | ||
| It's something that I experienced personally. | ||
| When I was first running for president, I knew there were a lot of people in this country who didn't know who I was, and I hoped that by going and standing on the presidential debate stage, as people would see, hey, who's this person? | ||
| She might be saying some interesting things. | ||
| How do we find out more about her? | ||
| So we set up a Google Ads account. | ||
| in the hopes that people would start looking to try to get more information about why I | ||
| was offering to serve as president. | ||
| Well, that happened. | ||
| I was the most searched candidate in that first debate and in subsequent debates after. | ||
| But in that first debate, what ended up happening afterwards is Google suspended our ad account | ||
| without any explanation, without any warning. | ||
| Our tech team obviously got on it right away and they were trying to figure, okay, what | ||
| How do we fix this? | ||
| How do we bring this account back up so it's not suspended anymore? | ||
| Didn't get a response. | ||
| And then I don't know how long it was later, but finally the account was reinstated without any explanation whatsoever. | ||
| So obviously this had a very negative impact. | ||
| On what I was trying to accomplish in my campaign and being able to reach people but we filed a lawsuit for the deeper issue which was if Google can make this decision single-handedly and whether it was somebody sitting at a small desk somewhere just making that decision themselves or if it was people people at a higher up level it doesn't really matter the point is that you have this monopoly in this major massive tech company that has the ability to To interfere with the information that voters are seeking to get about, so that they can make a decision about who they want to vote for in the most important office in this country, the most powerful office in this country. | ||
| And so if they could do that to a sitting member of Congress running for President of the United States, just imagine what they could do to anyone, anywhere, for any reason, to serve their own interest. | ||
| And so that was the crux of the lawsuit. | ||
| We filed the lawsuit. | ||
| A judge tossed it out. | ||
| But as we have seen now, in those years since, there have been more and more revelations coming from and about these different big tech companies, how they have directly sought to undermine and interfere, frankly, in our democracy. | ||
| What to speak of all the censorship stuff. | ||
| That's a whole other parallel conversation. | ||
| So when you see the Twitter files get dumped, and now you've already gone through this as you just laid out. | ||
| Kudos to Elon Musk for that. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| I mean, here's one guy. | ||
| All he's saying is, hey, free speech. | ||
| And of course, now we're watching the entire machine call him a white supremacist. | ||
| And God knows what else they're saying about the guy. | ||
| But when you watch all of this get exposed, is this another case of, OK, well, a certain amount of us that have believed this stuff was happening now are strengthened in our view. | ||
| But that the rest of the machine just ignores it. | ||
| So we showed something on the show last week about how ABC, NBC, and CBS Nightly News in the first week of Twitter files did literally zero coverage. | ||
| And then they added in some cable news channels, except for Fox, and it turned out to be like 17 minutes, you know, over the course of two weeks, something like that. | ||
| But leading to this just sort of bifurcation of the populace where I can't blame all those people who don't know what they don't see because they have no idea what they don't see. | ||
| What do we do with that? | ||
| What do we do with that? | ||
| That is exactly the whole problem. | ||
| I think there's a number of things. | ||
| First of all, new media platforms are becoming more popular and more important, especially as people are, maybe even if they don't know what they don't know, but I think that most people are recognizing that they can't trust what they're being told on these mainstream media platforms. | ||
| And so for those who have time and interest, they're able to look for other news sources and it's awesome to see how new media is growing and providing really substantive platforms that can help feed that desire for real information, for truth, or frankly a different, you know, differing opinions, real dialogue and conversation. | ||
| I think we also again have to look to Congress. | ||
| Look to the power that big tech has. | ||
| It's not By accident. | ||
| You look at how much money big tech dishes to both Republican and Democrat leaders in Washington. | ||
| You can very clearly connect the dots about why Congress has not done anything at all, frankly, to be able to rein in these monopolies that exist in big tech that directly undermine our democracy and directly interfere in our own elections. | ||
| I think those are kind of the two places that we start with. | ||
| All right, so, assuming that maybe we do some of that, but do you think it just ends up as another one of the, what we talked about before, like, just nothing changes because the machine operates in a certain way, right? | ||
| I guess, you know, you might not- You can see I've been like slightly taking this black pill at the federal level lately. | ||
| Life is good in Florida, but I definitely have taken that, you know, to some extent. | ||
| I get it, I get it. | ||
| I remain hopeful, Dave. | ||
| I remain hopeful and I refuse to accept... Good. | ||
| I want hope. | ||
| I want hope, by the way. | ||
| We need it. | ||
| I refuse to accept that this broken system is just the way it will be and that we, the American people, have to accept failure. | ||
| The system is broken. | ||
| It does need to be fixed. | ||
| There are wholesale changes that need to be made. | ||
| But I remain hopeful that the more people who learn about this, the more voices there are that are speaking the truth, the more voices there are lifting up the message of how important our God-given freedoms are in the Constitution, that we have to stand up against those who seek to try to undermine them and take them away. | ||
| We, the people in this democratic republic, have an immense amount of power if we choose to use it, | ||
| both at the ballot box and with our voices. | ||
| We saw, unfortunately, again, how many people did not show up to vote on election day in November. | ||
| That's a travesty. If we're not showing up, if we're not invested in our own future, | ||
| then how can we expect anything really to be fixed or changed? | ||
| And we'll see the same most powerful, most wealthy people continuing to run the show, not for us or our benefit, but for their own. | ||
| So as we see that split in the reality that people are experiencing, we're also seeing a split in where people are living. | ||
| You know, something like 500,000 people since COVID. | ||
| I mean, it's a crazy number have left California. | ||
| Florida has an influx now of almost 400,000. | ||
| New York has lost about 300,000. | ||
| Texas gained. | ||
| We're just seeing this movement happening. | ||
| You happen to live in a place that is separate geographically. | ||
| Hawaii, even if it's, you know, it can be a little tough there sometimes, I guess, with some of the politics. | ||
| It's like, you got the waves. | ||
| I know you're doing okay over there. | ||
| But what do you make of this sort of geographic shift that's happening across the country? | ||
| Because ultimately, it obviously will make the red states redder and the blue states bluer. | ||
| I mean, Hochul only won by five points. | ||
| Hochul, whatever her name is, only five points in New York. | ||
| But if you factor in about 350,000 people that left New York, it's like, wow, it maybe could have gone red. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah, I think it shows that, again, through the last few years, how much state government and leadership has an impact. | ||
| And you're seeing that kind of exodus and movement happening. | ||
| And I think it points to kind of one of the bigger changes that I think will even be harder than some of the ones we're talking about. | ||
| But that needs to happen, which is the federal government needs to go back to what our founders envisioned as being fulfilling the limited responsibilities. | ||
| of the federal government and empowering states to lead and implement their own policies at the state level. | ||
| Because every one of our states is very, very different in so many ways. | ||
| That was the picture of this country that our founders envisioned. | ||
| But unfortunately, at the federal level, there has been just over time, more and more of overreach and stranglehold on power Disempowering the states. | ||
| And so hopefully with some of these changes, people are recognizing more that that responsibility at the state level is where those decisions really need to be made in so many respects. | ||
| And frankly, a lot of governors also we've seen over the last few years standing up and saying, no, federal government, we're not going to do exactly what you tell us to. | ||
| We're not going to just bend the knee and comply. | ||
| We will uphold The oath that we took to fulfill their responsibility to the people of their state as well, which I think is encouraging. | ||
| So I take it when you see a guy like Ron DeSantis keeping the state open and getting woke stuff out of schools, and from at least where I sit, you know, pretty much doing everything right, that's the type of marker you have for hope then? | ||
| I think I'm not tracking everything happening in Florida politics, but I think some of the decisions that we've seen played out nationally that he has made for Florida, | ||
| it shows that he's making the decisions that he feels are best for the people of Florida, | ||
| and a lot of people are moving there, so it seems to be working. | ||
| So you know I have to ask you about the future. | ||
| What's the deal? | ||
| Are you enjoying these guests? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think the audio, I can't hear you. | |
| I can tell clearly that you're enjoying the stuff you're doing with Tucker when you're guest hosting. | ||
| It's just it comes across on television like you really are enjoying it obviously and you're doing your podcast and obviously you're speaking and you're doing some campaign stuff when it arrives. | ||
| But do you want to get back into the machine? | ||
| Are you relieved? | ||
| To not be part of that right now? | ||
| Is it all way too early? | ||
| Is it just the most annoying question on earth? | ||
| Well, it's not the most annoying question. | ||
| It's just one that I don't have an answer to, frankly. | ||
| To me, the question is not about, well, do I want to get back into politics or not? | ||
| Because I have never thought in my mind, like, oh, I'm setting out on a political career. | ||
| That's never been a factor for me. | ||
| The question for me that I've always had and continue to reflect on and try to answer is where and how can I best be of service? | ||
| That's my goal. | ||
| And so whether that ends up being in an elected political position or if it ends up being in a position where now I'm trying to use my voice and whatever platforms I have available to me to be a voice for truth and common sense and freedom in this country when a lot of people are afraid to speak the truth. | ||
| A lot of people are not focusing on or maybe don't know about what is actually happening in our country that's undermining our freedom. | ||
| So that really is the answer to what happens next for me. | ||
| Do I run for office again or not? | ||
| I don't know the answer to that. | ||
| I will continue to seek to be where I can best be of service and make a positive impact for the American people in this country. | ||
| Tulsi, you continue to be on my very short list of sane people. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I wish it was a longer list, but you're on the short list. | |
| I'd like to see your short list of sane people. | ||
| I hope, I hope I'm on that list. | ||
| Of course, of course. | ||
| And it is unfortunately, it's, it's, it's unfortunately a short list of, of known people, but I, I know that we are in good company of people across this country who may not have a show themselves. | ||
| But who are hungry for and yearning for some common-sense, courageous leadership in this country. | ||
| And that is what we desperately need. | ||
| On that note, I welcome you to the free state of Florida whenever you want to come. | ||
| I know our waves are not as good. | ||
| That's the thing. | ||
| I'll be there in February actually. | ||
| I'll send you my dates and hopefully we can hang out a little bit. | ||
| Dinner on me. | ||
| It was good seeing you. | ||
| Alright. | ||
| Sounds good. |
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