Ask Dr. Drew - Harmeet Dhillon: LIVE from Washington DC w/ DOJ Attorney Michael Gates – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 479

Episode Date: April 29, 2025

Dr. Drew LIVE from Washington, DC, with Harmeet Dhillon (Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice) after a special White House "Podcast Row" event featuring exclusive interviews with top Trump admin officials and cabinet members. [From April 24, 2025] 「 SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS 」 Find out more about the brands that make this show possible and get special discounts on Dr. Drew's favorite products at ⁠https://drdrew.com/sponsors⁠  ⁠ • ACTIVE SKIN REPAIR - Repair skin faster with more of the molecule your body creates naturally! Hypochlorous (HOCl) is produced by white blood cells to support healing – and no sting. Get 20% off at ⁠https://drdrew.com/skinrepair⁠ • FATTY15 – The future of essential fatty acids is here! Strengthen your cells against age-related breakdown with Fatty15. Get 15% off a 90-day Starter Kit Subscription at ⁠https://drdrew.com/fatty15⁠ • PALEOVALLEY - "Paleovalley has a wide variety of extraordinary products that are both healthful and delicious,” says Dr. Drew. "I am a huge fan of this brand and know you'll love it too!” Get 15% off your first order at ⁠https://drdrew.com/paleovalley⁠ • THE WELLNESS COMPANY - Counteract harmful spike proteins with TWC's Signature Series Spike Support Formula containing nattokinase and selenium. Learn more about TWC's supplements at ⁠https://twc.health/drew⁠ 「 MEDICAL NOTE 」 Portions of this program may examine countervailing views on important medical issues. Always consult your physician before making any decisions about your health. 「 ABOUT THE SHOW 」 Ask Dr. Drew is produced by Kaleb Nation (⁠https://kalebnation.com⁠) and Susan Pinsky (⁠https://twitter.com/firstladyoflov⁠⁠e⁠). This show is for entertainment and/or informational purposes only, and is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Well, here we are in Washington, D.C. It is a privilege to be here today visiting friends and extraordinarily talented people that are populating this administration. This morning, I had the great, great, good pleasure. I don't have any images or footage of this of talking to Jay Bhattacharya at length about his position. I saw Callie Means again. But right now, as my guest here in Washington, D.C.,

I have my friend and former attorney Michael Gates. He would tell you our story of our history together, and our meat, Dylan, who is the assistant district attorney, attorney general, I beg your pardon. And Michael is her deputy assistant attorney general. So they have a lot going on. They're going to give us update on what they're up to right after this. I'm just saying, you go to treatment before you kill people. I am a clinician. I observe things about these chemicals, but just deal with what's real. We used to get these calls on Loveline all the time. Educate adolescents and to prevent and to treat. If you have trouble, you can't stop and you want help stopping, I can help.

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impeccably sourced and prepared. And the fermentation process came about because there was an ingredient that I didn't like in meat sticks that's pretty widespread. It's called encapsulated citric acid and it's derived from GMOs and then hydrogenated oil and it just melts into the beef stick. And you don't have to label it. That's the thing you can label it citric acid. Make 2025 a year to cut out the chemicals and feed yourself correctly. Go to drdew.com slash paleo Valley for 15% off your first order, 20% off when you subscribe.

That is drdew.com slash paleo Valley. Bone broth, I carry that, I carry powdered bone broth around. Here we are, we are back discussing bone broth and how we live on the paleo Valley, bone broth, finished beef bone broth around. Here we are. We are back discussing bone broth and how we live on the Pele Valley, bone broth, finished beef bone broth. Okay, so let's bring my guest in, Michael Gates, Harmeet Dhillon.

Michael, I'm gonna go to you in a few minutes. I wanna get into Harmeet here right away, if you don't mind. So those of you, now we met back on radio, do you remember this? A long time ago. Sure, a long time ago. And back in the days that we used to have Leo Terrell on all the time, Those of you, now we met back on radio. Do you remember this? A long time ago. Sure, a long time ago. And back in the days that we used to have

Leo Terrell on all the time, who's now also working with you. Also one of our colleagues. Is that you that brought him in? Yes, Leo is a senior counsel to me at the Civil Rights Division, Department of Justice. And what kind of work were you doing in California back when you were home?

Well, in California, I think I'm well known for fighting the vaccine mandates over the last five years together with our friend Mark Garagos and many other warriors. But before that, you know, very active politically and suing to stop tyranny everywhere up and down the state is the never ending project. And so that's been my life's work for the last half decades. Is that how you got to know Michael, because I feel like that was his job to work for the last half decades. Is that how you got to know Michael? Because I feel like that was his job to suing to prevent tyranny over

a hundred. In fact, we actually worked together during covid on some of those cases involving the governor's targeting Southern California and Orange County specifically and trying to punish Orange County for trying to be reasonable with respect to

businesses opening up. Michael, did they go after Andrew Grohl in particular? Was that part of the defense? Yeah, they did. And in fact, he was one of the few restaurateurs who actually stood up. And he was very outspoken about it.

He did a lot of media trying to get the word out, saying, hey, we don't have to go along and get along. We can push back. So he's one of those strong personalities. Warriors, now you said. One of the heroes stood up. Heroes. And it's so funny, at my age, I didn't

expect to be saying words like hero and courage and defending my right to speak, to walk outside. To earn a living, to feed your family. It's the craziest. The fact that we went through this is the craziest. I couldn't have imagined something crazier happening in my lifetime, maybe a nuclear Holocaust or something. But what's striking to me, I can't get over it.

I don't think I'll ever get over it. And I met a lot of people who feel like me. But I'm always amazed at the people that they're like, ah, move on, no big deal. I don't understand that. I don't get it either. I mean, but the importance of this historical moment in time is how many of us who are on that side of the tyranny,

like Jay Bhattacharya and many others are now in the government because we can never forget what happened, not just to, you know, people in the medical profession who are seeing this stupid Tik Tok videos and this like, you know, lionization of people doing their jobs, but every single American was affected by this. And I'll never forget it. It still irritates me to see people driving in cars here in DC wearing masks. There is a ongoing mental illness and hysteria in the United States.

Yes. Some people are not trying to mock people. They're legitimately scared and scarred for life by the junk science that came out of the federal government and was eagerly seized upon by petty little bureaucrats everywhere. And especially our home state of California. I'm not used to discussing medicine with attorneys, but I'm going to, I'm going to go there because you use the word hysteria and I was using it during COVID going, I think we'd become hysterical.

Now I'm convinced it was hysteria, but it continues. And as I look across the arc of that hysteria, it started before COVID. It just went to full bloom during COVID. What do you think that is? Do you have a theory of what? I mean, I've done a lot of reading about true believers and mass hysterias and mass movements and grievance societies, and it always goes bad.

The Jacobins sort of invented it. Yeah, well, I mean, you're the expert on mental health issues, but from my lay perspective, it is nascent and trending authoritarianism and the sort of credentialing and lionization of experts in our culture. We obviously, I'm a daughter of a doctor

and granddaughter of two doctors, so I respect the medical profession, but people are fallible. But Dr. Fauci was elevated not just in this situation, but, of course, in the AIDS crisis as well as an expert. And people died. Many people died unnecessarily. We had a form of euthanasia in our country during COVID

with how we treated any elderly people and treated them as less valuable. And so that is what some people are addicted to is they need God figures and they need people to believe in and religion is absent from our life. And so those so called medical experts became the religion of the state and to our folly. It's so weird that they would go that way. I got just a quick story.

I gave a lecture at a high school about 20 years ago, 15 years ago, and I was there as an addiction medicine expert giving some context for them. I'd done it many times, spoken high schools across my career, but I'd had a cup of your break and then I went back and did one and somebody pulled me aside afterwards and said,

the kids didn't really take to it. They thought you were too authoritarian. And I thought, I am authority. I am the authority and I should be able to- That was the point. I should be able to, yeah, it's a point in my being there, but okay, and I just said, okay, well I can't talk to that population anymore.

There's something going on. I would have thought they'd be the opposite. I would have thought they'd push back to a third. Maybe they're the authoritarians. Maybe the ones participating in all of that. Yeah, I mean, no one wants to share the stage, right? That was Fauci again. He was the expert.

You still go to places and medical offices and dental offices and airports where there are these lines painted as to where you're supposed to stand. They made all of that up. It was all manufactured. And it just so offends me, the lack of... I mean, we literally had this enlightenment period in the world, and, you know, we believed that the world was flat at one point,

and now we don't. This is like the opposite of science. It's so anti-scientific, what we went through. Let's say it again. Redfield confirmed it. Francis Collins admitted it. They developed, was it six feet distancing? I pushed out my memory.

They just doubled someone else's fake metric to do that. At the time, apparently, we're saying to themselves, hey, this is a respiratory virus, maybe 30 to 60 feet. Oh God, we'll never get them to do that. 10 feet, maybe, six, that sounds good, do six. Out of whole cloth, completely made up. As Dr. Kelly Victory has mentioned to us many, many times over the years, she knew it immediately because there's not a textbook in infectious disease anywhere

that will first of all use the term social distancing and second, I'll talk about respiratory viruses being in any way affected by six feet distancing. Or any distancing or any lockdowns or any anything other than traditional quarantining of sick people. Right. Which is what we should have done and then protected the elderly.

And by the way, you know, there's lots of controversy about the vaccines, of course. The elderly, in my opinion, I think when the dust settles, you're gonna see the elderly not only benefited from the most from the vaccine, probably had the least side effect profile. And so they should have also been the group getting the vaccine, maybe only,

only them and certainly not mandated under any circumstances. So what do we do with this mandate issue where suddenly medical professionals are supposed to tell people what to do with their body, what to put in their body, thus say at the Lord. Well, not even medical professionals. It still offends me that the federal government's employment division has guidelines that say that employers are allowed to mandate, not doctors,

employers are allowed to mandate vaccinations on their employees. That offends me. That needs to be tackled in this administration. But what happened to my body, my choice, which was the mantra of, you know, so the civil rights movement, women and abortion issues like that. We have lost bodily autonomy. We've lost parental rights to determine for their children. And as you know, in California or the fascist state of California, when in during COVID, when doctors applied for waivers for families that had legitimate medical needs, that waiver list was actually a list, a list to investigate and strip doctors of their medical

licenses, because we don't have enough, we have too many doctors in California, right? There's no shortage of competent medical help in California. And so I think this is a ongoing civil rights crisis. And it's, you know, certainly one of the things that led me to step up and do this job for the federal government. And your title is officially the assistant? Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. For civil rights.

Yeah, we're the civil rights arm of the United States government. And then Michael is one of your deputies. Correct. And then Pam Bondi over you? Pam Bondi is the, you know, we report up to Pam Bondi. Okay, and how have you changed the approach of your predecessor in terms of what are you doing versus what was being done before, what needs to be undone perhaps?

Well, Drew, you need to know that the Civil Rights Division covers a huge number of statutes, including administering our voting rights statutes and voting administration statutes, housing discrimination, employment discrimination, discrimination against veterans, educational discrimination like the anti-Semitism that is rampant on American campuses today, and a number of other issues as well.

And so we actually have different sections of, you know, experienced career lawyers who handle each of these different sections. But prosecutorial discretion means that every new administration gets to pick and choose what they're going to focus on. And so there are certain statutes that's the backdrop, the Civil Rights Act and, you know, other important statutes.

But we're going to be focusing on some things the last administration didn't focus on. OK, we think Americans should be entitled to be considered for jobs without racist quotas and set asides or sexist quotas and set asides. We think it's illegal to discriminate against people because they're Asian or white or male or any of those things.

And that goes- Or white or black or female or anything. All of them are protected by the Civil Rights Acts. So I think that's a very important change in our focus. I mentioned parental rights. And I mean, another big issue for me, as you know, in California, I've been representing, before I took this job, young women who were sucked into

the transgender fad, which is going to turn out, I think in history to be viewed as lobotomy and other, you know, discredited medical quackery. They've been mutilated by a medical industrial complex that ignored their comorbidities and that for profit destroyed their bodies and their minds. And so that's going to be a focus. To what extent do parents have the right, which the Supreme Court has said they have the right, to know what's going on in our schools?

Our schools have become woke madrasas pushing left-wing ideology. And again, parents have a natural right and a civil right to control their children's education. And so we will continue a lot of the important traditional work. Americans with Disabilities Act is an important statute that provides a lot of freedom to a lot of Americans. I look forward to helping with that. I've had disabled people in my family, and that's very important to me.

But the focus is different. And just saying, we're going to enforce the same statutes with a little different focus has made people go crazy. Why? Because they feel like it's their fiefdom and their right to control this one branch of the federal government. Who's they? They, the, you know, all the,

nonprofit edifice outside the DOJ as well, yes, as well as many career lawyers who believe that it's their way or the highway. And so for the last many years, Civil Rights Division has been used to open investigations on police departments based on, in my opinion, the flimsiest possible basis in many cases, really embarrassing evidence that would not pass muster if you didn't have the bully pulpit of the federal government to bully people into submission. We have opened up investigations into companies like SpaceX for refusing to hire people who by statute you can't hire people here on asylum status and others. We have federal laws regarding information security

that restrict certain sensitive industries like space and technology to American citizens or people with a permanent basis to be here. So this sort of harassment and people who just like send letters for a living, that's not what we're doing in the Civil Rights Division. Now we're going to investigate cases. And if those cases are meritorious, we're going to take action. If they're not meritorious,

we're going to move on to the next thing. And so this sort of harassment factory is not going to continue. Where did this, do you have a sense of where philosophically or otherwise, and I'm really not wanting to be political in this question. I'm always trying to figure out where this stuff came from, this idea that a justice or any lawyer or any judge should be spending their time focusing on finding a way to get somebody who doesn't belong in an environment

that could be deleterious to the US government to force them into that job. Right. Is that John Rawls or something in the background? I mean, look, let's be honest. So the Civil Rights Division is, you know, created because this country has had a rocky history with civil rights. It's a fact. Yes.

And, you know, I grew up in the deep south during my hearing. I mentioned that when my immigrant family, I was born in India, moved to, you know, my hometown in rural North Carolina. My dad was a country orthopedic surgeon there. There were signs on the highway saying the Ku Klux Klan welcomes you to Smithfield, North Carolina. I mean, this isn't my lifetime and your lifetime, but it's not there today. That's the point.

The point is we learned from that. We enforced the civil rights. We had desegregation. The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice is holding on to desegregation consent decrees that division of the department of justice is holding onto desegregation consent decrees that are more than 50 years old. So we, I went in with my team, Michael and others to do an audit of what's going on here,

what's in the deep bowels of this edifice and find that there are cases from the 1970s and 1960s that need to be dismissed. And so we're going to do that. There's no need for private monitors or federal judges to have their boot on the neck of law abiding law enforcement officials, school districts, etc. So now there may still be needs, there will be needs, the needs are going to be new and different. And so we have to recognize where we've been

successful, we need to move on. And that's, that's what we need to do. So because I'm not a lawyer, I don't think in legal terms. And I know that's kind of a special way of thinking. I know Michael Gates. That's what you call a lawyer. We don't do medicine. Right.

My son's a lawyer. He warned me about that. But one of the things that drives me crazy is that we're so much of these, the really egregious civil rights violations, uh, historically developed in this country, we're in the immediate aftermath of the civil war. Uh, and Frederick Douglas himself said, I would gladly go back to slavery because we gave up the lash for the

shotgun. So there were no lynchings before the Civil War because you lynched someone's property, they lynched you. That's right. It's afterwards, lynching, shotguns, murder, mass murder, just the horrors that went on. We have put into a collective, I'm sure for the peoples and families that suffered it, it, want to put it away and don't want to think about it.

But the country never, I, when I started reading about it as an adult, I was, I had no awareness because we, our collective memory wants to not remember that part because it was the most horrible. It was the most horrible. Well, you know what though, human nature, unfortunately showing us that throughout history, there's trends and times when people in power will do that to other people who have less power. And that is a fact.

In this case, it was the Democrats. Let's remember. Yes, it was. The Southern Democratic Party. And they're the ones, they were the resistance movement. Oh boy. And they kept resisting in my small town into the 70s. And they may still be some people resisting over there,

but they're not in power anymore. That is still happening in America today. Who is it happening to? It's happening to Jewish students on campuses. It's happening to Christians who say, I don't want to take that shot. It's happening to Asian students who are marked, according to students for fair admissions as having less personality systematically, so that Harvard didn't have to admit them

on the basis on which they were qualified. So these problems still exist, but the focus needs to be different. And so we're changing our focus. But you know, we're open for business for people to bring their civil rights complaints, we'll analyze them and we want to make sure this country remains dedicated to its promise to the people under the civil rights laws. Well, you brought the fair minded civil rights attorney Leo Terrell in there.

He's he's awesome. We love Leo. So Michael, I want to switch gears to you for a minute. We're pretty good on time here. Describe our history together, if you don't mind. So yeah, good question. So it goes back about 20 years. I started working as an attorney in medical malpractice defense. So representing some of the best doctors, hospitals,

and Dr. Drew's case came to my office and he didn't do anything wrong, but he added some celebrity to an enterprise plaintiff's attorney. So they named Dr. Drew in the suit against the facility and some of the other providers, some of the other treating doctors. And so we got you out easy,

but you were very kind at that time. We developed a relationship and we stayed in touch, but going back 20 years representing you in that case was an absolute pleasure. And it's been good to know you all these years and I've been following your success. But we didn't know each other. We reconnected like last summer or some year ago.

We did reconnect. A year and a half ago, I guess. Yeah, so, and some of our contacts in between were about politics, We did reconnect. We did reconnect. We did reconnect. A year and a half ago, I guess. Yeah. So, and some of our contacts in between were about politics, because I don't know if many people know this, but you were looking at maybe an opportunity in politics. And we talked a few years ago about that. Did you talk him out of it?

Well, I was sharing my thoughts. I think he would be a fantastic candidate in whatever he decided to do. I wish, I tell you what I wish I had done. I wish I'd gone for Schiff's seat. I wish I'd done that. We all wish, many of us wish. Because I heard that when I brought it up publicly, they freaked out.

So they knew they were a lot. Thank you for creating Senator Schiff. Yeah, well hold that thought though. Had you knocked him out? Is that what would have happened? Well, if you knocked him out as a congressperson. He would have been appointed as a cell. I don't know. Yeah, but well anyway I it's that I regret that part but but it was it was Arnold Schwarzenegger kind of

my conversation with him was really interesting and The he didn't talk me out of it. He thought it's the greatest thing ever I just realized they didn't quite have the enthusiasm that. He thought it was the greatest thing ever. I just realized I didn't quite have the enthusiasm that I think I would have needed to do that properly. Yeah, it looks really great before you get into it. I've run for office a couple of times myself. I'm glad I did it. Yeah, it was really a growth experience.

You have to have a very tough stomach to do that. How would you characterize it? I learned a lot of skills I didn't have before. Begging for money, speaking to... That's the part that we were... Well, my wife said you're not doing this. Yeah, I mean, the low point came when I got the endorsement form for the

Ferret Appreciation Society, because every group takes a position on everything, and I was forced to fill out, and I had to think, what is my position on ferrets as pets? Just send them Da Vinci's picture of the lady with a ferret. So I was like, wow, I went to law school, went to an Ivy League school for this. But it was a really great experience. I learned how to, now you can give me a mic and I can just talk, you know,

I'm not shy to ask for money and talk to people and hold my own and talk back. It's great. It's a great experience. Humbling experience. Yeah, I imagine. So anyway, you're my attorney and then 20 years hence. Yeah. So we got connected again, I think again through politics. And I came up and did your show. And I think at the time that I did your show, whatever it was a couple of years ago, you had forgotten that I was your attorney 20 years ago. I didn't recognize you as the same person. We were a lot younger.

Yeah. So we reconnected that way. But yeah, I mean, at the time, I was the elected city attorney of Huntington Beach. And you interviewed me based on a lot of the battles that we were engaged in, suing Newsom over the beach closures during COVID when he brought armed state troopers and bulldozers down to Huntington Beach

to keep us off of our beach. But also- Sand and the skateboard. Yeah, and sun, warm. They filled the skateboard with sand, the skateboard ramps. Yeah, so, but then also pushing back the state on voting issues and sanctuary state issues and a lot of these other

types of issues. So it's been very, very, very good. And then actually, I think that was one of the reasons that Harmeet and I got to know each other very well, again, with that case during COVID. And then since then, we've kept in touch. And I can tell you now, it's an absolute pleasure to be in DC serving this country at this time. And I'm here for two reasons. One is Donald Trump and the other is Harmeet Dhillon. It's just been absolutely fantastic. I understand.

We have a posse of true believers. You remember when I first interviewed you on the radio, remember? Did I say what I was thinking? I'm not sure. I was like, oh, man, please keep fighting. What can I do to help? Yeah, help keep fighting the good fight that this is this is somebody that I didn't know we had in

this fight. And thank you for doing it. And to see you now here in this position is just again, so much this to me is breathtaking. The fact that when Jane Bhattacharya told me that they were conceding or him for NIH, I almost couldn't breathe. I thought, Shakespearean, this is justice. This is like, because when I first met him, I said, on this show, I said, this is the guy that they chose to, first of all, he's an amazing human being, brilliant professional, great physician,

decorated teacher, you're gonna, and just had an idea that that was actually sound and you have to take down that guy. Yeah, absolutely. Look, he was an expert witness in some of my COVID cases. That's how I got to know Jay. And then he became the plaintiff in one of the most important free speech cases in the United States. Despite the versus Missouri. The Missouri case. That's still being, that's still going around. No, the case is over.

The court kind of, you know, punted. They should have absolutely found that the social media companies colluded, but you know, it stopped short of that at the current court, wasn't willing to go there. It's a form of many cases here, but you know, without Elon Musk actually, there's a digress here. Without Elon Musk taking over X and making it free speech, we would none of us would be sitting here. I mean, a couple of us might be sitting in jail cells because they're persecuting lawyers

who supported a certain presidential candidate. And our views would be you wouldn't be heard on social media. So it is people don't appreciate how close we came. It was like that there ought to be that nuclear clock for free speech being almost over in America. Yeah. Are you guys worrying about that? Is that stuff you have to pay? We're only here for look, I kept saying throughout this election, and you know, when we when my firm stepped up to

represent President Trump, I had to go to all my partners and say by by the... My husband, say, there's a chance that some of your partners could get indicted and thrown into jail for representing a presidential candidate. Are we all prepared for that? And we were all prepared for it. So thank you to my patriot partners, including some who aren't, weren't Republicans, to do that.

My husband who said, okay, well, I know you're going to win. I believe in you, but that's a real risk. And so we stepped up to do it because we believe this was our last chance. weren't Republicans to do that. My husband who said, okay, well, I know you're going to win. I believe in you, but that's a real risk. And so we stepped up to do it because we believe this was our last chance in this country to save ourselves from an authoritarian precipice and a one-way ratchet where the border is being opened,

our laws are being ignored, our speech is being violated, and our rights are being disenfranchised regularly. But it is necessary but not sufficient to win. But now the pressure is really on. And if the government isn't staffed with the J Bhattacharyas and the PAM bondis and all the people in the cabinet and all the thousands of people below them you never hear about, we have a really tough job to do because, yes, the DOJ and other institutions have been stacked for many years with people who just think it's a four year term, I'll sit them out, I'll keep doing what I'm doing quietly. And it's a real

job to get in there and administer. It's not fun. It's underpaid. And it's in DC where my allergies are really bothering me. That's why I sound like this. And it's in DC where my allergies are really bothering me. That's why I sound like this. But it's worth it because this country is worth it. What do we think almost happened? Again, I'm trying to figure out what I've just lived through. And what was it? No First Amendment. The First Amendment is five different rights. Is this something that happens in history where authoritarianism just naturally steps

into a democratic system? I'm reading a book. The fall of the Roman Empire. Well, I'm reading a book by, I think his name is Burroughs or something. It was recommended by Marc Andreessen called The Machiavellians, the defenders of freedom, the Machiavellians. I know that doesn't sound like the two words go together, but they do. Machiavelli and freedom.

And he's sort of tilting at some of these issues of elites and oligarchies coming in and taking over and just sort of naturally it goes that way. Yeah, there's rent seeking, there's corruption, there's decadence that has happened throughout history. And was that what this was? I mean, look at our country was governed by an elderly man with medical issues. Anybody who's had a family member with Parkinson's or something, we can all see what was going

on there. Dementia, Parkinson's, whatever it was, not right. And then lying to us that he was running the country. I mean, they're even photoshopping him apparently into photographs and telling us he's there. You know, so. Did you see Liz Warren the other day trying to answer questions and I'm from interview. I mean, stunning. It was it's just gaslighting and lying to people all day and

we're supposed to quietly nod and accept that while being muzzled by our government, our government had agencies censoring the speech of all the people. Well, I thought this was things that's illegal. I know. I thought this was things that these were things that other countries did like Russia, other countries do it and America was doing it and we were going to do it worse and harder. I never thought when I went to law school, that there was the slightest risk that I might lose my license or go to jail for advocating for a client. Today, friends of mine, former members of the Republican National Committee and current members of the Republican National Committee

were indicted in states, in the swing states, for their speech, for saying, if then I'm an alternate elector like that, that's, and they did it all in states, coordinated from this city. And this city organized systematic persecution of citizens for their political views in their speech. Recently, we cannot forget that and do lalala and

pretend like it didn't happen. It must never happen again. The kindest blush I can put on it is they thought they were fighting at some sort of weird existential force that you were the problem. Yeah, I don't believe that. I think it was raw power, cloaked and faux righteousness. And yet they've got millions of Americans signed up for that kind of thing. Oh, and there are millions of Americans spun up. I mean, everybody in my HOA and Sonoma hates me, you know, for my views, like I'm some danger to society. You know, it's unfortunate. And then when you when you hear Bill Maher or listen to Woody Harrelson, guys like that talking about what they like and dislike about what's going on politically, they sound like you.

Right. Yeah. And if you didn't have a little bit of if you had never read a book, you might believe that. But the point I'm making though is that I feel like the so-called Republican Party is something, some other coalition that it's been the last 50 years. It's something new. And the Democrats need to do something like that too. And the ones that are thinking that way are sure sounding like Republicans. Well, I just heard some commentary about this earlier today where, you know, and I don't really have any investment whatsoever in what happens in either party at this point temporarily, but course, would you ever think that you would see a elected, a Senator having margaritas with a gang

banger and seeking that person's return. Gang banger, human trafficker, wife beater, alleged. And in another country, like that's insane politically. Forget about the morality or the merits of that politically. It doesn't seem like there's a big constituency for that. Like who's clamoring for that in that party or you have like this young guy, David Hogg, you know, like doesn't really represent the views of the average American, even liberal average American, and their concerns or concerns are, like how to pay my mortgage and how to get a job and how to survive and live a better life is not how can I get gang bangers back into this country. Well, that's what seems so weird to me about government generally in the last 15 years is they're doing a lot of

things, very few of them include governing. Right. And I just like look at California, because of in California, I'm acutely aware of it. No, particularly LA County, no roads, no healthcare, no safety, and not no fires, nothing. Anything that a government is supposed to do. The mayor's not there when the city is Malibu's burning

to the ground, she's in Mexico. No government. No water in the fire hydrants. No water in the hydrants, no water in the reservoir. But they can talk, they can talk about things, they can put committees together. There's like 12 permits that have been granted. Did you see, I'm going to take a break right now, but there's a,

I don't know if you saw the LA city council meeting where they, they, uh, were taking on the issue of the rash of catalytic converter. I didn't see that. Oh, this is so good. So if you, those are your enough Los Angeles, people were stealing catalytic converters because they're very valuable. I think there might be some elements of that. A few hundred bucks, yeah.

Yeah, they're valuable. And so they were literally stealing them out of cars. Like really, it was a whole ring of this going on. Well, the LA City Council took it on, and I will tell you what their take on this was. You can't even imagine, unless you saw it, what I'm gonna say, what their position on this was. You can't even imagine unless you saw it, what I'm gonna say, what their position was on this. But please support the people that are coming up next

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what do you call it, robbery essentially. So they're robbing these things out of the cars, out of the engine of the car. So the one of the LA city council members said, yes, I'm very concerned about this because I am furious with Toyota The problem is they make all this money and they create these Toyota cars and make it too easy To steal a catalytic converter. And so of course people are gonna steal the catalytic converters now this genius

She was a Harvard trained individual. I'm sorry to tell you This genius and the LA City Council obviously had never seen a catalytic converter, never done anything mechanical in their life. To take a catalytic converter out of a car, you must first jack the car way up so you can get underneath it, so you have a car jack. Secondly, you need a welding torch or a sawzall to weld it out because it's welded into the chassis of the vehicle. You must know exactly and cut it out and pry it out and then abscond with it.

So if you're running around, if anything's going to come out with a sawzall or a welding torch, I argue that's not easy. Nor is it the responsibility of the car company. And that it is the responsibility of our leadership, however, to know what's real and what isn't. And not to make shit up. Anyway, that's my public service announcement. So you hadn't heard that one, huh?

And it didn't, it received no pushback. Yeah, of course. Until Adam Corolla put the video up, made me look at it and I was like, oh my God, oh my God. Yeah. These are representatives. These people are insane and it's shameful. They get paid a lot for that too.

Well, not only that, but city government, I mention all the time, this is what Alexis de Tocqueville noticed when he came here in 1820, which was that local government, local practice of democracy was critical to the success of democracy Democracy in America and probably had more engagement in our life than anything else To that point I never imagined the federal government being so

Up my took us in so many ways in my life Do we need to pull back government? Do we need to just change its focus? Because I was thinking about that, you and I were talking about this last night, because my instinct has always been less government, less federal government, but maybe it's just the kind of governing. They could do more good than they're doing,

and they've only been doing ill. Well, the conservative position and our founders position was actually that we should have a very limited federal government, okay? And that's a good thing in my opinion. I share that view. Of course, that's bad if you're in California because we're stuck with that. But there is a creeping trend on, you know, the right, the so-called conservative side, say, let's solve all these problems. Let's solve the California problem by passing federal laws and regulations. And, you know, there was a, there was a, I don't know if it's still there, but there's a great

account on X called a crime a day. And it's just like, there's so many criminal statutes out there. Federal government is criminalized and regulated so many things that all of us are committing federal crimes all the time, unknowingly. Well, it's how your peers end up in jail. Yes. Right. My selective prosecution. That's how Martha Stewart ends up in jail. Yes, right. My selective prosecution. It's how Martha Stewart ends up in jail. Yes. So there's so many laws and then prosecutors have this awesome power to pick and choose enforcement only against their enemies. And it's unfair. It reminds me of malpractice in that a prosecuting malpractice, malpractice

attorney can always find something to go after. Again, the law. And find some expert who's willing to testify that the right level of care wasn't taken and all of that so I don't think more federal government or bigger federal government is the answer I do think that the current trend to cut the size of the government is a good one except there are certain basic not my department that it could be cut but there are certain basic functions that only the federal government can do, protect our borders, have a national standard for federal elections, because that affects all of us.

And what our government and our founders did in designing the Constitution is protect all people from the tyranny of the majority. So we do have rights for minorities in America that they don't have in fascist and authoritarian states. They don't have in Europe for the most part. That's important. That's unique in our country. Although we have found a new tyranny of the minority that during COVID and other times it has sort of asserted itself. No one ever imagined that. Yes, I would agree. You know, but like it's a mixed bag. You see these people wearing masks today. Some of them may be sick. I submit that.

But most of them are just signaling, I've got some mental health issues. And you want to stay away from those people. I'm part of a group. I'm part of a group. Or I'm trying to mask myself because I'm a criminal. And the camera can't detect who I am. So there's all kinds of things like that. But similarly, you get emails from people

and they identify themselves in certain ways. And I immediately, that's a signal to me to not take them as seriously as I would otherwise. So we all have to have shorthand for dealing with people. And so in a way, these virtue signaling mechanisms help in triaging who and what to take seriously. I want to dig a little more at this issue though, there being so much regulation that if somebody investigates you,

they'll find something. Yes. And it's sort of under the heading of, would the word lawfare be appropriate in this regard? Yes. Weaponization, lawfare. And I never imagined the judges to be in on it. And yet that seems to also now be part of my, no, you're correct. There are judges who have reached conclusions in recent hours and days that are completely divorced from reality and they themselves have become

activists. And that is not what the constitution and separation of powers envision. It is happening routinely on a daily basis. And so it is really problematic because we have I think lost that separation of powers. Separation of powers means that there's certain aspects of what the president does regarding the border and protecting our country that are just non-judgeable by judges, now micromanaging. There was no due process to bring criminal aliens into our country, but there's supposedly individualized due process required on the way out. That is, I think, incorrect, I will put it mildly. And so

there's a lot of that. What's the answer to that? I think all lawyers are holding their breath to see what the answer to that is, there's a tension between our three branches of government as to what happens next. And I think it's a high stakes question that we're going to the to see answered in the next couple of years. Who, how does it get answered? The Supreme Court is going to answer it.

And then we're going to see what happens in the other branches. In response to that? Yes, because that has been a tension going on where Democrats have said they didn't like what the Supreme Court is doing and threatened to pack the court and defund the court and all of that. And then now all of a sudden when judges are ruling the way they like, oh, you know, we must respect whatever a federal judge says. Well, you know, nationwide injunctions are an issue that the court could reach that are

not it's a non sexy issue. It sounds boring. It sounds boring. Incredibly important that not every federal judge at the district court level gets to set a rule for the nation. Nobody elected that person. Sometimes senators didn't even show up to vote for that person. Shame on them. And now we're stuck with that. No, that's not how it is. We have nine justices of the Supreme Court, and hopefully I'll step up and do their duty to right size all of this. So you mentioned that you were holding your

breath about possibly being prosecuted yourself. I did. I was worried about it. My husband and I prayed about it. There was something odd I noticed about our current president that when I was back, the room that I was in today doing the podcasting or the interviews I did was a room I had spoken in before as a, it was actually a theater that the Biden administration. Do we, do we have any pictures of this with us? No, did Caleb give anything? Well, we're going to put them up soon.

And it was a theater with a proscenium as we'd speak in it and had sort of a raked audience. And they put this huge stage on top, took out all the seats, put this big stage on it and turned it into a faux press pool room and a faux oval office. And now it's like a television studio. They just changed it out again, which is when people were saying, he's not really in the oval office.

He was not really in the oval office. I don't know if that's because he couldn't climb the stairs to get, you know, what the reason was, but it was, I'm sure it wasn't something pretty. Why did I bring this up? Where was I going? This is the aging brain problem. I was talking to... Lost it. Talking about, I don't know, theater. Oh, I know what it was. I was in that room. I was in that theater. I gave a talk in the first Trump administration about homelessness

and it was, it was actually an audience at that time and I actually got to meet President Trump in the green room when I got off stage essentially and I said to him, he was the second impeachment and I went, how do you, how do you do, are you okay? Is this the way? Just so curious how you deal with this. He goes, I don't even, I do not, this is such bullshit. I don't even think about it.

And then I watched that again and again during the recent law fair where he just like sat there like There's something unique person to be able to handle that level of stress that way, but I feel like he has a sense that Where this is all going like it like it's gonna like it. I don't know. Does he ever talk to does he ever talk? I mean, I've been the lawyer the lawyer of the president and represented his campaign. So has he, you've been the lawyer of the president. That's one of the reasons I brought this up. Harmeet's representation of president

was very personal and direct. I was able to go into court last week and say I represent the president and the administration when a bunch of plaintiffs sued to try to stop one of his executive orders. But you were personally involved with it. Yeah, well, I represented the president as an individual and in his campaign in numerous cases,

including that Colorado case where they tried to keep him off the ballot on a constitutional reason. And so I've had the honor to call the president and tell him I want something or we want something. And so he's just an incredible client and very intelligent. And so what is it? What is his, is he just not afraid of anything? First of all, he's a real estate developer.

Like you're a doctor, like people get sued. He's been, he doesn't have a fear of lawyers or intimidated by them. And frankly, anybody who's spent a lot of time around some of these folks in Congress who are impeaching him and all of that, you quickly lose respect sometimes for the institution itself.

You ever testified in Congress? No. Yeah, go testified in Congress? No. Yeah, go testify in Congress and tell me how you feel about it afterwards. It was a real eye-opening experience. Cause it's just not a grandstanding and- I mean, you have a different respect for people when they see them on television versus what it is

in reality, it's very different. They all, they're different. They're just like us. They're not special. Yeah, I know. They just happen to be in a particular position. We're all equally capable American citizens and human beings. And I'd create them if I'm wrong.

This is just me. I'm an outsider. But when I go and walk the halls up in either the House side or the Senate side, I see it all being run by a bunch of, on the Senate side by a bunch of 32 year olds and on the House side by a bunch of 22 year olds. Yeah, I think that's about right.

Some very smart, some very smart young people. When you see the hearing, you see the senator pounding the table. What you don't see in between is the two staffers passing them cue cards. Some of them could not string a sentence together to save their lives. That was my experience.

And I was like, oh my God, these young kids, they're running the government. These guys are just, they're the talking heads. Some of them are intelligent. I'm going to be prejudiced and say some of the lawyers were able to string sentences together on both sides. I'm certain they're very intelligent. Well, I'm certain there's some very intelligent people

in the government. Just, I was so surprised how young the staffers were, how bright they were. There were some of them were like great, especially on the Senate side, like, wow. But that they were the one who started really shaping things. That was surprising to me.

They do have a lot of power. The staff has, and that goes back to our problem. The sheer volume of legislation that comes before the Senate and the size of the bills is anti-democratic. It's physically impossible for any, I mean, Rand Paul talks about this. It's physically impossible for anyone to actually read that stuff digested.

So you have to rely on young staffers or even worse lobbyists to tell you what's going on in these bills. The all new all electric Can-Am pulse motorcycle is your cheat code for the city. Light, agile and stylish for all you smart commuters. Find your pulse today. Learn more at canammotorcycles.com. Now why would anybody do that? Yeah, it's not a good system. It's a system that has become bogged down by special interests and so-called specialists. And that isn't, I think what the founders envisioned, this encroaching bureaucracy and all this. I mean,

some and so many of these people now live in DC, the lawmakers, they don't really live where they came from. So they've lost touch with the people who elected them. That's another problem. Well, that's what I was telling you. I tell you, Michael, last night, that some people I've heard DC described as 30 miles of beltways surrounded by reality. Yeah, absolutely. And it's just this insulated thing. And it's not just the government, it's all the NGOs that that do the

fundraising inside and feed on that all parties, by the way. So this is a problem. It's it is divorce from reality. I, when I was running for chair of the Republican National Committee, I had this idea that maybe we should break it up and put sections of it back in America. So we keep in touch. And that was like such a earth shattering everyone united to shut that down because there's so many interests interested in being able to wine and dine

and do all of that conveniently inside the beltway. Not where Americans live. Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but you've been looking at politics for a long time. Is it different being here now? Yeah. So as you know, like I mentioned, I was the city attorney. That was an elected position. So I served as an elected official in California for 10 years as city attorney

of Huntington beach. And for folks who don't know, Huntington beach is a pretty big city. It's 23rd largest at a 482 in the state of California. So there's a lot going on there, a lot of issues. And we were really at the forefront of pushing back on state overreach on constitutional overreach, overreach by thereach, overreach by the governor, overreach by the legislature. Which is, I guess there was nothing for you to do.

Right, right, yeah, just plenty to do. So it was a constant fight, constantly in the public eye, but serving in this way at this time, as I said, is such an honor and a privilege. There's just no way I would have predicted this, but with Trump in office now, with Harmeet, what's super awesome about this experience is seeing so many patriots now serving the government that have passion and grit. They know how to fix this country and they're ready to fix this country. They're rolling up

their sleeves and they are really taking the bull by the horns. And, you know, Harmeet's done a great job. She got Senate confirmed, I think, three weeks ago. Congratulations to Harmeet. Already in three weeks, steering the division in the right direction. Pam Bondi the same way. Cash Patel, just an amazing cast of people, cast of leaders here in D.C.

that are really riding the ship here in America. And it's to be able to be here right now is just so awesome. And as you know, you know, I've got a home in Huntington Beach, I've got a wife and five kids in Huntington Beach. So, you know, we're all sacrificing a lot. I know Harmeet's sacrificed a tremendous amount. We are all here sacrificing because the nation has called

and we're here to serve and we mean business. And that is just remarkable. It's awesome. I had a little bit of that in Huntington beach because we were doing some groundbreaking work fighting the state of California and we were actually winning in a lot of ways. There were some losses, but winning in a lot of ways.

Um, and so to be able to have that type of experience here on a national level, um, it's just, it's remarkable. He's got the surfboard on his office wall. You do? We don't have the surf here. So that's a big sacrifice. How'd you get it out here? I have a trophy surfboard.

There was a surf shop kind enough to ship it out. So I have it mounted on the wall. And when you're here next time, you can come by and see it. I'm going to, trust me. I'm gonna see both of you guys next time. I tried to to make it today if we got stuck at the White House thing. Yeah, it's There there's a lot to be done. I I do feel though that things are so ossified That when you talk about trying to you know, what you were talking about the fundraising changes stuff It's almost like for anything really to change

You need a Trump like character to come in and start shaking it and breaking it. Oh, he's shaking it or breaking it. No, but I mean, it's like we need it in the state level. We California get out of it. I mean, California is it is so sad. We love California. I love California. I'm for all of its flaws. I was dumping on San Francisco all day until I came here and now I've realized what I had right at least San Francisco for all its flaws full of hustlers, full of people who create jobs and ideas and who get to be inspired by the beauty and nature over there. This is very different as company town and the businesses. This business of government living here? Just a month. And you already are fully indoctrinated. It's painful.

But fully in in a month. Yeah, I mean, I miss San Francisco so much right now. But anyway, California is America, and it is worth fighting for. And so I hope we people from California can figure that out. I actually was driving down the, you know, the one 10 freeway through downtown, just going, Oh, what a shit show. And, and I thought, you know what?

It's worth fighting for. But I, but that was like three years ago. I'm trying to feel like, Oh, it's worth fighting for, but is this a fight that is changing slowly? You know, in cities, San Francisco has a new mayor, a little better than the old one. San Jose has a new mayor, was talking sense. You have a new federal sheriff in town in Los Angeles, a United States attorney, who is absolutely a groundbreaking change from the past. Yeah, I read some of this stuff he's looking at, and I thought, oh, this might do it. This might make a difference. But but it feels like the the government of California is so wayward that they'll resist.

You know, people have to stand up and fight. But is that is it going to have to go to the Supreme Court with this? You know, what are the state's rights versus the federal government? Well, I guess the Supreme Court is going to be very, very, very busy. I'll tell you what, the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice has several Californians in it and we are fully aware of some of the massive civil rights violations taking place in that state. I, by the way, fundamentally believe homelessness is negligent manslaughter.

Yeah. Absolutely. Categorically. It is negligent murder. Maybe murder. We had an experiment during the Reagan era to, you know, shut down the mental health institution. That's not what happened. You've been, you've been, you've been like, you've been brainwashed. You've been brainwashed too. May I tell you what happened? Please do. In 1960, it goes all the way back to the forties where the National Institute of Mental Health, or it was called of mental diseases or something

originally, a psychoanalyst formed it. He found a suitable representative in a Senator from Massachusetts named Kennedy, because he had a soft spot about mental illness because of his sister Rosemary, who had a frontal lobotomy. Rose Kennedy went to her grave saying, that was the biggest tragedy of her life, not the two sons that were assassinated,

but Rosemary's lobotomy. Rosemary's lobotomy. These analysts, there was a series of three analysts over the course of about 20 years, they had the NIMH. They were, one was an entomologist. One was like a, an entomologist, insect specialist. Okay. But they, but he, they became psychoanalyst and they had one of the two of the three had never set foot in a psychiatric hospital.

One had been through one in Colorado for a summer or something, but they'd never seen a chronic psychiatric patient. They took these post structuralist position. First of all, the second one is no answer to everything. They know the answers to all human. Right. And they're going to solve them through social means. Psychiatric Institute's cause mental illness. OK. So say it's Michelle Foucault and all this is the post structuralist. So our job as a national mental health is to close down these hospitals that are causing mental illness. Instead, we're going to open up community mental health centers that will prevent mental illness, which we don't know how to do to this day. So they persuaded Kennedy when he became president

to sign the Community Mental Health Act, which was his last signature before heading to Dallas. And that document was to set up community mental health centers all over the country and to systematically close down 150 years of state mental health services. Constitution does not provide that federal government should have anything to do with mental health.

So the states had that, some states had an excellent. It's the police power of the states actually. The states had an excellent system, some had a shitty system. It needed revamping for sure. One flu of the cuckoo's nest came along in 1950s, movie in 1960 something. Mind you, that was like 70 years ago, 70 years ago about, by the way, also it was not a documentary.

It was a fictional document, fictional book, not a documentary, but that became the most things did happen. Those things did happen. They do not happen anymore. Look, we're almost now we cut off children's breasts. That's what we know. That's breasts. That's what we do now. That's right. And we're almost a hundred years later and psychiatric hospital and psychiatric treatment is not at all like that.

But the psychology in the government is we're saving people from that. You know, Drew, any lawyer at my law firm can diagnose a schizophrenic by their emails. I'm slightly joking. But there's certain common aspects to it and the fact that we don't have, you know, there's some people you can fix and there's some people

who need to be institutionalized and that is an unsolved problem in America. And it is inhumane that we're allowing them to live on the street and die on the street. And then we become a nerd to that or a callous to it. And that is like corrosive to our souls in a way. And if you treat schizophrenia early and often, you can really reduce the long-term effects.

But if you let it go unchecked, they're irretrievable. And that's what we have now. And of course, schizophrenia is all resistant because they're psychotic. They have an anasognosia. The brain blocks their ability to see what's happening. Yeah, it's sad. And same thing with addiction.

Same exact, it's called anasognosia. It has a. So it's the same thing with addiction, same exact, it's called anesthetic, it has a name, it's a neurobiological process. And we, on the other hand, if I come across a dementia patient who is railing and psychotic and unable to house himself and I don't treat that patient, I'm guilty of patient abuse. But I find a schizophrenic with the exact same symptom

complex, I can't touch him. It's kidnapping if I touch them. That's California. It's messed up. It's messed up. So the bottom line is you went back to Reagan and the psychiatric hospitals. By the time Reagan came along,

about 80, 90% of all psychiatric hospitals had already closed. The community mental health systems were well in place and they were abject failures. He closed those. He closed the community mental health centers. And that history went down as Reagan closed the psychiatric hospitals. He did not. Yeah. So now we're left with nothing.

Zero. Well, we were nothing already. Yeah. Because when you close the state hospital, they made no provisions for what to do with those patients. And so they went to the streets, the nursing homes and the prisons. And now we've decided the prisons, they don't belong there, which they don't, then they go to the streets. You know, it's a very broken system. And, you know, of course the country's mental health

problems flock to the good climate of California. They're not hanging out on the streets of Detroit or New York because you can't survive there. But you can live in San Francisco year round on the street. You really can't. Sure, as drug addict. And as they are. And you give them free drugs. We have drug tourists. We have, and it isn't just the mental Leo now we have

fentanyl tourists, middle class white fentanyl tourists, dying on the streets of San Francisco. And you have to turn the eye to that. A guy I interviewed on this show, I'm blanking on his last name, he wrote a book called Crooked Smile, and he told me that he's now a carpenter, he was rehabilitated. I mean, you can restore these people to life.

He was a fentanyl addict on the street for years. And he said the last two years of his, on the street years, he would get his rigs and his drugs from these San Francisco people. And they would, he said to a person, pat him on the back and say, you're a victim of capitalism. Once we get communism in, you'll be fine. Yeah. Well, they're drug addict. They've cut back on that now,

but I think there's also the supply and demand issue. We have China pumping fentanyl into our borders and criminal gangs, like the ones that get margaritas with senators transporting them. Yes you do. Well he was only found in the car with eight people without ID. It wasn't like it was 80. It was it. So anyway I'm making you upset. I'm making your allergies worse. But let's just let's let's uh let's wrap up with a conversation about what's ahead. Would you look forward to doing what kind of things do you want to accomplish that you really are excited about?

I'm really excited about the job description, which is enforcing the civil rights of the United States for all Americans, not just some Americans. And there's so much to do. Literally, Michael can tell you, I don't think my team is keeping up with the ideas I'm dumping on them. Like, look at this civil rights violation. Can we do something about that? Can we not? How do you find them? How do you see? I mean, social media and people calling me. Wow. Absolutely. It's like falling from the sky. Do you want people to send you stuff? I think I'm getting plenty. But no, we want to know. And not just, I mean, like, the one thing I will say is that I see some rage on social

media that the less than three weeks I've been there, we haven't solved all the election law problems in the United States. People care about their issue. You should know it takes weeks and years to do that. The same thing with the vaccines and stuff. And I get to see the inside workings. Be patient. We're working 12 and 14 hours a day. But also it's one thing if I felt like both on the HHS side or the DOJ side,

if I felt you had people in there where I was like, I'm not sure they're going to get it done. I'm sure they're going to get it done. I'm sure you're going to be happy. So let's. Yeah. I mean, people were asking me about knitting. Where's your knitting harm? And I said, knitting is for closers. And until I start closing some cases, no sweater will be finished. I asked her about the knitting today. Until I'm done with solving some problems.

So we're starting. We're starting beefs. So election is one of your things you're excited about. Election laws are one, but federal election laws. I cannot fix every dumb law in California. We can fix federal law enforcement of our election laws. And Congress needs to get off the stick and do some things as well. We cannot fix everything through the

executive process. And so but the anti semitism and the anti Christian bias happening throughout our government and our schools, we are tackling that every single day, that is not going to be there by the time we're done, it will be painful for schools that enable that. And those conversations are happening on an ongoing basis at the Ivy League schools and below, you know, remember last night at dinner, I was thinking to myself, there's something I want to tell you, and I can't remember what it

was. The middle of the night, it came to me. And I want to tell you the story to that because to the point of what the DOJ can do. One of the times I visited the White House, it was a symposium on the opiate crisis. And it was overprescribing by physicians. It was really out of control at the time. And every, there were like six of, what, there were 11 secretaries? How many are there? 12?

Anyway, there was like six or seven at this meeting, and they were always sort of presenting their plans, how they want to deal with this. And I'm listening to all of it going, mm, I don't know, they kind of get it. They don't understand it's doctor's behavior that's a problem here. Jeff Sessions comes in and he goes,

I see what this is, I'm gonna take care of it. You mark my words, three months, this will be over. And I was like, he's got my attention. And what he did was he put a bunch of doctors in prison for overprescribing and it stopped instantly. That's a good sign of an accident you did there, Drew. I know, it's nice. I was kind of impressed too.

But what people don't know is that's also what started the opiate crisis. People were putting doctors in jail for underprescribing. Yes, that's true. In Florida and California and North Carolina. And that's when we all froze. We hear about that stuff immediately. And my profession freezes when it gets scared

and shunts everything over to other people to do, you know, we sent everything to pain management. And management was the perpetrator of the whole problem. And then they get prosecuted, you know? I mean, it's a whole vicious cycle. Well, because the regulators get in and they start getting pissed at people like me who aren't prescribing and are taking issue with it.

I you think COVID was bad. That was the opioid crisis was my first run in with this stuff where I was standing up going You are killing my patients. This is not right. This is over driving. I was called old-fashioned interested in patient suffering Just everything you can imagine I was criticized on up and down for, for standing up to not giving an opiate to a heroin addict in withdrawal. Can you imagine that? Unfortunate. Well, you know, I think now, unfortunate for many people.

And so we can't solve all the problems in America at the civil rights division. I thought we'd solve them all today. But we are adjusting staffing, we are refocusing our priorities, and we're going to do a lot of good. I have no doubt. Michael, you're excited about? Absolutely. And Harmeet's got a great vision for where we're headed, laying out the priorities, along with Pam Bondi. I was hoping to meet her, by the way, when I was going to run around to visit you guys. laying out the priorities along with Pam Bondi. And writing- I was hoping to meet her, by the way,

when I was gonna run around the, visit you guys. I wanted to see Leo and I wanted to meet Pam Bondi. So next time- Next time you come, Leo will be thrilled to see you. I know, I'll be sure to see him too. But writing the wrongs of some of the Biden era stuff, including the weaponization and fixing those cases, resolving some of those issues.

I mean, that's also a huge step in the right direction, which we've been doing. So I think America is gonna be very pleased when they start to see some of the results of our meets leadership, Pam Bondi's leadership, the work that we're doing, you know, my job to invest the sweat equity, you know, I'm dedicated to the process.

And we've all, like I said, sacrificed a lot. We're here and we mean it. And we're working like 14, 17 hours a day to make sure that we're getting the work done. And I think America's gonna be pretty happy. Well, I don't have access to the Restream or the Rumble Rants today to be able to know what's going on when you guys are thinking about this.

I hope you are thrilled to see these people representing you. Not only am I thrilled because I know them and I know how skilled and talented and how thoughtful and caring they are, but it's also, there's, there's poetic justice in this year. You guys in these positions, as I said, Jay Bhattacharyan, his carry and this is, it restores my faith in a lot of things that now what will absolutely destroy me is if you're unable to do what I know you're able to do something,

some evil force steps in and pushes back in a way that you guys aren't able to right the ship, so to speak. But I have faith that it will be so well, I'm going to adopt the attitude of our president. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Cause I feel, I feel behind, he's so dismissive. It doesn't feel just like a, as a, a developer that's able to withstand Laura's, it just felt like a faith that he had gone through so much by that time. And then he's, there was divine intervention as well with the, you know, attempts on his life. I think,

I think he believes that I believe that God was looking out for him. He turned his head at just the right time. And so when you've gone through all of that, it just toughens you up and strengthens you. I mean, for me as a lawyer, the idea of maybe going to jail for representing a client was kind of scary or responsible for elderly people in your family as well.

So it was a big thing, but we all pulled together and we're glad we did. I guess I wanna say that just because bullets, actual bullets weren't flying, doesn't make it any less of an extraordinary moment of history where you almost lost it all. Yeah. Without bullets flying. I understand. And we might still, so we have to be constantly vigilant. Yeah. I mean, well, that's what, that's what everyone is always,

that's what I always taught was freedom was something you had to protect and fight for. I never Understood it because I never had to do it in America of the latter half the 20th century It wasn't wasn't you don't have to worry about it. Now. Yeah, you do have to worry. Yeah, you do Oh, yeah, and the reality is we always did we just We were complacent and now we've woken up Okay, we appreciate our guests appreciate you all here. Appreciate you supporting people that support us. We have upcoming guests. I've been told to make sure to report on them. So give me a second here to do so. I just got the list. Actually, I know we have Jenny McCarthy coming in. Here we are.

I've got Tuesday to be determined. Ram Yoganand is coming in on April 30th. That's Wednesday, I believe. And Ram has some great new research on long COVID. They've they're finally publishing the data. The editorial process has been so adulterated in medical literature for so long. And now things are slowly moving. One of his articles you're going to hear about, I believe, in terms of the causes of long COVID and long vaccine. Dana Loesch, Jenny McCarthy, Gary Brekka with Sabine Hazan. She's the Bifidobacter queen. Laura Delano wrote a book about about psychiatric medication and sort of being under that system, how you can get caught in it. It's called Unshrunk was her book.

And then Tim Poole coming in who stirred up the press pool a couple days ago and if you heard that whole story and So we're looking forward to all that we're looking forward to seeing you and we will be back again on Tuesday check the time I think we're moving times around a little bit. So we'll see you then Ask dr. Drew is produced by Caleb nation and Susan Pinsky as a reminder the discussions here are not a substitute for medical care Diagnosis or treatment this show is intended for educational and informational purposes only. I am a licensed physician, but I am not a replacement for your personal doctor, and I am not practicing medicine here. Always remember that our understanding of medicine

and science is constantly evolving. Though my opinion is based on the information that is available to me today, some of the contents of this show could be updated in the future. Be sure to check with trusted resources in case any of the information has been updated since this was published. If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, don't call me, call 911. If you're feeling hopeless or suicidal, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255. You can find more of my recommended organizations and helpful resources at DrDoo.com slash help.