The Joe Rogan Experience - #1295 - Tulsi Gabbard

Episode Date: May 13, 2019

Tulsi Gabbard is a 2020 Presidential Candidate of the Democratic Party and is currently serving as the U.S. Representative for Hawaii’s 2nd congressional district since 2013. https://www.tulsi2020.com/

Three, two, one, and we're back. What's up? How are you? We're back. Aloha. I'm good. Nice to be back here. When you first came here, you were thinking about running for president.

Now you're out there. We're all in. It's happening. Yes. Are you nervous? No. Is it weird? No.

No? Not at all. Not at all. Do you feel like this is like destiny? No. So how does it not feel weird? I'm on a mission. Oh.

I'm on a mission. There's a lot of issues I think we're going to talk about, about why I'm running for president. been so costly on the American people for so long, costly on our troops, costly on our veterans, ending these wasteful regime change wars, ending this new Cold War and nuclear arms race, and taking the trillions of dollars that we've been spending on these programs and that we will continue to spend if the status quo is allowed to continue, and investing those dollars back into serving the people in our communities, serving the people of this country, things like health care, education, infrastructure, protecting our environment, clean water.

There's so much that we need to do. We've got limited resources to accomplish that. These are my favorite things that you talk about. My question is always, though, why do we spend so much time and money and at such a titanic human cost for these regime change wars? What do you think is the cause? Like other than the obvious, if you have a dictator that's in place, there's an obvious outcry like Saddam Hussein post 9-11. Other than that, what is the reason why we invest so much time and energy into regime change war, so much so that we've just accepted that this is a part of our gross

economy? If you're going to take all the money that the United States earns and all the money that goes to taxes, we just automatically put a gigantic chunk of that into investing in these wars in other countries. Blindly. Why is that? Without any kind of real accountability. Six to eight trillion dollars is what's estimated that's been spent since 9-11 alone on these regime change wars, without even taking into account what the cost will continue to be to take care of our veterans, those who have gone and fought in these wars and have come home dealing with, you know,

visible and invisible wounds that they'll have to live with for the rest of their lives. Let's start back. You mentioned Saddam Hussein. I don't think it was necessarily an obvious outcry. Saddam Hussein and the toppling of his regime was done for oil, right? It was done for financial reasons. And the architects of that Iraq war sold it in the guise of, hey, Saddam Hussein is working with al-Qaeda, those terrorists who attacked us on 9-11, and he's going to give them his weapons of mass destruction. who attacked us on 9-11, and he's going to give them his weapons of mass destruction, both of which turned out to be false, false intelligence and lies that were sold to the American people, sold to soldiers, people like me, who believed what they said. You know, I enlisted after 9-11, like so many people in this country, to go after the terrorists who had attacked us on that day, killing thousands of Americans. who had attacked us on that day, killing thousands of Americans. And they sold this lie for financial gain, for oil.

You look at some of the architects of that Iraq war, guys like John Bolton, who today is President Trump's National Security Council director. And you look at what's happening in Venezuela, almost the very same playbook being used, where they're selling this regime change effort, threatening to use U.S. military force to go in and topple a regime under the guise of humanitarianism, when in fact, and Bolton has said this on national television, that, well, we really want to make sure that American oil companies are able to go in and access that oil-rich country in Venezuela. So do you think that's why there's so much turmoil in that country right now? This battle over regime change because of the fact they want to control the oil? I think the U.S. coming in and trying to insert itself into what is happening in Venezuela is what is the problem. So they're doing that through very, very heavy sanctions. They're doing that through various means and threatening to use our military to go in and topple the regime there, rather than taking the approach that I would take as president, which is to recognize that the people of Venezuela, like people in other countries in

the world, need to be the ones to determine their governance and their future. Just like we wouldn't want any other country to come in and threaten to use their military to topple our government or to tell us who should or shouldn't be the leaders in our country, we shouldn't be doing that in their country. There are serious issues that are causing a lot of suffering for the Venezuelan people. If we really want to be helpful, we should be a force to help move towards reconciliation and peace rather than what this administration is doing, which is throwing fuel on the flames of a civil war that'll be devastating, devastating. When you say move towards reconciliation and peace,

how so? Well, you see there's differences, right? There's the people who are with the current government in Venezuela and there is the opposition. Clearly, they have differences on what kind of future, what kind of governance and who should lead that government going forward, rather than threatening to use the United States, the United States coming in and trying to act once again as the world's police, which by the way, throughout history has not had good results, not for the people in those countries, what to speak of the cost that we, the American people pay, rather than saying, hey, let's work towards peace, try to push for diplomacy and find what are the conditions that would make some form of reconciliation going forward. Is there an argument, and I really don't know the answer to this, but is there an argument that these regime change wars, to make, but history shows and proves that the very opposite is true.

Look at Iraq. You can look at Libya. You can look at Syria. You can look at Guatemala and Ecuador. where in the past we have either overtly or covertly through the CIA gone in and toppled leaders of countries or dictators or regimes. And the result has been more suffering for the people in those countries. Their lives have been made worse off, not only to the interests of the people in those countries. So is this one of those things that's just a counterintuitive thing where you would think that getting rid of someone like Qaddafi would be a good idea. He's a terrible, evil person. But they get rid of him and now Libya is a failed state. It's horrible what is happening in Libya as a result of that. You can watch slave auctions on YouTube. It's insane. It's hard to imagine that an era of YouTube and slave auctions exists in a place that, you know, at least some part of the blame has to be on us supporting the rebels that went in and took out Gaddafi.

Like, it's not good to have. See, it's one of those counterintuitive things, right, where it's not good to have an evil person in control of a country. Yeah. But it's also not good to kill them. They get rid of them. And then this power vacuum, right? Yeah. They get rid of them and then this power vacuum, right?

Yeah, it's that it's hard to accept sometimes the reality that there are bad people in the world. There are leaders of countries who are doing bad things against their people. What the real question is, is we recognize this is the world that exists in reality, not the world that we wish existed. And then the question is for the leaders of our country is, what role should the United States play? Does it make sense to try to act as the world's police, as we have been for far too long, both as we look at what is in the best interest of the American people, what's in the best interest of our national security, as well as what impact will our actions have on the people in these countries. And with Libya, not only do we see strengthened terrorist groups, there are terrorist groups all over Libya now, failed state, the Libyan people are suffering

now far more than they were before. But we see the ramifications of that in countries like North Korea, where, again, John Bolton and the Trump administration is talking about using the Libya model with North Korea as we work towards this objective of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. One of the leaders in the North Korean government just said the other day, the United States government is talking about using the Libya model with North Korea to get them to get rid of their nuclear weapons. They don't want to end up like Libya or Iraq, where in Libya, as you remember, the United States went in and told Gaddafi, hey, get rid of your nuclear weapons program, and we're not going to come after you. And he did. He got rid of it. And what happened? A very short time later, the United States and other countries went in and took him out. So that action and that decision, that policy is directly undermining our national security and our efforts to make us and

the world more safe to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. So would the argument for regime change wars being that, would it be that if we didn't go over there and if we didn't have a military presence and we didn't make them fight against us, that they would somehow or another gain more power and we would deal with this evil superpower? Is this like the worst case scenario for the pro-interventionalist foreign policy? I wouldn't even go that far. I mean, the argument that's made by people who are advocating for these regime change wars is we've got to do something to help people who are suffering. That's generally the argument

that's made. And they sell this to the American people knowing that, hey, we have good hearts and we want to help people if we can. But what they fail to do is to tell the truth and be honest about what they are hiding behind this guise of humanitarianism. For example, and you look at the kinds of atrocities that that theocratic dictatorship is conducting against its own people, decapitating LGBTQ people, persecuting religious minorities, being the biggest propagator of this most extreme intolerant ideology of Islam that is fueling terrorist organizations like ISIS and Al-Qaeda, waging a genocidal war in Yemen, killing tens of thousands of people, that murder of the journalist in Turkey. The list goes on and on and on. Yet what are we hearing from leaders in our government, both Democrats and Republicans? Saudi Arabia is a great ally of the United States. But then you look at what's happening in Venezuela, ready to launch our military to go in and take out another dictator, ready to go in and launch

our military, ready to go and wage a war against Iran. So this is evidence of the hypocrisy that exists between those who are waging regime change war in some countries, by the way, usually countries that don't have nuclear weapons, and usually countries where they have some other underlying interests and ulterior motive, which is not helping the people of those countries. And then when it's convenient for them, countries like Saudi Arabia sidling up to a country whose leadership directly and indirectly supports Al Qaeda, the very terrorists who attacked us on 9-11, who we are trying to defeat. Your position on Syria is one that I think people have misconstrued.

Why don't you tell me... That's putting it nicely. That's trying to put it as nicely as possible. They've actually said that you are an Assad supporter. I know this is not correct. But is that one of those things where people just say that in order to sort of diffuse you, to categorize you as a ridiculous person right off the bat, where no one could take anything else you say seriously? Yeah. It's the usual tactic of

trying to smear or vilify me and my campaign and what I'm advocating for, because they don't want to engage on the actual issue itself that I'm pointing out about how devastating and costly their policies are of continuing to wage these wasteful regime change wars, of choosing to support terrorist groups like al-Qaeda in Syria, directly in Syria, because they are the most powerful force on the ground who's fighting to take out the regime, Assad's government. So they're so focused on toppling this government in Syria that they're willing to actually use taxpayer dollars to provide direct and indirect support to al-Qaeda terrorists in Syria. When you think about how crazy this is, it makes me angry. I think it makes most people

angry. It's why I introduced legislation called the Stop Arming Terrorists Act. Why we would need to have such legislation is beyond me, but clearly we do, to make it so that we don't have any taxpayer dollars going directly to provide any kind of arms or support or anything to terrorist groups like al-Qaeda, but also to make it so that we are not providing support indirectly through countries like Saudi Arabia, who are providing that support to terrorist groups. So what has been said of you about Assad and your position on Assad? That's just been an outright lie. Virtually everything. I mean, I's just been an outright lie. Virtually everything. I mean, I'll just tell you what happened. I went to Syria to meet with Syrian people, to hear And I took it because I think it's important for us to have the courage to meet with leaders, whether they be friends or adversaries or

potential adversaries, if our focus is on national security and on peace. So I went and I had that meeting and I asked some tough questions and heard from him, his perspective on what was happening and what he was doing in his country, and took the opportunity while there to meet with religious leaders, college students, members of the political opposition, small business owners, women who were working to start their own business to empower other women, Shia, Sunnis, Muslims, Christians, Catholics, people of all different religions. It is because of that and that meeting and my staunch opposition to regime change wars in Syria and in other countries that political opponents and others have chosen to try to smear me, my reputation, and my campaign, and to label me, as you said, you know, she's a supporter of this dictator. Well, if that's true,

then anyone who opposed the Iraq war is a Saddam Hussein lover, is a lover of dictators and loves Saddam Hussein. So if you challenge their logic, you see how shallow it is, and there's really none there. And what's exposed is their refusal to engage on the facts and to stand behind why they continue to put the American people through these costly regime change wars, and why they continue to wage these wars that are causing incredible suffering for people in different parts of the world. It also, when you're having these conversations, which are incredibly important globally, when you choose to distort people's positions like this, you're not helping anybody. No.

You're making the whole thing more confusing. Yeah. more confusing. So for someone like me who's on the outside, excuse me, and then has to watch all this go down, I have to go, well, why do you have reasonable people that make inaccurate statements about someone because they feel like if you do not, if you don't refuse a meeting with Assad, there's something wrong with you, right? Like to not want to be in the presence of this person. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the there's so much hypocrisy around this. You know, a lot of these people are the same people who applauded President Obama when he first ran for president in 2008. When he I mean, he did. He caused some controversy at that time saying, yes, he would meet with the leader of Iran without preconditions, that he would meet with leaders of other Iran without preconditions, that he would meet

with leaders of other countries in that pursuit of national security and peace. So why the double standard here that, okay, so in order to keep our country safe, in order to achieve peace, we're only going to meet with our friends and people who we agree with. That's not how you accomplish that mission. That's not how you accomplish that mission. That's not how you accomplish security and peace. It doesn't make sense. No, it's like a social media version of running the world. Yeah, sadly. Sadly. Now, had you ever met anyone like Assad before?

No. What was that like? No. He was eager to meet. He was eager to be heard, frankly. Does he speak English? Very well. Really? Yeah, I think he was educated in Europe, you know, Syria's relationship or the lack thereof with Israel, a lot of the turmoil that we're seeing in different parts of the

Middle East of Sunni versus Shia, you know, chemical weapons being used, you know, criminal acts being conducted, a whole host of these issues. How the Syrian government is dealing with the Kurdish population, the northern part of the country, what's going on in Turkey. There was a number of things that, you know, I asked and he answered and he shared his view and perspective. And really what came out of that was he's very narrowly focused on his country and doesn't want other countries or other people coming in and meddling in their country and what they're trying to accomplish, which is actually the same thing that I heard from his political opposition when I met with them. These were some of the leaders who led the protests that kind of began this whole conflict in 2011, people who are deeply opposed to the Syrian government, some of whom have been held in captivity by the Syrian government. And they said, there are constitutional changes we want to make. Yes, we would like to see Assad removed from government. They don't want to see it done through military means or through other countries coming in and toppling their government. What they want to see is that

change coming from the people of Syria saying, hey, this is the kind of leadership that we want for our future. I can imagine there's not a single country on earth that wants us to invade and take over. I mean, it just seems like a bad idea for everybody. Right. Nor would we want that to happen to us. I think that's really what's missing here is, you know, for so long, we've seen this imperialistic mentality that still exists in our government where some feel like, hey, well, we should go and tell this country who should lead their government and tell them what kind of policies they should have. But no other country should dare even attempt to do that to ours.

Well, our position is that we're the best and we're running this country the best way. And this is the best country that's ever existed, ever, has the most freedoms. It's got the most chaos. It's got a lot of things going on that are not good. But overall, we feel like we're the shining light of the world. Maybe that's not accurate. Maybe it's accurate in a lot of ways. I think the problems begin when we go into other countries and try to create little mini-Americ Americas and impose it on the people there, whether they like it or not, whether they're ready for it or not.

And we end up seeing what we're seeing across the Middle East. Yeah, I think we just look at the rest of the world and go, oh, I wouldn't tolerate that. Why are they tolerating that? Who is that guy? Why does he get to run things? They should kick his ass. That's literally the American perspective. But, you know, we don't want to send our sons and daughters over there to go do that. Now, if I put my tinfoil hat on- We don't. We don't. We, the American people, don't. But

this is the problem. And this is something that I realized very quickly during my first deployment to Iraq, where I was seeing firsthand the cost of war, serving in that medical unit every single day. And I wondered how many politicians in Washington who voted for, advocated for, or championed that war in Iraq were laying awake at night thinking about my brothers and sisters who were getting killed in combat, who were getting severely wounded, who were getting blown up by IEDs. And I learned very quickly that they were not. They weren't thinking about the real cost and the ramifications and the consequences of their decisions. Jamie, who were we talking with the other day?

We're trying to say that we think that if you want to be the commander in chief, that you should probably have served. Who was that? It was a recent podcast. C.T. Fletcher? Yes, I believe that it was him. Yeah. Who was a veteran as well. That's one thing that you have over them for sure,

is that you understand from firsthand experience and sacrifice what it means to actually be in war and to be in combat. Yeah. I mean, I still serve in the Army National Guard now over 16 years. I've deployed twice to the Middle East and coupled with my experience in Congress, serving over six years on the Foreign Affairs and the Armed Services Committees, working intimately on these issues related to national security and our foreign policy, meeting with leaders of different countries in the world. It is these experiences and the understanding that I've gained from them that best equip me to walk in the door, walk into the Oval Office on day one, ready to do the job of president and, most

importantly, commander-in-chief. What hurdles are you encountering that you didn't expect? You know, a lot of what's happening are things that we kind of did expect, you know, the smear campaigns, the misinformation campaigns. Do you think that someone's doing this on purpose or do you think this is team mentality in action where people are supporting a particular candidate and they look at you as being competition in that candidate?

What do you think is happening? I think it's probably a combination. I'm challenging the establishment, challenging the status quo, challenging the foreign policy establishment and challenging the political establishment in calling things as I see them, calling it straight and speaking the truth, whether that be calling out leaders within my own party or leaders of the other political party. that strikes fear in a lot of people who are uncomfortable with it at a minimum and who are concerned because when, you know, we the people rise up and say, hey, what's really going on here? We're calling out self-serving politicians in Washington from both political parties who are

putting their own political interests or the interests of their party ahead of the interests of the people. Or they're putting the interests of whatever greedy corporation and their lobbyist is writing the biggest checks to their campaigns ahead of the interests of the people. So the more this awareness comes out, the more people stand up and speak out and say, hey, this is unacceptable. This is unacceptable. Then it's threatening that very power base that they have thrived and lived off of for far too long. We should talk about how you're funded, too, just so people understand your position. Yeah. So people powered campaign. We take no PAC contributions, no lobbyist contributions.

Every single dollar that comes to my campaign for president is coming from individual people across this country, whether it's a dollar or a thousand dollars, people who are giving whatever they can and joining this movement. There's a great joke. I think it's from Dennis Miller. I hope I'm not misquoting it, but he was talking about how politicians wear patches in their jackets like NASCAR drivers. Seriously, that is. Like you should have to know. Yeah, someone should have to know. Have those disclaimers there. If I put my tinfoil hat on when I talk about these interventionist foreign policy wars

and regime change wars, the tinfoil hat thinks military-industrial complex, people being asked or forced into making decisions that benefit these giant corporations that make weapons and profit off of war. This is the worst case scenario in terms of conspiracy theories. The idea that someone wants war so that they can make money and they don't care if people die, even needlessly. This is our number one conspiracy fear, right? If you had to think about, of all the things that you hope are not true about the way the world works,

that would probably be number one. Well, you can take your tinfoil hat off because the military industrial complex is a real thing. This is something that President Eisenhower talked about. Which is an amazing speech. Amazing speech. His last speech as president of the United States, of all the things that he could talk about, he chose to focus on the military industrial complex. Should we play that right now? It is. I feel like we should play that. Yes, absolutely. Play that clip.

It's so crazy and most people have never heard it before. And you hear about the term military industrial complex. heard it before, and you hear about the term military industrial complex, and one thing that has been done that's really interesting is the word conspiracy has become a dirty word. And that dirty word or a word that it's easy to make something silly by calling it a conspiracy. Even though there are times where people conspire to do things. I mean, that's why that word exists. I mean, it's not like people don't make plans to do things that are illegal. Of course they do. That's why the FBI is around.

Yeah. But this is from the National Archives, and this was Eisenhower's speech as he was leaving office. I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell. 1961. This speech did not get very much attention. When a new president— Oh, who is this guy? Jamie, you picked up the wrong version.

Son of a bitch. I'm sure there's an actual version of it. Here we go. January 17th, 1961. Back when everything was black and white. The President of the United States. Good evening, my fellow Americans. We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century

that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. is that his first draft of that speech said congressional military industrial complex. Whoa. And somewhere between the draft and the speech that was delivered, he took out that word congressional, but he was directly connecting those dots that some may say, oh, well, that's just a conspiracy theory. But he was connecting those dots with the influence that the military-industrial complex has on leaders in Congress who are making decisions about how our money is spent and where our troops are sent off into battle. Congressional. Congressional military-industrial complex.

Wow. I need extra foil. Get you a new box. It's crazy how they couldn't keep the camera steady back then either. Here it goes. Good evening, my fellow Americans. Skip ahead a couple seconds here. A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment.

Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction. Our military organization today bears little relation to that known of any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea. Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged

in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporations. Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence, economic, political, even spiritual, is felt in every city, every state house every office of the federal government we recognize the imperative need for this development

yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications our toil resources and livelihood are all involved so is the very structure of our society in the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought,

by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. You could listen to the rest of the speech if you want to online, but it's very chilling. Yes. Because this is the sitting president leaving office, and this is what he wants to tell people. And a soldier. Yes.

He's a guy who had military experience. He's a guy who saw firsthand wearing the uniform and then serving as commander in chief. And this was his final warning to the nation. They constantly seek better quarters every year. They want to make more money than they did last year. That's what they're doing. They're in the business of making money. They're not just in the business of creating things. They're creating things for a profit. That's right.

And they're going to have a little wiggle room, especially with politicians. Politicians that are in their pocket and they've spent millions of dollars helping them along the way. And, you know, they're going to help each other. Yeah. And this long history of helping each other. That's right. That's I mean, you see that very directly through contributions that are being made to politicians by different defense contractors and the corresponding votes that are then taken. But you also see this corruption that's happening before our very eyes happening within places like the Pentagon, where you either have people in uniform or civilians who are working in contracting, for example, in the Pentagon, laying the groundwork

for writing up these contracts, major multi-billion dollar contracts with these big defense contractors, and then lay down the uniform or you retire from service, either as a civilian or in the military, and then you turn around, leave that door and walk into another door working for the very same contractor that you just wrote the contract for. This is happening. This is what we need to change when we're talking about both campaign finance reform, but also reforming this kind of corruption and this revolving door that's happening in different parts of our government. You see it happening in Wall Street too. Yes. coming from Wall Street and then going back to Wall Street to work for the very same companies that they were supposedly just charged to regulate. This is a big problem that we've got to fix. There's a fantastic documentary on that called Inside Job. Do you see it?

Yeah. It's amazing. You see when he's confronting these guys who are professors who then go and take these jobs and make millions of dollars with the very regulations that they help put into place. That's right. And it's happening with foreign policy as well. When you look at who are the main people who go and testify in front of Congress, coming from think tanks, very well-known think tanks, global think tanks that specialize in foreign policy, they don't have a placard on their desk when they're testifying before Congress saying, we receive funding from Saudi Arabia, from Qatar, from the United Arab Emirates,

from all these different countries who are spending a lot of money funding these think takes that then come forward and push policies or push ideas to leaders in Congress that not coincidentally benefit the countries that are funding them. What could be done to stop that other than someone like you getting into power? And what could you do once you get in there? I think two things. I mean, obviously, as president and commander in chief, you set the tone for the kind of leadership that we have in this country that will put service above self. And this is what I will bring as president, bring those soldiers' values of putting service above self, putting service to the American people in your country first and foremost, ahead of everything else, ahead of the interests of a political party or a corporation or a foreign country,

for that matter, and work to pass legislation in Congress that would close these revolving doors, that would require this transparency when you're talking about who is funding who and where is this money coming from. I think members of Congress should not be taking PAC contributions, should be relying solely on contributions from people in this country so that they know exactly who is funding their campaigns. That really seems like a no-brainer. That one seems like a no-brainer. If you really want what the people want. It's something that's starting to happen organically as more and more people are calling for this kind of reform and saying, hey, look, if you want my vote, then I expect you to not accept

those contributions and to run a people-powered campaign. How many people are doing that besides you? There's a couple who are running for president. There is a slowly growing number of people who have run for and gotten elected to Congress. But look, it's in the margins compared to where we need to be. Now, one thing that exists now that really didn't exist when Obama was running for president is the impact of social media. It's just tenfold what it used to be. But with that also comes this reality that we're living in right now, where there's only a few companies that are controlling the discourse in this country. I mean, you really have essentially a Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook owns Instagram.

That's right. And there's a couple other small ones, but that's the bulk of our discourse. Yeah. What concern do you have about these private companies controlling the vast majority of communication between people on social media. Yeah, it's extremely dangerous. It's extremely dangerous when you think about it. And there's a few things. There's, gosh, with Facebook and Google for that matter, you know, they can set their algorithms, Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook, and set his algorithm to control what information is coming across our newsfeed in Facebook. What are the stories that we're seeing? Instagram, same thing.

With Google, they can control when you punch in something, what are the first stories that you're going to see on the first page that pops up? When you think about that kind of power of influence that it has on the American people, literally being held within the hands of a couple of people, unchecked and without oversight or transparency, it's incredibly dangerous. Facebook banning certain individuals from having Facebook accounts because of their speech. They disagree with the speech that they're using or the things that they're talking about, ideas that they're pushing forward. Unchecked. First Amendment rights going completely out the window. The argument is they don't apply because it's a private company, right? Yes, but they're trying to get the best of both worlds. The fact that they're claiming to say,

hey, this is a free space for open communication for everyone, while at the same time going and saying, actually, you know what, Joe, I don't like what you're saying about this, so we're going to ban you and whoever your friends are from this conversation. I think that's a big problem. It undermines our First Amendment rights. And you look at privacy, the privacy concerns of all the information that they're collecting in Facebook from us, all the information that

they're collecting from us with Google, and how they're monetizing that and selling or sharing that information with other people with really without our, our knowledge or agreement. That's the part, right? The, the agreement that most people didn't understand that your data is a huge commodity. That's right. And we signed up for these things. I mean, who, who reads terms of service agreements? Have you ever read one?

Yeah. I've never read one of them. I just say, okay. Yeah. I started to get through like the first two paragraphs. Like, okay. I hope it's not ugly. Nothing terrible in there. You know what I think back to there is a South Park episode that, that is specifically about the terms and conditions. And, uh, I just, I watched it a long time ago, but every time I see one of those things pop up

signing the terms, I'm like, oh, man. Yeah. That was Cartman, right? Yes. Yeah, something happened with him. Yeah. We can't talk about it. But there's a thing that they're doing. There's a couple things they're doing,

but one of the things they're doing with your data, they find out what you're interested in, and they find out what you're interested in engaging on. And for many people, that's outrage. So for many people, it's the things that piss you off the most. Like if you have a real problem with Catholic priests getting away with having sex with little boys, you will think that that's happening every minute of every day all across the world because it's going to be in your newsfeed constantly because they know that's what makes

you engage. Right. So your algorithm, the algorithm is your feed is going to be very different than my feed. Yeah. Because I engage on different things than you do. Yeah. And the problem with that is even if they're not calculating, if it's not on purpose, they're not trying to get people outraged.

It's not like they're trying to rabble rouse. But what they are doing is they, because they have an ad supported model, they gravitate towards the outrageous because that's what people get excited about. And that's what people make multiple posts about. And that's how they make the revenue. It's a bad ad model. It's an ad model that inadvertently supports outrage. And it makes people think the world's a worse place. And divisiveness and all of it. And the tribal boundaries between the two sides on these issues are more tense. And you would think that discourse and the ability to freely communicate would kind of open that up and people would kind of understand each other better.

But it's not happening. It's like Twitter is a garbage fire all day long. It's just fire. Like you can't post anything about anything. And there's people just jumping on people. And it's a crazy thing that has happened that we gravitate towards the outrageous. I don't think that should be rewarded financially. I think that's not – if this is just what people go to organically, that's one thing.

But when you're cultivating feeds or at least your algorithm is cultivating feeds so that people get pissed off, you're making the country a shittier place. Yeah. Like you're literally like making things worse. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is one of the reasons why,

um, I think a couple of things should happen. And, and, uh, I think his name is Chris Hughes who co-founded Facebook with Zuckerberg. I saw that, yeah. Did you see his article?

Yes. Calling for Facebook to be broken up? Yes, and which is crazy. You hear about the person who founded it, and he's saying this is out of control. And that's the point right now, is seeing how powerful, as you said, guys like Mark Zuckerberg have become, and how out of control things are. Well, some of it just doesn't make sense. Like here's one. They just banned Alex Jones.

Not only did they ban Alex Jones, but you can't talk about Alex Jones. If you wrote Alex Jones might be nuts, but damn, is he cute. If you wrote that, you would get a message that says only you can see this message. This message is stopped at the border from entering into the facebook universe like what the fuck you can't just like what if you want to say something funny you can't say something funny no you can only say something if you're criticizing him right this is what they've said so they're telling you how to think which is fucking insane. It is insane.

Because that's not just a violation of free speech. You're literally directing speech. Yeah. Like that's insane. So you're not even blocking people from doing something hateful or evil. You're blocking people from saying something that you disagree with. That's right. Which is, people have sent me messages that said, God bless Alex Jones.

And they say, you can only see this message. Facebook sends them a thing blocking that message. Wow. That's fucking crazy. Yeah. Like the idea that you think you can do that. Yeah. That is nuts.

Yeah. I mean, being able to ban anyone arbitrarily without any, just violated terms of service. There you go what does that mean yeah okay be specific and how come i mean they've they took a bunch of people out right like lewis farrakhan was one alex jones paul joseph watson was like what did that guy ever do i mean people don't agree with them like i think what's happening is there was some serious concern that Facebook was used to influence the last election, whether against their knowledge or in a way where they were negligent about the type of filtering they use that stops people from posting propaganda. these things like the IRA, the Internet Research Agency in Russia, that literally creates thousands of profiles and pages, and they'll have a Black Lives Matter page that's just designed to fuck with cops, and then they'll have a pro-cop page that's just designed to fuck with Black Lives

Matter. All they want to do is create anger, and they're doing this, engineering these arguments. I mean, this is 100% proven fact. Renee DiResta, who had been on my podcast, went over the details of how it's set up and how they do it. And the memes and the memes that they create. This is an organized effort that they channeled through Facebook in particular and then Instagram and a couple other social media sites. You know what's interesting about Renee? She worked for New Knowledge, right? I do not know. I think she was the director for New Knowledge.

This company, New Knowledge, that the DNC has tapped as one of their, I don't know, disinformation campaign experts and cyber experts, was the very same company that created false accounts and pretended to be Russian bots in order to influence a U.S. Senate election in Alabama. Yeah, I'd heard of that, right? So it's something that she was not a part of, but it happened before her time. She was the director of research, it says. At New Knowledge, right. But that's post this happening, correct? I don't know.

She sent me an email about it because I questioned her about it after it happened. Yeah. And I don't think she's full of shit. Yeah. Well, yeah, I've never met her, but I know that that company is one that is often cited as a so-called expert and was a company that was cited to try to smear my campaign as somehow being an engine for the Russians or something like that, which to me, again, just points to, well, let's look at the so-called experts that you're citing in this company, new knowledge and the kinds of actions that they've been taking, the very same ones that they're criticizing others for doing.

It's a dirty world out there. It's a wild west in the internet. It is. It is a wild west in the sense that, I mean, I think there should be regulation. Like, I mean, I don't think you should be able to put child porn everywhere. I don't think you should be able to dox people. But it's like, where does that border stop? Where does that regulation border stop?

And I think it's a very good question. Do you think that these social media platforms, whether it's Google or Twitter or whatever, or Facebook, do you think that they should be treated as a public utility where everyone essentially has the right to use them? You have the right to use water. You don't have the right to take a hose and smash your neighbor's window and flood his house. That's right. I do. I do think that they should be regulated like that. And they should be subject to the very same antitrust laws that have been used to make sure that we don't have other monopolies in other industries or in other areas to break them up. And I think that was something that Chris Hughes outlined in his article. The very first step that could be taken is just to say, hey, you've got a you've got it.

Facebook needs to let go of Instagram and WhatsApp because that was some that acquisition created an even stronger monopoly that really shouldn't have been allowed to take place in the beginning. And so there are concerns about the kind of power being, you know, consolidated into the hands of a very few people, as well as how that's impacting any kind of competition and squashing that competition from coming up and saying, hey, you know, you've got Facebook and then you've got this other new social media technology. They've got better privacy standards and better service for the consumer than Facebook. But any time that that tries to happen, you know, they're quickly squashed by companies like Facebook or Google for that. Or bought up. Or bought up. Exactly.

Yeah, that's that's that's the big concern is that there's just not enough variety. And the big concern is that there's just not enough variety. And there's also a big concern that I have a big concern that there's a bunch of people that don't seem to understand the consequences of what they're calling deplatforming people. It's basically censoring people, some real anger on the other side. And it does the opposite of what you want it to do. What you want it to do is make the world a better place. Let's take some of these angry voices out of the mix and let's make the world a better place. It just makes them more angry. And encourage discourse. Encourage these kinds of conversations where you can engage with people who might have a different view on an issue or might have a different experience that they bring

to the conversation. And to do so, that actually helps increase the knowledge and understanding that we have. that actually helps increase the knowledge and understanding that we have. Yeah, I think we have to reward civil discourse as well. I think we have to be kinder to each other. We have to be more upset at people that are acting like shitheads online for no reason. Like you're just, you think that it's just online, but what it is is communication. And if you're interested in shitty communication online, you're just a shitty communicator. All this calling it being a troll and all these different labels that people put on it to make it cuter and whitewash issues, I think we'd find that we meet more in the middle than we think we do.

I think there's also a problem that people have where they become married to their ideas and they dig their heels in and they support their ideology and they're very rigid about it. And that is only strengthened when you silence people. It does the opposite of what you're hoping it's going to do. It makes the world a worse place. Look, if people are saying things that you don't like, you don't have to read that. But if you tell people that no one can read that, they're going to go, why do you get to decide?

And who are you? Exactly. Who are you? You're a regular person? How wise are you? Yeah. How many steps ahead have you played this game? That's right.

Because I'm looking at this game, I'm looking at civil war. I'm looking at worst case scenario. This goes to that, that goes to this. This guy attacks that, that guy attacks this. They can't talk anymore. You got people fighting in the streets. That happens. That's a human characteristic. That's right. And that is where this path ends up. this path that we're on of this hyper-partisanship, this extreme divisiveness where it's either you're in my tribe or you're in the other tribe and the arrows are pointed at each other without any willingness to once again, let's just have a conversation. Let me hear where you're coming from. Hear where I'm coming from. We can disagree without being disagreeable.

We can even have a heated conversation and a debate. And I would say that what you're saying is patriotic. Yeah. This is patriotic. And I think it's unpatriotic to be partisan. Yeah. Because I think we're supposed to be on a team together. Yeah.

This is supposed to be Team America, right? Exactly. What are we doing? Exactly. We're fighting over nonsense and mischaracterizing people's positions just to suit our own ideas. That's right. It's foolish. It's foolish. It's foolish.

And as you said, it's extremely dangerous. And the American people are the ones who ultimately lose in all of this. This has been one of the most frustrating things that I've seen and experienced throughout my over six years in Congress that really started when I first went up after I got elected, where after every election happens, the new members of Congress, they go and they have what's called new member orientation. And they give you these books and here's the maps and here's where your office is and, you know, all the administrative and logistical stuff. But very quickly, I would say within the first few days, you know, where we first come in together as Democrats and Republicans,

immediately, okay, Democrats go this way, Republicans go this way, immediately separated. And what we're told right off the bat is, look, this is about getting wins for our political party. And if you work with a Republican, then that's going to hurt the party, especially if you work with a Republican that the Democratic Party is trying to take out. Forget the substance of the idea. Forget the substance of the bill. And this happens on the opposite side as well. Republicans with Democrats, both political parties are guilty of this, where they're really putting the interests of the political party ahead of the people who just voted for us to go and serve them. And not just the Democrats who voted for me, but yes, the independents and the Republicans, both who voted for me or who didn't, but who I serve as part of my constituency. And I've continued to see this where you'll have a bill that because it's a Democrat bill, Republicans will vote against it. Substance aside, or Republican bill, Democrats will vote against it just because it's a Republican bill. But then, hey, if they come in and, you know, a month or a year later, introduce the same bill or a similar bill, but now because it's a Democratic bill, okay, everybody, hey, let's go and support this legislation. a democratic bill, okay, everybody, hey, let's go and support this legislation. You can imagine why there is so much gridlock in Washington, why nothing really gets done, and ultimately how this divisiveness and this hyper-partisanship is hurting the ability for the needs of the American people to be served. When you talk about people like yourself that are completely funded by the public

and you have this very logical and objective way of discussing this gridlock, do you think that the future is in young people like yourself getting involved in politics, that they're not connected to this old world for 35, 45 years? This world, it sounds like this is just what you do. I mean, I watched House of Cards. I get kind of, I get it sort of. That seems like chaos. And it seems like there's no way to fix that. It's almost like these people have to stop being politicians. They have to be voted out or die off. Well, I think it's evident where we see those who are very entrenched in this broken system feel very threatened by the rise of people-powered campaigns, individual contributions coming

in and supplanting the big money that they get from the PACs and lobbyists. they get from, you know, the PACs and lobbyists. And there's fear there because they see their whole world being disrupted by people like me or others who are coming in and saying, no, we're not buying into any of that. And we're coming in to actually fulfill the mission that we've been charged with by those who voted for us to serve the people, all the people of this country. And would you say that, would you, well, this is my position. I think that Trump plays a part of that because I think he was the first guy to come in basically self-funded or being funded through his own means and not listening to the rest of the Republican Party saying, hey, I'm going to take over and I'm going to do this my way.

And then knowing that he could do that, and knowing that there were so many Republicans against him, and knowing that there were so many Democrats against him as well, but yet he's still the president. People are like, Jesus, this is a fragile system. This system is what they've done to acquire power is still very vulnerable, even though they have this deeply entrenched system of weird little relationships that it's not good enough.

Yeah. That if the people do rise up and they decide, hey, we want to put Tulsi in as president, you're going to have a different situation. A lot of you clowns are going to be out of work. Absolutely. I mean, and that's really that that's the message that we're carrying to to living rooms and town halls and communities across the country is Washington continues to underestimate the power of the people. And it's supposed to work for you.

Exactly. And that's the thing is, you know, our founding fathers had this vision for our country that our government would be of the people, by the people and for the people. And instead, what we have is a government of the rich and powerful by and for the rich and powerful, or of the public. They don't talk like that. They talk like people who are in a position of power and influence. And it's not healthy. It's not a healthy perspective. It's evident of that huge disconnect between the bubble that is Washington and the reality of the lives that we live every day, people all across this country. That's always the case, though, when people get in control of things. They always meddle, make it easier for them,

make it better for them. What can I do to make this a little easier? Is there another way? How can I help myself here? How can I make sure that when I get out of office, I can do these public speaking tours and make a quarter million dollars a pop? When I hear about the money those guys make to just go and talk,

who is paying for that? Who is paying to listen to Hillary Clinton talk? What are they getting out of it? What are you getting out of that? That's right. Can I listen? Yeah. I would love to pretend to be a banker, to put a lizard skin face mask on and go sit with those bankers and listen to one of those conversations that Hillary Clinton got paid

a quarter million dollars to talk. Yeah. Never released the transcripts for it. What is that about? Who is... It's some weird sneaky deal that they make. Yeah. Nobody wants to pay that.

Like, go do that in Madison Square Garden. See how many tickets you sell. Yeah, right, exactly. Bill and Hillary are doing, like, the speaking tour thing right now. I am baffled as to who is going to pay to go see Bill and Hillary bullshit them. That's right. They're doing it together now, right? Yeah. Bill is so old.'re doing it together now, right? Yeah.

Bill is so old. Why doesn't he just come clean? You know, I would love to get that guy and just get him drunk and put him on the air. Just like have him just talk about life. Knowing you only got like a few years left. Everything's falling apart in your body. What are your regrets?

What'd you do wrong? What could you have done differently? Stop all this bullshitting. Yeah. Like what, you know. You should have him on your show your show. I would love to, I would love to do mushrooms with them. That's what I wanted to have them on the show and do it in Colorado. Cause they decriminalize mushrooms. It's just this role of being the person that is in control of this country has always been this impossible task.

And when I see a person like you who wants to do it, I say, listen, you have some of the best ideas and the most healthy perspective that I've ever heard from anyone that's ever running for president. But why would you want to do that to yourself? Those are the two things that I think of. Because it's not for myself.

And it's not to be in control of the country and the people. It's to serve the people and our country. It's a continuation of this mission that I made me happier than, than anything else than, you know, going and playing video games with my friends or anything like that. And that, um, that mission that, that was deeply ingrained in me further with my service in the military, serving as a soldier where, you know, I'm serving alongside people of all walks of life, as you know, every race, religion as a soldier where, you know, I'm serving alongside people of all walks of life, as you know, every race, religion, ethnicity, orientation, everything, every one of us wearing that same uniform, serving that same flag that represents the American people with that laser-like focus on putting service above self. And that's what I seek to bring to the White House, to restore those values of integrity and honor and respect, to make it so that that White House is a beacon of light for the American people, to know that that White House belongs to them and represents them and their interests and their interests alone.

Does anybody, I mean, even a person like you who's on the outside, do you think anybody truly knows what it's like to run the country until they get in there? Can you even have an idea of how impossible a task it is to be in control of the economy, the environment, the infrastructure, the military, our position in the world? It seems like the most insane duty to require someone to run all those things, to be aware of all those things, to be responsible for all of the successes and all of the failures. Yeah. It's an awesome responsibility. There's no question about that. And I think it fulfills that higher calling, that this is not about any kind of selfish interest. This, for me, is not about any kind of ambition that I've had.

I've never had any kind of thought, well, I want to be president one day or even I want to be a member of Congress one day. It's always been about how can I best be of service and how can I make a greater impact? And that's what I've seen throughout my time in Congress where I've served on these committees. I've served on the Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees. I've been calling for and fighting for an end to these wasteful regime change wars, an end to this new Cold War and nuclear arms race. There's only so much I can do as a member of Congress to be able to serve as president and commander in chief. I know that I can make that kind of impact and see change in our policy that keeps our country safe, that moves us closer to that future of peace and prosperity. And that's where I hope to be able to make a difference.

If you become president, excuse me, when you become president. There you go. Sorry. And you do get to change the way we spend money and stop spending money on these regime change wars. What would be the first thing you invested in in this country? And how would you go about doing that? That's a good question. I think there's – I'd want to give that some thought because there are a whole host of challenges that we're facing.

You know, I mean, health care is among the top of the list. And, you know, we've talked a little bit about that the last time I was here. Our crumbling infrastructure continues to be something that's not only just uncomfortable every time we're driving over potholes, it's actually threatening people's lives and well-beings. a few weeks ago, and we visited this, a few communities that were completely inundated and devastated by the flooding that took place there, gosh, about three, three, four weeks ago now. Many of them have not been able to return to their homes. We went and helped out one family. We were tearing down drywall and ripping up the floors and underneath the wood and the floors, there was still like tons of water in place. And they were talking about how even with, you know, the aid from FEMA and SBA loans, that they are unwilling to put a single dollar back into rebuilding their homes because they're hearing from the government and the Army Corps of Engineers that it may take two to four years to fix the levees that broke down and caused that flooding. So why would they go and try to pour their life savings back into

rebuilding their homes when they could get flooded again in a year or in two years? Because we're not making the kinds of investments in our infrastructure that we need to make. So there's education. I mean, there's a whole host of issues that I think we need to look at how we can best provide the resources that are necessary to improve those services to the American people. And also look at how we're doing business and fixing the problems that exist within those different agencies. There's always been a call to help countries in need in the world. There's always been a call for the United States to step in and do something. But yet there's problems in this country that never change. There's bad communities in this country that are impoverished and crime-ridden

that have been the same way for decades. There was a former Baltimore police officer named Michael Wood who came on my podcast and he was talking to me about the time when he was in the Baltimore Police Department. They found a piece of paper that was documenting various crimes from the 1970s, one of the years from 1970-something. And it was the same exact crime in the same exact area that they were having problems with now, whether it's homicide, narcotics, whatever it was. They were having the exact same issue in the exact same places. And then he realized, well, there's no effort put to change this. If you're talking about decades and decades and decades, why wasn't there money funneled into this community? Why isn't there

some community centers that help children? Why isn't there an emphasis on better education? Why isn't there more police officers or at least some sort of civilian presence that helps out people and stop some of this crime and gives people a better place to live and then fix a lot of this, what you're seeing decade after decade. If we want to make America better, the best way to do that is to fix the weakest parts. The weakest parts are the people that are born in a shit situation. They don't get a good break.

They got a bad break. They're born in a crime-ridden environment, and then they have to figure out how to be a better person while dealing with all this. And then you've got people that are aloof to this that are like, hey, figure it out for yourself. I did. As if we all start from the same spot in this crazy game called life, because we don't. Those people are in the worst spot. Why can't we fix the worst spot? It seems like we could. If we can help Iraq, if we can invade Syria, if we can do some of the things that people either want us to do or we have done, why can't we do that? Exactly. And that's what I often remind people is that right now, today, we spend $4 billion every month in Afghanistan. $4 billion. Every month. Every single month.

Imagine what could be done with those dollars and those resources in communities like Baltimore, in communities like Flint, Michigan, where people are still being poisoned by their water, where they're being lied to and cheated by their leadership, where the governor sent in these inspectors and cleared the water saying, hey, everything's fine. What he didn't tell people was that when those inspectors went in, they turned the faucet and let the water run for five minutes before they tested it to clean all the crap out of the pipes and create this false conclusion that somehow the water is clean when the people who live there know that it is still not safe to drink.

And for some folks, they can't even take a shower in their own homes. And so that's why you're not going to hear any other presidential candidates talking about the cost of war and where our money is going and how it is counter to our national security. It's making us less safe. It's counter to the interests of our It's making us less safe. It's counter to the interests of our people and the people in those countries. But this is why I talk about this everywhere I go, because it's central. It's central to our ability to address these

domestic challenges that we are facing, we in this country are facing in communities across the country, dealing with health care, affordable housing. There's a homeless crisis in both urban cities and rural communities. People who are not able to afford to put a roof over their heads. People who are working full time, maybe one, maybe two jobs even, still can't afford to put a roof over their heads. There are serious issues that we need to address here. But to think that somehow we'll have the resources to do so without addressing where trillions of our dollars have been going now for the last several years is a lie. It's just not true. When you talk about people that are working full-time jobs and they still don't have enough money to get by, what could you do to change that? Well, I think there's not one single action

that can fix that. I'm pushing for a living wage. I think it's important that- What do you think that should be? It's going to be different in different places. I'm a co-sponsor of the congressional legislation to raise the minimum wage to $15 at the federal level. There has not been an increase in the federal minimum wage for a very long time. And I think that's a step that can be taken. But, you know, Los Angeles is like Hawaii, where a $15 an hour job is not going to be enough to pay the rent. You've got high cost of living. So living wage is going to be higher in communities like ours than it is in smaller communities or communities in the Midwest.

What would you suggest for Los Angeles? $20 an hour? I don't know what the answer is here. But it would have to be more. I think so. The argument against that would be that small businesses would go under or hire less people or that somehow or another it would be bad for business. What do you think about that? I think there's a, you know, I mean, the cost of living here is higher. And so what we are paying

the employees who work in these industries and these service jobs has to match that. It has to correlate with that higher cost of living. It costs more to go out to eat here than it does to go out to eat in a restaurant in, I don't know, Alabama, for example. So I think we've got to recognize people who are doing the work that correlates with the higher cost of living that we're seeing already. I'm really looking at the universal basic income and seeing how that could be a tool to help deal with a lot of these poverty stricken communities and people who have been struggling and still unable to dig themselves out of a hole there. struggling and still unable to dig themselves out of a hole there. And seeing how that potentially could replace a lot of the bureaucracy, a lot of the money that we're spending on bureaucracy and a lot of social welfare programs, perhaps to both save money and to provide support directly to people who need it. So I think that's an option that we've got to consider. It's not simple. And

so I'm doing the research and figuring out how exactly that would work and how exactly we'd pay for it. But we also have to look at affordable housing. I think not accepting the fact that the high cost of housing is what it is, is is not the solution. There's a lot of money that goes into our housing and urban development department. that goes into our housing and urban development department, but is it really having the effect that we need it to have to make it so that, you know, whether it's cops or teachers or firefighters, people who are working in these public service jobs are able to afford to live in the communities where they're working. We were in Malibu yesterday.

We had a town hall there yesterday and took a tour with the mayor, city council members, community leaders around a lot of the areas that were completely devastated by the mayor, city council members, community leaders around a lot of the areas that were completely devastated by the fires. And that was one of the things that they mentioned is that they pointed out a trailer park, traditionally where a lot of those first responders live. That's where the workforce in Malibu have lived in that trailer park. And they said that it's not unheard of that one of those trailer homes go for a million bucks, a million bucks, and you don't even get to own the land that your trailer sits on. And so this is a real problem that they're facing is people who are teaching in that area, the firefighters who are working in that area, they're not able to afford to live in the

community that they serve. But how could that be fixed? That's a supply and demand thing. There's not that much beachfront area. Well, some communities, I mean, you know, there's land in the valleys and other areas, but some communities are dealing with this both in the private sector. There's hotels in Hawaii, for example, who are recognizing that they can't attract workers to work in the hotels because they can't afford to live near where they work. And they're starting to buy up properties to actually provide that workforce housing at an affordable cost to be able to attract those workers. Some communities are doing the same thing for first responders, for firefighters and others. So this is a problem that a lot of city councils and local communities are trying to deal with and solve.

But I think it also points to a bigger problem that we have nationally that there is just not enough affordable, truly affordable housing for working people in the country. But a place like Malibu has always been this exclusive community because there's just not that much Malibu, right? It's right next to the water. So it's more valuable. Is there a way to do anything that would change that? Well, that's what I was asking the mayor about. And that was one of the things they said that has been, you know, people look at Malibu and they're like, well, that's where a bunch of multimillionaire rich people go and buy their beach homes. But there has always been, you know, the basis of that community was really founded on those who worked to build the community, you know, middle class people who are increasingly being pushed out. If you're not living in the home that, you know, your grandfather, your great grandfather built, then you're not going to be able to afford to stay there.

So, you know, we didn't get into the details on what they're looking at, but this is something that the city council and the mayor are grappling with now, to be able to attract workers who want to work in the area, but who don't want to have to drive two hours or three hours just to get to their place of work. Yeah, I just don't know how you would ever do that. Yeah. Especially with all those fat cats that are living in Malibu. I mean, it's a crazy place to live. Yeah.

Those houses on the beach are like ridiculously expensive. Yeah. And that's where a lot of, I mean, a lot of the folks we were talking to yesterday, they live, you know, up on the mountain or in the valley or. That's a better spot anyway. The thing about being by the beach is people can just kind of hang out in your backyard, like right there, like right where your bedroom is. There can be people that are cooking out four feet away from your head.

Yeah, not so much privacy. You got none. It's the beach. It's everybody's. People have tried to kick people off of it too, which gets really strange. There's been a lot of those cases where they hire private security. Yeah. But it's like trying to kick someone out of a park because you decided to have a picnic.

That's true. Like, hey man, this beach is everybody's. Exactly. That's the ocean, bro. And it's got to stay that way. Yeah, it has to stay that way. It's got to stay that way. I have a problem with, this is a personal problem, with municipalities that charge you

to go to the beach. It's crazy. So if I have no money in my pocket, you're going to bar me from going and putting my feet on the sand and going for a surf in the ocean? That's just wrong. It's insane.

It's wrong. It is wrong, right? I mean, I could see if you had a donation box to help people clean up the beach. That's all I could see. Donations. I'll throw some money in there. I mean, I'll pay for my parking. Sure, sure. But don't stop me from coming on the beach. That's all I could say. Donations. I'll throw some money in there. I mean, like, I'll pay for my parking.

Sure. Sure. But don't stop me from coming on the beach. Like, I'll catch a bus if I don't have any money. I'll catch a bus to the beach. Poor people. You've got to. Like, that's the whole reason we have these national parks.

National wilderness areas. It's anybody. Yeah. Anybody can get in there. Yeah. That's the beautiful thing about one of the best things about the system that we have in place in America is that there's so much public land. And people don't understand that. They've never been to other countries where that's just not the case.

Everything is private in many, many countries. You can't just go camping. You can't just take a raft and go down the river. You can't just do that. And what happens when those public spaces are lost? It's horrible. When they're lost, they're lost forever. Forever.

When you pave over them, when you develop them, you know, when your beaches become trash with pollution and others, like Theodore Roosevelt, saw this in advance and met with great resistance from a lot of big businesses that just wanted to put apartments up everywhere and start building factories. Yeah. And we created this incredible system of public land in this country that's unprecedented. Yeah, yeah. I mean, only Canada has something that rivals us. I mean, I guess Australia's got a lot of public land,, but it's just, there's other countries that have it, but it's amazing what we have here. And in terms of our diversity of scenery

and where you could go too, I mean, you could go to the desert or you could go to Idaho and, you know, go to Coeur d'Alene. Or go see a volcano in Hawaii. Yeah. Well, I think you guys have an advantage. I really do.

And I've said this about many people that are faced with incomparable beauty and this inarguable sense of your perspective. And I think if you're living on a volcano in the middle of the ocean, you're five hours by plane from anywhere. Like you guys have a different vibe, you know? And I think- Yeah.

Yeah. plane from anywhere. Like you guys have a different vibe, you know? And I think, yeah, you know, I mean, you go to, you, you, you turn on the news or you talk to politicians in Washington about, okay, we've got to protect our environment and it's becomes like a political talking point. But, uh, I'm so grateful to have grown up in Hawaii and, uh, you know, that talking point is actually a way of life. Like this connection that we have with nature, with Mother Earth is something that's real and it's cultural and it's passed down from generations. And it's actually living out that saying that Mahatma Gandhi had,

that the earth provides enough for everyone's need, but not everyone's greed. And what a powerful thing that is when we think about both how we live our lives personally, in being respectful and being thoughtful about our impact on other people and on our planet. And then of course, for policymakers who are making those decisions about how our natural resources are used, stopping them from being exploited or polluted or lost for short-term monetary profits or gains. There's a certain thing that happens in Hawaii as well, where people are more accountable

because you can't get away from anybody. That's right. Somebody's uncle or auntie is going to see you and be like, hey, junior, what's going on? You're on an island. Where are you going? You got to be nice. You can't drive like a dick.

Yeah. Yeah. I worked for Senator Akaka, who is a U.S. Senator from Hawaii for many decades in Washington. And I worked for him in Washington for two years between my two deployments. But he was a guy who embodied that aloha spirit. but he was a guy who embodied that aloha spirit uh his wife um who we call auntie millie she she's she's got a she's a firecracker she's a little feisty but even she she's like hey you don't talk stink about anybody in hawaii because you never know you might be related to them yeah but you know it's it's good words to live by whether you're related or

not. Just, hey, don't talk stink. Don't talk trash about somebody. Show respect. Share that aloha. Even if you're different, even if you disagree, show that respect. That's what my boss did. That's what Senator Akaka did. And, you know, he passed away a couple of years ago, but people in Washington still remember and talk about him, Democrats and Republicans. It's just the kindest human being they've ever known. The problem with people is talking stink is fun. It is, especially when there's nobody around. Right.

It's like a national pastime in many ways. But yeah, the spreading of bad vibes is discouraged in an area where you kind of have to know most of the people around you. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Which I want to give a shout out to one of the guys I met yesterday in Malibu, a guy named Keegan. He organized like, I don't know, 20 or 25 of his friends. And they went and they just started like fighting fires in people's houses all on their own.

Organized like aid stations and food stations, getting generators in. They did incredible work. But I told him I was coming on your show today. And he was, he just said that Joe Rogan and his show has made such a deep impact on my life because he went from somebody who was really triggered, was the word he used, he went from somebody who was really triggered was the word he used by people who were saying things that he disagreed with. And you inspired him to kind of open his mind and his eyes and to recognize that we are stronger and we are better when we have this kind of respectful discourse and we're open to hearing from and I and trying to understand people who may have a different view rather than being triggered and running away in the opposite direction

or reacting in a negative way. So I just wanted to pass that on because you made a big impact on him and on a lot of his friends and a lot of people in the country. And that's having a positive impact on our culture. Well, that's very nice and shout out to Keegan. I appreciate that. I think that's something we can all learn how to do and I learned how to do it. It's not something I was naturally – I didn't naturally gravitate towards having good conversations

with people. I was a dickhead when I was young. I was fighting all the time. Most of what I did was involved with martial arts. So I was always involved with competition. It was always very intense and I was very competitive. And I wasn't necessarily that nice all the time. And when I examined my life over time, When I examined my life over time, I realized that the things that always felt the worst were conflicts that were unnecessary. And particularly the things that I judged myself the most harshly weren't my mistakes or failures in my attempts at doing things. It was my misbehaving, my just being a jerk where it wasn't necessary or having an opportunity to be nice and not taking it or escalating things where I could have used diplomacy. Right. And I just

learned over time that a lot of it is the way I was communicating with people where I was failing was how I was approaching their thoughts and that I was immediately trying to be right rather than listen to them. Right. And I was thinking about them differently than I think about myself. One of the things that happened to me when I had children was I started thinking of people like babies that grew up. I think of everyone like old people. It freaks me out when I go to the, I was in a casino yesterday. I was passing by this old lady smoking cigarettes, playing bingo or um roulette rather slots whatever the fuck it is whatever wasted money yeah

and i'm watching her do this and i'm like god this is it was a baby that was someone's baby now here it is barely hanging on what happened between who the fuck knows right maybe that's what she likes to do maybe i'm just just an idiot. But my perspective has radically shifted. And as I've gotten older and then started this podcast, the thing that I realized was that I needed to get better at talking to people when I was doing the podcast. I needed to get better at listening. And then I needed to have less biased perspectives, less biased points of view, and just try to understand what someone's saying. And if I disagree, disagree, and try to be as nice as possible while also being accurate about how much something bothers me. Yeah.

But being nice. Yeah. Like, we can do that. We can all be better off that way. Yeah. You know? And I share a lot of, I mean, when you get to these, like, if you want to look at the left or the right, you can do that we could all be better off that way you know and i share a lot of but i mean when you get to these like if you want to look at the left or the right i share so much in common

with so many people in both the left and the right that i almost want to put a graph down of like what how do you live your life like are you nice to people are you are you friendly do you have good friends you care about are you nice to people? Are you friendly? Do you have good friends that you care about? Do you have buddies that could call you at 4 o'clock in the morning and say, you got to drive two hours and pick me up? And you would immediately do it? Yeah. Like, what do you like? Okay, then what's bothering you?

What's bothering you in the news? What's bothering you? And why do these things exist? And how many of them are bullshit? Yeah. And for me, it was like there was a lot of them that were bullshit. I was like, what am I wasting time and effort and thinking about? What do I care what people do? I don't.

I don't care. I want you to be nice and that's it. And then it gets down to political and social issues. And it gets down to the heavy ones, things like abortion and war and freedom of religion. ones, things like abortion and war and freedom of religion. And these things, I think, are the ones where we should all just be communicating as calmly and as objectively as possible. And we should discourage this tribal perspective, discourage this idea of being married to your own ideas and trying to win these arguments, which you see in Congress, which you see in political campaigns, which you see in television news is a fucking dumpster

fire. Every single time they have the panel with the three people, it's just blah, blah, blah. I can't watch it anymore. It's nonsense. Thank you for your time. What did you, what waste is this? It's just people shouting over people. You never find out what the fuck anybody really believes.

You just hear their talking points blurted and vomited out. Right. The facts, the news, what's actually happening is completely lost. And it's so limited. And this is how a lot of us are getting our view of the world. Yeah. And I feel like things are changing. I think the world is a different place than it was even just 10 years ago.

I think so, too. I think humans are different. And I think we just we're not aware of how much all of this conversation on all of our analyzing the world around us has shifted over the last decade or so. Yeah, people are looking, I feel like people are looking for the facts. They're looking for more information. They're less likely to just accept at face value what they're seeing on TV or what they're hearing, which I think is a positive thing. And I think we do need to look at the leadership of this country to set this culture for civil discourse, for making it okay and encouraging, actually, those kinds of conversations. And that's where if you look at, you watch C-SPAN one night when

you can't fall asleep, you'll see in the floor of Congress, you've got the Democrats who are all sitting on one side. You've got the Republicans all sitting on the other side. And unfortunately, not often enough do you see intermingling and conversation and people go into the other side of the aisle and actually getting to know people. getting to know people. That was something that when I first got elected, I was told, look, as a new member of Congress, serving in the minority with Republicans in charge, coming from a small state like Hawaii, you will never get anything done. So just accept it. Just accept that reality that you're not going to get anything done. Wait several years or whatever. But one of the first things that I did was I got to get to know people. I got to make friends. the first things that I did was, I got to get to know people. I got to make friends. So I, my, my mom and dad, they're small business owners and they had this macadamia nut toffee business. And so I called home and I said, Hey mom, can you make 434 boxes of your toffee for every single member of Congress, all the Democrats, all the Republicans. She's like, wow, that's a great idea. Yeah, sure. I'd be happy to. And then I said, oh, I got one more,

one more request. Can you make a bigger box, 435 bigger boxes of toffee for the staff of every member of Congress? Because they're the ones who make shit happen. And she said, okay, that's going to take me a little bit longer, but yes, I think that's a great idea. So, you know, I started writing handwritten notes to every one of my colleagues, introducing myself. And as we started delivering these little gifts of aloha to their offices, it was amazing how quickly I saw while on the House floor casting votes, have Republican chairmen of powerful committees making their way across from the Republican side to the Democratic side saying, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. It was delicious. I need to get more from you because I ate it all. I got to take some home to my wife or my husband. And then saying, tell me what's going on in Hawaii. Tell me what issues your constituents are worried about. I'm the chairman of the Transportation Committee, the Agriculture Committee, or whatever it is. Let me know how we can work together. Just that one small outreach of Aloha opened the doors to these relationships that enabled me to be able to pass my first piece of legislation, like my first six months as a member of Congress from a small state in the minority as a Democrat.

member of Congress from a small state in the minority as a Democrat. And it's because just treating people with respect, treating people with aloha and saying, yeah, we can disagree even on nine out of 10 things. But on that 10th thing, like, hey, let's talk, let's get something done. Was that eye opening for you? And did you at that moment in time realize like, hey, I not only can I make an impact here, I can do this the way I want to do it. I can be a kind person and reach out. And I don't have to listen to these people that are entrenched. Exactly. It directly disproved what we were told in those first days as new members of Congress in Washington and further affirmed what I already knew, both from what I learned from Senator Akaka, what I knew from growing up in Hawaii with the Aloha spirit, that this ability to transcend all of this superficial divisiveness, whether it be based on politics, like you said, or religion or race or ethnicity or any of these other things is what has the power to bring us together as a country.

That's a beautiful thing to hear. It's country. That's a beautiful thing to hear. It's true. That's what people want to hear. They want to hear someone who thinks that way. Yeah. And that like, oh, we're okay. We're going to be okay. Like we can move forward and be okay and do this like human beings, not like politicians.

Yeah, exactly. There's a politician way of talking that I want you to avoid at all costs. I want you to never do this thing with your thumb. Don't do that. Because if I was talking to someone and they did that thing with their thumb, I'd be like, hey, bro, what the fuck's wrong with your hand? If you're not, you didn't just have a stroke. You put your goddamn hand down.

I never realized until I started watching myself give speeches on TV that I do talk a lot with my hand. That's fine. Just don't do that thing. This one, yeah. It's just as offensive as if you just started putting up your dukes. Like if you started like, we're going to go out there and like, what are you doing, man? Are you fighting people?

Exactly. This is a weird thing. Or worse yet, talking down. Like this is a teacher move. Right, right, right. I feel like. This is a teacher move. In the military, they call it the knife hand.

Ah. And you see like the drill instructors are like, come on, private. Get back in line. Yeah, but at least that's a drill instructor. Exactly. You're supposed to listen to them. But that's the point, right? This is a fucking public servant who's like got a half a fist.

Yeah. Like there's no reason to ever put your hand like that. This is not a good move. Like unless you're trying to poke somebody in the eye. That's the only reason why you should have your thumb up like that. Yeah, I don't even know where that comes from. That's a Clinton move. Clinton, I think, was the first guy to do it.

Really? That was his shit. He used to do that. That's so funny. Well, what we're going to do here. He used to have this thing he would do with his thumb. Yeah. It would drive me crazy.

I'd be like, this is such a bizarre thing. He doesn't want to be forceful, so he doesn't want to have a fist, and he doesn't want to do this. So just stick one finger out, and that de-escalates. Who was making fun of that Beto guy? What's his name? Beto O'Rourke. Yeah.

His hand movements. He's got some wacky hand stuff that he does. You can't be named Beto. I'm sorry. It's too close to Beto. Just everyone should have told him that. You're one vowel away from being the most mocked thing in society when it comes to males. You can't do that.

I don't even know if he's a good guy or not, but you can't do that. You got to change your name. He's a friend of mine. Change your name, homie. Yeah. It's too late. You're going to have to get plastic surgery and come back with a different social security number.

It's just too close. Yeah. And don't be skateboarding. No? No. What's wrong with skateboarding? Unless you know what you're doing. Does he know what he's doing or is he just goofing around?

He's a young dude. He probably knows what he's doing. It doesn't look like it. It looks sloppy. I didn't see it. It looks pretty sloppy. But it's a thing that people do. We're like, I'm one of you.

Come on. I'm one of you guys. Come on. It's like, get out of here with that, will you? Yeah. This is, I don't know. Sometimes I'll post little videos that Abraham takes with his GoPro of us out surfing. And sometimes I get that from people like, oh, why are you trying to pretend something?

So I'm like, dude, I just love the ocean. I love surfing. I want to share this with everybody. It's a simple thing. People are funny like that. They don't want you to be fake. But they also don't want you to be real. Ooh, that's true too. Right. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. So it's, I don't want you to be fake. But they also don't want you to be real. Ooh, that's true too.

Right. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. So it's, I don't know, it's some kind of in between or something. I don't know. Well, I think there's just certain people that are malcontents. Yeah.

And you're not going to, you know, if you addressed all the people that are upset at you all the time, you would never get anything done. Right? Yeah. How are you recognizing that though? Because you're, how old are you? 38. You're not that young.

You know, you're very young in terms of, like, someone who's going to be president. Yeah. That's young when you're 30s. No, you're young. I'll be, I'll be, what? Did you say you're not that young? No, I'm not that young. You're 38.

For presidents? Yeah. That's young as shit. How old was JFK when he got elected? I think. I think he was like 41 or 42. Older than you. Something like that.

Barely. I'll be what? I'll be 40 when I'm sworn in as think. Was he like 41 or 42? Older than you. Something like that. Barely. I'll be what? I'll be 40 when I'm sworn in as president. Right around there. Okay. I like how you say when. But, exactly. Confidence.

Look at Donald Trump, though. Right. So, what, he's in his mid-70s? Right. But his maturity is of an adolescent. He's a comedian. At best. At best. adolescent. He's a comedian. He should have been a comedian. I'm telling you, the guy would have been killing it as a comic instead of a real estate developer.

He's got great timing. That's true. Yeah, he's very mature. But my point is maturity matters. Yes. Experience matters. And the experience that I bring is different from any other candidate who's running for president, serving as a soldier for 16 years of serving in Congress on these on these committees of importance and national security. Look back. We talked about our founding fathers. Most of them who crafted the Constitution and who wrote the Declaration of Independence were under the age of 40.

But people only lived to be like 40 back then. Still. Still. We're talking about experience and maturity here. I know you're defending yourself. I fully support you. I think you could be president at 38. I really do. I don't think it's a problem. And at 40, for sure. You're going to be 24 years older or 24 months older. You think you could be president at 38. I really do. I don't think it's a problem. And at 40, for sure. You're going to be 24 years older or 24 months older. You're going to be wiser. You'll have it nailed. But we do wonder, right, like when has a person had enough life experience? But then again, the question is, what is that life experience?

Is it life experience, like you said, that leads you to be an immature 70-year-old? Right. Or is it the life experience of someone who's served in combat and has been in Congress for six years and someone who understands how this government works and has a better perspective of human beings? Yeah, it is that experience, and it's what you draw from it and the conclusions and the judgment and the kind of leadership that you would exercise. You know, there were a lot of folks in 2016 who said Hillary Clinton was the most experienced candidate ever to run for president because of the jobs she had held or the experience that she had had. was with her judgment and the kinds of decisions that she would make as commander in chief, decisions that would continue to send people like me and my brothers and sisters in uniform to continue to fight in these wasteful regime change wars that actually dishonor the oath that we all take when we volunteer to serve, to serve to protect and defend our country

and the American people, and instead sending us on these missions that are counter to that promise, that undermine our national security, It's what I bring to the table and it's what I challenge voters to ask the other candidates and to hold them to account on both of those fronts. Would they be ready to walk into that Oval Office on day one and to serve our country as commander in chief? One of the messages that Trump was very successful in getting out was that he wanted to drain the swamp, that we all realize that there's just this tangled web of bureaucracy and that he did a good job of connecting Hillary to that bureaucracy and say, this woman is just completely entrenched in this world. She's never going to get out. She's not even a real person anymore. She's just a professional politician. And he would highlight all the different things that she did and lied and called her crooked Hillary. She's just a professional politician. And he would highlight all the different things that she did and lied and all called her crooked Hillary. And that just got stuck. What made him,

one of the things that made him very attractive to people is that he seemed like a person. Didn't seem like a politician. He seemed like a person. How do you avoid communicating like a politician when you're doing this in mass when you're communicating with giant groups of people when you're having these big speeches in these big places how do you do it without being how do you do it and still let people know you're just a person

because that's I think what people are longing for and what they don't see in many candidates you see this act like oh he's pretty good at his act but I see the act I. You see this act like, oh, he's pretty good at his act, but I see the act. Yeah. I don't see a person. Yeah. Being myself, speaking the truth and standing up for what I believe in and why I'm offering to serve our country. I think there's no, really, there's no other way to do it because if I start like, okay, how am I going to convey myself as a real person?

The only way to do that is to actually be a real person and who's speaking truthfully and honestly and respecting the American people and the responsibility that I'm asking them to bestow upon me, that mission that I'm asking them to charge me with. You've said you've always been drawn to service. Does this seem like a calling to you? Like, what does this feel like to you, this idea that you are going to be the commander-in-chief of the greatest army the world has ever known, the leader of the free world, in a sense?

What does that seem like to you? The grave responsibility that that job carries and the seriousness with which I would bring my experience and my judgment to fulfilling that job. that people, self-serving politicians are more interested in keeping their job or in getting the next job or, you know, in lining their pockets, getting ready for the, you know, the afterlife or whatever when they leave their political office, that that somehow is defining of who they are. recognizing that to be able to serve the people is a great honor and it's tremendous responsibility. And that's how I approach serving in the local, the state level and at Congress, and how I approach being able to serve the American people as president and commander-in-chief. It is a grave responsibility, and I will never forget for a single moment who I serve and who I work for. What is your take on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange?

What happened with his arrest and all this stuff that just went down, I think, poses a great threat to our freedom of the press and to our freedom of speech. We look at what happened under the previous administration, under Obama. ultimately they chose not to seek to extradite him or charge him because they recognized what a slippery slope that begins when you have a government in a position to levy criminal charges and consequences against someone who's publishing information or saying things that the government doesn't want you to say. The government doesn't, sharing information the government doesn't want you to share. And so the fact that the Trump administration has chosen to ignore that fact, to ignore how important it is that we uphold our freedoms, freedom of the press and freedom of speech and go after him,

it has a very chilling effect on both journalists and publishers. And you can look to both those in the traditional media, but also those in new media. And also on every one of us as American. It was kind of a warning call saying, look what happened to this guy. It could happen to you. It could happen to any one of us. Well, it's very transparent, too, because there's no real compelling crime for them to be going after him the way they are. There's not one thing that stands out.

And the latest one is hacking. Well, it's not even hacking. It's conspiracy. They're conspiracy charges. It doesn't make any sense that they would spend that much time going after that guy for those charges. It's obvious and very transparent that there's another ulterior motive. That ulterior motive is that he leaked a bunch of things that were incredibly embarrassing. as a foreign intelligence agency. So once you do that, then you're talking about a whole different category.

So they're pushing out information, once again, that the government didn't want pushed out. And if the government then says, oh, well, now we're going to reclassify you as a foreign intelligence agency, then there's a whole different set of rules of engagement that apply there. Then you're no longer protected under the freedoms that we hold dear,

the freedom of the press. It's just such a disgusting way of framing things. Like, you know, he's not a foreign intelligence agent. He's a guy that got information and released it to the general public that the government wanted to keep private. It's really that simple. Yeah. public that the government wanted to keep private. It's really that simple. Edward Snowden. Similar situation. Similar situation. I don't think we, I remember the very day that I woke up in D.C., looked at my phone, started looking through the headlines and saw those headlines about how the NSA was mass surveilling all of us and collecting our phone records, collecting our cell phone records and Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile. And I was I was shocked. So that was something that Snowden uncovered and released, something that I don't know that even as members of Congress, we would have been aware of. and released something that I don't know that even as members of Congress we would have been aware of.

So now that we were aware of it, then, hey, we can take action to close those loopholes, to change those policies, to protect our civil liberties, to protect our Fourth Amendment constitutional rights as Americans. But was the NSA going to disclose that information voluntarily on their own? Absolutely not. No, we would have had no idea. We would have had suspicions, but then again, we'd have tinfoil hats on. And there was a gentleman who left the NSA very early on.

Hill, was that his last name? But he was one of the first ones to discuss this. This was post 9-11 when they first started doing it. But Snowden was the guy that really made it abundantly clear to everybody that not only are they doing that, but they're also lying about it. And even Obama was talking, oh, we're just collecting metadata. Yeah. Metadata. No, you're not.

Yeah. You're reading messages. You could do anything. Exactly. This is just not an accurate assessment of what was going on. No. And it was outrageous to people. And you had, I think he was the director of the Department of National Intelligence at

that time, James Clapper, who sat before a committee in the United States Senate and blatantly lied. Yeah. He was asked very directly, are you collecting this information? And he said, no. Yeah. Are you collecting this information on American citizens? And he said, no.

And yet he's somebody who you see on TV almost every day as an expert in thisonerated and brought back to the United States. They've got this guy, he's in Russia now hiding. It's crazy that he lives over there and he can't leave. And if he does come over here, they're going to immediately going to lock him up. What would you do as president? One thing that I think, I want to answer your question, but one thing that I think speaks to the dangerous nature of this culture that we're living in now. The Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had done an interview on, I don't know, one of the major networks. And I think he was talking about Trump when he said, be careful. You don't want to challenge the intelligence agencies. Basically putting out

that threat. I don't know if you can pull that exact quote up, but I was shocked when I heard him say that, because it basically makes out that these intelligence agencies are their own separate branch of government, and that if any one of us as Americans or elected leaders in this country dares to challenge or exercise oversight over them, then we will suffer the consequences. So as president, I would change that culture of leadership. That leadership starts at the top. of unaccountability, of complete disrespect and disregard for the Constitution, of not understanding that, yes, we need to keep our country safe. We also need to protect our constitutional rights. This is not a choice between the two, which is so often how it's framed. Well, if you want to protect us against terrorists, you've got to give up all of your

rights as Americans and your civil liberties and your privacies and just let these intelligence agencies run free and run roughshod over us. And so that's the kind of change in leadership that I'll bring. There's a whole host of policies that we can look at, for example, with the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act is up for reauthorization in Congress this year. There have been different sections of it that we have worked to try to change and reform to make it so that agencies like the NSA cannot collect our private information as Americans without a warrant. But there is far more that has to be done to undo the damage that we've already seen, the abuse of our rights and privacies that we've already seen.

that we've already seen the abuse of our, of our rights and privacies that we've already seen. Did you ever listen to that Kennedy speech about secret societies? Kennedy had a fantastic speech, uh, before he was assassinated where he was discussing this very thing. And, uh, he apparently, uh, had notions of disbanding the CIA, and he was very concerned with the power of people like J. Edgar Hoover. Of course. And that this was all happening while he was president, and he felt like there were people that were involved in these secret societies and these secret meetings and that there was a lot of conspiracy going on. And he thought the very idea was repugnant. It's a fantastic speech. It's called The President and the Press is what it's like.

It's got a title. It's a fantastic speech. I'll check it out. But this has always been the real concern that people have, that when you give someone the ability to surveil the general population, they're going to use some of that information to aid in their allies when you give someone the ability to surveil the general population, when you give them, they're going to use some of that information to aid in their allies and to work against their enemies.

Yeah. That is, I mean, it's a valid concern. Yes. And I mean, this is what, unfortunately we've already seen.

This is what has been revealed by some of that information that was released by Snowden and how, for example, the FISA court as we have it now is a secret court that has been abused for that purpose, allowing for that surveillance of Americans violating our civil liberties and privacies. And that's something that we've got to fix, that whole FISA court from top to bottom and how the different judges are appointed. Can you explain that to people? that whole FISA court from top to bottom and how the different judges are appointed.

Can you explain that to people? It's basically a secret court that was appointed, I believe, or created back in the 70s with the initial objective of providing oversight over the executive branch mass surveillance that was happening at that time or illegal surveillance that was happening at that time. Unfortunately, especially since 9-11, now you have this FISA court that is both used to approve surveillance and surveillance programs on foreign targets, but also on Americans as well. One of the many problems with this is it's a secret court where you have a judge and you have someone representing the government, whether it be one of the intel agencies or the DOD or whatever, coming before this court and making their case to try to get this warrant approved by the judge. There is no advocate there for the people. There is no civil liberties or privacy advocate there.

It's a one-sided conversation. And the information being provided by the government is the only information that's being given to the judge. So this is one of the big problems there. And we've seen over decades now, and especially since after 9-11, that there have been very, very, very few applications for these surveillance warrants that have been rejected by the judges. So, you know, a rubber stamping of these applications for warrants is really what appears to be happening. You know, there's a few different ways that we're looking at trying to fix this. There are some who are arguing to take away the FISA court completely. some other entity in place to exercise oversight over the executive branch and not allow them to conduct this surveillance, you know, willy-nilly as they please. So it's figuring out exactly what

are the best reforms to meet that objective of providing that oversight, making it so that those warrants are given, you know, as needed and making sure that all the information is being presented. And again, that FISA court was initially put in place to get warrants to conduct surveillance on foreign targets, not Americans. And that's been one of the biggest problems here with a lot of this mass surveillance is it's collecting our information as Americans illegally and unconstitutionally because you can't do that unless you go through this process and you actually get a warrant based on evidence. What would you do about Julian Assange? What would you do about Edward Snowden? As far as what would you do? Undoing, dropping the charges. If you're president of the world right now, what do you do? Dropping the charges.

You drop the charges, but they're still going after him for something from Sweden in Julian Assange's case. And so Edward Snowden would be the only one that you would be able to, right? Because unless you would influence... Well, the charges that the Trump administration is... Putting on Julian Assange. Right, exactly. And it remains to be seen whether or not they will push for extradition. There's another charge that was, I think it was today, Sweden decided to go after him again for some sexual thing that they had decided to go after many, many years ago. Edward Snowden, what he's doing right now is essentially living day to day, holed up in Russia and hiding.

And the charges against him stem from, again, this illegal operation that he in many ways is very patriotic. I mean, he let us know and it's at great cost. Yeah. So you would give him pardon. Yeah. Yeah. So you would give him pardon. Yeah. Yeah. And I think address,

we've got to address why he did the things the way that he did them. And you hear the same thing from Chelsea Manning, how there is not, there is not an actual channel for whistleblowers like them to bring forward information

that exposes egregious abuses of our constitutional rights and liberties, period. I mean, there was not a channel for that to happen in a real way. And that's why they ended up taking the path that they did and suffering the consequences. There's a great Bill Hicks bit about what happens when you become president, that they bring you in a room filled with smoke, cigar smoke. And he's an industrialist. And they play a video of the Kennedy assassination from an angle you never saw before. Wow.

And they say, any questions? And he had this bit. And I thought about this bit when I thought about Obama. Because Obama, when he had his hope and Change website, when he was running for president, one of the things they addressed is whistleblowers and how much they would provide a platform for whistleblowers to expose illegal activity. That was still on his website while he was president and while Julian Assange was getting arrested and while all this was going down. And they wound up taking it down off of the website when somebody pointed it out.

Like, hey, you had this. What happens when you become president? What do you think happens? And why do these—do you think that they're full of shit and they're just saying what we want to hear so they can get elected? Or do you think that there is something that happens to them once they get into office? Do you think that it's possible that they're given information that shows the real threats that the world has? And there's things that the general public is just not privy to. And these

are what influences people's decisions to go against all the things that they were saying when they're running for president. Yeah. Look, I haven't been with them and been in those rooms, so I won't speak for that which I do not know. But what I do know is this is what happens when you have people who are elected to serve in this job as president, whose most important responsibility is commander in chief, and they lack the experience and the understanding to be able to make the right kinds of decisions that serve the American people and end up, even those going in with the best of intentions, end up being very influenced, whether it be by the military-industrial complex or the foreign policy establishment, that as we've seen over decades has crossed both political parties. Both political parties in these areas often end up making the very same decisions about continuing these wasteful regime change wars and acting as the world's police and therefore listening to them because they lack that experience or that backbone and understanding themselves and then just continue the status quo.

You know, Trump was somebody who during his campaign talked a lot about ending the stupid wars, talked about going after Saudi Arabia, that they're the biggest supporters of terrorism in the world. And, you know, what happened now, you know, in his administration, what he called draining the swamp, he's turned that swamp into a cesspool. You look at the people he surrounded himself by, some of the biggest war hawks that our country has seen, guys like John Bolton, people like Mike Pompeo, people who've wanted to go to war against Iran for a very long time, people who have been cozy with Saudi Arabia for a very long time. You see who he's nominating to be Secretary of Defense, longtime defense contract career man, like over 30 years,

I think working for Boeing. You see the kinds of people who he surrounded himself by. And so it doesn't take a lot to figure out how he has been influenced by them in continuing these regime change wars. This regime change is still going on in Syria now, threatening regime change in Venezuela, threatening regime change and disruption in Iran. And that's the difference. That's the difference, quite bluntly, between me and other people who are running for president, is that experience and understanding that I bring, to be able to walk into that office, to do that job as commander in chief on day one, and to not succumb to the establishment that I have both felt the effects of as a soldier, as well as seen in action as a member of Congress.

I'm going in with both eyes wide open and understanding the situation as it really exists, and most importantly, understanding who I work for, that I work for the American people. Do you think when someone like Trump radically shifts his position, he's doing so because he's been influenced to change his position because he's been given more information? Or do you think they become compromised when they're in office and they, I scratch your back, you scratch mine? I don't know. I imagine that there's probably some of both. I don't know. I imagine that there's probably some of both. But if you don't have the strength of your convictions and your understanding about what kinds of policies actually best serve the American people, then you can see how easily you'd be swayed and influenced by others.

You know, you saw Trump's rhetoric on the campaign trail about Saudi Arabia, against Saudi Arabia, against United States support for Saudi Arabia, calling them out for what they are, and now refusing to end U.S. military support for this genocidal war in Yemen that Saudi Arabia is waging that's created the worst humanitarian crisis of our generation because he says, well, he doesn't want to risk a multi-billion dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia. So, you know, you can see, at least in that respect, what he's really motivated by, that he would rather continue to support the senseless and devastating deaths of innocent people in Yemen and using our U.S. military, my brothers and sisters in the military, to do that because he doesn't want to risk an arms deal with Saudi Arabia, a theocratic dictatorship that actually directly supports terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda. It's hard for people to imagine that that's the case, that it's an arms deal,

and they want to make sure that this deal goes through, that it's an arms deal, and they want to make sure that this deal goes through and that it continues to be financially productive for both nations. Well, that's, you know, this is Trump's argument. He's like, well, you know, that's American jobs, building those weapons that we're selling to Saudi Arabia. That's what's at risk. My challenge to him and to the American people is if the best our president can do to help support the creation of jobs in this country is to build weapons that are being dropped on innocent people in countries like Yemen, then we need a new president. We need a new commander in chief that will actually help serve the best interests of our people and work towards the interests of peace, peace here at home and peace abroad.

Yeah, the idea that it's just jobs. It's not just jobs. I mean, there's consequences to these jobs. You were talking about universal basic income earlier, and you were saying it in regards to dealing with impoverished communities. But one of the big issues that people think we're going to need universal basic income for is automation. It's something that Andrew Yang has built his whole platform on. Elon Musk has talked extensively about it. We are in a situation where there was an article today about Amazon using these,

I forget exactly how they described it, but essentially robots that are packaging things. And automation is going to start taking over many non-skilled jobs. And this is true with the travel industry, with trucking, with moving things, shipping, that we are going to see less and less of these unskilled jobs and we're going to see millions of people out of work and that universal basic income may be the only way to bridge that gap between them finding some sort of viable new

source of income. Yeah. I think that's certainly part of it. I think that's a, I mean, it's a strong argument. We've got to figure out how we pay for it and how it actually, you know, achieves that intended objective. But also look at making those kinds of investments in how do you train a whole new workforce and in what new areas. So, you know, you're taking people who are working in really tough labor jobs. You hear all these stories about people who are working at Amazon, very long hours, very stringent timelines. And so if they're now being replaced by automation or robots or whatever it is, let's look at our economy and see how we can help train folks for jobs that pay more money and hopefully help offer a better quality of life.

And I think that's overall when we look at this, I think that's the way that we should be addressing this is not just a job is a job is a job is a job, is a job, is a job, but really looking at the quality of life of people in this country, that a job does not equal happiness or fulfillment, but really looking at, you know, parents who have a child and who want to be able to spend some time at home raising that child or, you know, someone who wants to start a small business and work out of their home to be able to hang out with their kids more or whatever the case may be. I think as we look at this and how we make this transition in a positive way in this country, we've got to look at it from this comprehensive approach. Yeah, the idea of these people that are working in these fulfillment centers being happy seems pretty ridiculous.

They're not happy they have those jobs. Those people are in backbreaking, incredibly stressful positions where if you read the reports, I mean, I don't know how accurate their reports of what the job is like, but they literally run from one place to another. They're timed. Bathroom breaks or time limits. Yeah. they're timed yeah and they have their breaks yeah yeah time limits yeah yeah this part of the problem with the idea that companies are supposed to constantly make more and more money yeah as you get ruthless ruthlessly competitive people looking at the bottom line every single aspect of that business and one of the things that suffers is human satisfaction.

And their sacrifice has to be greater because they have to find a way to justify their position in the company. And so they get paid very little. They work very hard. And meanwhile, with a company like Amazon, not only paying no taxes, I think this is for the third year in a row, and also getting, I think this last year was over $125 million tax credit. That sounds hilarious. On top of it. Jeff Bezos has how much? Right.

He's got $150 billion and he's going to give $75 to his wife. Right. The whole thing is ridiculous. Right. And it's what people who lean socialist point to when they talk about unchecked capitalism without any sort of regulation that can stop something like that from happening and stop workers from being exploited in that way. And people say, hey, you don't have to have that job.

If you don't want that job, don't take it. But no one should have to have that job. How about that? Yeah. How about if there's a job that makes you have timed bathroom breaks and run from one place to another, you should get paid a fuckload of money for that job. That job should be something that it sucks all day long. But dude, I make $5,000 a week.

And people are like, what? Yeah, man. Eight hours a day, $5,000. You got to run. Yeah. But at the end of the day, you save up your money, man. You're making a lot of money that way yeah people would go oh okay yeah and amazon would still make a shitload of money yeah if they did it that way but those are people barely making i mean they're barely making minimum wage it's crazy yeah i mean so that's where i think you

know is is as and look this automation um really changing our economy is something that I think we're behind the curveball on because it's already happening. But let's try to see the opportunity in that where if robots are going to start taking over those backbreaking jobs, then let's try to find new and innovative ways for people to work and to earn a living that's actually bringing value to them. That sounds awesome on paper. Yeah. But how would one ever do that? That's what we've got to work out. And I'm not saying, hey, there's a government solution to this and snap your fingers and it's all done. No, I mean, government has a role, a private sector, private business has a role.

And we've got to work together because this is all of our futures. Have you imagined any potential, any possibility, any potential solution? Well, I think there's pieces of it, right? I mean, it's making sure that we close these loopholes, tax loopholes that allow companies like Amazon to get away with paying no taxes and to get this much money back as a tax credit. What is that loophole? How do they do that? Oh, gosh. I mean, our tax code is so complicated. It has to do with the write-offs and how many years and depreciation and all of these different things that they plan for and they exploit in order to pay no taxes and to get money back in return.

It's just so weaselly. It is. And it's this crony capitalism that's really at the heart of this problem. How do they get that kind of sweet deal? When you look at the tax code that's written, when you look at the tax bills that are passed, who are the people who are helping influence and write those bills? They're the big paid lobbyists that Amazon has in Washington who are saying, hey, this is something that we want to see in there

and working with lawmakers who they're cozy with to get that legislation in there. Well, this is one of the things that has come out about Trump over the last week or two, is that he lost a billion dollars over the course of X amount of years. And that this is not really accurate, but that this is how he set... Didn't he say that was for tax purposes? He basically did. He basically said it's sport, is what he said. His description was that it's sport.

Wow. So essentially, he was playing within the rules. No one's accusing him of doing anything illegal. But the way he framed his taxes, the way he – it turned out to be more than a billion dollars worth of losses over a period of something like a decade. And people are like, what the hell is that? And he's like, look, that's what I was trying to tell you. He was basically trying to say, look, this is something that I was telling you people about when I was running for president, that the system is rigged. I know because it was a part of the rigged system, and I paid these people off.

Yeah. It is rigged. But how could you get in without getting assassinated? How do you get in and say, hey, all you billionaires that are making all this money, you're going to make less money now because of Tulsi. President Tulsi is coming in. There's a new sheriff in town. Yeah. Sheriff with an army of people in this country mobilizing, saying this government was put in place to serve us, to serve the people. And as much money and high paid lobbyists as these guys have, ultimately it is the people of this country who cast the votes and ultimately the people in this country who have the power if we choose to use it, if we choose to make sure that our voices are heard. And that is the way that we make this change.

So would you have to simplify the tax code? Would you have to make things heavily? Heavily simplify the tax code. And, you know, I'm working with my team. We're doing our research to figure out exactly what that would look like. But I think we do have to simplify the tax code because it is so many of these loopholes and massive corporate deductions that have brought us to the place where we are today, where, you know, most folks are not getting any kind of meaningful deduction. Most folks certainly are not getting the kinds of tax breaks that these corporations are getting because it's these corporations are influencing how our tax laws are written. And it's written to benefit them, the ultra rich and the 1%. And people who are working very hard every single day are struggling. They're still struggling just to get by. What kind of dirty tricks do you think they will pull out against you if you try to fix

the tax code and try to make corporations accountable and make sure that they have to pay? If they're coming after you now and you're just making waves and getting ready for 2020, I mean, it could be pretty gross. Yeah. Yeah. But I just, I don't underestimate the power of people. That's what I tell them, you know, and they've been playing these dirty tricks for a long time. Uh, there is more and more people I think in this country who are paying attention and who are calling them out on it. Um, don't underestimate the power of the people. You know what I think too? I think it'd be better for them. Like Jeff Bezosos you know you're fucking people over not paying taxes bro you have so much money you and i'm sure he pays taxes i don't know what he pays

but you know the idea that amazon's figured out how to weasel that out like that's preposterous i mean you hear stuff like you know warren buffett talks about this about he pays a lower tax rate yes than his secretary right It's a famous line. How is that? Because he has, look, he's figured out all of these holes within the tax system that he can benefit from to pay lower taxes when most people don't have that ability. And as a business person who's also fairly ethical, you have to be perplexed. Like, what do I do here? Do I just do the right thing and give more money to

charity and balance it out? Or do I just take these cuts where they are and let everybody know, hey, look how much money I pay. It's not a lot. This is how broken the system is. This shit's whack. Yeah. I mean, like ultimately what you're saying, you know, as business owners, whether it whether small business owners or these large corporations, I mean, look, it is these large multinational corporations that are exploiting the system and exploiting the people and represent the worst of these crony capitalist policies. changing this culture of leadership at the top. It's bringing these values of service above self. This has to happen within our government, but we as a society need to encourage ourselves bringing these values of service above self to our businesses, to every sector of our community. Because just because you run a business and you make a profit doesn't mean that you can't be a servant leader. And to think about, hey, how

can I make a positive impact? Yes, for my employees and for their families, but on society, on our community, on our environment. And I think for the people that are running these corporations, there would be real value in appreciating the fact that we're all in this together. And you're not going to live that long. You just don't have that much time. Nobody does. No one does.

You've got 100 years if you're lucky. And you're probably, if you're running a corporation, you're probably on death's door. And you've got kids. And you've got kids. Who have kids. Generations who will live with the repercussions of the decisions that are being made. And the argument is that if you force them to pay more taxes, then there's going to be less jobs because they're going to have to make cuts.

Yeah. But that seems like a ridiculous argument to me. It's the same one that's been made all along. It's just you're used to it. That's all it is. You're used to these loopholes. You're used to it, so you want to keep them there. And if they take away those loopholes, you're going to punish other people because you don't want to be punished yourself financially.

That's what's really going on. Yeah. And this is coming from me, who's a financial dummy. I don't spend any time analyzing the financial situation in this world. Yeah. But I can see that. Yeah. That's pretty obvious.

No, it's glaringly clear. And the impact that it's having on people is also glaringly clear. People are seeing this. on people is also glaringly clear. People are seeing this. And when automation really kicks into focus in, you know, however X many years, when millions and millions of jobs go away, we're going to be confronted with this new world. And this is what a lot of people are very concerned with when they talk about the next couple of decades.

They're very concerned with automation and they're very concerned with artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence and that it's not just going to take away skilled or unskilled labor, but it's also going to take skilled labor away. There's going to be no one answering phones anymore. It's all going to be computers. They're very close to being able to do that right now where a computer will have a legitimate conversation with you, and you don't even know that you're talking to a computer. It's crazy. It's crazy. It's crazy. Are you concerned with sentient artificial intelligence and in terms of its military

applications, in terms of there's a lot of concern that what we're experiencing now with particularly when you talk about Yemen with drones yeah with these piloted things that what you're going to have is autonomous weapons in the future where you're just going to be able to literally release killer robots I'm very concerned about artificial intelligence and how quickly this technology is evolving with very little oversight or even understanding at the highest levels of our government about both what the opportunities are that it presents and also the very real dangers of this technology being weaponized and how quickly that could spiral out of control. technology being weaponized and how quickly that could spiral out of control. What could we do to stop artificial intelligence from spiraling out of control? In particular, what could we do to stop autonomous weapons? What a lot of people are really concerned with,

did you watch that show Black Mirror? It's a great show. It's on Netflix, but a lot of it is dystopian stories about the future. And one of them is called Heavy Metal. And it's about this woman being chased by these little intelligent robots that are trying to kill her. It's terrifying because this is something that could be implemented in the battlefield. And we could have, if we don't do it first, we could have a situation where our soldiers are in some sort of a situation facing off against robots. It sounds like a science fiction movie, but it's not that far away from reality. Yeah. I think this is one of those things that leaders in the global community have to recognize that just like with the nuclear arms race, once you start on this race, I mean, there are no winners in that could potentially, if put in the wrong hands, endanger all of us and find the best approach

to deal with that. Because my concern is, as we see with so many of these other weapon systems, if it's just one country that's doing it, then you have, well, my gosh, if everyone else is weaponizing, but we're the only ones who are doing the right thing, then you have, well, my gosh, if everyone else is weaponizing, but we're the only ones who are doing the right thing, then is that creating a situation where our national security is at risk or our troops are at risk? I think it's one of those things that, you know, this world is a small place. And we would have a shared interest with leaders of other countries in the world to provide the right kinds of checks and balances on this technology so that it doesn't become something that's a danger to humanity. And the real fear would be that someone would not think that at all. Yeah. That there would be whatever country, figure out what the country is. It's some country be like, fuck you. We're

going to do whatever we want. Look, you guys took over this world because of nuclear power. We're going to take over this world because of autonomous weapons and artificial intelligence. And we're going to design it to go kill Americans. Yeah. I think that that's why it's important that we take a global approach to this. And because otherwise I think you do, you end up with that scenario and where you just, you know, this race begins and then there's no way to stop it and it's too late. Unlike China, the United States has at least in perception, a clear differentiation between business and government. And one of the concerns that when I've talked to experts in China and their electronics and their technological

innovation is that they're inexorably connected to their government in some way, shape, or form. And that it's one of the main reasons that makes it incredibly difficult to compete with them on a global marketplace. When you see that our State Department has told people to stop using Huawei devices because Huawei, which is the number two provider of cell phones in this world now, they're connected to the Chinese government. How do you take that? What do you do about that situation? That relationship between the private sector and government here. In particular with the competition, when it comes to data, we're very concerned about people sharing data.

We've done it ourselves. We've spied on it. We've proven through the Edward Snowden case. Our government's doing it as well to us. We're worried the Chinese are doing it to us. We're saying, don't buy Chinese stuff. They're going to steal your data and steal your information and steal your business secrets.

What can you do to stop that? What can you do to mitigate what's already happened? You know, ultimately, you can't stop every single individual with what they're purchasing. I think that, you know, you can regulate what is sold here in the United States. I think there's a role that government can play, especially as we're talking about artificial intelligence and that kind of technology. Again, first in understanding it, and then being that responsible party to make sure that what is being developed is not something that's going to result in these unintended negative consequences. So obviously our government doesn't have ownership over private business in this country, but we still do have sensible

regulations and responsibility that government has to play in regulating what businesses can and can't do. What's interesting to me is this competition aspect between dealing with essentially just the private sector here in America versus the private sector in China that's combined inexorably with the military and that they have much more influence over what gets done and how things get done. Did you pay attention at all to the State Department's call for a boycott of Huawei products? What did you think about that? Well, I understood it. You know, I think there is a concern about that technology being used to get our information.

You know, so that can be enforced within the federal government, right? So if the State Department is saying, hey, the federal government is not going to purchase any Huawei-produced products, cell phones or whatever the technology is, and encourage other people in the private sector to do the same. What people are worried about over here is that what they're trying to do is stifle the development of this gigantic company. Of Huawei. Yeah, of Huawei. Because Huawei went from having a tiny share of the marketplace about five years ago to being the number two cell phone provider in the world next to Samsung. They just surpassed Apple.

And that this is a Chinese company and that because this Chinese company is connected to the Chinese government, the worry is that they're making ungodly sums of money and it's enhancing the Chinese government's ability to perform surveillance or just to just compete, just financially compete on a global scale. And tech nerds seem to be siding with Huawei, which is interesting to me. I've read a lot of tech blogs from people that are experts and they say that there's no evidence that these cell phones have anything in them or are doing anything, but that there has been some evidence of network devices.

And some of these network devices do have some sort of a third-party input or some ability to extract information that shouldn't be there. That's interesting. It's like when you're dealing with a situation where you're competing with a country that also controls these companies that are the biggest cell phone and electronics providers on the planet. Yeah. Like, how do you handle that? Like, what what is diplomacy with China like? Well, we can see what's happening right now with Trump. It's it's not working very well. Yeah. You know, this This trade war that, frankly, President

Trump is escalating, I think is really, really dangerous. It's having a negative impact on domestic producers, manufacturers, farmers. A friend of mine is a small business owner, and he saw the news this morning about China retaliating with Trump's escalation, I think with another increase of their tariffs, and how he's thinking like, my gosh, that's going to impact my small business. I've got, I don't know, probably less than 15 employees and trying to figure out how that's going to impact the pricing and production, manufacturing and everything, every step of the way. What's so dangerous about what Trump is doing with this trade war that he is that he's escalating is that these trade and economic wars can very easily turn into a hot war. And we're talking about a nuclear powers in the world.

That's a scary thought. It is. biggest nuclear powers in the world. That's a scary thought. It is. And the ramifications of this- Do you really think that it's possible that that could lead to a nuclear war, that this trade war could lead to something military? Yes. Yes. What is Trump's argument? His argument essentially is that China has been treating us unfairly and the rates that we're getting, they're not even. Yeah. I mean, Trump is recognizing a problem that exists.

That trade imbalance with China is a real issue. Why does that trade imbalance exist? Well, I mean, you can point to probably a whole host of issues in trade policy. I don't think it's any one single incident that has created that imbalance. And that, you know, I'm in Iowa a lot these days, and a lot of farmers have been struggling with that and would like to see it fixed. A lot in the tech community would like to see these issues fixed, especially related to intellectual property. But the way in which Trump is doing it is having a very negative effect on these American businesses and jobs that Trump is supposedly advocating for, both in, really in the uncertainty that is being set, where, you know, it looks like they're on the brink of a deal. Just the other day, it looks like, hey,

okay, the United States and China, they've been working through these issues. They're on the brink of a deal. And all of a sudden, Trump sends out a tweet saying, nope, we're going to increase these tariffs from 10% to 25%. And now China is left like, okay, I thought we were close to working things out, and now left in a situation where they have no other recourse but to retaliate, as they did this morning. So you can see quickly how this thing is spiraling so out of control and increasing these tensions between our two countries, not being done in a way that to me is strategic, providing us with the certainty of that path forward to reach a specific objective of correcting this trade imbalance, which is how this whole thing began. Why do you think he's doing

that? Why would he make a tweet like that? It's hard to explain because it doesn't make sense. It doesn't actually serve us in our interests of our economic interests of meeting that objective. I don't know if he thinks this is part of his masterful, you know, negotiation skills, but it's got a very dangerous effect. And the fact that we have nuclear strategists in this country who remind us that we are at a greater risk of nuclear war now than ever before, it's because of these kinds of things that are increasing tensions between the United States and China. the tensions between the United States and Russia, a country where we still have nuclear missiles pointed at each other that can be set off at a moment's notice, literally leaving us as people with just minutes before a nuclear holocaust, a nuclear disaster, nuclear war. And you really think that this could be set off by these financial negotiations and by Trump saying something like that and just changing his offer in a tweet? If you threaten a country's economy and their economic security, where does that logically lead?

You threaten their ability to provide for their people. provide for their people. You threaten their ability to provide that stable environment, which China, so much of what they do is just like, hey, they look for that stability. What other recourse is there other than the threat of military force? And in this case, when you're dealing with two nuclear-armed countries, this is what's at risk. And it's something, you know, it's hard for a lot of people to conceive of like, okay, my gosh, nuclear war, really? I mean, this is something that, you know, back during the Cold War with the, you know, kids going under their desk, these drills and, you know, okay, where do you go find a bunker? But this is something that that's a reality that we're facing today. And it's something that, you know, we in Hawaii in January of last year went through with that missile alert.

Yeah, that was crazy. It was terrifying. A fake missile alert, nuclear weapons on its way. Right. Missile inbound towards Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill. That was the message that was blasted out to over a million phones all across our state on the radio, scrolling across the television and people immediately like seek immediate shelter. OK, where do I go? Where do I take my kids? Where do I take my family? I had college kids sprinting across campus at the University of Hawaii trying to find shelter, seek immediate shelter. But the the sick insanity of all of this is that there is no shelter. There is no shelter. There are no nuclear bunkers, which really, I mean, and for people in this administration and politicians who are ratcheting up these tensions with these nuclear-armed countries, bringing us to this new Cold War, they are not saying, okay, well, because we're

doing this, we're going to invest not just trillions, but hundreds or thousands of trillions of dollars to make sure that every single American in this country has a nuclear bunker within 10 minutes of their home or their place of work or their school, because that's how much time we'd have. That's what we would need in order to deal with the consequences of the decisions that they're making and the failed leadership that they're providing. And so this is an issue that I'm raising awareness about because of what's at risk. I mean, this is the greatest threat that we face, and it requires strong leadership to walk us away from this brink of nuclear war, to be able to work with other countries based on cooperation rather than conflict,

de-escalate these tensions, work out our differences, and walk us back from the brink, stop this nuclear arms race that's making us and the world less safe. The last thing I wanted to ask you about was the opioid crisis. Yes. And what are your thoughts on it? This is an epidemic that is continuing to ravage the country. And we are not doing enough. Our government is not doing enough right now to solve it. And I point to one very simple thing that could drastically help those who are dealing with opioid addiction and trying to walk down that path towards recovery,

and that is ending the federal prohibition on marijuana. There has been a correlation in states that have legalized either medical use or adult use of cannabis, a direct correlation in a reduction of opioid addiction, as well as opioid-related deaths. This is one thing that Congress can do now to help make progress in dealing with this opioid epidemic. Another thing, we've got to put a lot more resources towards treatment and on all of the things that need to happen after that detox, that initial detox with folks who are dealing with opioid addiction and have lost everything in their lives then are at the place where, okay, well, if they have gotten through that detox, now they've got no place to live, they've got no place to work, they've got no money. And to be able to provide

that helping hand up as they start to put back the pieces of their life is something that we as a society need to do better at. And the third thing I'll say is we've got to go after the culprits responsible for this. When you look at companies like Purdue Pharma, who have intentionally deceived and lied and cheated the American people into taking these opioids, saying, no, you know, they're not risky, they're not dangerous, don't worry about it. These highly addictive opioids creating this situation Don't worry about it. These highly addictive opioids creating the situation that we are in, they are still not being held accountable prosecutors with the tools they need to hold companies like Purdue Pharma and others responsible for this proliferation of opioids criminally accountable. And another thing that baffles me is this constant changing of the dosage, this fentanyl and this new thing that's even more powerful than fentanyl.

The fact that they're developing these incredibly potent opioids. Which the FDA has approved. I don't understand. Right. I don't understand. Why do you need them? Right. What are they for?

They're toxic. They're fatal in incredibly small doses. Yeah. And it's not like we don't already have OxyContin, codeine. We have all these pain medications. Why are they insisting on letting these companies patent these superior and even more lethal versions of something we already have a problem with? That's exactly right. It makes no sense. And I think it speaks to the huge influence, the huge influence that these pharmaceutical companies have over

regulators and lawmakers, both. So much of this comes back to money, Joe. You say all the right things. I love talking to you. I really wish you all the best. Thank you. This is, you know, we live in a crazy time, you know, and you're a breath of fresh air. So I appreciate you and I wish you well.

Thank you so much. Good luck to you. Appreciate it. All right, folks. On the road. Good luck. Take care.