The Joe Rogan Experience - #1880 - Tulsi Gabbard

Episode Date: October 11, 2022

Tulsi Gabbard is a Former United States Representative, Iraq War veteran, political commentator, and host of the podcast "This is Tulsi Gabbard." www.tulsigabbard.com

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. Hello, Joe. Hello, Joe. Good to see you. It's good to be back. Nice cracking. Nice seeing you.

What's it been like retiring from being a congresswoman for a wee bit? It feels so weird hearing that word. Retire? Yeah. It's a dirty word. It feels so weird hearing that word. Retire? Yeah. It's a dirty word. I don't know what that means. I don't believe in retirement. Yeah.

I believe in quitting. Yeah, I suppose. Or moving on, rather. Moving on. That's where I never, I've never seen politics as a quote unquote career. Some people are like, oh, how's it like retiring from Congress? Like, I don't I can't relate to that. I'm just continuing the work, but in a different way.

Well, the way you did it, though, is what most people should do. Like when people are running for office and then they're also in a job. Yeah. Like you're not doing a good job at that job. There's no way you can be. Yeah. Like running for office, just campaign financing, just raising the money for the campaign has to be crazy. It is.

The amount of time. There's no way that you could be dedicating 100% of your time to your constituents like you should be. Yeah. Yeah. It has to be your full-time mission. And, you know, people who come and ask me, they're like, oh, I'm thinking of running for office. And that's literally what I tell them. I'm like, are you ready to quit everything else in your life and have the support of your family and dedicate all

your energy towards this mission of service? Because it will require that. If you're serious about it, it will require that. If you want to do it at your best. Absolutely. Yeah. And, and if you, and if you want to be truly sincere, when you're knocking on people's doors, you're standing in a town hall meeting and you're saying, Hey, essentially give me your trust that I will fight for you. I will speak for you. I will represent you every single day. How are you going to do that? If you're like, yeah, by the way, I got this side gig or that side gig or this, you know, other loyalty that is something other than you, you know, the people, the voter. And I don't know, I think more and more people are starting to pick up on that

and question that in both people who are running for office and their electeds. Like, who are you really working for? Well, they certainly should. It's a complicated union. It is. It really is. Between money and politics. I mean, it would be wonderful if we could get money entirely out of politics. If the only way that a politician could make money while they're in office

is just their salary yeah if we said it that way like i'm sure you're aware of the nancy pelosi stuff absolutely it's wild it is and and and look this is i think this is one of the good things about social media is of course the the mainstream corporate media is hardly covering it at all but because of social media things like that are spreading like wildfire like hey paul pelosi is Right. knowing about it or giving her stamp of approval. So regardless of whether it's happening in the Judiciary Committee or the Commerce Committee or the Armed Services Committee, if there's a bill coming to the floor and there's major legislation that's being passed or is being squashed, that is happening with her say-so. And so just in these last few days, you know, they once people started making noise saying, hey, you as a member of Congress or your spouse or your adult child should not be allowed to conduct insider trading.

Right. On issues that Congress is dealing with, which which really covers every issue under the spectrum. They can't pretend anymore that they haven't been doing it. And yet, even as a Nazi police like, okay, okay, fine, we'll draft legislation, but Congress is about to take a break as they head into the general elections, and once again, she's refusing to bring the bill to the floor

for a vote, saying, oh, well, you know, we're not going to bring it to the floor if it doesn't have support. Put people on the freaking spot. Make them cast that vote. That is the last thing she wants right before they lose that honey pot she doesn't first of all she doesn't want it becoming a big important thing that people are talking about yeah where people start excuse me where people start looking at it and say oh well how much money have you made yeah like why are you worth 200 million dollars

that's crazy you make 200 000 a year you're worth $200 million? That's crazy. You make $200,000 a year. You're worth $200 million. What's going on? And you look at Paul Pelosi's stock, what his record is, he's better than Warren Buffett and George Soros, who are like wizards. Exactly.

Those guys are the best, and he's better than them. But it's 100% insider trading. You think about what they put Martha Stewart away in jail for. That's nothing. That's nothing compared to what she's doing. And she's not the only one, obviously. And this is where the quote-unquote unit party in Washington has been blocking this kind of legislation from being passed because they're they're both benefiting from it. We had I think there are Republican and Democrat senators in the lead up towards covid who knew about it.

Right. And started making different investments in as we were approaching it, even before the rest of the country knew about it so that they could profit financially from it. Just absolutely disgusting. It's crazy. It's just crazy that it's legal. Yeah. It's really egregious. And it's shocking how complicit the mainstream media is in ignoring it. Do you think that there's some discussion or is it just an understanding that you'll lose access to these people if you highlight this? Like, what is why are they not covering that? It's like this this chummy insiders club in Washington. And, you know, a common term that's being used now is is called permanent Washington, which really fits when you think about it, because it kind of encapsulates that whole swampy ecosystem of both those who've been elected into positions, those who social functions, you know, passing information to each other. And so, you know, if the anchor of a big time news show says, hey, guys, guess what?

Nancy Pelosi and her husband are insider trading. Then they have to think about, oh, well, am I cut? Am I burning a bridge? Am I cutting off access to, you know, information that she or her staff might be feeding me that I can break news on and all this stuff. So, you know, it's like you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. And if you start pissing off certain people, then you get kicked out of the cool kids club. That's that's really what's at what's at at the heart of it. And so they play along because this is this issue has come up before it came up years ago. Congress said, OK, we're going to take action to stop insider trading and make sure that elected leaders aren't benefiting off of insider information. And so they passed the Stock Act, which did nothing.

Essentially, it just said, OK, if you are going to, you know, trade in stocks or buy or sell stocks, you have to report it. You have to be transparent about it. Most of Congress has failed to do even that. So it did nothing to stop it. Says, you just got to tell us. And most people are like, yeah, I don't, I'm not going to tell you anyway. And there's no repercussions. Well, they might get like a hundred dollar fine, $200 fine as, as they make millions in their, in their trade. So, you know, again, it's good. This is kind of like one of those things that should give us all a glimmer of hope where if enough people, we the people, make noise about it, they're forced to pay attention.

So now what about when we're talking about like chumminess and like sort of like the hidden rules? What about if you do right wing talk shows? Like if you're a Democrat and you decide to go on Tucker Carlson, for instance, like what is that like? It ranges from people kind of like giving you a cynical look like whose side are you really on to people just outright ending that friendship or that professional relationship because they don't want to have anything to do with you. Have you experienced that? Over and over. Really? Over and over.

And it's not just Tucker Carlson. There's been this negative stigma for almost as long as I've served in Congress against anyone who actually goes on Fox News, period. And so you could say like and I do. I was like, hey, more people watch Fox News than any other cable news channel. So my audience is speaking to the American people, if I have the opportunity to do that, and by the way, Fox News, more than CNN and MSNBC over the last decade, has been more fair to me in providing me that opportunity to speak to the American people, I'm going to take advantage of it. Well, it seems like one of the things that Fox News does well is if they have a Democrat on, they don't attack them. They allow them to express themselves. That's right. Which is interesting.

Whether the host agrees or disagrees, that's not the point. Because when a right-wing person seems to be, if they're on MSNBC or if they're on CNN, it's like they have these weapons ready to go, the blades are sharp, and they attack. And they're trying to discredit that person, trying to mock them. They will talk over them. They will be rude to them. They will mock whatever position they have. And instead of like trying to offer some sort of a reasonable debate against it, they will just, they will talk over it and mock it and they'll bring on another expert and that person talks over it. It's not even limited to those who bring like a so-called right wing perspective or

conservative perspective. It's really anyone who brings a voice, a view, a perspective that is different from whatever the mainstream narrative is at that point, whatever the cause of the day may be. And so as a Democrat serving in Congress, I experienced that over and over and over again, exactly that reaction that you're talking about in, you know, not allowing me at least just to come and present my view. They can ask me a tough question. They can present an opposing view. That's great. But so many times I've gone on these different shows and they don't they don't even allow that. And, you know, it really just speaks to what what is really a dangerous mentality amongst the Democratic Party leadership and kind of this this establishment narrative in Washington, which is they don't believe in freedom. They don't believe in freedom of speech or freedom of thought. And for anyone who brings an opposing view,

they choose to shut you up, silence you, smear you, try to ruin you or undermine your character and credibility because, you know, they don't want the weakness or the insecurity of their own argument to be exposed. And also they immediately judge you as someone who may bring an opposing view, regardless of your political party, as the enemy, as a threat, as somebody who is less than and doesn't deserve a voice, which is really, really dangerous for our democracy when you really think about it. Yeah, it's very spooky. And it's spooky how prevalent that mindset is and how many Democrats, not even just politicians, just people that are Democrats, how many people share that position that you should silence people that you don't agree with. And it's just, it's such a foolish perspective.

And it plays out historically over and over and over again in a terrible way. And I just don't understand why people don't learn that lesson. I think that, I think that the Democratic Party leaders, people like Hillary Clinton, people who've been in charge for a very long time, foment this kind of culture of fear and like, hey, if you go against us, like you're dead, you're on the shit list. You have kind of the very loud activists who don't represent, I think, even the majority of the Democratic Party, but the AOCs of the world who are almost like these radical religious zealots. And they are ideologues. And whatever they choose is the battle of the day.

Yes. If you are against them on that, forget it. You're done. What is that woman's name? Rashida? Tlaib. Yeah. I'm sure you watched this where she was communicating with the heads of these banks, and she was asking them about—

I don't know if I saw that. You should see this. See if you can find this, where she's talking to the heads of these banks, where they're talking about funding fossil fuel projects in the future. And she asked them point blank, will you fund fossil fuel projects in the future? And they said yes. And if we didn't, that would be devastating to the United States. And then she goes on. We'll play it for you.

OK. Because it's – Jamie will find it. It's so bonkers because the first thing she goes to is we gave student debt forgiveness and those people have bank accounts and we're going gonna urge them to take their money out of your bank account so it's like we bribe these people by giving them ten grand right if you really want to help them make it so that you can get out of student debt you really you really want to help them make it show that make it so that a bankruptcy actually absolves you of student debt because it doesn't, because it's a corrupt system. So like, fuck all this, your 10 grand, because 10 grand is nonsense.

These people are $150,000, $200,000 in the hole, and some of them actually wind up getting their Social Security docked when they're in their 60s because they still owe money from student loans that didn't help them at all. Exactly. And she uses that. She holds it over their head. Meanwhile, she does not understand the incredibly complex variables that are involved in the elimination of fossil fuels or how many fossil fuels are involved in every single thing you do, including electric cars, the construction of solar panels, like everything, the transportation of goods and services. This idea that you're just going to stop all future projects because you think that that's what your ideological group wants.

Right. Play it. I think this is it. Let me see it. Let me see your face. Yes, that's it. This is it. So.

You have all committed, as you all know, to transition the emissions from lendingile targets of limiting global temperature rise to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit or 1.5 degrees Celsius. So no fossil fuel production starting today. What a wizard. So that's like zero. Well, I would like to ask all of you and go down the list because, again, you all have agreed to doing this. Please answer with a simple yes or no. I'd like to ask all of you and go down the list, because again, you all have agreed to doing this. Please answer with a simple yes or no. Does your bank have a policy against funding new oil and gas products?

Mr. Diamond. Absolutely not. And that would be the road to hell for America. Yeah, that's fine. No, no, no. There's more. This is just this is like a Fox News clip. There's more of her. See if this is like a Fox News clip. There's more of her.

See if you can find the rest of it. You can find an actual clip of the conversation instead of this nonsense with the music over it. Because the actual clip of the conversation shows like she goes down the line and talks to these guys. And they all say no. Yeah. Everyone says no. Because it's. It's not reality.

You can't just hit the brakes and then just, that's what happened with COVID. You see how the economy collapsed when you make everyone shut their business down. That's going to happen times a thousand if you just stop all fossil fuel production. Didn't we just see this in California where they passed a law? What is it requiring?

Requiring all electric vehicles or stopping production of vehicles that use gas? Yes. All cars that are sold in California as of 2035 must be electrical. And then the next week they said, you can't charge your electric car because the power grid's fucked. Exactly. That's California politics in a nutshell, though, because it's so ideologically driven. California politics in a nutshell, though, because it's so ideologically driven. And I talk to people from California that are just in that fog, the fog of woke. And they're my friends, and I'll show them that. And they're like, what?

Really? And I go, yeah, look, you're not supposed to charge your electric car. They're like, what the fuck? I'm like, yeah, what the fuck? But that's the analogy. That is the example of exactly what we're talking about. This whole mentality of wokeism, of being ideologues, that not only doesn't make sense, but if you don't agree with it, you're wrong. You're the enemy. If you're silent, right?

If you just don't, hey, I got no comment on this. Well, you are now complicit in the problem. Exactly. Silence is violence. Silence is violence. Silence is violence. And then, and again, I have experience with all of like this whole spectrum. And then like, if you're like, okay, like, like get off my ass. Fine. I agree. They're like, well, prove it, prove it. You need to stand on the street corner. You need to scream out loud. You need to do all this. And you know know the women's march when trump got elected right

i didn't go i was out of the country uh i got harassed and harangued why weren't you there wearing the pink pussy hat what is wrong with you must not believe in in women's rights you must and and the irony is here we are sitting now with a lot of these same people who like oh well i don't know how to define a woman and there is no such thing as a woman. And it just, but all of these examples point to the hypocrisy, the fact that they don't believe in truth and that whatever their cause of the moment is, is whatever they decide is the truth. And the thing that must be measured against for you, like you're either with us or you're against us. And if you're with us,

you've got to prove your zealousness for the cause. Is that a word? I think so. Zealousness? I think so. Sounds good. It fits. You know, there's a chess game

and the ultimate checkmate is what's a woman? Yeah. I mean, when you're coming with wokeness and you can identify as a woman, you get to use the female restroom, like, okay, but what is it? What's a woman? Can a man get pregnant? Yes. Okay, well, what is it?

Can a biological male get pregnant? And then people panic and they start. The people that identify as a woman uh are capable of being pregnant and people that identify as a male are capable of also being pregnant like what are you saying what's say if you identify as a woman what are you identifying as like that's the documentary the matt walsh documentary exactly which is fucking amazing. And also amazing that no one's reviewing it. No one's reviewing it. That documentary is fantastic because Matt Walsh, and you can only get it on the Daily Wire, I think, which is unfortunate, but I get it. I get it, the Daily

Wire produced it. They want people to sign up and they're creating this alternative platform for content. But that documentary is so good because Matt Walsh simply asks questions and he doesn't. He does it deadpan. Yeah. And it's amazing watching these people just like twist reality into some weird fucking contortion. It's not. What are you saying? It's so revealing. What is a woman? What does it mean? Yeah. It's not. It's like, what are you saying? What is a woman? What does it mean?

Yeah. It's so revealing. You know, you're marching for women's rights, but what does that mean? So if I decide I'm a woman and I go out, you're marching for me? I'm a woman now. Right. You could just say it? Yeah.

Like, we can't have that. That doesn't make sense. And it doesn't mean you can't have trans people. It doesn't mean that. You can most certainly. And it doesn't mean you're against have trans people. It doesn't mean that. You can most certainly. And it doesn't mean you're against. Yes. Anyone.

You're not denying anyone's existence either. They exist. However, if you want to be pregnant, you must be a biological female. This is science. This is something that we have all studied and looked at and observed. And this is fucking doctrine. It's no getting around it. Yeah.

If you want to breed, if you want the egg in the womb, you want the whole thing to happen, the uterus, the baby. That's a woman. Yeah. Just because you have a fucking beard because you're taking testosterone. You're still a woman. Yeah. Like, this is crazy.

And that's what was so powerful about that documentary was both Matt Walsh's demeanor and, frankly, his respect with whoever he was questioning. And the spectrum of people that he spoke to on this from psychiatrists, psychologists, doctors, professors, and even the woman who transitioned hormonally. Who has terrible regret. To become a man who is like crying on camera. That's the problem in this country. You know, everyone wants to talk about representation. Here's what's not represented at all in the mainstream media. People that have had a horrible experience having gender transition surgery and regret it deeply.

There's a lot of them. It's not a small amount. There's a lot of them. It's not a small amount. It's a lot of people. It's not a cut and dry thing. Look, if there was a way where we had some sort of genetic engineering, where some super advanced form of CRISPR, where I could just decide I want to be a woman now, and then bam, now I have a double X chromosome.

I have a vagina. I'm be a woman now, and then bam, now I have a double X chromosome. I have a vagina. I'm an actual woman, like 100%. Not surgery. And here's the other thing. It's like if you're saying that you identify as a woman, you're a woman. Okay, why do you have to get an operation then? Right. Why do you have to take hormones?

Like why do you have to do all that stuff? And that stuff seems to be where all the problem lies because that that is purely experimental, especially when it comes to children. Like, we're now finding when they're talking about hormone blockers, they were saying hormone blockers are reversible and there's no side effects. That's not true at all. They're finding horrific side effects for kids to take those things. And we don't have a lot of long term data. We just don't. care and treatment for kids, knowing what we know, even the limited knowledge of what we know about the impacts of these hormone treatments, the impacts of these irreversible surgeries, both physically as well as mentally, as more and more even of these kids who come forward, who've gone through this with incredible regret and talking about the longstanding symptoms and problems and illnesses they're now having to deal with. We have the person who's supposed to be in charge of federal health policy for the country saying, no, no, no, this is exactly what we should be doing and encouraging parents and kids to go and get this treatment. it is an advocating for abuse of children. And it's something that more and more people need to stand up against. But the fact that we don't have more people speaking out about this

speaks to this culture of fear that we're talking about. Right. And you can't even talk about it because that person is trans, which is even crazier. So the person who's advocating for children to transition also is trans And I'm sure you saw the Rand Paul interviewer Rand Paul is questioning her and asking questions And it's like talking to an alien. Yeah, it's like he's talking to an alien that has a tape recorder That's gonna press play every time the questions over Thank You senator You know transgender care is a nuanced and like goes into this speech.

And Rand Paul says, just let it be said on record that the person is not answering these questions. Exactly. And the worst thing that I don't know how well known this is, but I saw a brochure that that the Department of Health and Human Services put out on what is gender affirming care. put out on what is gender affirming care. It basically says that if parents refuse or fail to provide this gender affirming care, then Child Protective Services will have the authority to step in and try to intervene for the sake of the child. Wow. And so when you look at. So if a kid is just going through a period in their life where they decide, I'm a girl or I'm a boy.

Right. And the parents say, hey, let's wait until you turn 18. You might grow out of this. And the kid's like, fuck that. I'm calling Child Protective Services. Yeah. And then Homeland Security or whoever the hell it is comes in and physically forces the parents to do the bidding of the minor child. With the threat of taking your child away from you. How did anybody allow it to get this far?

Are there no adults in the room? I mean, that's a big expression, right? It is. That was the thing that everyone said we were going to love about the Biden administration. Right. The adults are back in the room i mean that's a big expression right it is that was the thing that they everyone said we were going to love about the biden administration right the adults are back in the room yeah really like what is everyone out of their fucking mind like we know children are incredibly malleable we know children are impulsive they they decide like there's kids ready for this my friend his, is a school teacher. And she works at a school that had to install a litter box in the girls' room.

Because there is a girl who's a furry who identifies as an animal. And her mother badgered the school until they agreed to put a litter box in one of the stalls. So this girl goes into the litter room, or to the girl's room, and urinates or whatever. I don't know if she poops in it. That's pretty gross. Like, if you could teach your cat, by the way, here's the thing. If you could teach your cat to use the toilet, you would. Okay?

Yeah. Like, you don't want a box of piss in your house. I've had cats my whole life. It's the worst thing about having cats. You've got to clean that box of piss everyhmm. Okay. Yeah, like you don't want a box of piss in your house. It's the word I've had cats my life. It's the worst thing about having cats. You got to clean that box of piss every day Yeah, well, it's the greatest thing about dogs. They go outside like you you're fucking you got their humans trained Imagine how crazy that is you're a fucking human being and you prefer a litter box You want to piss into a pile of sand? Rather than use a bathroom that you could flush the toilet wipe yourself like a normal person like you're so crazy with what you think an animal is

that not only have you said this but you've conned the school yeah into putting this fucking litter box in a girl's room yeah which is bananas is bananas. It is. It's absolutely insane. I'm sure you saw the teacher in Washington State that has the giant rubber boobs. Oh my God, I did. And then the school is now supporting- Giant is an understatement. But here's the thing about these giant boobs. And this is a male teacher.

Yes. Yes. This is a male teacher who had, they're not fake boobs. They're fake, fake boobs. This is what male teacher who, they're not fake boobs. They're fake, fake boobs. This is what I mean. Like, if you knock your teeth out, like if I go lift weights and I hit myself in the face with a kettlebell and knock my teeth out, they'll replace my teeth with fake teeth. But if I have these teeth that are my real teeth and I put fake teeth over them those are fake fake teeth right so this person these are not fake boobs like they went got an operation and had breast augmentation no they put giant rubber boobs they're like

watermelon real boobs yeah I wish I could find a watermelon that big I love watermelon I can find a watermelon yeah they. They're so big, it's crazy. What was the point of that, by the way? I think it's a troll. And I've been reading about this online. Apparently, there's many people that are pointing to the fact that this teacher may very well be scamming people. Okay. What does it say?

Whether or not it was satire? Yeah, I was reading something. It shows where the power lies. I was talking about that. Was the fake boobs teacher a hoax? Okay. Okay. What does it say? Whether or not it was satire? Yeah. I was reading something. It shows where the power lies. Talking about that. Was the fake boobs teacher a hoax? Okay. Interesting. So, what I've heard is that this is actually, this teacher's actually a conservative man, and that he's doing this as a goof, and

also knows he can never get fired. Like, maybe trying to get fired. Interesting. Like, see what it, what does the article say? Does it say anything? This article brings up the same stuff that James Lindsay did where they made those fake articles to get pushed. Articles, yeah. Similar thing. There's a law.

I'm trying to read and think at the same time. I can't do that. No worries. Because the teacher could probably. Yeah, so here it is. The Peter Boghossian, Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay seeded peer-reviewed journals with absurd critical studies papers, which was amazing

that they simply made up, caused a huge stir, but neither academia's perverse incentives nor the often ridiculous stances on critical studies have noticeably changed as a result. Academia is still publishing, apparently sincerely, autoethnographic studies about pedophilic masturbation. What is that? Click on that link.

What are they saying? What is this study? We'll come back to this in a moment I want to know what the fuck they're talking about So University Investigators PhD Yeah, click on that Click on that real quick University Investigates PhD Students Paper

on Masturbating to Comics of Young Boys Holy shit Manchester University launches inquiry into ethical standards after paper details masturbation sessions. A leading university has launched an inquiry after it emerged that one of its PhD students has written a research paper about sexual attraction to young boys. Anderson spent three months recording his thoughts and feelings while masturbating over images of young boys in Japanese comic books. In the abstract for the paper, Anderson, who's interviewing fans of Shota, I guess, S-H-O-T-A, comics for his PhD, said he wanted to understand how they experience sexual pleasure while reading Shota. Oh, you wanted to understand.

I get it. Normal. His 4,000-word study, which detailed his sexual habits and sexual encounters between boys in the comics, was published in the journal Qualitative Research in April. It provoked outrage from academics and MP and others after it was circulated on Twitter this week. Yeah, there's a normalization of all kinds of sexual attraction,

including illegal sexual attraction. They're trying to say that people aren't pedophiles. They're minor attracted individuals. Sorry, go back to that article, Jamie, if you don't mind. See that bottom part? It says, this is the guy, right? The guy who did this research. He says, I happened to live alone during this experiment

and I had newly become single after a long relationship. Those factors probably contributed to my willingness and eagerness to explore this method. Sick. That's this method. Sick. That's so crazy. Sick. This is exactly, you know, when you don't believe in truth and, you know, you're talking about the furries,

like, you know, the accommodations for this child who identifies as a cat in the school. Then you have the minor attracted persons. There are no boundaries anymore. Right. There are no boundaries. The teachers in the school and the school itself just said no. Exactly.

To the parent. No crazy. Right. First of all, what are you doing to your kid? Right. That you let your kid, because they identify as an animal, use a litter box. They're still human. Use a goddamn bathroom.

It's sanitary. It's much better. Do you want your house to smell like human pee? What if they eat asparagus and then they pee into a box? You don't think that's gross? You want to go into the bathroom and smell asparagus pee because your kid is fucking crazy? And you're encouraging that? That's nuts.

Go back to that big boob gentleman slash female hoaxer. I want to finish where we're at. So try to figure out what is happening here. We're around here. Okay, we're right around there. And in much of the same way, if the Moo is attempting to force an absurd anti-discrimination law to breaking point, the attempt has failed. Rather than forcing the school to confront the grotesque absurdity of letting a male wear prosthetic boobs to a teaching job, it simply promoted a debate on what size and shape the prosthetic should be.

Jeez. Oh, my God. The school exacerbated at the international attention they've garnered has simply approved a new dress code that would force Lemieux to wear slightly smaller fake boobs. But what if you actually have real augmented boobs that are that big? Because people do. Go to that. Go back to that, please.

Click on the new dress code. I need to find out what the fuck you guys are out of your mind. How far are they bending over backwards? This is a school, not a circus. Students join protesters outside the Canadian school with trans teacher with oversized prosthetic breasts. I don't think it's really a trans teacher. I think they're calling this person a trans teacher, but according to Reddit, which I hold in high regard. Yeah, I was trying to do some research on Kayla real quick.

Yeah, what are they saying? I had to go back to the article first. Yeah, me and Duncan were actually going back and forth about it yesterday, trying to figure out how much of a hoax it was and laughing hysterically. Because if it is a hoax, along the lines of the Helen Pluckrose and Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay studies, it's really funny. Yeah. It's really funny because this person has taken it to the umpteenth degree. Exactly.

Like, these are crazy. For folks just listening, these things are the size of a small child. Like if a small child, like if a six-year-old was in the fetal position and they hung from your neck, that would literally be the size of one of these breasts. Yeah, exactly. And I think the point remains, right, whether it's a hoax or not, it points to how insane our society and culture has become where rather than the school being like yo

no this is not happening yo yo is the perfect thing to say there like yo what are you doing exactly i don't think that you're you're in wood shop okay which is you're not even supposed to have loose clothes right how. How do you have giant rubber boots? That's so dangerous. It is. He's using a bandsaw. Excuse me. She's using a bandsaw. Like, look at that.

Look at the size of those things. Imagine these poor fucking kids. No kidding. Imagine, like, you go in there, and she's wearing sunglasses indoors, too, which is awesome. Right. I mean, the whole thing is just so crazy. Canada is like California on some sort of SSRI.

It's like they've taken it to a whole new level. Okay, so right there is Kayla Lemieux. That's a YouTube video. There's a bunch of YouTube videos. Woke culture, endgame. Look at the size of the nipples. That's so crazy. The nipples are enormous.

This person literally has shoulder straps like they're backpacking in the woods. You can see them actually, right? Yeah. Like they've got a week's worth of food in those things. They're carrying it around on their back. That's so nuts. Yeah, clear shoulder straps. I mean, it's-

Look at the Twitter, the tweet. Oh, sorry. Kayla Lemieux's conclusive proof that trans women are women and that there's absolutely no connection between trans activism and mental health issues or misogyny. Sure. Conclusive. Yeah, well, obviously that's satire. Obviously. Yeah, but it's...

I would have never imagined if we went four or five years ago. I would have never imagined if we went four or five years ago. I remember when I had Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay on the podcast years ago, people were saying to me, like, why are you concentrating on this? Like, this is some stuff that's happening at universities. Why is this even a, like, why are you obsessed with this? And I said, because this is going to spill over into society. Like, you don't see this. It's like if we have barbarians that land in Hawaii and they start attacking, marauding, and they get in their boats and they start moving towards America. And you go like, well, hey, I think this is coming here.

Why are you concentrating on that? Exactly. This is only happening in Hawaii. No, they're fucking in the boats now, kids. They're in the boats and now they've hit land. And now they're burning through tech industry.

They're burning through so many corporations. Because all this craziness is an accepted ideology in universities. So you let these children get away from their parents. Fuck my mom and dad. My mom and dad are bullshit and they're racist and fascist and this and that. And then they go to school, which their mom and dad paid for probably.

Or they got crazy student loans they can never get away from. And then they infect these corporations. So you have these people that are in their 50s and 60s that are running these corporations go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What the fuck is going on? Exactly. This is crazy. You want a litter box in the bathroom? What?

That's happening in tech companies too. Yeah. I've talked to a number of different CEOs who've very clearly expressed that their biggest headache in life is with their HR departments. Yeah. Because they're trying to think, what in the world are we doing here? We started this by saying, how did we get here? Yeah. What you just outlined is exactly how we got here. So much of this has been happening already, you know, for decades

in some of these incredibly, I don't even know what you call them, in a lot of the universities. And then you start seeing it. Okay, well, here's the boundary today. Okay, cool. Got that. We're going to shift it. We're going to shift the, you know, the goalposts. the boundary today okay cool got that we're gonna shift it we're gonna shift the the you know the goal post okay cool got that we're gonna shift the goal post we're gonna shift the goal post it never ends it doesn't it never ends and and that's where the the the the thing that i you know people warned against in the past but it's hard to imagine that it would be possible certainly within our lifimes, the normalization of pedophilia. Yes.

What you said, the minor attracted persons and don't stigmatize that. You know, we're all people. We should all be allowed to celebrate ourselves and all this other crap. We're talking about kids. Yeah. And how a lot of these same people who are saying, hey, if you refuse to use pronouns, you're fired. A friend of mine in a huge New York law firm, corporate policy is you have to put your pronouns in your email signature block or you will have to talk to the HR department.

And he's like one of the partners at this law firm. He's like, this is bullshit. Now, why do they make that distinction why what what kind of pressure force them into having something as crazy as like you have to have your pronouns I I don't know it's I I think that it's driven by fear but it what percentage of the people are having a problem identifying someone without pronouns? Yeah. Like how many people are we talking about? I would imagine it's a very small number.

It's a very small number. Just the number of people that identify as trans is higher than it's ever been before, which is really weird that that's not consistent. And you could say, well, it's because they feel comfortable doing that because it's an accepted part of society. Like maybe. not consistent and you could say well it's because they feel comfortable doing that because it's accepted part of society like maybe but according to abigail schreier who wrote that book irreversible damage right with young girls it's up an extraordinary amount like a preposterous amount where they have these clusters of girls who identify as trans in school where you get like eight nine kids yeah that just all in a friend group identify as trans. And she's like, there's a very distinct possibility that this is a social contagion.

And that this is that there are and without the denying that some people are trans because there are. But it's like, how do you know now? Because this is one of those incredibly bizarre human issues where it's open to interpretation like this guy or woman whatever with the giant rubber boobs can just say that they are a woman and everyone has to back off right because of that because of a lack of an ability to prove something now you're in this area where it's open to how someone feels exactly and that you could just decide, well, that's how you get male prisoners who go into female

prisons and impregnate inmates. Exactly. Which is so crazy. That's how you get male athletes who want to compete in women's sports. And when the women complain, they get kicked off the team and forced out of the locker room, which we're seeing, which is nuts because it's just how you feel. Yep. I talked with Carla Esparza recently about this issue specifically, and I gave her great credit because she has been and continues to be very outspoken about how dangerous it is, especially in mixed martial arts, to have biological males competing against biological females.

And, you know, she she grew up competing on the boys wrestling team in high school because there was no girls team. And at that age, even she was just like, yeah, I experienced the unfairness of it because obviously these boys are built very differently. And she's like, I'm stronger than the average girl my size. But still, I couldn't compete at a level playing field. And then you take that forward to mixed martial arts. I know you've talked about this a lot about how actually dangerous it is. But the fact that it takes a whole lot of courage for a UFC champion, a female UFC champion to speak out and say, hey, no, biological males should not be competing against biological females. That's an act of courage in this society rather than just like, yeah, of course, she's stating fact. It's truth.

But this is the problem is when you when you have this, you know, it's the Democratic Party leadership, it's the progressive left that is so ideologically zealous about this cause because it's the cause today, tomorrow it'll be something else. They create this culture of fear that there will be consequences towards those who differ and also that they just don't believe in truth. And so whatever they say is true today is true today. Whatever they see say is true tomorrow is true tomorrow. But the danger of that is you take away all the boundaries of, you know, what is true and what is false. You know, you take away the boundaries of, of the things that science actually does prove. And what are we left with then?

We have no foundation. And then we end up where we're at. Like, okay, well, today we're going to promote pedophiles. That's what we're going to promote. Today, you know, we're going to push books in public schools, kindergarten, first grade, third grade, fifth grade, that are causing your child to say, well, I don't know if I'm a boy or I don't know if I'm a girl. I saw some of these books that some of the parents in Virginia and other states are

protesting at their boards of education, trying to get these books removed from their kids' schools. These books, like I thought, okay, how bad can it be? I saw them and they are some of the most graphic images I've ever seen in my life yeah including oral sex including oral sex and and this is this is targeted towards 12 year olds 13 year olds so strange that we've gone this far like into cuckoo land and that it's happened so it seems like it's happened so quickly but that's where if we actually stop and think about it, it has been very intentional. And the groundwork has been laid over time. Do you think it's intentional, like planned out?

Or do you think that there is an ideology that gets accepted and then that ideology, it's like a forest fire. It feeds off new fuel, so it has to expand its boundaries. I think it's probably a combination of both. So if it is intentional, whose intention is it to spread this? People who, I mean, it's the very same people who are doing it now, I think, over time,

trying to see how far they can push, you know, I mean, the sexualization of our kids in our society. You know, I don't know exactly who the person is or the group is or whatever, but we can't have gotten to this place by by accident. Why not? Because it's happened. It's happened so methodically and so quickly over time. But if it's a mind virus, which is what I think it is, and I think that these ideological perspectives that are not grounded in reality get accepted by people and then they promote it. These people are promoting it without any conversation with some cabal of evil leaders.

promoting it without any conversation with some cabal of evil leaders. It's clear there's a mechanism in play. Yeah. And that mechanism is very easy to follow. You could see where it starts in universities. You could also see that in these universities, these people that are promoting these things and teaching children also grew up in the university system themselves. And most of them don't have any real world experience. They have experience going from being in a university to teaching in a university and then promoting these ideologies that are

preposterous to the rest of the world as if they're smarter than the rest of the world. And then that keeps spreading. It needs more fuel. So it keeps moving further and further to the left and further and further into crazyland. But I don't think, I think just by observing that, just by observing the fact that these people that are promoting these things, they're not being paid to do it. They're stuck in this mind virus. And this woke mind virus, this ideological mind virus is trackable. You could see it.

And you could see how it infects people. I've seen it infect people. You know, I had this guy on the podcast. His name's Adam Conover. And he has a show, Adam Questions Everything, or Adam Ruins Everything. I don't know if you've ever seen it. We got into the subject of trans people in sports. And, you know, and his position was the most far left, far woke,

I just think it would be great to be inclusive and this and that. I go, why do women have a specific category? Why can't men compete against women? And then that's like the, that's where the record skips. Because obviously there's differences, right? So what are the differences between a trans woman and a biological woman?

They're pretty fucking significant. Huge. They're huge. And if you want to actually study science, I mean, if you have the science of that, it's trackable. You could see it. Right. But when it comes to the mind virus, people don't ever want to accept that reality.

They want to go, inclusivity. They say the words. They just say these words you're supposed to say or you get attacked. Exactly. And they're terrified of being attacked. Exactly. And these are people who, as you said, they're not connected to reality, don't have any kind of personal experience. don't have any kind of personal experience. I think I was shocked when I saw Megan Rapinoe basically say,

I don't know what her statement was, but basically it was like, yeah, you know, there's no real difference. Like, okay, well, you already won your Olympic gold. Exactly. Got it. So are you saying that you could have gone and won that gold competing against men on the soccer field? Well, I have a friend who's a gay guy who's a power lifter, and he was upset that people

were upset that trans women want to compete as women. And I was like, dude, out of all the fucking people, you're a giant ass power lifter, dude. Out of all the giant people, or all the people rather, that know there's a difference between biological males and females. It should be you. But in that LBGT, whatever the other extra words are. There's a lot more now. There's like a plus in there.

What's the plus? It's like, I think it's like the equivalent of et cetera. Ah. Anybody else? It's like LGBTQIA. And don't ask me what they all stand for because I don't really know. And then it's the plus at the end. What could the I be?

Is it intersex? Yeah. Is it? What's the A? Asexual. Asexual. Well, you don't even have a fucking dog in the game. I'm actually guessing.

I'm actually guessing. I don't know. It could be something else. But if you're asexual, stay the fuck out of it. How is asexual lumped in there with gay men? That's a very good question. Because gay men are the most non-asexual people alive. Right.

All they're doing is having sex. Like, the fact that the asexuals... If you're asexual, you're like, hey, I'm not even in this conversation, man. Leave me out of it. Is it asexual? Yeah, it is. The fact that gay men get lumped in with lesbians is like... Lesbians and gay men don't necessarily get along that well because of that reason.

Gay men are pretty fucking sexual. And then you get down to asexual and then it's in the same group. And gay and lesbian friends of mine don't get on with the whole trans activism part either. I mean, this is not one, what do you call it, monolithic group. Well, they have to publicly support that because of that whole group, this whole lumping in of everyone together. That's why a lot of gay that lesbians have a real hard time with trans women entering into what is in their mind feminist spaces and then running things and running things like a man and running things with threats and with aggression and insults

and treating people the way biological men tend to treat people when they're behaving at their worst. And that's a real giant issue because if you're a woman and you're a feminist, you're supposed to be ideologically left, maybe even far left in some of their eyes. And now all of a sudden you get lumped in with something you completely disagree with. and now all of a sudden you get lumped in with something you completely disagree with. Yeah. Before I left Congress, I introduced a bill called the Protect Women's Sports Act. What is a woman?

Exactly. I am a woman, just to make that clear. Congratulations. I could be one, too. Don't get cocky. Yeah, I don't know. I'm going to put myself out there and disagree wholeheartedly with that, Joe Rogan. You are a bigot. I know.

I can't believe it. You know. Outrageous. I've been called worse things. We introduced this legislation. I introduced it with a Republican friend of mine named Mark Wayne Mullen from Oklahoma. And he's got six kids. Three of them are little girls.

All of his kids wrestle. And the bill was very, very simple in upholding the original intent of Title IX. Can you explain Title IX to people? Title IX was passed, gosh, I think in the 70s, if I'm not mistaken. And it was a huge landmark piece of legislation because it delineated, it provided a level playing field on the basis of sex. Meaning males have opportunities, females deserve those same opportunities, whether it be in sports or in college and in a public funding realm, essentially. Where the federal government can impact it, it said there has to be a level playing field and equal opportunities. So people like my mom,

who grew up, she's very athletic. The only thing that was available to her in high school was cheerleading, and she did it. She was great great but she would have liked the opportunity to be able to compete in other sports carla esparza i think is is a more uh you know modern day example there were no girls uh wrestling teams in her high school uh she got a scholarship to wrestle in college on a girls team and obviously she has gone on to do amazing things. So Title IX was created recognizing that difference on the basis of sex. Democrats have championed Title IX and talked about this great accomplishment and passing this legislation for decades. And that's where it makes no sense. So our legislation basically just said, hey, we want to uphold the original intent of Title IX in And now what we're seeing with the Biden administration is administratively, not even through passing legislation, they're trying to backdoor this move to change the rules around Title IX to include gender identity, rather than having it be on the basis of biological sex, to include gender identity and threatening schools that they will withhold federal funding unless they adopt this rule change within the Biden administration. Again, not running through Congress, not allowing the people's voices to be heard,

but trying to backdoor this through and making threats to publicly funded educational institutions as a means of trying to implement this. Now, why do you think they're doing that? And is that publicly supported? Because the only thing that makes sense is politically they would do that because that would help them in terms of an election. Why else would they do that? to those ideological zealots within the Democratic Party and trying to placate them in their radical policies and their extremes, rather than actually standing up and saying, you know what? No, this is science. This is biology.

And this is what's right. And oh, by the way, it would also be politically beneficial given where the vast majority of Democrats and Americans are on this. But it's just wild that no one's pushing back. It's really wild, especially no one in the Democratic Party. They seem like they're captive by the furthest left. Yeah, it's true. And that doesn't make any sense to me because if the majority of Democrats, and I agree with that, the majority of people that I know that

are on the left don't think it's fair. Why are they doing it then? Because that seems like that would be an unpopular position, not just an unpopular position, but horribly unpopular for people that have daughters that compete in sports. Exactly. Like if you're a daughter and you're competing in that Connecticut track and field team where those two biological males are breaking world records, like that's crazy. It is. Like at what point in time do you not understand you're denying a child of a fair future? You're denying them a potential scholarship where they could go to a university and pursue

an education. Yeah. Like you're fucking them up because of this thing that doesn't even affect you. You're just doing it for this cult-like ideological perspective. Exactly. And that's the danger of it is the people in charge of the Democratic Party, whether they actually hold positions or they just are influential in the Democratic Party, they actually hold positions or they just are influential in the Democratic Party, have created this cult-like atmosphere and fomented this fear so much so that people who are really in a position to impact this, to stand up against and say, hold on, guys, this is literally

insane and needs to stop. They're too afraid to do so because of what the ramifications will be. The Democratic Party of the past, the Democratic Party that I joined doesn't exist anymore. The party that was, you know, the party of JFK, of Dr. Martin Luther King, the party of inclusivity, the Big Tent Party that welcomed and encouraged this marketplace of ideas and conversations and people who held different views. The party that championed women and equality and the rights of people in our society, that party just doesn't exist anymore. And instead, we have a party that's being led by people who have gone insane with this ideological fanaticism. And there are a lot of different issues, a lot of different examples. You know, the whole issue of biology and the trans issue is just one

of them. There are so many different others. You know, parents don't have you don't have a right to raise your kids now. You don't have a right to say what they're being taught in schools now. The state, the government, the teachers unions, only they have that right and responsibility. They're undermining families. They don't believe in the rule of law. They had defund the police, the Supreme Court. We don't agree with them. So they're illegitimate.

There's so many different examples of this. These ideologues who have taken control of the Democratic Party, who don't actually care about the people. It's all about themselves, their power and their maintaining control. And that's the real threat to our democracy that they pose is they don't believe in freedom of speech. They don't believe in freedom of thought. They don't believe in freedom of religion.

All they believe in is you've got to buy into whatever they're selling at any given day. And like I said, not only it's not enough to agree, you've got to go out there, you've got to march in the that directly undermines their authority. And frankly, Joe, this is something that I've been trying to fight against within the Democratic Party back when I was vice chair of the DNC for years. And it's it's gotten to a point where those who have been in charge for a long time remain in charge, are not willing to change. And and so I'm I'm I'm leaving the Democratic Party. Is that this big announcement? Yeah. You're leaving the Democratic Party. I'm leaving the Democratic Party because I've tried to enact that change from within. It's not I don't see the Democratic Party as being savable. And I know that I can make an impact more from the outside. And frankly, I just I can't be be associated and stand by this insanity that's been going on and continues to worsen day by day. Are you going to be an independent? Yep. So that's how you're moving forward. Yep. What is it about this country that is so politically married to having two teams and two teams only? And how do we fix that?

Because there is very little room for someone who's a third party candidate to be taken seriously in this country and when you do vote for a libertarian you do vote for an independent many people think of it as a protest vote spoiler yeah or at the very least you say you know that that's why i voted for joe jorgensen that that is me personally why i did because i was like this i'm not voting for him and i'm not voting for her yeah fuck this and then i'm not voting or that was with this one it was biden actually but that was also why i was voting for gary johnson it was like i'm not voting for her and i'm not voting for him i'll vote for that guy even if he doesn't know where aleppo is like that's right. I forgot about that.

But I don't, that wasn't that big of a deal to me. That to me was like. It seems like, I mean, it was a big deal at the time, but it seems like so minor now

compared to, you know, our vice president standing at the DMZ saying we are great allies with North Korea. What a fuck up that was.

And that didn't even make the news. Oh my gosh. People barely talked about it. Exactly. A great partnership with North Korea. What a fuck up that was. And that didn't even make the news. People barely talked about it. Exactly. A great partnership with North Korea. Like, what? North Korea? And she didn't even stand there and be like,

I'm sorry, I misspoke. Right. No. Well, sometimes people, like, you don't realize. I do that all the time. Like, Jamie will correct me all the time. I'll say something that I thought. I thought I said another thing. He's like, you said that. I go, oh, did I? Oh, I didn't mean that. I meant the other thing. Because you just, it's just a flub. Yeah. I haven't, I guess the problem is it comes in a long line of flubs. She's terrible. She is absolutely terrible. And that is

for you, that is where like everything sort of soured with you and the Democratic Party was when, during the debates, where you accurately pointed out her record. of being president, because you opened up this discussion that many people are not aware of about a prosecution record and the things that she's done that are absolutely illegal, like forcing people to work as labor, as cheap labor for the state to fight wildfires after they're supposed to be released. They did their time. They did their time and she kept them in prison to use them essentially as slave labor for the state, putting their own lives at risk forcibly. The thing about my exchange with her on that debate stage, when you take a step back, you got a question like all of those things I brought up on her record, you easily Googleable on the first page. When you look at Kamala Harris's record, all of those

things, I'd have to dig very deep to see what those issues and problems were with her record. So then the question is, hey, why didn't anybody in the media ask her these questions about the record that she said, I'm so proud of my record as this and as that, as that. All right, cool. Talk about this. This is your record. Talk about these things. No one in the media did that. There is no other candidate on the debate stage who had the balls to bring that up. Democratic candidates who are running, who are her opponents in that race, don't have the courage to ask a very factual question on a record that she says she's proud of. Do you think that there's a concerted effort to hide that information? Or do you think that people recognize that that's a trap? Like, if I do that, then it's going to fuck up my future. They're going to not want me to participate in certain things, which most certainly happened to you.

Yes, that most certainly happened. And that shows the double standard. I don't know why no one had the courage to ask her those questions, why I was the first person to do it. If I had to guess, I would imagine it's because she's got friends in high places. I would guess it's because she's a she's a woman of color and no one wants to be seen as the person attacking a woman of color who's running for president. They got no issues attacking me on a whole host of fronts. But because, again, she was connected. She's playing the game. She's somebody that the Democratic Party knows that they can control. And that was the thing for me is and it started years before I ran for president is once the Democratic I went to got elected to Congress and they were like, oh, she's the first this. She's the first that. She's cool. She's going to be one of us. We'll put her forward. And, you know, she'll be a great new face of the Democratic Party, all these things.

But then very quickly they realized, like, I mean, I've always been an independent Democrat. Every race that I've ever run, whether it's for city council in Honolulu or for the state legislature, for Congress, I was never like the party pick ever. I never won any of those races with the Democratic Party saying, all right, hey, we're going to back you up. We're going to send you money. We're going to send the troops out to support you. None of that. It was always been a truly grassroots campaign of the people, which is amazing. She's not just going to read the talking points when she goes on TV or stands on the house floor. And that's where things started to take a turn, where those who are in those positions of power said, okay, she's somebody who could expose our weaknesses, expose our insecurities, expose the hypocrisies in our arguments, and started to create that distance and then resorted to the smear and the discrediting and the attacks and then ultimately like total media blackouts. It's amazing when I talk to people and it happened recently with Alex Berenson. He was like, isn't she crazy? I'm like, what's crazy? How's she crazy?

Tell me how she's crazy. And then no examples. Like, well, why are you saying that? Like, why does someone say? He's like, yeah, actually, you're right. Like, I don't have an example. I'm like, isn't that weird that you just like have your, and he's a journalist. I mean, worked for the New York Times.

And it just, isn't she crazy? Yep. Yep. Accepting that. And that's how they do it. Wild. That's how they do it is like, hey, let's just plant a seed of doubt or suspicion so that most people, I mean, as a journalist, he's got no excuse. But most people don't have just, I mean, honestly, they don't have the time.

They hear one thing. They're like, shoot, like I got kids. I got work. We got soccer games. We got this. We got that. And you want me to do research? Like, wait, what?

Right. work we got soccer games we got this we got that and you want me to do research like wait what right and you want me to do research from multiple different platforms exactly so that i get a unbiased perspective yeah or at least an objective perspective based on multiple sources of of information but it's like it's such a bizarre system that we have, and it's so easy to rig because there's only two parties, and both parties are controlled by these gigantic special interest groups. Gigantic special interest groups, corporate for-profit media, big tech, and then the powers in both parties. big tech, and then the powers in both parties. And that's where I'm glad you use the word rigged, because it's an important word. And usually when you use it, people aren't thinking of it in the way that we're talking about. It's what I experienced during that campaign is that collusion between those very, very powerful entities to decide before voters even get a chance to be exposed to different candidates to choose from. They decide, all right, here are the candidates,

here's the people that we're going to, you know, we think will be all right. We think they're going to play the game and we'll promote them. We'll say nice things about them, maybe throw in a tough question here or there just to not blow our cover. But these are the people that we want voters to choose from. And these other people are the ones that we're going to try to either just slide into the darkness and hope nobody notices them. Or if people are noticing them, we're going to do everything that we can to smear them and undermine their credibility so that when they do speak, you get that kind of reaction from Berenson. Did you notice an immediate change in the way people communicated with you before that debate versus after that debate? That was one of the factors. That was one of the factors. The interesting thing to me was that I heard from some friends who were sitting kind of in the green rooms and backstage for some of the major cable networks at that moment live when it happened on the debate stage. There was a whole bunch of people cheering and they, you know, the you've got the post debate, all the interviews and all those things happening immediately.

It was like, OK, no, we've got to we've got to change the narrative because we can't allow that to stick. Is there any courting of you by the Republican Party? Not that I know of. You have no interest? No, no. I mean, look, the Republican Party, I mean, what is the Republican Party today? You know, I've got Republican friends who don't like to be associated with each other because they're in different factions of the Republican Party. I think that, you know, when you look at the two, I think there's potential

there for that party. That's the Republican Party is kind of turned more towards populism and actually fighting for working people. It's a you look at a recent vote that was taken, you know, on the issue of foreign policy and war and peace. The Republican Party had like, I think it was 50 members of Congress voted against that massive multibillion dollar funding package for Ukraine and have been saying, hey, we shouldn't be waging this proxy war against Russia, or at least we need to have a debate or accountability. Zero Democrats voted against that. So you look at, you know, the Democratic Party that used to have people who, you know, protested the Vietnam War and others. Now, I mean, the Democratic Party leadership is very strongly within the grips of the military industrial complex and advocating for more war and you have more Republicans. And I think even Trump, this was Trump's instinct when he ran for president and he was president was like, hey, we shouldn't be going and being the policemen of the world. We

shouldn't be going around the world and starting all these wars. I think the problem with him was he surrounded himself with people who held a diametrically opposed view. You know, Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley, John Bolton, people who never saw a war they didn't like and advocated for. So there's movement. There's movement happening within the Democratic Party leadership is going crazy. I think the Republican Party is, I don't know, I think they're trying to figure out what they're doing. Yeah. I mean, I think if they had someone like Ron DeSantis, who seems to be like the most reasonable amongst the potential candidates. He seems to be, you know, a pretty no nonsense guy, not without his flaws, but he's more reasonable than anything that I'm seeing on the left. Yeah.

At least with his the way he handled COVID. Yeah. You know, it's just it's one of those things where as it's all playing out, there's this sense of hopelessness because there's not like a clearly defined path where this country's ship gets righted. It's like I just see a lot of chaos and and a lot of confusion and a lot of infighting. And I don't know how this plays out. It doesn't, it doesn't seem like there's a real clear, Oh, this is our path to sanity. Uh, you're right. And I think the first step towards that path though, is people recognizing what the insanity is and the problems. And I think that more and more of these things are coming to light. I can tell you, I mean, I know there are a lot of Democrats that feel the same kind of frustration that I feel with the Democratic Party leadership. Often quietly.

Yes. Yeah, there's a lot of quiet disagreement where people are just like, I'm not voting for Trump, but what the fuck are we doing? to get out of just this two-party system mindset and this mindset of fear that drives so many of the elections where instead of saying like, hey, I'm running for president because this is how I'm offering to lead the country. This is how I'm offering to serve the country. Here are the things that I will do. Instead of that, we are kind of rele of relegated to a vote for me or vote for my party because the other guy is the devil.

Right. And not and really treating voters like like we're idiots and we don't care or have the intelligence to actually look at. OK, here's where you stand on this issue. Here's where this other person stands on this issue. I'm going to make my decision not based on party, but actually based on, hey, who best reflects my values? Who is actually going to put the country first, the interests of the American people and the country first? And not just the people who say the words, but the people who actually have the record and the policies to back that up. And so I hope that this is the direction that we're moving in as more and more people get disillusioned with leaders in both parties who care more about their own political ambitions and their own party's power than they actually do care about the American people. It seems like part of the problem is that that attack style of politics works. Like, just think about someone saying, oh, she's crazy. Like, okay,

how is she crazy? But that's a narrative and it gets out there because they attacked you. So like that stuff works. That's what's unfortunate is that instead of to make it like if there was an incentive to say these are our plans and this is how we can implement this and just ignore negativity on the other side. Yeah. This is what I want to do. And I think that we are the best hope for the American people moving forward. Yeah. You know, when I was running for president at town halls that we held across the country, it didn't really matter where we were, whether it was a small town or a big city, middle America, East Coast, West Coast. One of the things that one of the media embedded reporters that would, you know,

kind of follow us around everywhere we went, said, made an observation that I thought was pretty awesome. This reporter said, gosh, you know, I go to all these different campaign and candidate events. Yours is the only one where people walk out feeling hopeful and feeling inspired. And we had Democrats, Republicans, and independents and libertarians at every single one of those. And it was because we talked about different issues. We talked about, you know, the threat of nuclear war. We talked about this new Cold War, the dangers of continuing down this path. We talked about things that they, education. We talked about how we actually talked about these things most days i there i never brought up trump because why i'm running and i'm asking you hey let me have the opportunity to serve you and here's here's what we will do whereas with these other candidates

these other democrat candidates who are running people left angry people left angry and that was their only goal was like hey hey, how many lines against Trump can we use that we know are going to piss people off and motivate them through anger and fear rather than through hope and inspiration for what we can do together as a country? That's the direction that we need to go. And there are a lot of things that are issues that are of concern. And treating people with respect and like they have intelligence and actually tackling those issues, breaking through and being able to deliver that message to the American people, I think is the challenge. I think people want it, but the media does a really great job of kind of reducing things to their lowest kind of standard.

Do you think that the biggest challenge or one of the – I should just rephrase that. One of the biggest challenges, I I believe is the influence of money and when you look at one of the Dave Smith was on the podcast recently and we went over the defense budget and I had no idea it was that much it's it's such an insane amount of money. How can decisions be made that are not influenced by that money? When you're talking about whatever the what was it, one point seven trillion dollars. That is a preposterously huge amount of money per year. That was the 2022 budget, apparently. 2022 budget, apparently. What can be done to remove money from the equation of doing the right thing, doing the safe thing, doing the thing that's going to secure the future of America and put us in a good direction? It seems like money is so inexorably tied to all the political decisions

that get made in this country, particularly when it has to do with foreign policy. When you're talking about, and you have been a very outspoken critic of interventionalist foreign policy and wars that are unnecessary and that put lives in danger and cost incredible amounts of money, but enrich the coffers of all these corporations. And that undermine our own interests and security interests. Yes. And this is exactly what Eisenhower warned of when he was leaving office. Exactly. The military industrial complex. That is such a nefarious term. And to most people, it's sort of abstract. You hear that term,

the military industrial complex like you know if you go to the average person in the street even a well-educated person like define that what does that mean like where how do they affect policy and change and what's the defense budget like how much money we're talking about much money over to Ukraine. So let's start with that. Let's start with the military-industrial complex. What is it? Who is it?

It is these massive defense corporations who make all these different weapon systems from the smallest to the most powerful nuclear weapons and missiles. When we are at war, they make a lot of money. When politicians, even if we're not at war, but are threatening that we may go to war, they make a lot of money. And these decisions are not made within the context of, hey, what does our military actually need? What do we need to ensure that our military is asking for sometimes because of those relation, those cozy relationships with the military industrial complex, with these massive defense contractors and their lobbyists. So there's a direct, there's a direct correlation as the money is changing hands there. The problem is not with the Democratic Party, the Republican Party. On this issue, when you see so much divisiveness on tons of other issues facing our country, everything from infrastructure

to education, all these other things, you see like, oh my gosh, Democrats and Republicans can't agree on anything. This issue of putting our country in a continual state of war is supported by leaders in both parties and the majority of people in both parties. And it's directly tied to the military industrial complex's influence and tied to people who, you know, want to act and look tough, but aren't asking the most important questions like, OK, if we do this, will this help the American people or hurt the American people? If we vote to, you know, send these billions of dollars to Ukraine, is that strengthening our national security or undermining it? You'll hear a lot of rhetoric, especially recently, saying, hey, if we we've got to send all this money to Ukraine, otherwise Russia is going to come and attack us here. Otherwise our national security will be undermined. So they say all these things to foment fear in people's minds, but they're not rooted

in reality. So what we're seeing play out now is essentially a proxy war. U.S. is engaging in a proxy war with Russia using Ukraine as their military. So the U.S. and some European countries, predominantly the U.S., though, are providing billions of dollars in funding, weapon systems, and so forth, and essentially waging this war using the Ukrainian military and people as their chess pieces in this geopolitical chess game. The ultimate objective being regime change with Russia. And you can see years before, obviously, Russia's invasion in Ukraine, this anti-Russia sentiment has been building up by the permanent Washington establishment and laying the groundwork. And this was the opportunity that they saw.

It's put us in the most dangerous position we, the American people, and the world has ever been in. And the world has ever been in, in that we, a nuclear war could break out in a week, in 30 days. We are staring over the precipice of that nuclear brink now more than ever before. We're hearing language coming from Putin, from Medvedev, from different Russian nationalist leaders saying, no, Putin, you should go and use those nuclear weapons, whether they're the tactical nukes or the strategic nukes, doesn't matter. There is no way to win this. That would spark a nuclear war. It would spark World War III. And the result of that is destruction of the world. It is destruction of the world as we know it. And, you know, I hate to paint such a bleak picture, but this is, people need to know that this is the reality that we're facing, that our leaders have pushed us and led us to this

brink of nuclear war. They have their own bunkers and ways to protect themselves. There is no shelter for the American people. I think it was last time I was here, I talked to you about the nuclear scare that we had in Hawaii and how this message went out to everybody saying, hey, missile incoming, seek shelter immediately. This is not a drill. What everybody found out immediately is there is no shelter. There is no shelter. There's no place to go. There's no place where you can take your loved ones and your kids to be protected, not only from the blast, but the fallout and the lack of food and water and everything else that comes after. New York City recently put out a PSA. I don't know if you saw it, but it is literally a video ad that they put out saying,

hey, here's what you do in the event of a nuclear explosion. Why are they putting this out now? Because of where we are as a country. The problem is, as it shows in this video, their advice to the people of New York City is get inside, stay inside, and stay tuned. That's it. Stay tuned to what? The radio, I guess. I mean, what is even going to be available? That's my point. That is exactly my point. There will be no power. There will be no infrastructure. There will be no, you know, you see I said when I watched that PSA, get inside, stay inside, stay tuned. At the end, I'm assuming as an actor they hired to do this, she looks in the camera and she's like, you got this, New York. you got this, New York.

Like, what in the world? These people are creating this false sense of security for the American people saying like, oh yeah, take shelter. But there is no shelter. We should watch that because it's so crazy. It is insane. Let's watch that because it's... So there's been a nuclear attack.

Don't ask me how or why. Just know that the big one has hit. Okay? So what do we do? There are three important steps that I want you to remember. Big smile. Step one, get inside fast. You, your friends, your family, get inside.

And no, staying in the car is not an option. You need to get into a building and move staying in the car is not an option you need to get into a building and move away from the windows look at her smiles I know big steps to stay inside shut all doors and windows have a basement head there if you don't have one get as far into the middle of the building as possible. If you were outside after the blast, get clean immediately. Remove and bag all outer clothing to keep radioactive dust or ash away from your body. Step 3. Stay tuned. Follow media for more information.

Don't forget to sign up for Notify NYC for official alerts and updates. And don't go outside until officials say it's safe. All right? You've got this. You don't got shit. Officials, like who? Rashida Tlaib? She's going to tell you?

Like, who's the officials? People that they elected? Who? Who's going to tell you it's okay to go outside during a nuclear blast in the United States, something that's never happened ever, and that we're completely woefully unprepared for?

You got this. You got this. She's so pretty, though, with her big smile. She's got a nice smile. She's got a great smile. That's probably why they hired her. That is a crazy thing to put out there. First of all, because what's the purpose of that? Is that to reassure people?

What is the purpose of that? It's not to inform people because none of what she said makes any sense. No. Oh, get in the middle of the room? Oh, that's okay. The outside's not good? Just stay away from the window. The middle's not going to be- Because the radiation is not-

It just stays, but the radiation, It's kind of like a fog machine. Yeah. You know, it just doesn't get inside. Like, what? I was in, I think it was after my second deployment. When I came back from the Middle East, I went on a trip and did some travel through Eastern Europe and went and actually visited Chernobyl. And it was astonishing to me even decades after that happened, because I was curious. I'd heard about it and just like, okay. Went on this little bus and went out there. They gave us

these radiation monitors, these handheld radiation monitors, so that wherever we were, you know, you could kind of test and see where the radiation still existed. They're like, oh, you're going to see apple trees and things like that. Don't eat any of the fruit because it's contaminated. It is still contaminated decades later. Walking through the middle of the town, I know everyone's seen the pictures. And obviously now with that Chernobyl series, I think that Netflix did, more and more people know the story, but, you know, walking through like the school and the classrooms where the desks and the books and the kids' shoes and the deflated basketballs,

everything is still there in the way that it was when people fled and had to evacuate when that nuclear plant melted down. It was so eerie walking through there. You could almost kind of feel the heaviness of what happened there. And then as we were leaving after we left and were crossing back into Ukraine, we had to go through these, like, before we got on the bus, we had to go through these radiation, kind of like the thing you walk through in TSA, except it tests for radiation to make sure you're not actually bringing any contaminants with you back into society. All of that is to say, like, this is what we're talking about. So you see that kind of video and you see how completely out of touch it is with the reality of what could happen in the event of a nuclear attack. And the fact that, you know, Russia's got, what, over 6,000 nuclear warheads. The United States has over 5,000 nuclear warheads, both countries making up 90% of the total number of nuclear warheads that exist in the world. And literally, it would just take

the flick of a match to spark this war off. And that's where I say, okay, well, you hear President Biden say, well, this is Putin's war. This is Putin's fault. It's Putin who's the one who's solely responsible. Well, the United States and some of these European NATO countries are fueling this war and need to provide the leadership to bring about a negotiated outcome. That is exactly what needs to happen here to prevent the destruction of the planet and life as we know it. They're not doing that. And in doing so, they are failing the American people and putting us in this position of not knowing where we're going to be in the event that this kicks off. Do you think that whoever the powers that be and whatever

the influence is from the military industrial complex, that they are trying to prolong this in order to profit? So they're trying to continue to fund Ukraine. This gives them an excellent reason to ramp up budgets and keep shipping over weapons and arms. They keep making more and more profit and just get us right to the point where it gets squirrely. Well, Putin won't do it. He won't do it. He won't do it. But if he does it, there's no pulling back from that. And the only reason why we would ever get to that point is because people are trying to make more money. to that point is because people are trying to make more money. That is certainly a major driver. I have no doubt about that. I am concerned that we may have passed that point already. You're talking about people pushing us right up,

right up to the line, and then just saying, well, you know, the whole theory of of nuclear weapons is one of mutually assured destruction. Right. Like there's no way Putin will ever launch this because of that fear of like, OK, well, we will all be destroyed if that happens. And they're saying, you know, Putin is many things, but he's not crazy. There's no way he's going to do this. Well, they're talking about doing it. They changed their nuclear weapons policy so that according to their laws, they would be authorized to use a nuclear weapon if they are facing any kind of existential threat, whether it's coming from a nuclear source or not. nuclear source or not. And you look at the situation that Putin is in right now. He's boxed into a corner. He's lost face. He is in a place where he may feel like he has nothing else to lose. And you find that same kind of mentality in people who are, you know, suicidal, or people who are bullied, or people who feel like their best option is a way out. And so to say, to be so dismissive and say, well, you know, Putin's not crazy, he's not gonna do this.

well, you know, Putin's not crazy. He's not going to do this. It denies the reality of the position that he's in. Also, doesn't he have cancer? I don't know. I've read different things about how he's sick. Oliver Stone said that when he was over there, when he was filming Putin years ago, he had cancer and that he was being treated for cancer back then.

And he believes he still has cancer. And there's all these rumors that he has cancer. I mean, if he's terminal and he's slowly dying, that's a terrifying possibility. It is. The other argument, the opposing argument is, hey, if we don't stop Russia now, then they will take over all of Europe and come at us. And then we'll have to deal with them later. The problem with this is you look at all the intelligence reports and things that were coming out when Russia first was preparing to invade Ukraine and then invaded Ukraine. This is what they were saying, right, is they're going to do shock and awe on Ukraine, take all of Ukraine and then move on to, you know, other NATO allies and then to the West as a whole. whole. That has all been completely disproven. And the intelligence community failed us as a country with those reports, because we've seen how Russia's military has been depleted and destroyed in many cases. And as far as, you know, taking over, they're having a hard time holding on to

a little sliver of a non-NATO country that is directly their neighbor right now, what to speak of being able to go and take over Ukraine and move into other countries. So, you know, these arguments that they keep making to justify sending billions and billions more of our taxpayer dollars to fund this proxy war, there is no justification because it is undermining our economic security and it's undermining our national security and putting us and the world in a place where nuclear war and World War III could be imminent. Imminent. Not like, oh, a far future possibility. Total destruction of the planet is imminent if this occurs. Our leaders are completely failing us because they've got the power and the ability to be able to de-escalate and pull us back from the brink, but they're

failing to do so. And do you think that they're failing to do so because that would cut off the gravy train? That's certainly part of it. That's certainly part of it. This is something, and I'm bringing this up because no one else is talking about it. I ran for president in 2020, warning of this outcome, seeing, hey, this is what's around the corner if you continue to wage these new cold wars. virtually every single day, brought it up in virtually every single interview. And the media refused to talk about it. It was never brought up in any of the debates. And I was even told by a reporter, like, come on, why do you keep talking about nuclear war? Here we are. We are unfortunately in this place. And my concern is, you know, look, the next presidential election is over, what, two years away, over two years away. We don't know what's going to happen next week or next month with this war. The only way to stop this now is for the American people, people in Europe, people around the world, taking that direct action to make sure

that our voice is heard and putting our, holding our leaders' feet to the fire to literally bring about an end to this insanity and save our future. Did you ever see the video of, I forget who it was from the State Department, who was on the Colbert Report? We played it the other day during the Dave Smith podcast. And there was a guy who wrote a book, and this was in 2014. And he was on the Colbert Report back when it was on Comedy Central. And he was essentially bragging about how they are trying to lure the Ukraine. We'll play it for you just to watch it. I did not see this. Gideon Rose. It's crazy. First of all, before we play it, one of the things that's crazy about it is that they're essentially bragging openly about foreign policy shenanigans that are just designed to try to undermine Russia.

And they're doing it on Comedy Central in a joking way while this guy's selling a book. And this guy, we'll play it so you see. What does he do again, Jamie? What is his position? Foreign Affairs is a shh. Foreign Affairs Magazine is the magazine for the Council on Foreign Relations. Okay, so let's listen to him fix this mess here to tell me how to reanimate reagan is the editor of foreign

affairs magazine gideon rose mr rose thank you so much for being here there's the magazine foreign affairs now now now gideon, help me out here. We've got a battle. The Ukraine, some of them want to go into the EU, the European Union. Right. And some of them want to stay with Russia. If the Ukraine's not in Europe right now, what continent is it on? Well, it's part of Eurasia, but it's part of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet bloc.

It's basically Robin to Russia's Batman. And the challenge here is to try to attract it to the West, to get it to flip sides. So the rebels in the streets, what are they fighting for? They're fighting for a better future. Countries have a development. That sounds like a political speech. No, but it's actually true. Countries have to develop over time. And Ukraine, basically, after the end of the soviet union faced two tracks it could stay a sort of stagnant corrupt authoritarian country tied to russia or it could essentially join the west it could modernize liberalize become a democracy uh at the last minute when it looked like it was going to trade up from its sort of uh abusive relationship with

its boyfriend from the hood to a nice yuppie. You're not loading these choices in any way whatsoever. It's actually true. When it looked like it was going to trade up to a better environment, at the last minute, Putin offered a bribe. How much? $15 billion. That's a lot of cash, man. It's a lot of cash. And the president, who himself was tied to the old elites and the eastern part of the country ties to Russia, decided to back off the change and go join Russia.

Do you know how many pirate-themed restaurants you can buy with $15 billion? The problem was the western parts of the country and the younger parts of the country and the more modern liberal parts of the country basically knew that they had no future being Russia's vassal and so they took to the streets. Is America taking sides in this in any way? If these people, the rebels are winning that Right now right? Yes Just recently why isn't Obama spiking the ball in the end zone and calling Putin and saying hey you might have won the medal count

But we won the country count be out It's actually a very good question and the answer is that we don't want Russia to intervene and kick over the table like a game of risk and Take Ukraine back. Would they do that? Could he send in troops? Yes, he could. So we are choosing... Does Ukraine have any troops of their own? Would they fight back? Yes, but we don't want this to escalate and we don't want Russia to crack down. So we want to basically distract Russia.

Oh, look, you have the highest medal count. Oh, you did really well. Is that possible? Focus on the Olympics. Here's a shiny object. We'll just take an entire country away from you. Basically. Okay. Wild.

Yeah. That's wild. Yeah. It's just wild that that's like a humorous thing that everybody thought was outside the realm of possibility. And now here we are. Right. Right. Right. Eight years later, it's actually happening.

It is happening. And you see the drivers of this. When we talk about the military-industrial complex, it's not just the United States, because the longer this goes on, the more NATO is strengthened. I think two other countries, was it Finland and Sweden, have just joined NATO as a result of this. These big arms deals are also happening with NATO. The major producers of these weapon systems are coming from the military industrial complex here. So there are a lot of interests that are pushing to build and strengthen this whole NATO complex. And this war is giving them a great opportunity to do it. There should have been a very direct and, you know, full-hearted attempt to de-escalate and try to negotiate an outcome to this conflict before it started or very quickly after.

But instead, what we saw was an influx of money and weapon systems, which helped further escalate this war and no attempt, no meaningful attempt at all towards an actual diplomatic end to the conflict. There doesn't seem to be any clear path to removing money from influence, especially this kind of money. When you're talking about $1.7 trillion for 2022, that's so much money. It comes down to who we are choosing to elect, really. Like, yeah, okay, we could, you know, yeah, Congress should pass legislation to prohibit lobbyists and PACs from giving money to members of Congress and candidates. That's what should happen. But it's not what's going to happen so long as these same crooks are

in charge. So where does that leave us as voters? It leaves us with making a choice. There are candidates from both parties right now who are running saying, hey, I'm running to serve you in Congress and I refuse to accept a single penny from a lobbyist or a corporate PAC. There are choices out there. We need more of those choices of people who are not just saying, yeah, America first, I'll put country first, but then are going in the back door and making these shady deals. People are actually backing up saying, yes, I'm here to serve you and only you, the American people, and backing it up with their actions. So moving forward, like, you know, even Trump, one of the things like, I don't know, I think, I believe it was with Steve Hilton.

He was having this interview and he started talking about the military industrial complex, these people want to go to war. And you've never heard a sitting president say something like that. No. And it was one of the things that I think is kind of interesting about Trump is that he is such a loose cannon that he'll say things like that, which is no one's going to say that. Yeah. But how do you stop that influence once a person gets into office? Because it seems like obviously you never got into that spot,

but it seems like once you get into that spot, there's so many moving pieces and there's so much influence. There's so much money and there's a lot of you scratch my back. I'll scratch yours. We're working together on this so that we can work together on that. We can open up the pathway for this. If you open up that, like, how does that ever get resolved? By electing a real leader who has a backbone and whose motive is to serve the country and not these interests. You see it with the military industrial complex. You see it with big pharma. You see it with big insurance. You see it with a lot of these different Wall Street. By electing a leader who has the decision of who's going to be the director of the

National Security Council, who's going to be the Secretary of Defense, who's going to be the Secretary of State, who's going to lead all of these federal institutions, including the National Security State, law enforcement, FBI, Department of Homeland Security, making those decisions, and then going down. So it's not only those who you're pointing to those positions, but recognizing that those bureaucrats who've been there for a really long time and who are very cozy with all of these special interests actually bringing about that institutional change that we need in order to clean out the system. I'm not saying that this is an easy task at all. It is a tough task, which requires a tough, strong leader to be

able to do it. That's why I ran for president, because I've lived through experiencing the cost and consequences of presidents and members of Congress who don't give a shit about the cost of war, not only on our military and our veterans, but on the American people and on the people in the countries where, you know, we've gone and waged these regime change wars in the name of spreading democracy and humanitarianism. Meanwhile, we're destroying those countries and harming those people. A leader who can actually fulfill that responsibility of commander in chief is is what we need what insight if any do you have on what it must be like to take office like the day of office i don't know if you do you know bill hicks is uh yeah stand-up comic yeah one of the one of the greats and he died uh in like 90 i want to say like 93 or 94

he had this bit about what it's like the day you take office that he thinks you're in a smoky room and they show you an angle of the kennedy assassination that you've never seen before and then uh the they stop the projector and you just go, any questions? Yeah, what's my agenda? Like, what do I need to do? Like, tell me what to do. Because this is what people think, is that once you get into office, then. Because so many people had promises and campaign slogans. And you go, okay, was Obama just lying?

Did he never have intention to do those things? Or once you get into office, do they appraise you of all the threats to the world? Do they tell you, you know, what kind of influence the military industrial complex really has and how impossible it is to get the barbs out of the skin of the American people? Obviously, I have not sat in that chair. Obviously, I have not sat in that chair. But what I will say is if we elect a president who cares more about the title and the reelection and the power than they do about actually doing the job to serve the American people in our country, then yeah, you can and you we will end up with a president who is easily bullied and kowtowing to these special interests, whatever they may be told, Oh, hey, look, if you make this decision that we don't like, whether it be the military industrial complex or big pharma, we're going to pull our support from you or we're going to do this or we're going to do that. That's not a leader. That's a follower. What do you think happens to you if you go against the grain? I've experienced it to a degree.

To a degree. But imagine a person like you. Are you going to run as president as an independent the the system as it sits today that's not a viable option are you going it's not a viable option because because uh i think it was back when ross perot ran uh for president yeah as uh i think he was an independent if i'm not mistaken and And he was beating Bill Clinton in the polls. You know, both parties saw that as a direct threat to themselves and got together and rigged the system to to practically speaking, shut out a third option. Well, they shut him out. The Commission for Presidential Debates, which is a privately funded institution. Yeah. Which most people don't know, which is kind of crazy. That is they changed the standards for the debates, for the debates. Yeah, they did. And then also they they changed the Electoral College to make it so that if you have a viable third option, basically none of none of the parties will get the number get the minimum number of electoral votes through this winner-take-all system needed to actually win. And then it goes to Congress, and then Congress will make that selection.

And so the electoral college system itself also needs to be reformed to one that is proportional. reformed to one that is proportional. So if I were to run for president and win 60% of Texas, I would get 60% of Texas's electoral votes rather than if you win a state, you get- All of them. All of them. Right. That makes sense. When you say they changed the presidential elections and they changed the electoral college, who's they? The leadership of both parties. So they decided that- Maybe the RNC and the electoral college. Like, who's they? The leadership of both parties. So they decided that if we are threatened by a legitimate third party, this is how we can stop that in its tracks.

And so now a third party is essentially almost impossible. As of today, yes. It would be great to live in a world where that were not the case. But when you look at the practical application of our electoral system right now, it's not a viable path. Are you going to run for any kind of office as an independent? I'm not running for anything now. running for anything now. I am deeply, deeply concerned about this very real and imminent threat of nuclear war that no one is talking about, that no one is preparing the American people for, that people are kind of sitting ducks because of the decisions that our leaders have made. If I felt that there was a way that I could stop that and make a difference and impact that and pull us back from the brink,

then, yeah, I'd seriously consider running again. My concern, though, is like we don't know what's going to happen. And, you know, we don't know if it's going to be too late. There's no way to argue with that. As you're saying this, I'm like, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I wish I had a counterpoint. Is it possible that this is it?

But I don't this does not look good. And I don't know how many people are even really, truly aware of how close we are. they're talking about it as though it's like, you know, one missile system against the other. They're talking about the waging of a nuclear war as though it can be won or as though there's some kind of limitation to the destruction and devastation that it will cause. You know, going back to Reagan, he talked about how a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. You go back to, you know, JFK recognized the serious danger and risk of a nuclear war would be and therefore took action to try to reduce the numbers of nuclear weapons in the world and try to put these nonproliferation treaties in place. Almost all of those treaties have been stripped away at this point. There is one left between the United States and Russia, the two largest nuclear powers in the world. And that is being eroded as we speak the longer this war continues. So no, I think the American people don't largely know. And that's why it's so important to talk about it. Because as we sit here today, that's the only thing that'll make a difference at this point, is people here in the United States, people in Europe, people around the world stepping up, speaking out, making sure that our voices are heard, taking action to say, no, absolutely not. We need our leaders need to look out for our lives, our futures, our country, this planet and negotiate an end to this war and prevent destruction of this planet. There's also these very simplistic narratives that are going out now.

Like, you have to support Ukraine, put a Ukraine flag in your Twitter bio. And I see so many people doing that. And then Russia invaded Ukraine. So supporting Ukraine is important. So we should send money to Ukraine. And that's it. And don't ask questions. Don't ask how that money is being spent. Don't question the corruption that everybody knows exists in Ukraine. are going. Don't question, you know, what the actual real life ramifications are to our national security as a country, to our future, given a nuclear war is on the line, what to speak of the direct economic implications we are already feeling with, you know, gas prices, hiking in many places in the country, increased inflation, you know, supply shortages, food shortages.

The UN's food guy, I can't remember his official title, but he's already sounded a warning saying that this war is causing an unprecedented threat of global starvation. Global starvation. Global starvation. So the ramifications of this, people are just like, okay, go to war and here's more guns and here's more weapons. And instead of actually being leaders and advocating for peace and a negotiated resolution where yes, Ukraine's going to have to give up something, Russia's going to have to give up something. That's literally what happens when you negotiate an end to a war. You can look throughout history. Nobody walks away completely happy. But that's what needs to happen for the sake of humanity at this point. And our leaders are failing to do so. And so we're at a point where the future is in our hands. And what are we willing to do? I'm going to ask you a difficult question.

What do you think is going to happen? If we continue down this path that we have seen, where we have seen this war continue to escalate since the invasion happened, we will end up in World War III and a nuclear holocaust. If nothing else changes

and we continue down this path, this is where that path leads. And it's not some far-flung possibility. They're talking about this now. It's very difficult for people to live in a world without nuclear war, to live in a world where you get up, your alarm clock goes off, you go to work, of all the things, all of our structure in terms of all of our, just everything. From all of our civil liberties to all of our roads and utilities being gone. Everything eradicated almost instantaneously. Yes.

And living in a lawless, structureless society where people are scrambling for food and dying of radiation poisoning, if you're lucky. If you're lucky. Because those are the lucky ones. Who survive. Who survive. Exactly. And how long that radiation contamination lasts.

Hundreds of thousands of years. It's an impossible scenario for people to put it in. The radiation will'm sure the billionaires of the world have their, you know, deep bunkers with food sources and water sources. Do they even? I got to believe that they do. there are contingencies in place for our politicians at the highest levels should this situation occur so that they can continue to manage and wage the war from another location. What do you make of the pipeline blowing up? Because now people are saying that the pipeline, whoever did it, they did it intentionally. Yeah. And what do you think that's all about? War is unpredictable.

And so that this occurred should not have been a surprise. I don't know who did it. I haven't seen any evidence to point in one direction or another. don't know who did it. I haven't seen any evidence to point in one direction or another. You know, Russia has got the financial investment in that pipeline. So I don't know, somebody's done the numbers. I don't remember what they are, but how much money they lost in that with that explosion and that pipeline being sabotaged. So I don't know who is responsible, but we should not be surprised that as this war escalates, that this sort of thing happens. And it should cause everyone to wonder, okay, so this week it was a pipeline, a major energy pipeline being sabotaged,

cutting off the ability for, you know, major countries in Europe as they head into winter from having that option. Internet cables, deep undersea internet cables, GPS satellites, other necessary pieces of infrastructure, not only to the United States, but to the world. What's next in this escalation of war? And again, this is not just about something happening in Europe, because again, we've already seen in this past week, at least on the West Coast and other parts of the country, how gas prices have gone up 50 cents, 70 cents. They're continuing to rise. All of these things are directly connected. And you mentioned the loss of civil liberties. Let's say we get to a point where World War III is sparked because of this, but a nuclear weapon has not been used. realistic outcome to imagine some kind of martial law being implemented here in the United States, because now we are a country at war and there are certain regulations and civil liberties that are

being violated, just like we've seen with the Patriot Act in the past. We've seen recent examples of the country being shut down by the government in the public interest. And so these outcomes are not just theoretical. This is where we are headed if we don't change course. Yeah, I'm concerned about all that. And I'm concerned about the lack of understanding that people have about the implementation of things like a digital currency that is centralized, that's controlled by the government, that scares the shit out of me. Absolutely.

Because that's what we're... And Maxine Waters, who has been promoting this, said that we need this to compete with China, which is so crazy. Yeah. It's like saying we need communism to compete with communism. Yeah, exactly. Because that's what it is. Yeah. If you want to compete with communists, you have to be with communism. Because that's what it is. If you want to compete with communists, you have to be a communist.

Like what? Digital currency that's centralized by the state is terrifying because they'll connect it to a social credit score system. If they connect it to a social credit score system, Tulsi Gabbard, I don't like what you said on the Joe Rogan experience, we're going to go and eliminate your ability to fly. You can't fly. You can't travel. You can't travel. You can't buy gas anymore, which is what they do in China.

It's all within the realm of possibility. And you look at that and what is the recent thing of, I think Elizabeth Warren was pushing for credit card companies to start tracking people who buy ammunition and firearms and report that to the government. Visa has done this. Visa is going to change the way they categorize gun sales. So they'll put gun sales in a different realm of regular sales, which is to let people know, like, hey, we're watching you.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And not just because like, oh, well, I'm just curious. No. No. There's a regulatory follow-up action to that violation of privacy. Do you have any good news? Is there anything happy you talk about, Tulsi? When you and I talk outside of this, it's always very happy. You're a happy person.

I am a happy person. I'm full of aloha, Joe. That's why I'm warning people about the impending doom of us, of where our leaders are taking us. And really it is that it's that care for each other and for our planet and our future that should require that that should encourage us to be involved and to be engaged. And as disheartening as our election systems and politics can be, we've got to know that we have to be the change. No one're not going to wake up one day and magically remember. It's up to us to bring about that change and the system that our founders set up for us. It has its flaws. We've got a lot of work to do on it, you know, with the money, you know, lobbyists and PAC money infecting or corrupting our politics. and PAC money, infecting or corrupting our politics, you know, election integrity, making sure that, you know, people are actually trusting the system and that their votes will be counted as they were cast.

So there's work to do, but these changes can only come about when we are all informed and engaged in the process. So one piece of news. Last time I came on your show, I talked about launching a podcast. I'm finally doing it. Specifically to be able to really, you know, I'll go and do different interviews. They're like four to five minutes long. I have like, okay, cool. I can say four sentences in that period of time, but to actually take a deep dive into examining like, hey, here are the challenges that we're facing. Here's how we identify what the problem is and the cause. And here are some of the things that we need to be able to do to solve these problems.

Yeah, that's the reality of conversations. And, you know, I think it took until podcasts existed where people realized the value of talking about one particular subject for over an hour. Like when we were talking about gender identity and the craziness of woke culture, like that's uninterrupted. It keeps going on and on. You could never do that on a network television show. You'd get interrupted by a commercial. We'll be right back. And the audience claps. And like, this is madness. You can't have a nuanced,

important conversation about a subject that is very complex. Exactly. Quickly. You can't do it quickly. And really, when you think about it, all of these different things, you might see a headline here, a soundbite there. There's always so much more to it and in looking at you know different people's views and actually encouraging those conversations and and helping people just to understand each other right as people yeah well the good news is people recognize that yeah and that's one of the reasons why podcasts are so huge.

Yeah. Like the numbers that we get like off of this conversation will be so much bigger than any other conversation that you can have anywhere else, which is weird, right? But that's why.

Yeah. It's because people recognize like, hey, this is not, it's not satisfying to watch these five minute chunks on CNN where people talking over each other with three different screens, you know, three different boxes the screen, and everybody's yelling over each other. All right, well, thank you for your input.

Bye. Click. We solved nothing. Yeah, exactly. You don't learn anything. No insight gained. See you. Bye-bye.

And here's Pfizer brought to you by Pfizer. It's like this is wild. This is a dystopian Mike Judge movie. Yeah, and it's not an accident that you never hear people on those channels saying, hey, you should be careful about what Pfizer is telling you because of the drugs or the vaccines or whatever it is they're trying to sell you and then cut to the Pfizer commercial. It's not an accident that, you know. 75% of all television advertisement is pharmaceutical companies which is insane it is and we are one of two countries on earth that allows that the other one is new zealand and new zealand is much more strict than us yeah it's and and i mean this this is a huge other topic i know

you've talked about a lot before too is like people talk about health care reform yeah in america but most people who talk about it aren't identifying the root cause of the problem, which is our entire system incentivizes sickness and obesity and people being unhealthy. Our system is built around that. It does not incentivize health and wellness and nutrition and prevention and fitness. And again, I mean, who's making the money here? Yeah. Prevention's the big word. And the problem is these corporations are always trying to make more money every year. And if they go around telling you, hey, we'd make less money, but you'd be happier if you stop eating sugar and garbage and start exercising every day. Right. There's no incentive.

It blew my mind during the COVID pandemic era that Jen Psaki at the White House refused. She refused to say that, hey, nutrition and being healthy could actually help you if you get COVID, that the symptoms might not be so bad. Did she refuse like she was encouraged? Somebody was asked. Somebody asked her a direct question. And I think this was censored around, I think the CDC was saying that people who are obese are more likely to have severe health consequences if they catch COVID. And so the reporter asked, and I don't know, I don't remember which outlet it came from,

but the reporter said, so are you the White House therefore then advocating for nutrition and health in order to try to prevent that? And she just said, we take all of our guidance from the CDC and the CDC says get vaccinated. She couldn't even just say, well, yeah, of course, try to be healthy. Yeah. Well, she's a propagandist. I mean, that's that job. You're the propaganda arm.

Yeah. But it's stuff like that, right? It's stuff like that, that people see that and be like, what's wrong with you? Like, are you a robot? Right. Why can't you say the thing that's obvious to everyone? Well, if they really care, they would tell people supplement with vitamin D. Yeah. That would have been one of the first things to say. It's cheap. It's not hard to do. Yeah. We have plenty of it. Let's go. And we know statistically that people are radically

deficient in this country. Yeah. And lose weight. It's not hard to lose weight. In fact, it's cheap. Yeah. Eat less food. Right. And eat healthier food. Eat real food. Yeah. And lose weight. It's not hard to lose weight. In fact, it's cheap. Eat less food. And eat healthier food. Eat real food. Yeah. I mean, the percentage of people in this country that eat fast food primarily on a daily basis is crazy. And that we've done nothing to, especially for lower income people, to make real healthy food available to them easily and readily. And this goes back to that information where these norms have been created. And I've had conversations with different people recently. Somebody who was telling me about his experience, like they were overseas and deployed and it was somebody's birthday. And like one of the guys knew how to cook and he made this amazing orange cake. Like he actually went to the market and got oranges and made this cake from scratch, like not even from a box.

And it was better than a cake from Walmart. And in my mind, I'm like, holy crap. Like why is it abnormal to make a cake from scratch where you put the flour and you put the sugar and you put the oil or whatever it is? It doesn't come from a box. That's why we're so crazy that things with preservatives that come from the store are normal. Yeah. And things that you just make out of actual food are not, even when it comes to something like cake, which is not even good for you anyway. Exactly.

Same thing as this other woman I was talking to. And she's like gluten intolerant, newly gluten intolerant or like diagnosed with celiac. She's like, I'm really having a hard time. And, you know, there are certain foods I can't eat and I'm trying to cook for my family and this and that. I was like, oh, I got a great gravy recipe because she was like, I can't eat gravy. I was like, no, you can make gravy, but use garbanzo flour instead of regular flour. And you use this and you add this and you add that. And she's like, you make gravy from scratch?

Oh, my God. It's like, oh, my heart hurts. It's crazy, right? Yeah. It's very bizarre. It's kind of a sad picture of where we are. Well, that shit's not going to change if everything goes south. You're going to have to learn how to figure out how to get food.

Yeah. And it's get food. Yeah. And it's not good. No. I mean, there's so many apocalyptic movies and television shows out now, too. It's like they're just like, I mean, it's in the back of our head that this could all go away at any moment. You know, the dystopian landscape, the destroyed buildings in the background the gray skies and yeah i think the fact that politicians and the media are not talking about it should be a major red flag and a warning to

everybody there's a reason why they refuse to talk about it. And so it's up to us to learn about it and to use our voices to get them to do the right thing. I think they're terrified that if they do talk about it, that it makes all these decisions and opinions very unpopular and that people are going to be scared about it. Yes. So instead, they'll just have them talk about, you know, real simple. The border's leaking. Oh, look at the border. Like there's like all these different things that they can talk about. If that.

Right. If that. If that. Well, it's always the Republicans that are talking about that. Yeah. But that's because they're not in power. Yeah. And if they were in power, it would be the Democrats that were talking about it.

And they'd find some reason why they're wrong. Right. Exactly. Which is because it's just a political game of football versus people that are actually trying to change things for the better to make the country a healthier, happier place to be. Yeah. That's the key. Tulsi, you're awesome.

Thank you. I always appreciate talking to you. It's great to see you. Even though you depressed the shit out of me today and scared me to no end, you're awesome and I appreciate you very much. Thank you. I appreciate you, Joe. All right. We'll talk soon. Bye, Joe. All right. Talk soon.

Bye, everybody. Aloha.