Jocko Podcast 272 w/ Tulsi Gabbard. We Are Stronger Together. America and Aloha.

2021-03-10T20:50:02Z

Underground Premium Content: https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Join the conversation on Twitter/Instagram: @jockowillink @tulsigabbard @echocharles 0:00:00 - Opening 0:05:32 - Tulsi Gabbard 3:43:112 - Final Thoughts 3:59:48 - How to stay on THE PATH. JOCKO UNDERGROUND Exclusive Episodes: https://app.redcircle.com/shows/64a89f88-a245-4098-8d8d-496325ec4f74/exclusive-content Jocko Store https://www.jockostore.com/collections/menApparel: Jocko Fuel: https://originmaine.com/nutrition Origin Jeans and Clothes: https://originmaine.com/durable-goods/ Origin Gis: https://originmaine.com/bjj-mma-fit/ 4:58:33 - Closing Gratitude.

AI summary of episode

There they exist, there there may even be a video somewhere, I don't know, so it was water woman and her nemesis was oily ale and the skit was really a day in the life of oily ale and you know he'd be out there like you know throwing his trash out on the street or changing the oil in his car and then dumping the dirty oil down a storm drain, you know, dumping a bunch of pesticides and his garden and every step of the way, water woman comes in just a lick of time and saves the day and tells oily ale like if you dump your dirty car oil down the storm drain it's gonna kill all the fish in the water and you know what until the kids when you go surfing the water's gonna be really gross and it was just the coolest thing to like see all these kids sit in cross like it on the ground like you know for a second, third graders and seeing kind of like the light bulb go off in their eyes because these were examples that they could understand and relate to and that was my hope in doing this was that you know it would at least plan to seed for them to understand and appreciate their consequences to your actions and and we care very much about our home and so stop and think for a minute before you do something or if you see uncle or auntie like auntie don't throw your trash out the car window and and be able to start to make more of a you know I don't behave your all kind of change and impact to protect our home. and I I wondered then it when you had recorded that because it was literally addressing everything that we were seeing play out right right before us as far as the warning signs and the dangers of this is where this is where you end up once you allow for this kind of control and once we as people accept it but little sidetrack funny story and I'll show you the video after because we'll take me a minute to dig it up but it won't surprise you to know that on the presidential campaign trail sleep was hard to come by for me and for two reasons one was just a factor of time in the day but also it was tough for me to um tough for me to turn turn everything off and actually just get like I'm not even talking about hours I'm just talking about just some a good slice of good quality rest in sleep um we were in New Hampshire in the middle of winter and there was a rare opportunity where I got to take a nap and we'd like rented a like an Airbnb or something like that and um so I took a nap and my husband took a video of me taking a nap because he walked in the room and I'm lying there and I'm asleep and I'm all bundled up under the covers and I got my phone sitting on my um on the top of the covers and I was listening to jaccopodcast with a guy from the French foreign legion and I'll show you the video because I am dead asleep and uh my husband came and he has the camera going picks up my phone looks at and the reason I remember this is because this was on February 11th, February 11th, 2020 and it just so happened that it popped up on my phone on February 11th of this year as like the memory thing or whatever and I was debating sending it to you and I told my husband I was like we didn't get the wrong idea and think I'm like boarded at the spotcast and he's like no what it showed was like I was able to completely tune out the noise of of what was going on in my mind of the day to day and and be able to kind of be transported to a different conversation and topic and and all this other stuff so then you decide you're going to run when is that that's what when do you figure that out when do you figure out when do you say to yourself you know what I need to run for president the event that triggered the event that ultimately led to my making that decision was the happened in January of 2018 and it was I'm sure you remember this echo but it was when on a Saturday morning we got a text alert sent out every cell phone in the state civil defense alarms sounding saying missile incoming to Hawaii seek immediate shelter this is not a drill and the aftermath of that where immediately we're thinking like I've been working the issue related to North Korea for a very long time for obvious reasons that North Korea is continuing to develop their nuclear capabilities they're developing their intercontinental ballistic missile range capabilities miniaturize nuclear warheads that that not only could reach Hawaii but could reach a significant portion of the mainland at that time in 2018 now they have continued to develop that and they can reach anywhere in the country but this is the scenario that's playing out get this message North Korea is sending you know a nuclear missile to us which means we have 15 minutes to live I was in DC when this happened all of my loved ones my family everyone is in Hawaii and what happened there was absolutely terrifying where you know there there was a video that came out after was an iPhone video that this this father took as he lowered his little eight-year-old girl by having she was about eight years old down a manhole telling her that this is the only place you'll be safe and with the camera saying like if I don't make it you know at least I want you to be okay there's countless countless stories of people that I heard from after this event happened about about what they went through in you know there was a guy who he had like he had one of his kids that was in town another kid that was on the west side of the island and in why and I and he was somewhere in the middle and in that moment got that message trying to decide which am I going to drive to town or drive to why and I which of my kids am I going to try to get to to spend those last minutes of my life with you know mothers going in the bathtub like seek shelter everyone's look where do I go friend of mine for real no joke and like the sideways glances like is it okay to go and talk to her now or not and like I don't want to be you know like thought to be I don't know part of whatever she's doing like I don't know like there's all these different things and how about the fact that now like whoever told you hey now all the things you're gonna try to do are gonna get squashed you're not gonna be able to make any progress here that's a real thing and so again going back to this strategic decision making if you're trying to take here your constituents and you make the worst enemy that you can have in DC that's not good well what what I what ended up happening obviously as she did not win the election and some of those very same people who remain good friends of mine who were being honest with me then saying you're politically finished then came back to me later and said well turns out you saw something that nobody else saw at that time but but when when someone does this in a more from a better from a better like from a better position it seems like it's well this is what I'm getting at because I was going to ask you well at some point is a reach a tipping point it seems like the tipping point there it's just that someone needs to step in and say okay we are going to actually drain out this swamp we're going to actually get rid of this there's lobbies are going to get you know controls put on them we're going to do things that we're going to move this in the right direction it seems like as you said Americans a lot of Americans are looking at the political system going you got to be kidding me and look you tell me stories earlier today before we hit record it's got it's sickening it's sickening and so as that word gets out it seems like America's ready to go you know what we're done with this shit over here and and Trump was like the first guy that said hey I'll help you out and so everyone it cool sounds good you go raise hell basically if someone that says yep but really the bigger issue that I I wanted to raise by filing this lawsuit was you've got this massive big tech company who has the power to um interfere in the public square of our democracy and you know who knows still to this day like was it some guy sitting at a computer was like man fuck tells you gathered I'm gonna punch this button and show her what's up or like who knows I don't know what happened but it happened and if it can happen to a sitting member of Congress who's running for the highest office in the land it could happen to anybody running for office anybody who's speaking out anybody being critical of whether it's big tech or government policy like whatever the motive um this is the power that they have in their hands that's incredibly dangerous in undermining the the kind of core pillars of our democracy of a having a marketplace of free ideas and voters who can you know get the information they need and ultimately make the decision that they want to make are they allowed to are they allowed to mess with like Google ad words from a political perspective so I know the words if I was running against you and I bought the ad word Tulsi Gabbard and brought it to a freaking Russian newspaper article about how they're your favorite so when I Google Tulsi Gabbard I click on the first article that comes up it shows me that you're a Russian plant can I do that in the political realm because look they do it with like I I mean obviously Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were kind of the two primary candidates but there were a few others who were still running at that time Martin O'Malley was wanting to go for Maryland and so that that was kind of already happening but ultimately as as this process started to to begin I saw how even in these limited debate settings how little attention was being focused by the Democratic Party as well as their their corporate media partners on foreign policy and on the the qualifications that voters may look for in a commander in chief and what that responsibility meant it was just not it was you know they were talking about a bunch of other things most most things that to me like superficial political drama and theater like not issues that that really mattered a whole lot when you look at the implications on people everyday lives but as a soldier obviously for me like this is the most well it's not just as a soldier the most important responsibility that that any president has is to service commander and chief you know our constitution very clearly like I can have all the economic positions I want and positions on education and positions on health care as president I can't do anything of of great impact without working with Congress and that's I mean that that's the it's it's the check-in balance that our our founders had in mind for us which is a good thing but there's only one commander in chief and it ultimately drove me to resign as vice chair of the DNC and and in door Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton because I saw a huge gap and difference contrast between the two of them and in Hillary Clinton's very interventionist kind of war hawk war-monger track record both the secretary of state and and as a u.a. senator versus Bernie Sanders who through his time and service had proven to have more of a non-interventionist leaning and be a little bit more critical in questioning of any rush to war and I you know on a whole host of other issues I didn't you know Bernie but we were we were physically located very very far away from the flagpole and then the big bases that that exist in Kuwait so we were within an active Kuwait-y naval base and right on the water which you know it's my gig I gotta be close to the water if I can um but our our main mission the artillery battalion had kind of a forced protection mission but my platoon uh we had had two things one was kind of security like like high level security if we had VIPs coming into Kuwait or and we worked with the embassy a lot we did a lot of stuff in and around the embassy so like PSD like personal security you know we did security for a lot of the ammunition movements from the ports to where they had to go and then also um we did I had a training mission which was the which was the the fun one for me it was being able to go and train the the Kuwaiti army on you know marksmanship um basic you know how to clear building uh what do you do if you're dealing with like a civil disturbance or a riot I I believe George Bush as well and that like their like what is going like how is this possible and had he continued his campaign at a certain point Ross Perot dropped out of the race and then jumped back in a little bit later and he took a big hit for that I don't know people probably like want like do not know what you want or like what what are you doing buddy but there are political pundits who say that if he had continued on he you know who knows he may have become president or he may have posed a more serious threat in the end than he did ultimately his numbers took a dive after he re-enter the race and he ended up kind of just being the perennial third party guy who stole votes right We had a lot of, you know, there's a lot of kids in the neighborhood and we, you know, oftentimes like my mom was the head cook at the restaurant and so she'd go in it like two in the morning to start cooking, we'd go in with my sister and I'd go with my dad a little later on, we do school in the office with him and then spend the rest of the day, like either wiping tables or hanging out with customers and just talking story and and like that that was a little bit of a second home for us, you know, did gymnastics, did martial arts, did did all the things and, you know, there was no, there was no, I don't know, separation or anything like that. I I'd had to fundraising as a huge thing because I needed to be able to have the resources to let people know I existed and who I am first of all just my name period and then to let them know you know my experience in my background and why why I was wanting to serve them in Congress and so you know we started out we started out just like putting signs up around the district and hoping that that would cause for people to say who's Tulsi Gabbard like what what is this about and and and it was it was a lot of time going and doing what what I called the most extensive job interview ever where I went and traveled to each island and spent a lot of time in communities with individuals with groups small groups large groups introducing myself to them and answering their questions and letting them know why I wanted to serve them in Congress what kind of leadership I would bring where I stood on on different issues that they cared about and ultimately what happened was five months before election day I went through an accelerated National Guard OCS in Alabama at Fort McClullin that uses the same program of instruction as the Fort Bending Program but just condenses it down to I think it was maybe ten weeks and the like the difference is like they get weekends off at Fort Bending like they get to use computers and phones and like that and we got none of that it was it was seven days a week you know for am to midnight all operators like no access to technology whatsoever so everything you were doing it was like you're writing it you're writing your your six-page operator yourself and you know it sucked as you're going through it of course I chose to take that public course of action because I had just gone through days of internal discussions Q&A expressions of concern and essentially expressed all of those same points of opposition internally to members of the administration and saw that nothing was nothing was breaking through and that the answers that they were delivering were pretty candid and set and that there was not really there there was not really an interest of a discussion or a response like of introspection saying hey maybe we're missing something here and and or maybe we're not communicating clearly or you know that it was just like this is it this is what we're doing and the why like why what what are you trying to accomplish well we need to send a message okay send a message and then what like you can like communications a two-way street I can send you a message but if if I want that message to be effective like I need to anticipate how you might respond and so there was I chose the course of action that that I chose purely because I felt I had exhausted internal or maybe kind of back channel means of addressing those concerns. we're going to fix it we're going to change it I'm for change I'm going to make things it seems like we are right for that I was going to ask you will we reach a tipping point it seems like we're already there Trump was the guy that got elected based on saying hey we're going to drain the swamp people voted for him to go and do that like you said people that you knew that didn't agree with any of his politics but he was changed he was different he was going to throw it in the face of the system that's where you're ready for and it just so happens at the guy that threw it in the face of the system also threw it in the face of everybody that was around him I mean just like a grenade going off it's just people are getting hit and there's no direction to it and I ended up running for I'd getting elected to the Honolulu City Council and focusing on those pot holes and you know trash and sewers and parks and and law enforcement for two years until my former boss Senator Akaka retired from the US Senator announced he was retiring and the one of the members of Congress said that she was going to run for his seat which left the vacancy in the house and ultimately that's that's where I made the decision I made the decision to run knowing that specifically in the United States Congress I would be exactly where I needed to be to try to influence and impact those decisions was it a tough campaign I mean it's incredibly tough who are you going against there were six people who ran you know it's strong democratic state so the the real election is the primary election and there were six people who were running in that democratic primary but the main person who was kind of the assumed winner of the election even you know nine months out from the election was a guy who had just run for and lost a race for governor but who was also the former mayor of of the city and county of Honolulu and so you know just for some perspective our state has about 1.4 million population around 980,000 of which live on a wall and the district that we were running for there's there's two members of Congress from Hawaii one is kind of the urban representative that that has almost the whole South Shore of Oahu the urban that kind of density urban populated area and then the other member of Congress which was the seat that I was running for has the west side nor shore and east side of Oahu and all of the neighbor islands and so I came into this with I think it was about 2% known name recognition in that district because my city council district was actually in the other it was in the urban part of Oahu so there was again no overlap in those districts and the guy the another front runner in the race he had everybody in the state knew who he was he also had a little bit of baggage that came with having just been the mayor and that's a whole other whole other conversation So at some point the somebody come in to somebody come from the outside that's not as brash and not as offensive as Trump and would that not be pretty would that not be easier or was it because he's so brash and because he's so freaking quotable right good or bad you know he's just going to run they're going to put they're going to put his quotes up all day long if somebody comes along that's from the outside but that is actually less brash and more calm and more rational do they say okay it seems like that would be the the perfect candidate right now someone from the outside that can actually roll in and say look this system is totally screwed up we're going to like the the idea of draining the swamp was a great quote that's got so many legs or so much legs and you know of course it didn't really happen when you look this administration it was like and I think I think that my announcement was on a Saturday whatever day it was they changed their schedule for when they were going to publish the article so that it came out on the day that they knew I'd be announcing my candidacy and there's thing is like the Russians like Tulsi that's the that's the general and you know like Russian bots are like you know Russians state sponsored media or the thing was is you know oh hey like let's dig deeper into this issue which is clearly very serious no none of that it was like well you know what do you think about this candidate what do you think about Trump or what do you think about this like superficial drama um and a conscious choice away from actually talking about what mattered most and ended you know Hillary Clinton weighed in on the thing when when she said that I forget the exact words but basically the Russians have chosen their candidate and without saying my name said it was me and that was then covered by the media insessantly which is like crazy and I noticed right away at the north gate of that camp at least at that time I don't know if it's still there but there was a big there's a big huge sign that someone had put up on you know that you would see every time you leave camp out through the north gate which is where most of our patrols use that gate that the sign red is today the day and I just remember being stopped in my tracks and just take it a minute to to to to take that in and the meaning of it so that none of us would ever forget that today could be the day and that that was the welcome message and it really it hit home so much in in that daily task that I had of actually seeing names of people who I never knew people in different parts of of of of of serving different parts of the country but also people who I did know whose names would pop up on that list every single day that I went through and recognizing again how precious life is and any any any any any moment you know that that could be your last and then of course we we had unfortunately you know we lost a lot of people during that deployment and to me it yeah I that that's exactly right and in order to do that it's it's being able to have not lost your foundation and your ground in this so that you have the ability to be introspective and to know what actually matters versus the things that that that don't really matter which help you determine you know which battles am I going to pick to fight and also what what is what is winning how do you define winning is it is it a specific title or is it a specific position or when you say do the right things for the right reasons and at some point in time sooner or later you're going to win for me in my case that that's that is 100% true I think what maybe maybe is not obvious to people is winning is not becoming president of the United States winning is not becoming a United States senator or a member of congress or an ambassador or whatever pick pick the job pick the crappy job you have a different perspective than most people in Washington who live their lives from college to try to strategically plan their lives to get these jobs except for the fact that you know winning you know look if you're the president you have a massive you have the most amount of influence that you could possibly have I used to tell that to these young seal officers it's about okay here here here are the here are the potential ramifications to this and sometimes they are known and sometimes they are an unknown factor but ultimately these major decision points that I have come across do the right thing if you don't if you don't know and you're not sure and all these it like ultimately do the right thing because it's the right thing and even even as you may get you know the you know the political fire or the the negative consequences or these other things like ultimately whether it takes a little time or it takes a long time doing the right thing is always the right thing Yeah, no, so it sounds like there was balance and, and you know, working at a restaurant, that's what I should have put that together because when you're working at a restaurant, you got customers, you got people, people that are happy, people that are sad, people that are mad, people that are going to tell you to, you know, go screw yourself and that you're sandwiched suck, then people that are like, oh, this is wonderful and you get all those people. and they're saying that like nice knowing you have a good after life and even even some Democrats who who had um like endorsed Obama over Hillary in 2008 early like from the beginning and who shared like hey like uh I made that decision and I was on the Clint shit list for years before I was able to dig myself out of it and tell see don't you know that she's gonna win um yeah you know stop and be like hey you know so would imagine if someone had like something you know some thing they want to address they they wouldn't hesitate to stop because you're right there it happened most recently um I was out surfing the reef near the mokulu islands and the east side of oahu and the surf there only goes off like it's only really good when there's no wind and there's swell obviously and it's it's a long why but I would think that on a matter like this you would want to have I don't know maybe the national security director so I'm sorry like I don't know somebody but that was that was essentially the message is how dare you not only has a Democrat but because like you're from the president's home state how could you how could you so publicly disagree with him on something but the thing was Jaco is is nowhere in that conversation was the substance of the issue raised like hey here's why we think your opposition is misplaced or here's what you're not seeing or here's what nothing and I'd read books and do my martial arts and yoga and just do do my thing and so to then put choose to put myself in a position where I'd have to learn how to give speeches I'd have to figure out how to pick up the phone and call total strangers which was anxiety inducing in and of itself but not only do that but ask them like hey would you like to donate to my campaign for a state house to then go like I would never forget the first day I went to go knock on doors like I knew enough about I'd done enough research to know okay if I'm going to run for this seat I'm going to run to win and in order to do that I have to convince this many people to vote for me in order to win this race and that was one of those that was one of those big decision points that I had where I couldn't I couldn't map out what the actual consequences to that decision would be so you knew I knew I knew I obviously knew it was it was a serious decision that would have serious implications but exactly what those implications would be I didn't I didn't know I had different political advisors and people who you know who knew Washington and who knew me giving me very serious warning and just saying what tells you this could be the end of the political road for you potentially so just know that before you make this decision and just just to back up a little bit why the the backstory that led to my making that decision was I was still Vice Chair of the DNC at that point and as an officer of the DNC the rules say you have to be neutral in a primary election that the DNC's role is to make sure that the primary election process is executed in a fair in a fair way so that voters have the opportunity to make their decision on who they would like to be the Democratic nominee to become the president of states and so that was my like we're here in Congress is why we are here and there were some easy kind of very simple common sense corrections that we could make it through legislation to this bill that are no brainers like not not controversial at all common sense no brainers exact okay sounds good good set of I like it and how that work out it turns out that both party leadership indirectly expressed opposition to this idea and what we were talking about doing on the democratic side because it would require that they would have to admit that the bill had some flaws that needed fixing and on the Republicans I'd opposed to it because if you fix Obamacare then what do you run against what do you criticize the other side for if you actually fix it in a way that it it helps people and if people start to like it then you can't raise money off of it and you can't weaponize it for political purposes and that's that was 2013 and unfortunately here we are in 2021 and it has only progressively escalated and gotten far worse far divisive to the point where as we sit here today you have the speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi referring to Republicans as quote unquote the enemy within the enemy within and the implications of that like the actual legitimate implications of that where is when you make that statement that you do not trust people from the opposing party so wait North Korea has these capabilities they're continually increasing this threat is real there is no shelter like if we get attacked then it's kind of it's game over what what's being done about this by the leaders and that none of that happened at all even in the aftermath of something that was you know terrifying and in such a real way and so to be able to address these issues and and the existential threat that we face that comes from that continued advancement towards the the brink of nuclear war that that that we're on and if elected to be in a position as commander and chief to begin to walk us back away from that brink and to actually do something about it to deescalate these tensions to actually work through the kinds of negotiations and treaties that previous presidents like you know Ray Yan and JFK did when they recognized the seriousness of what happens when you when you are in a cold war and when you have nuclear armed countries who either intentionally or accidentally can spark a nuclear war that would would result in the end of of humanity on this planet and that was that was the driver for me to make that decision to run and unfortunately I very quickly found out that neither the media nor the politicians were interested in talking about it or anything that really mattered that it was it was about who's saying bad things about who which candidate is you know who looks cool who's likeable who's all of these superficial things but whether it was on the debate stage when I raise these issues or in interviews with reporters one on one Like how do we start to try to solve deeper problem and and came up with an idea of going and talking elementary school kids about like, hey guys, here's why you shouldn't throw your soda can and your chip bag on the beach because this is our home, this is our playground and here's what happens when you when you do that and and I came up with like a fun little skit called the Adventures of Water Woman and a friend of mine who's an artist came up with like a workbook and a coloring book for kids and I thought elementary because you know, obviously kids are starting to figure things out and

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jocoponcast number 272 with echo Charles and me, Jocco Willink. Good evening.
[00:00:07] So when I worked with seal leaders and then on top of that, interacted with leaders from the army and from the Marine Corps,
[00:00:20] sometimes things went great and sometimes they didn't. And if there was a problem between
[00:00:31] leaders, between leaders, between people, between troops 99% of the time, when I would pull
[00:00:40] the thread on that problem, at the end of that thread would be ego. Did you find it all the time? I'd
[00:00:50] find it all the time. And when I retired from the Navy and I started working with leadership in civilian
[00:00:55] companies, no shock. I found the same thing. When leaders can't get along, when they can't find
[00:01:07] a solution, when they can't even move forward despite having a common goal. When I'm working with
[00:01:14] companies and I pull the thread on that problem, I find the same thing. I find ego. And ego test
[00:01:24] to go leaders scream and they yell and they get emotional and they would rather lose. They would
[00:01:35] rather lose than admit that they're wrong. They would actually rather die in some cases than
[00:01:41] admit that they're wrong. And if you think that that's an exaggeration, history is full of leaders,
[00:01:52] military leaders that died clinging to their plan, even in the face of their own death,
[00:02:00] or worse, the deaths of their troops. All because there you go. Now look, of course,
[00:02:12] it's a dichotomy. We know that not all ego is bad. You need ego to push you and drive you and
[00:02:19] make you on a win and that's great. But over inflated ego is the root of a vast majority of problems
[00:02:26] that people and leaders face. And as I look at the divisiveness in America right now,
[00:02:42] the people that are screaming from the extreme ends of the political spectrum, when I listen to
[00:02:51] what they're saying and why they're saying it, I try and figure out where this is coming from.
[00:02:57] When I pull the thread on all that screaming and all that anger,
[00:03:02] yes, once again, I find ego. Because if you think you're right about everything,
[00:03:15] if you think that you're right about everything, then that means everybody else is wrong.
[00:03:23] And if you think that you know everything, then that means no one else can know anything.
[00:03:32] And if your ego is so big and you think you're so smart, why would you even have to listen to
[00:03:37] anybody else? Because you already have it figured out. Why not just scream at them to shut up?
[00:03:47] And you gotta watch out, especially when if if if someone is saying something that actually
[00:03:52] makes some kind of sense in it, hurt your ego, then just scream louder.
[00:04:01] And when I look around and I see people that are screaming and not listening, that's what I see.
[00:04:07] I see ego. And sometimes it's driven by insecurity, insecurity that they think there might be wrong.
[00:04:18] And so then again, what do they do? They just scream louder. Don't let anyone else talk.
[00:04:27] Shut them up. That's what the ego does.
[00:04:31] That being said, there are people out there today, many of whom are humble.
[00:04:42] People that do listen. People that can have an interactive conversational exchange with
[00:04:48] someone else that might have opposing viewpoints. And they're confident enough in themselves to
[00:04:54] actually listen and discuss and compromise and change their minds and learn and grow and understand
[00:05:01] and empathize. And those types of people, well they make good neighbors.
[00:05:12] They make good soldiers. They make good friends. They make good human beings and they make good leaders.
[00:05:24] And I'm lucky enough to have one of those people here with us tonight. A soldier,
[00:05:31] a martial artist, a surfer, a former congresswoman, a Hawaiian,
[00:05:39] and an American. You might have figured it out. Tulsi Gabbard.
[00:05:49] Tulsi, thanks for joining us. Aloha. The last time we were together was on
[00:05:54] Joe Rogan's podcast. Yes, that was fun. When was that? I think that was some time in 2019.
[00:06:04] Were you running yet? Yeah, I was. Yeah. And it's been a wild ride. I think it's been cool for me
[00:06:17] to watch. I know it's not always been cool for you. I'm thinking like, I don't know if cool is
[00:06:22] the word I would use. It's always cool for me to look at some of that's like trying to make
[00:06:26] something happen and coming up against all kinds of obstacles and still striving forward and
[00:06:30] pushing forward. So from that perspective, it's cool. So let's kind of like, um,
[00:06:37] I always like to start from the beginning. It's kind of what I like to do. So I have a better context
[00:06:41] and understanding of where someone ends up because we know more about where they came from. Yeah.
[00:06:47] So let's talk about where you came from. How did you end up here today? It started off where
[00:06:54] American Samoa. American Samoa is where I was born. I am the boy. Did you just suddenly
[00:07:00] correct my pronunciation? My pronunciation. Samoa? Yeah. What's correct? It's, you got to,
[00:07:06] you got to elongate the A a little bit. Samoa. It's Samoa. Yeah. It's, I don't,
[00:07:13] it's just a fact. Right. I feel very comfortable speaking. I mean, obviously, I speak all the time.
[00:07:19] But words that I don't know how to say, I just do my best and move on. No. I mean,
[00:07:26] we'll cover books where I've got French words and German names and what I just run into total
[00:07:32] things that I just don't know how to say them. And so what I do is I just do my best and move on.
[00:07:36] And I think I get a certain level of forgiveness from people. Hopefully. I do get tightened up
[00:07:40] from time to time if I really make something awful. But yeah, I guess you have to,
[00:07:46] forgive me a little bit because I just kind of say what it looks like to me. But that
[00:07:51] agree and move on. No judgment whatsoever. I however would get in trouble if I
[00:07:57] did not. Yeah. We're not seeing my homeland properly. If you say Samoa, though, like Samoa
[00:08:03] or Samoa, and that's more like forgivable. That's like the proper way that's like
[00:08:09] you use the proper way. But if you don't, it's kind of like, okay, it's, it's way more forgivable
[00:08:14] with someone. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So it's not a major violation. It's not a violation.
[00:08:19] Yeah. No. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's only people from Samoa who say Samoa.
[00:08:25] Yes. It's pretty much. It's an insulting that I would say Samoa. Yeah. That's a good little bit.
[00:08:29] No. Okay. So we're good either way. All right. Well, and I went to Guam. There was people from
[00:08:34] Samoa there and we hung out. Most good people. All right. So you and Leather. So my mom
[00:08:42] was born in Indiana, grew up in Michigan. Dad born in Born and Samoa. My grandfather was in
[00:08:51] the Air Force. And so he was born there, but he spent the first years of his life in Hawaii.
[00:08:57] My grandfather was stationed at Hickum. And then I moved around a few other places, but ended up
[00:09:03] growing up in the Panhandle of Florida. So wait. So your grandfather was in the Air Force?
[00:09:08] Yeah. Both of my grandfather's on my mom's side. At my dad's side served served in the military.
[00:09:15] That must have been around the world, Walter. It was. Yeah. So my mom's dad served in
[00:09:22] believe he served in Europe. I don't know exactly where. And then, but for a shorter stint that
[00:09:28] he didn't spend a career in the military, but my dad's dad did spend his career in the military.
[00:09:34] At different times served. I think he was in the army for a little while. Then he was in the army
[00:09:37] air corps and then ended up in the Air Force. And so they both had completely different upbringings.
[00:09:46] You know, my mom grew up in East Grand Rapids, Michigan, which was during that time.
[00:09:51] He had very kind of well-to-do area in her school. There were no non-white people.
[00:10:00] And so, you know, she grew up. She's a cheerleader. She was this. She kind of had the all-American
[00:10:05] upbringings. So she's a white person too. She is a white person.
[00:10:10] Howlias we say in Hawaii. It's a little digression here. People say howlias a drugatory.
[00:10:17] We're of all depends on how you use it. It can go either way. That's right.
[00:10:22] And it can be referred to as an attitude. I don't care what your skin color is.
[00:10:27] It can be used to the drugatory. Or it can just be like, okay, you happen to be Caucasian and howli.
[00:10:33] But yeah. So, yes, my mom is howli based on her skin color. And yeah, my dad, Polynesian, grew up.
[00:10:43] grew up essentially in the south. And it was so stark there upbringings. And to hear both of them tell
[00:10:51] stories about it because, you know, my dad's going to elementary school. And he told me how
[00:11:00] to teach her ass as an all the kids. Okay, where are you from? And he raised his hand. He's like,
[00:11:04] I'm from Samoa. And she said, what? So Malia? He's from Africa. He's like, no, no, no, Samoa.
[00:11:11] It's, you know, and that was it. All the kids started making fun of him. He's the only kid
[00:11:15] with brown skin skin in the class. And, you know, would go out and town and get called, get called
[00:11:23] the N word, get scolded out of, you know, the men's bathroom told you got to go use the
[00:11:28] colored bathroom. You know, there's no water fountain. You got to go use the hose in the back
[00:11:33] because the water fountain is for whites only. And so as he was so confused coming from Samoa
[00:11:41] and then Hawaii. And he's like, I mean, I'm not, I'm not black. I'm like he was, it was, it was at a
[00:11:48] young age. Just kind of being confronted with racism, obviously, but also just confusion on his part.
[00:11:56] And that, that kind of was the, made a huge impact in his, in his formative years in life.
[00:12:07] And so fast forward, he's going to college in California, Mom's going to University of
[00:12:13] Michigan. They both had summer jobs at Yosemite and which is how they met.
[00:12:19] And, uh, Facebook. That was, you know what, you're that was? That would have been in the 60s.
[00:12:24] Mm-hmm. And maybe they'd no tilt. One of our frequent podcasts, guests, John Stryker
[00:12:32] Meyer, who ended up being a Green Brake, Saga and Vietnam. Before he went to army, he went out to
[00:12:39] Yosemite and work there in the summer. Is he the guy who has come with some of the Vietnamese?
[00:12:45] Yes. Yeah. Okay. That's cool. That's cool. Those are amazing. Oh my god. I love those,
[00:12:49] hear it from those guys out of this world. So they're working, so they meet, they're working
[00:12:54] out of cafe in Yosemite. Dad's checking Mom out. And, um, asked her out and she's like,
[00:13:03] okay, like, let's go, she's like, do you play tennis? He's like, yeah,
[00:13:09] he didn't play tennis at all. She's like, okay, cool. Let's go play as their first date. So they
[00:13:14] went out in the tennis court. She beat him six love, six love for the non-tenuous players. That
[00:13:20] means zero. He got zero points. But I think the keyword was actually love.
[00:13:25] Exactly. I could see where this is going. Love and what became a very healthy competition.
[00:13:33] He then later on, went and became a actual tennis pro. And they've been married now almost,
[00:13:41] I think 53 years and still played tennis almost every day together. It's awesome.
[00:13:49] But that was how that was how Mike and Carol gathered began. And the first, I think one of the,
[00:13:57] yeah, the first time he went to visit my mom and Michigan after they were, they were going
[00:14:02] out for a little while. And my mom, I think actually, I think they were going out for a little while.
[00:14:10] My mom had decided, like, she wanted to marry this guy and told my grandma.
[00:14:15] And my dad happened to be in the garage about to walk in the door and start over here this conversation
[00:14:19] inside the house. And I heard my grandmother's response to my mom saying, Carol,
[00:14:27] but he's not even white. How can you marry him? And Dad was a little taken a back
[00:14:35] and turned around and went back and got in the car and went and took a little bit of time.
[00:14:44] But it was just a reflection of the complete start differences and where they were from and,
[00:14:50] you know, their views of the world and, and obviously they fell in love with my dad and, and,
[00:14:56] it was, yeah, bringing together of two different people, two different backgrounds and,
[00:15:04] and ultimately, you know, my dad took her away from the mainland and, and to, to Somal,
[00:15:10] where they both went and, as teachers, they both got jobs as teachers there. My mom was doing
[00:15:15] shoes of speech therapists, so helping kids who had different kind of speech issues.
[00:15:20] And Dad became, I think, the assistant dean of the community college there, who's an English major.
[00:15:24] And so they, the three, there's five kids in our family and the three middle kids
[00:15:31] were all born there and then we moved to Hawaii when I was two years old, so Hawaii's been home
[00:15:37] for me ever since. Did you get to Hawaii and, I mean, what's it like when you get there,
[00:15:45] what, like, what are your memories of growing up in Hawaii? What were your formative memories?
[00:15:49] Some was one of my earliest memories, so I'm four or five, so my little sister was, is baby
[00:15:55] of the family and she was, she was born in Hawaii and, um, she, basically, she came a little sooner
[00:16:03] than expected and so my dad delivered her at home quickly and I watched that happen.
[00:16:11] That was, that was a big strong dose of reality, you know, I'm, I'm three years old at the time.
[00:16:18] Can you remember it? I have, I vaguely remember.
[00:16:22] For your PTSD. I pretty much, I don't remember, I, like, I can't visualize it, but I do remember
[00:16:29] being somewhat traumatized by it. Yeah. Well, I, and the, the, let's, the story goes that, like,
[00:16:34] my babysitter who was there also that, that after witnessing that, um, I told her like,
[00:16:40] I never, ever, what, what to do that? But, um, yeah, so, uh, we, we moved around, like, group on the island of
[00:16:50] Hawaii. What was your parents doing for work there? They were teachers, um, they were teachers there,
[00:16:57] they had started kind of a small, a small private school that we went to and then, um, and then
[00:17:04] they ended up, uh, the school had to close down for, for one reason or another, um, but then anyway,
[00:17:11] they, they ended up teaching us, we were home schooled and they ended up teaching us in a bunch of
[00:17:15] other kind of kids in the neighborhood at home. And then they, they're, they're entrepreneurs at
[00:17:20] heart. They've always been, even at back in Samoa, they were teaching, but they had, uh, Mike's 10,
[00:17:24] uh, Mike's sports shop. They had his little sports shop. And so they've always had some kind of side
[00:17:28] gig happening and always different ideas for new businesses and, and eventually they opened, um,
[00:17:33] kind of family style, Delhi, restaurant, healthy, healthy eating. Um, so they, they've done a lot of
[00:17:40] different things in their lives and, um, it's always been, uh, family, family affairs.
[00:17:49] Everything that's going on, you, did you have involvement where you make in Samoosh's down at the
[00:17:53] Delhi? I'm the one, I get to take credit for coming up with a name of the restaurant. It was called
[00:17:57] the Natural Delhi. And we, I remember us sitting around in the family living room and having a
[00:18:02] brainstorm session and we were all, we are all quite competitive. Uh, and the deal was whoever
[00:18:09] who ever comes up with the name of the restaurant gets one free dinner at the restaurant. Wow.
[00:18:14] Yeah. Apparently your competitive is an out of great progression. Exactly.
[00:18:18] I had no idea, I felt very victorious in my, my, my win. However, had no idea that we would pretty
[00:18:25] much be eating there every day. It's so, how long were you in this home school before it was
[00:18:34] cool scenario? I, um, all the way through high school. Really? Yeah. Yep. And, uh, it was so there,
[00:18:42] there's a five-year gap between me and my closest brother, the three boys are about two years apart.
[00:18:48] And then, there's, there's, there's a story that my dad loves to tell, which is that after the three
[00:18:53] boys, my mom was like, that's it. I'm done. Um, she got her tubes tied. She was seriously
[00:18:59] done. It was, she wasn't just saying it. Mm-hmm. And this is in Samoa, like way back when, where
[00:19:05] the hospital today is still probably about, you know, 20 years behind modern medicine. So,
[00:19:13] so it took my dad a few years, but he finally convinced her to have more kids. So she went to
[00:19:20] the hospital in Samoa. She's like, okay, you gotta undo what I did here and it worked. And, uh, so
[00:19:26] my sister and I came along and, and that's where there's a five-year gap between us and every birthday
[00:19:30] for me and my sister, he's like, girls. Better thank me. It wouldn't be her without me and your mom,
[00:19:38] your mom too, but what were you thinking of when you're, when you're going to high school, what
[00:19:42] do you think you're, of doing with your life? Um, I didn't have, I didn't have a specific
[00:19:49] profession, uh, in mind or career path or anything. I did understand and realize from a really
[00:19:58] young age, even before high school, that, um, I think, I think two big, two big things. Number one was
[00:20:08] that I was happiest when I was, um, when I was doing things for other people. So, you know,
[00:20:14] we'd go out and we'd do like beach cleanups and, you know, growing up in Hawaii's, I love the ocean.
[00:20:19] I literally like, I learned how to swim at all I want to beach, you know, in the, in the shore there
[00:20:26] and, um, just just loved our home and, and from a really young age, had a really, um,
[00:20:33] deep appreciation and a kind of a sense of being a protector for our home. And so, you know, we,
[00:20:38] we'd, we'd go out and, um, you know, do beach cleanups and do other things and I just, I just felt
[00:20:45] happiest when I was doing things for others when I, when I could be of service and, um,
[00:20:53] understood and realized from a young age that that's what I wanted to do and, and really in a
[00:20:58] deeper spiritual way, understanding that, um, I was happiest when being of service to God and,
[00:21:05] uh, what better way to be of service to God than to care for and to serve
[00:21:12] God's children and, and this, this planet. So, that was something that I knew in a decision I made
[00:21:18] very early on but what exactly that was looked like, how, you know, what path that would take. I had,
[00:21:22] I had no, no idea, but I also knew and I, I distinctly remember,
[00:21:28] I was probably 11 or 12 and I felt this reality that I didn't know how much time I would
[00:21:44] have in this life and that death was something that could come at any time and I knew that I, I wanted
[00:21:58] to and needed to make the most of my life and the time that I had in understanding how precious that was.
[00:22:08] Was there anything that triggered that? What did you lose? A family member? Did you see a
[00:22:13] fish die on the beach or something like that? Or was it just something that came from?
[00:22:19] I mean, it came, it came from, um, that there was no kind of external trigger.
[00:22:28] I think it really came from spending time in prayer and meditation, frankly.
[00:22:34] Because, I mean, this, this was something that, you know, God has been the center of,
[00:22:43] I mean, it's the center of my parents' marriage and it's not in a sectarian way at all,
[00:22:48] just understanding, hey, real religion is love for God and however you choose to worship at home
[00:22:53] or a church or a temple or a mosque or whatever, however you choose to develop that relationship with
[00:22:59] God that, that you're happiest, that is where you can find peace and shelter and happiness and
[00:23:08] and that, that, I think, is the foundation that allowed me at a young age to
[00:23:17] realize that truth and not in a way that like, oh my God, I'm so scared. I'm going to, like, I could
[00:23:23] die tomorrow, not, not in a fear filled way at all but rather just a sense of understanding the truth.
[00:23:34] That is not only, you know, we have no control over when our time will come and,
[00:23:42] therefore surrender that surrender to that and surrender to knowing that, hey, my life is ultimately
[00:23:51] in God's hands and also knowing that the death of this physical body does not mean the death of
[00:24:00] me, the soul within the body and therefore understanding that being free from the fear of
[00:24:11] death but understanding also how precious this life is and
[00:24:18] wanting to do my best to make sure that I didn't waste, waste it.
[00:24:27] Well, it's amazing that you and I can actually even have a conversation as to human beings
[00:24:31] because if you're talking about when you were 10 or 11 years old and you're thinking about what
[00:24:36] you were thinking about when you were 10 or 11 years old, first of all, I didn't think I could be killed
[00:24:41] and that lasted until my mid-30s, I think. And then on top of that, like, you're talking about
[00:24:48] serving people and helping people and I more than anything just wanted a machine gun.
[00:24:55] Did you, so you mentioned that that religion was part of your life? What, what,
[00:25:00] we know what religion did you get? Obviously that must have come from home because you were home
[00:25:05] schooled, so as your parents, what sort of religious view did you all have? What was it?
[00:25:13] It was, it was the, I think the deepest, trueest meaning of religion itself which is
[00:25:23] is that real religion is cultivating a loving relationship with God. And so the back drop on that,
[00:25:31] which is, I appreciate so much not having, not understanding kind of what is sectarianism
[00:25:43] as a kid growing up at all. My mom grew up in a methodist family, my dad grew up in a Catholic
[00:25:48] family, my dad went to seminary for a while, he thought he wanted to become a priest and
[00:25:54] both in their own ways and ended up coming to a point separately and then later together in
[00:26:05] wanting more than they were getting from the religious or spiritual practice that they had
[00:26:12] grown up with. And like for my dad, he told me how in the seminary when he went,
[00:26:20] as a kid he had grown up memorizing a verse, I think, or a prayer that said,
[00:26:28] something like in order to be happy, one must know love and serve God. And so as a kid, he's thinking,
[00:26:36] okay, no love and serve God. In order to love, like the first step of that is you have to know God,
[00:26:45] how can I know God so that I can love and serve Him? And he asked one of the priests at the seminary
[00:26:54] that question, like, where can I where and how can I know more about God? And the priest kind of
[00:27:04] patented him on the head and he said, you know, this is a mystery, my child, this is a mystery.
[00:27:09] And so for my dad, it was like, well, I don't like that doesn't compute. How do you love someone,
[00:27:14] if you can't know who they are? And so he, like, even as, I don't know, he was a teenager,
[00:27:20] I think at the time, that kind of planted the seed of that hunger for more knowledge and that more,
[00:27:27] you know, having the depth of that personal relationship with God. And ultimately,
[00:27:35] they both found their ways, again, through different paths to looking at, you know, Eastern,
[00:27:42] spiritual practices and meditation and found scriptures and teachings based in the Vedic
[00:27:53] scriptures, which come out of India and Hinduism. But that are also not sectarian, like you don't
[00:28:00] convert into Hinduism, you don't convert out of it. Their timeless kind of universal spiritual
[00:28:09] teachings of bhakti yoga, something called bhakti yoga and karma yoga bhakti yoga being
[00:28:17] a spiritual practice in seeking to live your life in loving service to God and karma yoga,
[00:28:24] people familiar with the word karma, which really means action and karma yoga, meaning
[00:28:31] doing your best to take actions that have a positive impact to be of service to others.
[00:28:36] And so those are the spiritual practices that I have in my life and that I was introduced to
[00:28:46] from a really young age. So it's not, it's a very long answer to your question, but it's not
[00:28:52] about, like it wasn't, like we went to bed. My mom would say the Lord's prayer and read stories
[00:28:59] about, you know, Krishna from the Bhagavad-gita. You know, we'd watch Jesus of Nazareth, like
[00:29:04] 1600 times because that was one of the few movies we were allowed to watch as kids going up. And,
[00:29:12] you know, celebrate celebrations like John Mastamy, which is which is the celebration of the
[00:29:19] appearance of Krishna in this world over 5,000 years ago and celebrate Christmas and set up
[00:29:23] the nativity scene and sing Christmas carols and there was never ever any sense of contradiction
[00:29:33] or having to choose one or the other. And we go to Mass with my grandmother when she came to town
[00:29:38] and go to, and there was no contradiction because frankly, when you get right to the heart of it,
[00:29:44] once you get past all the all of the unfortunate, like bureaucracy and divisiveness that exists too
[00:29:52] often that create conflict amongst people of different spiritual practices, you just get to the
[00:29:58] heart of it. What is it? It is about loving God and whether you call God Krishna or Al-Ala or Jehovah,
[00:30:04] God has many names. There's one God. He has many names and it doesn't matter. None of that none of
[00:30:11] none of the superficial matters if in your heart you're doing your best to love God and to serve him.
[00:30:19] And so that's that I'm grateful to have been able to realize myself from a relatively young age
[00:30:29] and knew that that is how I wanted to live my life. So how did you end up with, so you have this
[00:30:40] really kind of heavy spiritual background? What, where were you grounded to like interacting with
[00:30:47] other kids who are jerks? And it seems like you could be sort of a a little bit sheltered in this
[00:30:55] world. I could be totally wrong, but it seems like if that's the way you're raised and all of a
[00:30:58] sudden you go down to the market and someone says, you know, get out of my way, you know, you
[00:31:04] little brat or whatever, how did you, what was the, how did you interact with the rest of the
[00:31:10] world when you were in this stage of life? Yeah, you know, we weren't, we weren't sheltered to kind of
[00:31:16] closed off. We had a lot of, you know, there's a lot of kids in the neighborhood and we, you know,
[00:31:22] oftentimes like my mom was the head cook at the restaurant and so she'd go in it like two in the
[00:31:27] morning to start cooking, we'd go in with my sister and I'd go with my dad a little later on,
[00:31:30] we do school in the office with him and then spend the rest of the day, like either wiping tables
[00:31:36] or hanging out with customers and just talking story and and like that that was a little bit of a
[00:31:41] second home for us, you know, did gymnastics, did martial arts, did did all the things and, you know,
[00:31:49] there was no, there was no, I don't know, separation or anything like that. Yeah, no, so it sounds
[00:31:58] like there was balance and, and you know, working at a restaurant, that's what I should have put
[00:32:03] that together because when you're working at a restaurant, you got customers, you got people,
[00:32:06] people that are happy, people that are sad, people that are mad, people that are going to tell
[00:32:08] you to, you know, go screw yourself and that you're sandwiched suck, then people that are like,
[00:32:11] oh, this is wonderful and you get all those people. Yeah. So you learn a lot about the world and so that's
[00:32:16] a good, that's a good balance. Very much so, very much so. So sports, you just mentioned kind of like
[00:32:22] no big deal martial arts gymnastics, how into you are, how into you are, how into all of that where
[00:32:28] you? Very much so. I loved, I loved gymnastics until I started a sucks, I got really like too big,
[00:32:36] I think I started to grow. And then I, I transitioned, I was definitely more of, I, you know,
[00:32:46] tried ballet as a little girl too and me and ballet didn't jive so well. So my sister was definitely
[00:32:54] more of like the, the, the, the ballerina type and I don't know, I, I just, it's not not so much
[00:33:02] my, my flavor. So, um, I, I definitely gravitated towards martial arts and earliest did, um,
[00:33:09] Taekwondo and started learning Tai Chi and, um, uh, owing chan and, um, Filipino stick fighting,
[00:33:18] Arneis and so got got introduced to a lot of different types of martial arts and I was that kid that
[00:33:25] was told like, okay, if you want to like, toughen yourself up, you need to go across a street to the park
[00:33:31] and kick a tree trunk over and over, it's like, sweet. Awesome. I was the kid that, and maybe Echo
[00:33:40] can relate, I'd never liked wearing shoes and would purposely like we go hiking up a mountain
[00:33:46] and I'd be like, shoes, shoes are for weak people. I need to make my feet tough because I don't
[00:33:52] want howlty feet. So that was kind of me growing up and, um, and maybe, you know, having three
[00:34:00] older brothers who who had a lot of fun, um, making me and my sister do really stupid, uh,
[00:34:08] tortures a strong word, but, you know, we're called them challenges. Yeah, let's call him challenges.
[00:34:13] Challenges that really had no good outcome one way or the other for us. Other than being tough.
[00:34:20] Other than being tough. Yeah. Uh, have you been to your somebody? I have not. I forget which
[00:34:24] I get was, but, you know, my son was the same way, like no shoes ever. Uh-huh. And we liked one of
[00:34:30] the legit hikes at YoSemite. It just a day hike, but, you know, many thousands of feet
[00:34:35] of altitude and many miles of walking and he did a bare feet barefoot and people were walking
[00:34:40] by him and they're just disturbed. They're looking at me like a horse that he's like, you're
[00:34:45] tired. He did it. It was literally no factor for him. I mean, a zero factor because the kid would
[00:34:51] never wear shoes ever. So that, and, you know, the kid's got tough feet. He can sprint on just
[00:34:57] gravel. Yeah. You know, are you feet still tough? Probably not as tough just because, you know,
[00:35:03] like, have to wear like a suit and heels and all those things for work. That was an adjustment.
[00:35:10] Now your feet don't eat. I know. I have work to do.
[00:35:15] Where was this? By the way, what part of the law? Did you go?
[00:35:18] So my sister was born in Wahihuah and that's relive that, but most of my childhood was in Kalihi Valley
[00:35:27] and then later later was like a downtown. On a little, a little diverse, little, little slice of each,
[00:35:35] each of the different kind of cultures and communities on Oahu. Yeah. What year did you graduate
[00:35:41] then from high school or graduate from homeschool? That would have been like, I lend 97, I think.
[00:35:51] Okay. So you get done with high school then what, what are you doing?
[00:35:57] So I had started an environmental nonprofit.
[00:35:59] Spirituality done pay the rent. Fortunately, so I worked that out. I had, so I had started
[00:36:08] a co-founded environmental nonprofit called Healthy Hawaii Coalition. Maybe I was 16 or 17 and I was
[00:36:17] thinking about, I figured out like, okay, you know, we're going and doing beach cleanups on the weekends
[00:36:23] and every weekend we come back and there's more trash on the beach. Like how do we start to try to
[00:36:28] solve deeper problem and and came up with an idea of going and talking elementary school kids about like,
[00:36:35] hey guys, here's why you shouldn't throw your soda can and your chip bag on the beach because
[00:36:42] this is our home, this is our playground and here's what happens when you when you do that and
[00:36:48] and I came up with like a fun little skit called the Adventures of Water Woman
[00:36:54] and a friend of mine who's an artist came up with like a workbook and a coloring book for
[00:36:59] kids and I thought elementary because you know, obviously kids are starting to figure things out
[00:37:03] and yeah, so we had this, this two-day program one day was the skit and the workbook and then the
[00:37:11] next day we actually took kids out to like a field trip in like testing water and understanding like,
[00:37:16] okay, here's like clean water versus dirty water and why and how it gets contaminated,
[00:37:23] but in a very simple practical way that they could really relate to in their lives and so I was the
[00:37:28] original water woman had like the blueboard shorts and the cape with the big water drop on the back and
[00:37:35] it was so much fun. There they exist, there there may even be a video somewhere, I don't know,
[00:37:41] so it was water woman and her nemesis was oily ale and the skit was really a day in the life of
[00:37:48] oily ale and you know he'd be out there like you know throwing his trash out on the street or
[00:37:54] changing the oil in his car and then dumping the dirty oil down a storm drain, you know,
[00:37:59] dumping a bunch of pesticides and his garden and every step of the way, water woman comes in just
[00:38:05] a lick of time and saves the day and tells oily ale like if you dump your dirty car oil down
[00:38:11] the storm drain it's gonna kill all the fish in the water and you know what until the kids
[00:38:16] when you go surfing the water's gonna be really gross and it was just the coolest thing to
[00:38:22] like see all these kids sit in cross like it on the ground like you know for a second, third graders
[00:38:28] and seeing kind of like the light bulb go off in their eyes because these were examples that they could
[00:38:35] understand and relate to and that was my hope in doing this was that you know it would at least
[00:38:41] plan to seed for them to understand and appreciate their consequences to your actions and
[00:38:48] and we care very much about our home and so stop and think for a minute before you do something
[00:38:56] or if you see uncle or auntie like auntie don't throw your trash out the car window
[00:39:01] and and be able to start to make more of a you know I don't behave your all kind of change and
[00:39:08] impact to protect our home. Did you get these you know what now was your dad with your dad
[00:39:15] was in politics it's some level in Hawaii wasn't he he he and I might the first person our
[00:39:21] family who ran actually ran for office is my mom she ran for board of education. I think it was
[00:39:27] and yeah I was in 2000 okay so so the water woman that was pre-dated that yeah that's just
[00:39:36] but that's what inspired me eventually like it got to a point where and and and healthy Hawaii
[00:39:42] coalition still exists today there are other waterwoman have kind of come after me but she's still
[00:39:49] out there but it got to a point where I so I started going to community college and with the
[00:39:57] aim of working in the TV and film industry, Leeward Community College and started in the TV
[00:40:03] and film production course out there and then was going to transfer to a mainland school
[00:40:07] to be able to continue continue that kind of education but a couple of things happen my financial
[00:40:17] aid package fell through and I couldn't afford it to come to the mainland and so and then the
[00:40:23] other thing was just there there was an open seat in the state legislature where I lived and I
[00:40:32] I've you know I started to think about okay I have an opportunity here to stand on the outside
[00:40:41] and there were other things you know we they wanted to build a huge land fill over one of our
[00:40:46] biggest water aquifers and Hawaii all of our our water comes from groundwater so you know I
[00:40:52] and a whole bunch of other people we went out and got petitions and we organized and ultimately
[00:40:56] thankfully were able to get that that project cancelled but it got as far as it did because of a politician
[00:41:04] who was kind of in the pocket of the landfill company and so I started to think you know I can
[00:41:10] I can stand on the outside and hold a sign or circulate a petition or I can try to put myself in a
[00:41:17] position of influence and decision making to directly impact a lot of these environmental issues that
[00:41:23] I really cared a lot about and that's what led me to run for state house in 2002
[00:41:31] my house were you I was 21 and my dad that was the first that my dad ran for city council that
[00:41:36] same year so it was kind of it was kind of fun for us to share a few ran for city council on why and I
[00:41:42] and I was running for state house in Ever Beach and so our districts like they didn't overlap really
[00:41:48] but they were adjacent to each other but every morning it was like okay my mom would back a lunch and
[00:41:57] send him out and I went out and we were sign waving every day and knocking on doors every day for
[00:42:02] for months but that was that was both of our introduction into running for office at the same time and it
[00:42:10] was for me it was a totally it was a totally foreign experience because I had no
[00:42:16] formal education in it I was not a part of a debate team had not been trained to public speak in
[00:42:23] any way at all and on top of all of that total 100% introvert like you know I had my
[00:42:34] circle of friends growing up but I was I was so shy and I was fine with it because I just hung
[00:42:42] out with who I wanted to hang out with but anybody outside of that I would not I wouldn't talk to people
[00:42:50] I'd make my sister go out and talk to people and I'd read books and do my martial arts and yoga and just do
[00:42:57] do my thing and so to then put choose to put myself in a position where I'd have to learn how to
[00:43:05] give speeches I'd have to figure out how to pick up the phone and call total strangers which was
[00:43:10] anxiety inducing in and of itself but not only do that but ask them like hey would you like to donate
[00:43:16] to my campaign for a state house to then go like I would never forget the first day I went to go
[00:43:22] knock on doors like I knew enough about I'd done enough research to know okay if I'm going to run
[00:43:28] for this seat I'm going to run to win and in order to do that I have to convince
[00:43:33] this many people to vote for me in order to win this race so I had I had the math figured out and I had the
[00:43:39] voting list people's addresses and names and literally got on the computer made like this black and
[00:43:47] white kind of janky brochure saying this is who I am and so I had you know copies of that that I
[00:43:54] went and made at the copy shop and and I sat in my car it's like a aquacolored geometro two-door
[00:44:02] geometro on old evabito in in white pahoo and it took me about 30 minutes in the car to
[00:44:15] summon up the courage to go knock on that first door and I was terrified absolutely terrified just
[00:44:22] thinking of every scenario that could possibly go wrong but also like what are the first words
[00:44:28] that need to come out of my mouth and then what if they ask me this question what if I don't know the
[00:44:33] answer just all of these different things and and like one knocked on the first door and like just
[00:44:40] wonderful old Filipino lady answered the door and she's like hey how are you just wonderfully kind
[00:44:45] and probably offered me a glass of water and like the whole thing's like oh my god okay
[00:44:51] then went through the whole scenario all over again for the next door
[00:44:55] wholesome like every single door was was a major obstacle for me and ultimately like why put
[00:45:04] myself through this and and how did I get through it it really just it that groundedness and
[00:45:10] and the ability to step way outside of anything I was comfortable with came from
[00:45:17] that that desire to serve and knowing that ultimately keeping reminding myself ultimately like
[00:45:22] why do you care so much about yourself this is not about you if you wanted to do something for
[00:45:28] yourself you would certainly not be doing this you'd be out surfing right now and and that was
[00:45:34] that was my introduction into into elected politics sir you won did your dad win I won and he won
[00:45:44] and my mom my mom was serving she served one for your term in the board of education so for two
[00:45:49] years from 2002 to four the three of us were all like in serving in different buildings all in the
[00:45:57] same kind of you know quarter quarter mile quarter square mile area and one of those it was fun
[00:46:03] and and obviously you liked it it's on level you liked the impact that you were able to have
[00:46:11] because you you carried on with this sort of yeah it it life I never once thought
[00:46:17] you know when I won that election it was a five way democratic primary first that I had to
[00:46:24] get through and then a general election that I got through I yes I liked the impact but I never
[00:46:35] once thought that I want to have a career quote unquote career in politics I was absolutely
[00:46:41] not attached to that I thought okay hey this is something I can do now and I'll make the most of it
[00:46:46] and then you know we'll see we'll see where it goes and I ended up serving just one term
[00:46:54] there because of Iraq so when did you when did September 11 happen
[00:47:03] or where were you at the time so I was I was just starting my my campaign to run for the
[00:47:12] statehouse when that happened and at what point did you decide you wanted to enlist the National
[00:47:20] Garden Hawaii I I knew in some way when 911 happened and obviously we're in Hawaii you know we're
[00:47:33] six hours behind New York on that day so we woke up to turning on the news and it had already
[00:47:44] happened and you know I think like like everybody in our country it was it it deeply impacted me
[00:47:56] in a way that I felt almost right away that I wanted to do something to to to go after and defeat
[00:48:07] the terrorist that attacked us then I just didn't quite know exactly how to do that because I was
[00:48:15] I had already made a decision to pursue this particular path of of being able to serve Hawaii
[00:48:21] and so eventually eventually I felt that that I had learned about the National Garden what
[00:48:31] it's about and you know serve your state and it's time of need but also be ready to stand up
[00:48:36] and serve your country and and decided to enlist in early 2003 because I felt that would be
[00:48:45] a way that I could accomplish both objectives essentially did you have familiarization with the
[00:48:52] military because of your grandfather that had spent his whole career in the army and in the air force
[00:48:58] oh we you really just just through stories he passed away while I was still relatively young and and
[00:49:04] because they he and my grandmother lived in Samoa we didn't get a ton of time together
[00:49:09] um my dad had had and his high school best friend had tried to enlist to serve in Vietnam
[00:49:17] they had both gone to I guess it would have been maps or some sort of version of it and they both
[00:49:24] walked in together and went into different rooms to go through all the medical exams and stuff
[00:49:29] he wanted to be a medic and when they came out my dad had been rejected for medical reasons it may have
[00:49:38] been flat feet or something like that and he was he was totally heartbroken but his best friend
[00:49:43] came out and was enlisted and so ended up going and serving in Vietnam but there's something that my
[00:49:49] dad always wished that he had been able to do just to to be able to serve and so that was
[00:49:59] that was pretty much the most of my personal no no one else in my family might some my uncles had
[00:50:05] served but again we're in Hawaii so like we don't you know they we don't get to see him or
[00:50:08] hang out with them that much so you show up to boop you go to boop camp yeah I had I was in the
[00:50:14] state legislature at the time and so I had to I you know took the asvab and everything and recruiters
[00:50:20] like yeah you can you can have whatever job you want just tell me what you want to do and
[00:50:25] literally made the decision as like look my session has done on this date and then I got to be
[00:50:31] back by this date so find me a basic training and an AIT that can fit within these like this five
[00:50:38] month period I got to knock it all out at once and so I ended up in a like medical uh I don't
[00:50:49] operations or something like that because the AIT was only seven weeks long I had I was like
[00:50:53] I want to do like uh it was a combat journalism or something like that but you got to go to school
[00:50:57] for six months or whatever but so I shipped out right after the legislative session was done
[00:51:03] and I listed on the actually on the floor of the state house and uh I went to Fort Jackson
[00:51:08] the summer of 2003 um managed to um not get noticed by the drill sergeants for my political job
[00:51:19] until like a week seven of nine which I was pretty happy about and only got found out because
[00:51:27] um uh me and my my assigned battle buddy um we were pulling duty at like the battalion headquarters
[00:51:37] one afternoon like watching the door whatever it was and the battalion star major walked in
[00:51:45] and did what sergeant majors do like hey private how are you and where do you come from and
[00:51:53] what did you do before you join the army and you know that whole conversation and so he talked
[00:51:57] to my battle buddy first and she told him she was from the Midwest and she's like yeah so you know
[00:52:03] I was working at McDonald's and decided to join the military and this is what I want to do and
[00:52:08] he's like oh you know that's great it's great and what about you it's like oh yeah I'm from Hawaii
[00:52:14] and um I'm a state representative there and you know this is what I want to do and and he just
[00:52:20] looked at me he's like wait you said what you do what he's like how come I don't know about this
[00:52:27] he asked me that how come I don't know about this like I don't I don't know uh I you know
[00:52:34] the in-processing paperwork that says what is your civilian occupation I wrote it down and
[00:52:40] and turned it in but you know who's your drill sergeant and I knew it would all down he'll
[00:52:47] he'll fall down hill for me from there going from Hawaii going from like the kind of cruising mode
[00:52:55] of Hawaii yeah which I know it sounds like there's there's a little bit of well there's there's
[00:53:00] also like this whole competitive thing with your family and you're obviously we're driven because
[00:53:04] you're out creating these things and running for office and all this but I mean all of a sudden
[00:53:10] you're in boot camp was it a shock of course yeah I mean it's I'd be worried if it was
[00:53:17] a shock but I'm really you know I'm happy that I went in with the perspective of at least just
[00:53:26] understanding that whatever the madness is there's a purpose to it and don't get I I just I've
[00:53:33] never I've always been a pretty chill person and I don't get freaked out by that much and
[00:53:40] yeah so yeah I actually in a very weird and twisted way really loved it it was it was the
[00:53:46] camaraderie and the kind of bond that that is built in a very short period of time with a whole
[00:53:52] bunch of strangers from all over the country knowing that and appreciating that like all of us
[00:53:58] are there for the same reason all of us are there for the same purpose whatever the motivating
[00:54:02] decision was to unless really didn't matter that you know we all were the same uniform and all
[00:54:09] the same team it was it was I loved it how long after you got back from boot camp and AIT was it
[00:54:15] that you went on your first deployment came back home at the end of 2003 from training and then
[00:54:23] the 29th Brigade Combat Team from the Hawaii National Guard was activated I want to say
[00:54:29] the notification came out in the summer of 2004 I was campaigning for my reelection at that
[00:54:38] point in time and remember going in and and taking a break from knocking on doors knocking on doors
[00:54:48] again and I got an email at home check my email at home and and got the notification of the deployment
[00:54:56] but I was not on the I was not on the deployment roster because they they already had somebody who
[00:55:03] filled you know that job in the medical in the field medical company and so I immediately called my
[00:55:08] commander and just said hey like what's what's the deal here I don't see my name on the roster
[00:55:14] I said tell see congratulations like you get to stay home you don't have to go and
[00:55:21] that bothered me a lot and I just said no I just you know I knew that there was no I could stay back
[00:55:30] and that to you know sitting my office in the state capital and watch everybody leave was not an option
[00:55:40] for me and so I continued the conversation with my my commander and I just said sir I'm going
[00:55:50] tell me what job I need to get trained in that you need filled so that I can go and that's
[00:55:55] that's that's what happened so I I kind of I I publicly withdrew from my reelection campaign
[00:56:01] it was too like to take my name off the ballot but told everybody like I'm not I'm not running for
[00:56:05] reelection volunteer to fill this position and we left restarted our active duty train up I think
[00:56:15] it was in August of of that year 2004 and then we were in country in early January 2005
[00:56:22] what job did you get trained for what job what bill did you do I it was medical logistics
[00:56:29] so supply which and you know specialist at this point yeah I was in the for kind of a fresh
[00:56:36] e-for and as as you know like okay I filled I filled the position but once we actually got there
[00:56:46] I ended up becoming I ended up filling a position that was previously held by an E7
[00:56:54] as the brigade surgeon operations person and so kind of was working you know like line of duty
[00:57:02] paperwork and injuries and tracking supplies for all of our medics and docs and PA's who were
[00:57:11] attached to all of like the infantry units and and and also every day just tracking going through
[00:57:20] going through the the report every day for our our brigade commander of looking
[00:57:26] name by name down this list of of casualties that had occurred in the previous 24 hours to
[00:57:33] see if there was anyone there from our nearly 3000 person brigade and make sure that they were
[00:57:40] getting taken care of whether in country to stay in country or getting evacuated and staying with
[00:57:46] them and tracking their care every step of the way until eventually they made their way home.
[00:57:53] Where were you actually stationed in Iraq? We were in a balad in L.A. Anaconda,
[00:58:00] most of us were there that was kind of the base and then we had units in camp victory and Baghdad
[00:58:04] and in a couple other kind of smaller fobs out in different areas and so I moved around a little bit
[00:58:13] kind of going out and visiting some of our units and checking in on them where they you know
[00:58:19] where they were but that was that was primarily where I spent most of the time. And how did you
[00:58:24] what was that deployment like from you know your perspective now looking back? What kind of lessons
[00:58:30] did you bring back? What did you learn from that deployment to Iraq? A lot. Yeah I came back
[00:58:42] and my family told me this after I don't think I fully realized how much I had changed
[00:58:50] but it was something that they immediately noticed in coming back just
[00:58:57] more sober and more focused and that really came from you know I talked a little bit about how
[00:59:11] realizing from a young age like death can come at any moment well that's that's a philosophical
[00:59:15] realization and being there that became very real very quickly and you know there there was
[00:59:27] have you been there did you ever pass through there when I went to Belad I'd be there for like 20 minutes
[00:59:32] and go to a meeting and leave so I barely remember anything about Belad. And did you come in
[00:59:36] like vehicle or hardware? Yeah so there was within the first couple of days of us arriving there it's a big
[00:59:43] camp massive and so you know kind of was going out and like okay orienting myself where is everything at
[00:59:50] and I noticed right away at the north gate of that camp at least at that time I don't know if it's
[00:59:55] still there but there was a big there's a big huge sign that someone had put up on you know that you
[01:00:02] would see every time you leave camp out through the north gate which is where most of our patrols
[01:00:07] use that gate that the sign red is today the day and I just remember being stopped in my tracks
[01:00:15] and just take it a minute to to to to take that in and the meaning of it so that none of us would ever
[01:00:24] forget that today could be the day and that that was the welcome message and it really
[01:00:40] it hit home so much in in that daily task that I had of actually seeing names of people who I never
[01:00:51] knew people in different parts of of of of of serving different parts of the country but also
[01:00:55] people who I did know whose names would pop up on that list every single day that I went through
[01:01:02] and recognizing again how precious life is and any any any any any moment
[01:01:11] you know that that could be your last and then of course we we had unfortunately you know we lost
[01:01:18] a lot of people during that deployment and to me it it it really it it changed everything for
[01:01:26] me because ultimately coming home I knew there was absolutely no way that I could just go back
[01:01:38] to the life that I had left behind as though I didn't just experience like the people like
[01:01:42] oh you're gonna go back and run if you're sitting the state legislates you're gonna pick this up
[01:01:45] and kind of like hit the play button on my life that had been paused and it was impossible I
[01:01:51] didn't even think about it because I knew that somehow this experience that I had had I wanted
[01:01:57] I wanted to do something positive with it in being able to impact the kinds of decisions
[01:02:06] that took us all to that war in the first place so then so then what was the next move when
[01:02:16] you get home it's two is it now two thousand six yeah so we were in country for a year
[01:02:22] and then you know had the demobilization when we came back and so it was 2006 and I was trying to figure
[01:02:29] out okay what am I going to do there was no obvious answer to the question that I was asking
[01:02:34] which was how can I you know how can I take this and turn it into something positive
[01:02:41] ultimately I ended up volunteering our one of our US senators from Hawaii at that time
[01:02:48] Senator Akaka was being challenged in a primary election which kind of unheard of
[01:02:55] the power of incumbency is very real plus he's like the kindest most Aloha guy you will
[01:03:03] ever ever meet in your entire life no one has a bad thing to say about him but he got this
[01:03:09] challenge that came out of nowhere and I didn't know him at all personally had no personal
[01:03:13] relationship whatsoever the guy challenging him I did have some some interaction with
[01:03:24] that was not positive and so I was I was like okay I'm going to go volunteer full-time for Senator
[01:03:30] Akaka make sure that that he wins his reelection and he did and he I don't know if he was
[01:03:40] already or I think he was after the reelection he became the chairman of the US Committee for
[01:03:46] Veterans Affairs and so after volunteering on the campaign as Chief of Staff said hey do you want
[01:03:51] to come and work in Washington and as a legislative aid and help him with that work on the committee
[01:03:57] and you know environment and energy natural resource few other areas and so that's what I did
[01:04:03] and that up going and working with him in Washington for a couple of years
[01:04:09] went through OCS while I was there and how did you get an OCS billet did you graduate college
[01:04:17] somewhere along the way good question I forgot about that fire I was working I was I
[01:04:27] was while in Iraq working on my degree going on the education center tent and you know like okay
[01:04:35] sometimes you got mortars coming in and the alarm sounds you got to go in the bunker and come back out
[01:04:39] and say I was I was continuing my education while I was there and I had gotten just enough credits
[01:04:47] needed 60 credits go to OCS and I had just enough credits to go and I was still working on my
[01:04:53] degree when I was in DC and I was you know working there and so I was kind of working full time
[01:04:57] into school at night but yeah split in split in and then got I think you needed 90 credits to get
[01:05:04] your commission or something like that. I still have to keep squeak in about. Yeah so I just
[01:05:12] barely squeaked by. It's been um so you got to OCS is it anything anything shocking about OCS anything
[01:05:21] that was I loved I I knew obviously OCS is to train leaders but I didn't know going in
[01:05:30] the depth of that and that was why that was why I wanted to go through OCS and I graduated from
[01:05:34] basic training I was like I want to be the sergeant major the army one day all about it and then you
[01:05:40] know I got a deployment under my belt and got to witness some some examples of great leadership
[01:05:46] also some examples of leaders that were lacking in a lot of areas and and especially in a
[01:05:51] deployed deployed setting in a dangerous way and that was that that made a major impact for me
[01:05:57] coming back to say okay you know I same thing like I can complain about having shitty leaders
[01:06:03] or I can actually go and try to be be a good leader of soldiers and and I love and I tell kids
[01:06:11] who come and ask me like hey I think I want to join the military coming off sir very biased
[01:06:16] yes you can go do the West Point thing and that's great highly highly highly recommend OCS
[01:06:22] because it is it is intense it is relatively short and it is just like it is it is the essentials
[01:06:32] of provide it it provides you with the essential tools to to begin your leadership path
[01:06:40] and I just I loved it so much that I ended up going back as a tack officer after I had
[01:06:46] gotten a deployment as a platoon leader under my belt and then I loved it even more.
[01:06:53] How long is this how long is our OCS? So there's the active duty army OCS at
[01:06:58] for betting which is I think three maybe between three and four months. I went through an accelerated
[01:07:06] National Guard OCS in Alabama at Fort McClullin that uses the same program of instruction as the
[01:07:15] Fort Bending Program but just condenses it down to I think it was maybe ten weeks and the
[01:07:22] like the difference is like they get weekends off at Fort Bending like they get to use computers
[01:07:27] and phones and like that and we got none of that it was it was seven days a week you know
[01:07:33] for am to midnight all operators like no access to technology whatsoever so everything you were doing
[01:07:40] it was like you're writing it you're writing your your six-page operator yourself and
[01:07:47] you know it sucked as you're going through it of course but you know I'm old enough now
[01:07:52] I'm approaching 18 years now in the army reserves and so I'm like one of those old people
[01:07:57] is like man you guys got so good now back in the day back in the day
[01:08:05] you uh so then you go on another deployment and this time you go too quick you're in quite
[01:08:12] that time yeah yeah we were it was a different it was a different mission for the brigade and kind
[01:08:17] of each of the battalions were tasked out in in a lot of different areas a lot of our our infantry
[01:08:23] battalions or cab battalions were doing convoy security from within Kuwait and an out of Iraq
[01:08:28] um my platoon was attached to field artillery battalion and we were we it I and I I'm so
[01:08:35] grateful for this but we were we were physically located very very far away from the flagpole
[01:08:41] and then the big bases that that exist in Kuwait so we were within an active Kuwait-y naval base
[01:08:48] and right on the water which you know it's my gig I gotta be close to the water if I can
[01:08:52] um but our our main mission the artillery battalion had kind of a forced protection mission
[01:09:02] but my platoon uh we had had two things one was kind of security like like high level
[01:09:12] security if we had VIPs coming into Kuwait or and we worked with the embassy a lot we did a lot of
[01:09:16] stuff in and around the embassy so like PSD like personal security you know we did security for a lot
[01:09:24] of the ammunition movements from the ports to where they had to go and then also um we did
[01:09:31] I had a training mission which was the which was the the fun one for me it was being able to go
[01:09:34] and train the the Kuwaiti army on you know marksmanship um basic you know how to clear building
[01:09:42] uh what do you do if you're dealing with like a civil disturbance or a riot
[01:09:47] right control
[01:09:51] it was it was it was it was it was interesting for me though because um you know I
[01:10:01] platoon leader for an military police platoon in Kuwait where
[01:10:07] I didn't realize until we got there they don't allow women on their bases at all it doesn't matter
[01:10:14] if you're the general's wife or you're a janitor there are no women what if you told
[01:10:19] you gathered told see gathered showed up and I really didn't know when we rolled up
[01:10:25] like that first day to go in and meet the unit and meet the unit commander obviously I'm in uniform
[01:10:31] and my hair is up I got you know ball of hair on the back of my head and I didn't know what they
[01:10:35] were gonna do at the gate did you have other females in your platoon I had I had uh two
[01:10:42] two females in my platoon there uh one was the knee three one was the knee four
[01:10:48] the rest were you know these are guys who are working state local or federal law enforcement
[01:10:53] mostly at home in their civilian jobs and just about all of them had at least one or two deployments
[01:10:58] under their belt and so there there's seasoned experienced guys but yeah so I showed up I showed
[01:11:05] up on day one and you know kind of showed my decar to the gate and the gate guard was didn't
[01:11:10] really know what to do but he saw you know he saw the American flag and he was like oh okay
[01:11:18] go ahead and and so my I was my partner and this was a master sergeant at E8
[01:11:23] and super super cool he's going guy and and so we went and we started to we got introduced to the
[01:11:31] guys that we'd be training we ended up doing a number of iterations of different groups of guys
[01:11:36] but you know kind of went down the line shaken hands and saying hello and uh there was probably
[01:11:44] half of the co-edey guys who I was invisible there certainly was no shaking up hands certainly
[01:11:51] no eye contact or even acknowledgement that I was standing there and you know okay got it challenge
[01:12:00] how do you go from like I don't exist in your universe to actually being able to help provide you
[01:12:06] with some instruction and and develop the report necessary to be able to do that and you know so I
[01:12:15] I kind of drawing from maybe the Aloha and Hawaii of just recognizing hey you know we're
[01:12:22] we're different people different backgrounds different language different culture different everything
[01:12:27] but I respect like I respect you and I'm gonna treat you with that Aloha that respect
[01:12:37] and gradually I started to see the ice kind of started to fall and ultimately you know
[01:12:44] when we're out of the range and I'm walking up and I'm telling them like hey like okay here's this
[01:12:48] like basic safety things and and then like okay I'm gonna show you how to do it and then you know
[01:12:54] gradually I got to the point and I knew I knew I had made progress we sat down for lunch
[01:13:00] and they started to share their lunch with me is all like food food as food is the ultimate you know
[01:13:07] bridge builder and I knew once you were like hey like yeah here try my food like oh yeah
[01:13:11] oh awesome like cool yeah that's really good and it got to the point where
[01:13:17] on on their graduation day of that first group their commander
[01:13:22] had everybody in the room everybody who's seated there again and they're getting all the
[01:13:25] graduations certificates and everything and their commander asked me to come forward and presented
[01:13:32] me with this plaque of appreciation and thanks and some of there was some Americans civilians who
[01:13:39] were also working that mission and they had been there longer than we had and they said
[01:13:44] it's all after were there like Tulsa I hope you understand what a big deal that was for
[01:13:48] this co-edimentary officer you know the traditional bearded Muslim man to recognize the accomplishments
[01:14:00] of a woman and I was very grateful to have been able to experience
[01:14:10] experience that and recognizing the bigger significance that you know not so much about like
[01:14:16] well this is about women's rights or empowerment but more so about how to overcome seemingly
[01:14:24] impossible barriers to get to a place where you have mutual professional respect and understanding
[01:14:33] and and the power of that alone and there are obvious parallels that we could point to in today's
[01:14:39] world here in America but yeah yeah that's that's an awesome story and
[01:14:44] lately I've been talking a lot about the fact that if you want respect you got to give
[01:14:49] respect if you want people to listen to you you got to listen to them if you want to have
[01:14:54] influence over people you've got to allow them to influence you and if you want to build trust
[01:14:58] with people you've got to trust them yes and it's interesting you know you kind of captured
[01:15:05] well at least for sure the respect part is Aloha right it's the Aloha spirit of hey you know
[01:15:11] what you're a little bit different than me but it's all good we'll figure it out and that way
[01:15:15] of building relationships is so much better than you saying hey look I might be a woman you
[01:15:22] might not think I'm here but I am a exactly 10 and he United States Army and you will like
[01:15:27] okay good luck with that you never would have made any progress at all none and and so
[01:15:33] taking a little a little bit of Aloha apparently with a little lunch as well goes a long way over time
[01:15:38] and and and people want to be confrontational because it seems like well it's the least
[01:15:45] offensive thing to your ego right when when someone looks at you what doesn't look at you treat
[01:15:49] you like you're not there that that can be a blow to your ego that your ego can't
[01:15:54] can't repress it it just has to come out your ego has to say you will look at me damn it
[01:16:00] you know I am told see listen to me you have to listen and and all those things even though it
[01:16:06] seems like it would be you know this direct I just need to be direct with them and tell them that
[01:16:11] I and it's like okay I'm telling you that that attitude doesn't work and look we're talking
[01:16:16] about a pretty serious cultural divide yeah but it happens with everything it happens if you and I
[01:16:20] are trying to figure out how to execute a mission and you think we should do one way and I think we should
[01:16:24] do a different way and I tell you well to tell you that's because you don't you haven't done this
[01:16:28] kind of operation before or because you you haven't been in as long as me or because you don't you you
[01:16:32] went to OCS and I went to West Point so therefore I know but all those things are wrong all those
[01:16:36] things are going to make it harder for us to come to a good an actual good the best possible decision
[01:16:42] which is what we want so put your ego in check add a little a low-hot of that and and we can
[01:16:48] actually make some progress and and unfortunately you know it's kind of like what I started off talking
[01:16:52] about you know if you have an idea about something I've an idea about something and my my default mode
[01:16:59] is to say you're freaking wrong how are we gonna how are we gonna talk about it how are we gonna
[01:17:06] actually figure out what to do no you stay on your side and all stay on my side and we won't do anything
[01:17:12] which is a freaking nightmare yeah and that's where that's where I see the parallel and that
[01:17:18] experience with the Aloha that that I strived to bring every day to my work in Washington is you
[01:17:25] start with you know finding that common ground even with such incredible start differences that
[01:17:32] that are real you start with okay what what is what is the common ground that we can stand on
[01:17:38] comfortably together coupled with what is our shared objective what is the thing that we are
[01:17:45] trying to accomplish and recognizing that whatever your personal feelings may be however strong
[01:17:50] they may maybe what your views are ultimately if you can find some commonality in both those places
[01:17:58] then you recognize that it's not about you it's about this shared goal and purpose that you have
[01:18:06] and then like you'll find a way you'll figure it out that again this is another thing I've been talking
[01:18:11] a lot about lately is if you and I can get aligned we we can come to a solution but we sometimes
[01:18:18] have to go pretty high up the ladder of alignment to get to a point where it actually meets so we have
[01:18:23] a mission and you want to attack the target from the left and I want to attack the target from the right
[01:18:28] well that's that's okay as long as we both know that we want to secure that target that's what we want to
[01:18:34] do and then all one of us has to do is put our ego in check for 15 seconds and say you know what
[01:18:39] tell us a attacking from the right sounds good let's do it your way right and because I just want to get to
[01:18:43] I just want to get the target secured that's what I want to do that's that's okay
[01:18:49] where we also get into a problem is a gender now you have an agenda where you want your
[01:18:53] opportunity to do it and I want my opportunity to do it so then we have to rise above those
[01:18:57] agendas now it's possible that our agendas that your agenda still aligned with the goal you want to
[01:19:02] get the target to get great you want your opportunity to do it you know what if I can put my ego
[01:19:05] and check for 15 seconds and say you know what sounds good tell us you want you to take your
[01:19:09] puttune can take lead and all support you right sounds good all I want to do is get the mission done
[01:19:14] exactly and people run around in circles and attack each other and worst part they never make progress
[01:19:20] they never make it to the target because they can't even they can't even come to any kind of agreement
[01:19:25] yeah that that that that sounds exactly like one of the first things I was introduced to as a new
[01:19:31] member of Congress where I the the message was delivered very clearly from the leadership
[01:19:37] within the within the democratic party and so my Republicans went through some of the same
[01:19:42] stuff on their side so this isn't about one party or another but the message being like hey look
[01:19:47] this is about winning the election and if we're in power it's about keeping power if we are
[01:19:52] not in power it's about how how do we get it back and so if there's a bill for example
[01:19:58] that deals with whatever let's say it deals with transportation something about as universally
[01:20:04] agreed upon as you can get like we need to move from a to be all of us do so there's a bill on
[01:20:10] transportation infrastructure and it's introduced by a Republican don't support that bill you should
[01:20:18] support one that could be virtually identical as long as there's a Democrat name at the top
[01:20:23] that's leading that effort because that will allow the Democrat person and the Democratic party
[01:20:29] to then take credit for it which will then be put on a brochure or a TV ad that you can use in
[01:20:35] the next campaign which will get us closer to getting power or or maintaining power and this is
[01:20:43] where we want running to problems in the world yeah is when ultimately we're not aligned
[01:20:51] that that's where the actual problem comes in is if you where you want to go the target that you want
[01:20:56] to hit is not the same as the target that I want to hit and then we can't we can't overcome these
[01:21:02] problems because we are not going to the same place they don't they're not the same place so how
[01:21:08] we're gonna go we can't be two places of once we're gonna your place or my place and that's where
[01:21:12] we run into a problem when people are saying well the main point of us doing this is to get power
[01:21:18] not to help American people not to move transportation in a good direction but just so we get
[01:21:24] reelected and if that's what the goal is we can't get aligned and it's a problem and that is exactly
[01:21:28] where the lack of alignment exists because you have a political infrastructure where both political
[01:21:34] parties are ultimately and this is not every single person but if you look at the goals of the
[01:21:39] leadership of both parties it is about power so right you know I served in Congress for eight years
[01:21:46] for the first half of my time their Republicans were in charge Democrats were in minority
[01:21:52] and then Democrats won and took over the House Democrats are in charge of Republicans in my
[01:21:57] naughty and you just see it play out where whoever's in power is trying to keep power whoever's not
[01:22:02] is trying to is trying to take it and there's no alignment because they're looking out for their own
[01:22:08] interests for the parties and they are not ultimately making decisions about what legislation
[01:22:14] comes to the House floor or what issues are being tackled based on what's in the best interest of
[01:22:20] the country which is where that alignment must be and it's how our system of governance was set up
[01:22:29] that not that you have everybody is part of one party or marching in lockstep or having all of the
[01:22:35] same views but instead that you bring the diversity of different views experiences and backgrounds
[01:22:42] and ideas by having in the House of Representatives 435 people from all across the country all
[01:22:48] elected by constituents in their districts who can then bring their ideas where you have debate
[01:22:54] and conversation you have bills that that theoretically go through committee where you can offer
[01:22:58] amendments and try to strengthen whatever the proposal might be or kill it if it's a bad idea
[01:23:05] and then you've got a vote on the floor like this is civics 101 that we learn about in school
[01:23:10] it does not exist in reality though today because instead of figuring out hey how do we
[01:23:17] work out our differences and come to that same goal of like how do we fix all of the pot holes in
[01:23:22] our roads in Hawaii and all over the country okay we need to invest in some infrastructure how
[01:23:28] do we do that how much money how is this best going to be executed instead and we saw this
[01:23:32] play out over you know I'm when Trump first got elected I reporters asked me what what do you
[01:23:38] think tell see is the one thing like what's the low hanging fruit where they're we're bipartisan
[01:23:44] agreement and work is possible I and most other people said infrastructure every community needs it
[01:23:52] every this is a domestic job creator that actually solves real problems that need to be solved
[01:23:59] it never happened there was no infrastructure bill that even really came before Congress for any
[01:24:04] serious consideration and why is that like the most low-hanging fruit that everybody agrees on that
[01:24:10] objective didn't happen because of partisan differences and an unwillingness to say okay yeah Democrats
[01:24:18] had a certain idea and a certain dollar amount Republicans had a different idea and a different
[01:24:21] dollar amount but there was never any real good faith serious effort to say okay where can we meet
[01:24:27] in the middle what am I willing to give up what are you willing to give up so that we can actually
[01:24:31] start to deliver on fulfilling the needs the very real needs that exist within our communities
[01:24:38] so I know you said not everyone is so entrenched but what percentage of people are entrenched
[01:24:44] on the left and the right I would say most I would say most and and not because they're
[01:24:50] bad people necessarily but if you look at the system that exists the power that the political
[01:24:59] parties have is massive and unfortunately there are two few people who go to Washington willing to
[01:25:13] buck that power and deal with the consequences of that and the consequences being hey if you don't
[01:25:19] if you don't tow the party line then if you've got a tough challenge in your election campaign
[01:25:24] we're not going to help fund TV ads for you for example or we're not going to play resources to
[01:25:30] support you or we'll pull you off the committee that that you're on that you really like or maybe
[01:25:37] we're not going to consider your bill on you we won't allow your bill to come to the floor for a
[01:25:42] vote and sometimes these are very direct statements that are made and sometimes they're they're
[01:25:46] signals that are sent in an indirect way and so the results of having two few people who are
[01:25:53] willing to kind of stand up and and make decisions based on purely based on on merit versus
[01:26:01] the political pressures is you end up having a lot of people who either enjoy and get right into
[01:26:11] playing the political games and are all about it and then you have other people who maybe unwillingly
[01:26:19] or are even as they are disheartened but feel like they have no other option than to play the game
[01:26:25] and so it you know and and frankly it's because they see I see people like me you know
[01:26:32] President Obama was president during you know two thai came I was sworn into Congress in 2013
[01:26:38] so his first four years and then I had President Trump as president for the last four years
[01:26:42] that I was in Congress and in both cases you know if there was an issue that I agreed on
[01:26:48] there's a bomber a Trump I spoke out and said it if there's an issue I disagree on
[01:26:52] Obama a Trump I spoke out and said it which is which is is is kind of heresy in Washington
[01:26:59] because the expectation is even if it's the same exact scenario the same exact situation
[01:27:05] if it's your person in the White House and you don't like it you don't say anything but if it's
[01:27:12] the other party then I mean the world is going to end look at how this terrible thing and it's such
[01:27:17] blatant double standard and so hypocritical I think this is one of the reason why voters are just
[01:27:22] like come on like we can see what you're doing so ridiculous exactly but you know they exist within
[01:27:31] this bubble where the it's I mean it is it's I've talked about this before is it's kind of like
[01:27:37] high school there is a popularity contest and it's both people it it's this ecosystem where people
[01:27:44] really care a whole lot about what parties they're invited to or who answers their phone calls
[01:27:52] it's not you're just going to point this out because I've heard you talk about this before
[01:27:56] you're not saying like oh it's like high school where people care about what parties they're
[01:28:01] invited to you're saying people actually are thinking well Tulsi didn't like me to that party so
[01:28:08] we're going to step on her bill that she put for all give you an example very it is it is literal
[01:28:13] it's not like you know it's not an analogy it's literal there there was you know in the pre-COVID
[01:28:19] world and maybe even in the pre-Trump world the White House correspondence dinner is like
[01:28:25] the big event of the year and it is hosted by the media for the media and you only get invited
[01:28:35] as a politician if someone in the media invites you to go as as your guest it's kind of like
[01:28:41] Washington DC's Oscars kind of gala type situation so you know it's all of the fancies
[01:28:49] everything and Hollywood celebrities fly in for it and it's like a it's a really big thing
[01:28:56] and I remember you know I I happened to get an invitation to go the first year I was there
[01:29:02] without knowing anything about what it was and I was talking to some of my colleagues are like
[01:29:06] Tulsi you got in it like I've like this guy my friend he's like I've been here seven years
[01:29:12] and I've never been invited to that like Hoka Brother up and it was so I mean it was so surreal to
[01:29:19] me especially because having gone from that where I was invited to go to that or other things you know
[01:29:24] like the first few years I was there and then you know I stopped getting those invitations
[01:29:32] because like hold on a second she's actually like challenging whatever the narrative is
[01:29:39] or challenging decisions made within her own party or saying or doing things that didn't
[01:29:44] fall within the mainstream of popularity in Washington DC and so I've experienced the arc
[01:29:51] of like okay you're cool you seem kind of cool and like you know you're a surfer you're better
[01:29:56] in your this or that and then all of a sudden like oh wait hold on you actually have something to say
[01:30:00] that's not just whatever literally the email talking points are of the day then you know
[01:30:09] it turns into something else let's let's rewind it a little bit to when you actually ran
[01:30:16] so you get home from in in what 2009 you get home 2009 I came back from my second deployment in 2009
[01:30:26] and kind of faced a similar pivotal decision point on what to do next and just like the first
[01:30:35] deployment I came back with the same kind of sense of purpose and mission of wanting to
[01:30:40] find a way to be in a position where I could I could help influence decisions or make decisions
[01:30:46] about our countries foreign policy and about our military and but didn't know exactly what or
[01:30:54] how I would do that didn't there was no obvious choice at that time I had applied for something
[01:31:00] called the White House Fellows program which I thought would have been a great opportunity where
[01:31:06] basically it's it's a highly competitive you heard of it before yeah so it's it's this highly
[01:31:10] competitive program that ultimately if selected you serve for a year as a senior special assistant
[01:31:18] to a cabinet member or to the president or the vice president so you kind of you know jump in
[01:31:24] your way up to directly being able to help influence and impact issues so I had applied for that
[01:31:32] got through to the regional finals and then got through to the final final interviews which was
[01:31:38] I think three days of assessment essentially which consisted of you know we're told okay
[01:31:46] as soon as literally as soon as you arrive there you're being assessed by the judges I think there
[01:31:50] were 12 judges and ultimately they would choose probably 12 people out of maybe I think maybe
[01:31:55] they're 20 of us there and so whether it was the the welcoming reception or these actual
[01:32:04] boards essentially that that you would go individually and sit before there's you know I think
[01:32:09] four different boards of three judges and you know do a Q&A kind of thing and then there was
[01:32:16] something that they gave us an exercise where all of us who were there we had to pull names
[01:32:22] or positions out of a hat and so I think the position I got was White House Chief of Staff
[01:32:28] someone else was the president someone else was the vice president and then they say okay here's the
[01:32:32] scenario I remember was I could say like country X is just launched an attack on us and you have
[01:32:42] you've convened a meeting in the situation room execute like you've got 15 minutes to prepare
[01:32:49] and then you go and execute and so role playing scenario kind of war gaming thing and and the
[01:32:55] judges are just standing there watching and just trying to figure out okay what are the dynamics and
[01:32:59] you know who were the alphas and who's taking charge and who's just like the wall flower sitting
[01:33:03] on the edge and how do you make decisions that process that kind of stuff it was it was a really
[01:33:06] cool experience long story short I didn't get picked what I don't think you got picked
[01:33:14] I don't know I really don't know I I sought out a couple of the judges that I had
[01:33:20] developed a little bit of a rapport with to kind of get some feedback and and this was part of the
[01:33:24] thing like every step of the way people who were former White House fellows who had given me
[01:33:28] some mentorship on how to approach the process in advance and and some of the judges like
[01:33:34] they're like off your shoe it like you were exactly the kind of person that this program was built for
[01:33:40] and and so I stupidly had started to believe all of that and you know went through it
[01:33:49] and was careful and did my preparation and went into it but you know in my mind I had already told
[01:33:55] myself like you got this like you're in and then so when I was I was writing the Metro and DC
[01:34:04] and I remember getting off at Union Station and coming up the escalator and then my phone buzzed
[01:34:09] with a voicemail of course I was waiting for the call and the voicemail said hi Tulsi we
[01:34:16] were Grett to inform you so for that moment I was just like I was I was incredibly disappointed
[01:34:25] obviously but then had to reset be like okay so like that's off the table and so I ended up I ended up
[01:34:34] you know I knew that I was continuing to see what what can I do and I ended up running for
[01:34:39] I'd getting elected to the Honolulu City Council and focusing on those pot holes and you know
[01:34:46] trash and sewers and parks and and law enforcement for two years until my former boss Senator
[01:34:54] Akaka retired from the US Senator announced he was retiring and the one of the members of Congress
[01:35:02] said that she was going to run for his seat which left the vacancy in the house and ultimately
[01:35:07] that's that's where I made the decision I made the decision to run knowing that specifically
[01:35:14] in the United States Congress I would be exactly where I needed to be to try to influence and impact
[01:35:20] those decisions was it a tough campaign I mean it's incredibly tough who are you going against
[01:35:26] there were six people who ran you know it's strong democratic state so the the real election is the
[01:35:32] primary election and there were six people who were running in that democratic primary but the main
[01:35:39] person who was kind of the assumed winner of the election even you know nine months out from the
[01:35:48] election was a guy who had just run for and lost a race for governor but who was also the former
[01:35:56] mayor of of the city and county of Honolulu and so you know just for some perspective our state
[01:36:03] has about 1.4 million population around 980,000 of which live on a wall and the district that
[01:36:13] we were running for there's there's two members of Congress from Hawaii one is kind of the urban
[01:36:19] representative that that has almost the whole South Shore of Oahu the urban that kind of density urban
[01:36:24] populated area and then the other member of Congress which was the seat that I was running for has
[01:36:30] the west side nor shore and east side of Oahu and all of the neighbor islands and so I came into this
[01:36:36] with I think it was about 2% known name recognition in that district because my city council
[01:36:46] district was actually in the other it was in the urban part of Oahu so there was again no overlap
[01:36:52] in those districts and the guy the another front runner in the race he had everybody in the state
[01:36:57] knew who he was he also had a little bit of baggage that came with having just been the mayor and
[01:37:04] that's a whole other whole other conversation but so so the challenge was was pretty great to go
[01:37:13] from like 3% against 100% and somehow I had to try to cover that gap and I just you know I remember
[01:37:20] meeting with with some of the political you know elders for lack of a better word in Hawaii
[01:37:29] and letting them know that people I had decent relationships with letting him know that I was
[01:37:34] gonna run and and why and getting a lot of patronizing responses back saying you know tell see
[01:37:40] you're I think I was 30 at the time 31 here young you have no chance against this guy
[01:37:48] so just you know don't waste your time and come back and try again in like 20 years you'll be great
[01:37:54] in 20 years and that I was like I don't operate on that timeline so you're like hold my
[01:38:02] beer pretty much pretty much did you just go super aggressive how did how the hell did you make
[01:38:09] up that kind of distance well so first I I'd had to fundraising as a huge thing because I needed
[01:38:16] to be able to have the resources to let people know I existed and who I am first of all just my name
[01:38:23] period and then to let them know you know my experience in my background and why why I was wanting
[01:38:30] to serve them in Congress and so you know we started out we started out just like putting signs up
[01:38:36] around the district and hoping that that would cause for people to say who's Tulsi Gabbard
[01:38:43] like what what is this about and and and it was it was a lot of time going and doing what what I
[01:38:52] called the most extensive job interview ever where I went and traveled to each island and spent
[01:38:58] a lot of time in communities with individuals with groups small groups large groups introducing
[01:39:05] myself to them and answering their questions and letting them know why I wanted to serve them
[01:39:11] in Congress what kind of leadership I would bring where I stood on on different issues that they
[01:39:15] cared about and ultimately what happened was five months before election day my I was pulling
[01:39:26] at 20% to the front runners 65 and then the rest was split between the other people and I have
[01:39:33] like awesome progress for 20 years exactly exactly and I just I just continued you know I was
[01:39:44] I was on the phone and I was asking people for support and raising money and then also out on the
[01:39:48] road just you know seven days a week all day and it was it was it was it was an incredible incredible
[01:39:55] experience election day comes around in August of 2012 and all the way up until about two weeks
[01:40:05] before the election the local media and even some of the national coverage was just like this
[01:40:12] guys this guy's got it I had heard from other people he was already interviewing staff a few months
[01:40:18] before the election that he planned to hire once he won our debate we had one big
[01:40:27] televised debate we had a few others but there was one big televised debate I passed him in the
[01:40:32] hall right before the debate and he was singing that song black eyed peas I think tonight's gonna be
[01:40:42] a good night as he looked back at me and and I will I will I have been told I killed it in the
[01:40:51] debate and that was where a lot of people first started to take notice like who is she and I think
[01:40:58] I think it may may have caught him by surprise just a little bit but still like all the way up
[01:41:04] until about two weeks before it was like he's got it and then some of the polls started to shift
[01:41:09] and some of the local news they were like wait I had this can't be right these polls can't be right
[01:41:14] because you can't see a big turnaround I ended up winning the primary election going from that 20%
[01:41:22] five months before to actually beating him by a 22% margin on election day and it was it was
[01:41:30] people to be good yeah people in DC like the next day they're like okay like what scandal caused
[01:41:41] him to to allowed you to win essentially or what was the thing that you know that happened and it was
[01:41:48] it was there was none it was literally I think the difference between someone who felt they were
[01:41:56] entitled to the position because of a number of reasons and and me recognizing what the position
[01:42:04] really is it's a position of trust and responsibility that is granted to you by the voters
[01:42:12] in the state and they are the ones who I'm accountable to and who I work for and it was just it was it was
[01:42:21] the our local kind of Walter Cronkite anchor of our new station who's been doing it for ever
[01:42:28] longer than I probably for about 30 or 40 years he's still on TV now he's a Vietnam veteran
[01:42:35] and that election night he was reporting the results and he actually started to get choked up
[01:42:41] and and got a little got a little tearful because he understood why I was running bringing that
[01:42:50] experience of service and and having been deployed and the significance of
[01:43:00] that I was going to Congress not for myself but that I was bringing my brothers and sisters in
[01:43:06] uniform with me and and it was it was a heavy night I mean it was you know there
[01:43:13] are parties and things going on but I remember leaving the the hall that night on election night
[01:43:20] and my sister was walking out with me and she's like Tulsi you know you're allowed to celebrate
[01:43:26] you know you're allowed to be happy about this but I was just I was immediately like okay
[01:43:32] all right these are the results what are we waking up and doing tomorrow what what's the next task
[01:43:37] what do we have to do now in order to make sure that we we hit our next Martin and that's
[01:43:42] um and and that's kind of the the focus that I that I carried with me throughout is you know
[01:43:50] I'm not entitled to anything and I am here only because the people and in my community and my home
[01:43:57] state have trusted me to to work for them and to to be their voice and and to represent them
[01:44:05] to the best of my ability so the the hype of you winning that and come being the being the underdog
[01:44:11] champ rolling in deep did that that kind of came to you to DC right I mean that that hype there's
[01:44:17] some hype train yeah so Tulsi hype train mm-hmm oh say so the Tulsi hype train shows up
[01:44:25] and your sort of um your viewed I think it's actually Nancy Pelosi's called you like rising star
[01:44:33] which is you seem to hear that okay it did not like it doesn't get thrown around that term doesn't
[01:44:37] get thrown around about political people but you were like a quote rising star in the democratic
[01:44:45] party so you came with some hype yeah I didn't I didn't fully understand why but yeah it was
[01:44:53] there I mean I had you know she I was actually making up drill time with the national guard after
[01:44:59] that primary election um I remember being at my unit and she called my my cell phone I hadn't
[01:45:05] talked to her before and she called myself on and left the message and introduced herself and just
[01:45:11] said hey you know we have a democratic convention coming up in a few weeks I would love to have you
[01:45:16] come and be one of the featured speakers during prime time as um and speak about veterans let me know
[01:45:26] if you're interested and so again like that's not an opportunity that one gets when you've just
[01:45:34] been elected to Congress to go and speak to you know 50,000 people in an arena in the whole country
[01:45:40] yeah as the whole it's everybody yeah and and so you know I mean I was
[01:45:46] grateful for the opportunity and and went and it kind of yeah and then you know shortly after
[01:45:53] getting sworn in as a member of Congress I was asked hey will you be vice chair of the DNC and
[01:45:58] I was like what what is a vice chair do um what is what is actually that you're asking me to do and
[01:46:06] what what can I do and tell you so I said they're asking you to do it's freaking weird right this is
[01:46:13] all they they kind of saw you they saw a good horse to put money into an industry to a great story
[01:46:22] and they they wanted to get some control over that hype train yeah and and I think use you know
[01:46:30] be able to say hey you know there there are I mean there there are biographical boxes that I
[01:46:34] checked a lot of boxes for you know the diversity uh pick the diversity higher and and you know for
[01:46:42] me I'm you know just coming in to each of these experiences completely clear eyed and not getting
[01:46:48] googly eyed at all like oh my god they love me so much but just recognizing okay like what do
[01:46:54] what are you trying to use me for even uh what what do you get out of this and then for me thinking okay
[01:47:00] like weighing pros and cons and saying is this an opportunity that I can use to try to get some some
[01:47:07] good dawn and if it is then okay that makes sense like maybe there's a mutually beneficial thing here
[01:47:14] and if there's not then you know no thanks um but yeah that's that's that's where that's where things
[01:47:21] started so they start off like really awesome yeah hey you've got all the hype you've got opportunities
[01:47:27] they're looking at you as a as a potential kind of horse to put money into an invest into
[01:47:35] as long as we can control you on the track right that that's the fine print
[01:47:41] I what point did you did when was the first sort of time that you kind of bucked a little bit
[01:47:48] do you remember what it was yeah absolutely it was my first year in congress in 2018
[01:47:55] every year in congress and I I don't know I think this may date back to pre air conditioning days
[01:48:03] but every year in august congress goes into recess it's the hottest year of the month it's
[01:48:09] you know DC is a literal actual like geographical swamp and so you go you go back to your
[01:48:22] you you so you go back to your district everybody in the house and the senate you there's a
[01:48:25] recess in august you go back to your district and you get like four or five weeks at home or to go and
[01:48:30] do a congressional delegation trip to another country or whatever you said that space and time to do that
[01:48:35] and so I remember being home and getting word that President Obama wanted to go and launch
[01:48:45] air strikes and a military attack in Syria and I was filling up gas in my car one I so I started
[01:48:58] to get a lot of calls from constituents from people about this and this is where this is very
[01:49:03] quickly developing I don't have all the facts or information or intelligence or anything at that point
[01:49:09] but people were concerned and I was filling up I was filling up gas one day in copole and
[01:49:16] and a woman who pulled up her car next to me she saw me there and she came and walked over and she
[01:49:21] grabbed my arm she saw you can see you know my kids in the military please don't do this
[01:49:29] because I don't understand what it's for and and there was a number of other kinds of messages
[01:49:39] coming from people just either expressing total opposition or concern and just coming out of like
[01:49:45] you know Iraq and just everything that had led to that kind of cynicism and fatigue or okay
[01:49:52] we just want to go start another war in another country like what what did they do to us
[01:49:56] and so the recess time was cut short I was on the Foreign Affairs Committee at that time
[01:50:03] and I was throughout most of the time I was in Congress and so we got called back to DC early
[01:50:08] so that we could go through and get the intelligence briefings and actually get gather the information
[01:50:14] and then that was when I first started to take kind of a deep dive into what was happening in Syria
[01:50:20] and why he was proposing this and ultimately after going into the issue and the question and
[01:50:29] and really he was not going to come to Congress at first but then enough members of Congress said
[01:50:35] you can't like the Constitution does not allow you to unilaterally just start a war you have to
[01:50:40] come and get congressional approval for that and so that's what we went back and started to prepare
[01:50:46] for that vote that would happen and I just I came to the conclusion after studying the facts that
[01:50:52] it would be a counterproductive military action and much of it came from I mean we had hearings
[01:50:58] with Secretary then Secretary of State Kerry and others at the time who we're trying to tell Congress
[01:51:04] like well you know this is not going to be a pin prick strike but it's not going to be a decapitation
[01:51:12] it's going to be a punch in the gut and you know some of my follow-up questions were like okay
[01:51:18] so you're going to go and deliver a punch in the gut attack how will they respond oh you know
[01:51:26] we don't really know but we don't think it'll be a big deal okay who are their friends
[01:51:32] who are they going to call for help and how may they respond how could this potentially escalate
[01:51:40] into something that is no longer a punch in the gut but something that first second third fourth
[01:51:46] order of effects their response will require response for a must which require response and all of you
[01:51:51] know that the the the tit for tat that then begins once you go over and say I'm not going to cut
[01:51:57] your head off I'm just going to punch you in the gut and think that you're not going to do anything
[01:52:00] in response and I just saw so many of the similarities of a lack of foresight and
[01:52:08] strategic planning and for me again as military officer basic level like military decision making
[01:52:15] process and actually thinking through these things and I saw similarity like this could very
[01:52:22] easily become another kind of Iraq kind of situation where you start making these decisions
[01:52:28] and then they're on the fly and then you're not realizing or thinking through what do we do tomorrow
[01:52:32] and then the next day and and where do we go from here and also I wrote I wrote like an opinion piece
[01:52:44] expressing my opposition to the president president Obama's proposal published it and
[01:52:53] was the first Democrat to do so to express opposition to his proposal and very quickly got a call from the
[01:53:00] White House basically saying how dare you who in the White House it was the the first lady's
[01:53:12] chief of staff and I I still to this day scratch my head about why they asked her I knew her and maybe
[01:53:20] that was just simply the reason why but I would think that on a matter like this you would want to
[01:53:27] have I don't know maybe the national security director so I'm sorry like I don't know somebody
[01:53:32] but that was that was essentially the message is how dare you not only has a Democrat but because like
[01:53:38] you're from the president's home state how could you how could you so publicly disagree with
[01:53:42] him on something but the thing was Jaco is is nowhere in that conversation was the substance
[01:53:54] of the issue raised like hey here's why we think your opposition is misplaced or here's what
[01:54:02] you're not seeing or here's what nothing yeah nothing at all you know I wrote down
[01:54:10] while you were talking what's the commander's intent like when are we trying to do here because if you
[01:54:14] can't tell me what it is what why we're going to do what we're doing then we need to talk about it more
[01:54:19] yeah that's number one and you know as you just put it the reason why why are we doing something
[01:54:26] why are we doing it and by the way I tell people all the time if you work for me and we're doing
[01:54:31] something that you don't know why we're doing it you raise your hand and you say hey Jaco why the
[01:54:34] hell are we doing this and I say well here's why and you say well that doesn't make any sense
[01:54:37] and I go please explain that to me then so that I can make a better decision because if if I can't
[01:54:42] get my team on board then I must be I must not be seeing something or I'm not explaining my perspective
[01:54:47] well enough that they can go oh yeah I got it Jaco thank you and we now understand that thank you
[01:54:52] that's number one number two so when you fire off this article is that a good tactical move for you
[01:55:01] in other words you know would it may it have been a better move to say elicin I need to talk to
[01:55:09] you know you tell your friend the the first lady's chief of staff listen I want some
[01:55:13] clarification I don't want to get crazy here but look I just got back from my rack a few years ago
[01:55:18] it gets bad it gets ugly we got to make sure we know what we're doing can we have a further
[01:55:23] conversation because no one seems to be listening to me right now and it's a problem
[01:55:28] mm-hmm I chose to take that public course of action because I had just gone through
[01:55:35] days of internal discussions Q&A expressions of concern and essentially expressed all of those
[01:55:48] same points of opposition internally to members of the administration and saw that nothing was
[01:55:56] nothing was breaking through and that the answers that they were delivering were pretty
[01:56:03] candid and set and that there was not really there there was not really an interest of a discussion
[01:56:13] or a response like of introspection saying hey maybe we're missing something here and and
[01:56:18] or maybe we're not communicating clearly or you know that it was just like this is it this is what we're
[01:56:25] doing and the why like why what what are you trying to accomplish well we need to send a message okay
[01:56:30] send a message and then what like you can like communications a two-way street I can send you a message
[01:56:41] but if if I want that message to be effective like I need to anticipate how you might respond
[01:56:46] and so there was I chose the course of action that that I chose purely because I felt I had
[01:56:51] exhausted internal or maybe kind of back channel means of addressing those concerns.
[01:57:00] Seems like what did you also sort of had already done an assessment to think like these people don't
[01:57:07] listen. Yeah. This wasn't this wasn't just a one-day you decide you know what that said I'm
[01:57:11] going to fire off the article. It's a pre-existing condition that is when people say hey I got an
[01:57:18] issue with this we get told shut up get get on board with the program that's what we're going to do so you'd
[01:57:22] already experienced that. Yeah so I mean this this it in this specific situation it was not so there
[01:57:29] were other Democrats who who shared these kinds and Republicans who shared these concerns and that
[01:57:34] it were raising these questions within the hearings both public and and closed hearings
[01:57:41] so it wasn't like hey we expect everybody to like there was not a pressure coming from the
[01:57:47] Democratic leadership in this example saying hey we expect you to tow the line on this and just
[01:57:51] support this because it's President Obama so this was not that kind of situation there are other
[01:57:57] examples of that but yeah it just it was clear it was clear that the message that was coming from
[01:58:07] the administration was was really it was kind of a one-way communication and and so I knew enough
[01:58:14] to know that when when they're they're kind of locked and loaded in in their position the only thing
[01:58:22] that may cause them to change or to budge is public pressure and that's ultimately what happened
[01:58:30] it the public pressure was bipartisan and and reached such a volume that they never even brought
[01:58:38] the vote to Congress because they knew it would be an abject failure and and the the military
[01:58:46] action never happened and Obama got criticized for that because I don't know if you're
[01:58:51] remember but he this was like this is a red line right like okay and he got vastly criticized by
[01:58:56] Republicans and I think some Democrats like how how dare you not enforce your own red line and I still
[01:59:04] you know I think this was one of ultimately the final decision that he made I it was the right decision
[01:59:09] because because of all the reasons that I've held him as the wrong decision to to make in the first
[01:59:15] place but also it forced him to take a diplomatic path to resolve the issue that he was trying to
[01:59:19] address which is you know hey like maybe that should have been your first first primary course of
[01:59:26] action yeah don't paint yourself into a corner yeah exactly just like don't don't put yourself
[01:59:31] in a situation in a combat scenario where you can't maneuver don't do that don't put your you
[01:59:36] know don't don't don't put your back against a cliff where you can't go anywhere else yes don't don't
[01:59:40] don't don't do that's not a good move it's not a good tactical move it's not a good strategic move
[01:59:43] there you know this this whole thing when I when I ask you these questions one of the things that
[01:59:49] well you're gonna I know he I know you just told me you were reading about face right now well
[01:59:53] the crux of about spoiler alerter in about face hands up at the end of the Vietnam War
[01:59:58] what's not the end of the Vietnam War it's the end of his Vietnam War he goes and gets interviewed
[02:00:02] and says we're gonna lose if we don't change the way we're fighting and of course he gets drummed
[02:00:06] out of the army in a matter of months you know it's all bad and the question that I always
[02:00:12] kind of consider is well if he would have kept his mouth shut he would have had you know he would
[02:00:20] have had a brigade he would have had a division he would have had the influence of all many many
[02:00:24] more soldiers and much more strategy and and could have perhaps steered the war in a better direction
[02:00:32] if he would have played the game more now there's an emotional component to it which is completely
[02:00:38] understandable which is that hack worth absolutely love the army and he loved his soldiers and
[02:00:44] he was seen soldiers get killed and wounded every single day and he got to a point where he was
[02:00:50] unacceptable to him we had a similar thing you know that you and I were talking about with general
[02:00:56] matters and at what point you know if general matters who's so highly respected and just smart and
[02:01:11] resolute in his beliefs and and kind of unflappable so it was really nice when he got a
[02:01:18] point it I was so happy I'm like okay we got some sanity going on here we got somebody that's that's
[02:01:22] rational right very rational guy and it's at one point it's over and then you wonder okay look I know
[02:01:30] it sucked and I know you didn't like it but don't you have more influence when you're sitting in the
[02:01:35] seat that's a that's an issue that people leaders have to deal with on all different levels you know
[02:01:42] I talk about a lot and leadership strategy and tactics not a lot but I write a section about it
[02:01:46] if you're my boss and you tell me hey jockel I want you to do this mission here
[02:01:50] and I say well I don't think it's a good mission and I think you know it's gonna cause casualties
[02:01:55] or I don't think it's got a good strategic objective or and you say I jockel you do what I told you
[02:02:00] and I say but hey you know ma'am it doesn't seem like a good plan to me and you say hey jockel
[02:02:05] shut up and do it now I can either draw a line this hand and say I'm not going to do it and then what
[02:02:10] do you do you fire me you put echo in charge and echo goes it goes and does it because he's just a yes man
[02:02:14] so now but I've given up all my influence at that point which is not good there's a scene in band
[02:02:22] of brothers Dick Winners who gets ordered to do reconnaissance it's the end of the war and he goes
[02:02:29] I don't really think that's a good idea the Colonel says shut up and do it he goes okay he goes and does it
[02:02:35] they get a guy killed they come back the next night the the Colonel says I want you to do another
[02:02:40] Recon tomorrow night and Dick Winners says I don't think that's a good idea the war's almost over
[02:02:44] we lost a guy yesterday and he goes shut up and do it he and he says Roger that sir and they
[02:02:49] go to who a basement and they drink wine what do you see on the Recon we didn't see anything okay good
[02:02:56] you know he he went along with it but he still had some control and this is just a hard thing and
[02:03:02] it's it's interesting to hear your perspective of you know at some point you make a stand
[02:03:08] and that's where you decided to make a stand and obviously you lose some influence after you did that
[02:03:14] you lost some you know I don't know how many invites you got to those dinners after you did that
[02:03:18] that's probably not I know so you give up some influence but at the same time you're you're
[02:03:24] you're holding the line on what you believe in and at some point you've got to do that I mean at some
[02:03:30] point you go look told see I don't care you want me to do this mission it's a bad idea we shouldn't do it
[02:03:35] and if you got to fire me fire me yeah and maybe that's me just trying to send you a message
[02:03:40] you maybe you say or geese jocke was really serious I must really have a bad I must really have
[02:03:44] a bad perspective of what I'm trying to get this guy to do because he's never said no to me and
[02:03:47] now he's saying no to me all right jocke let's tell me your reasons again and now we can have a conversation
[02:03:52] tough tough those are tough things for leaders to do yeah and that then they're if you
[02:04:01] I would say this is especially true in politics but I think it probably applicable across the board
[02:04:08] is if you know what you are trying to accomplish ultimately what's the greater goal
[02:04:17] and your goal is not about self preservation if your goal is not selfishly motivated but instead
[02:04:27] you know how how can I serve this this greater purpose that you're obviously there to do
[02:04:34] then you're able to more
[02:04:38] unemotionally and clearly assess okay here I've got three different options here here's where this one
[02:04:44] leads here's where that one leads here's where that one leads and assess okay you know what what
[02:04:50] really ultimately what is going to help me get help get me closer to that thing that I'm trying to accomplish
[02:04:55] and yeah I've I've gone through many many iterations of this as I've made different decisions that
[02:05:02] had very serious political consequences and that especially the big ones were were very often the
[02:05:09] unpopular decision that people were kind of scratched their head like what what is wrong with her
[02:05:16] like she's she's she's going and doing things that nobody does she's going and saying things that
[02:05:22] nobody will say is she crazy or just stupid or what but if you take a step back you know really
[02:05:34] who am I accountable to and what is my purpose if my purpose is to be a part of the
[02:05:43] to seek the approval of of the elite in Washington then I would have made completely different decisions
[02:05:50] completely from from the get go and I would have done very different things but if my accountability
[02:05:58] is to and it is and and has been to the people who elected me to serve if my accountability is to
[02:06:05] our brothers and sisters in uniform both of those who continue to serve those who've laid down
[02:06:10] the uniform and those who have paid the ultimate price then I'm making my decisions through
[02:06:16] different lens and a different context then folks are used to in Washington and it's not to say like
[02:06:25] hey I'm just going gangbusters and I'm going to go run through a freaking brick wall no matter what
[02:06:29] the consequence and it it is being clear I'd about okay here here here are the here are the
[02:06:33] potential ramifications to this and sometimes they are known and sometimes they are an unknown factor
[02:06:38] but ultimately these major decision points that I have come across do the right thing if you don't
[02:06:50] if you don't know and you're not sure and all these it like ultimately do the right thing
[02:06:55] because it's the right thing and even even as you may get you know the you know the political
[02:07:06] fire or the the negative consequences or these other things like ultimately whether it takes a
[02:07:11] little time or it takes a long time doing the right thing is always the right thing and I'm you know
[02:07:16] I'm I'm able to know that wherever my path goes I've done my best to make that best decision
[02:07:24] when faced with hard right easy wrong the I used to tell my guys if you're doing the right
[02:07:34] things for the right reasons you we will win in the end exactly so if we're doing the right things
[02:07:39] for the right reasons we'll win in the end now what's interesting about this is you know you
[02:07:45] on certain occasions to some extent you didn't play the game right and as you just said you
[02:07:50] played the game sometimes and you did which had to do and form those relationships and then
[02:07:53] sometimes you didn't play the game and this is what's interesting and that this is where the
[02:07:59] future's unknown where does that lead if you were doing the right things for the right reasons which you were
[02:08:04] ultimately you'll win in the long run wait I don't know what that looks like yet right at some point
[02:08:10] I know it's like a big gamble right because we could paint an entire different picture of
[02:08:17] Tulsi that went to Washington played the game said the right things vote the right votes not at the
[02:08:22] head and you'd be in a different spot than you are right now you'd be you could potentially I mean
[02:08:28] from your trajectory when you look at you in 2000 as I when you showed up 2012 when you showed up in
[02:08:34] 2012 your trajectory was steep and like you said you checked various boxes that needed to be checked
[02:08:43] and if you would have played the game that whole time you could be in a position right you know
[02:08:46] you could be president right now you could be president right now having conformed to what you were
[02:08:53] being told to do now we don't know where this actually ends up right because it's it's 2020 we
[02:09:00] don't know where this ends up maybe people will be listening to this in 2039 or whatever now we go oh yeah
[02:09:05] jacco call that jacco call that you do the right things that are right reason to look at how we
[02:09:10] turned out that that could potentially happen but of course you know a bunch of other things you have
[02:09:14] too but it's it's something that we have to struggle with as leaders doing if but if I still believe
[02:09:21] this and I tell people this all the time if you're doing the right things for the right reasons you're
[02:09:25] going to win in the end in the end you are going to win it might take years it might take I guess
[02:09:33] it could take decades when you're talking about this these types of decisions but the other component
[02:09:38] of this is which I think in my just just from sitting here looking at you as you're talking about this
[02:09:44] you every day have to look yourself in the mirror and at a certain point you say I'm not going to
[02:09:54] do that and again look there's I always tell people play the long take play the long game thanks
[02:10:01] strategic I tell people I would say when people ask me oh I've got some situation at work and
[02:10:05] I brought this to me do this all the time I'd give the I give the best play the game oh tell
[02:10:10] see wants me to do this paperwork and she's been yelling at me to do it and he doesn't make any
[02:10:14] sense for me to do this paperwork I tell you do the paperwork play the game build a good relationship
[02:10:20] with all three so you can actually talk to in the future and explain why that paperwork doesn't
[02:10:23] make sense right play the game until you get to a point where you got to look at yourself in the mirror
[02:10:30] and you can't and then you're not doing the right thing and you're not doing it for the right
[02:10:36] reasons and you got to make a different decision yeah yeah I that that's exactly right and
[02:10:44] in order to do that it's it's being able to have not lost your foundation and your ground
[02:10:52] in this so that you have the ability to be introspective and to know what actually matters versus
[02:11:01] the things that that that don't really matter which help you determine you know which battles
[02:11:07] am I going to pick to fight and also what what is what is winning how do you define winning
[02:11:16] is it is it a specific title or is it a specific position or when you say do the right things for
[02:11:25] the right reasons and at some point in time sooner or later you're going to win for me in my case
[02:11:33] that that's that is 100% true I think what maybe maybe is not obvious to people is
[02:11:44] winning is not becoming president of the United States winning is not becoming a United States senator
[02:11:50] or a member of congress or an ambassador or whatever pick pick the job pick the crappy job
[02:12:01] you have a different perspective than most people in Washington who live their lives from college
[02:12:07] to try to strategically plan their lives to get these jobs except for the fact that you know winning
[02:12:16] you know look if you're the president you have a massive you have the most amount of influence that
[02:12:19] you could possibly have I used to tell that to these young seal officers it's like oh you're going to
[02:12:25] kiss ass to get promoted well if you kiss ass quote to get promoted guess what you can take
[02:12:30] it better care your troops the which is why you're here right that's why we're here to take
[02:12:35] care of our team be able to accomplish the mission so sometimes it's like there those those are
[02:12:40] aligned winning when I'm a platoon commander instead of a E5 and a platoon I have more influence
[02:12:48] over that situation so I can do a better job of the mission I can do a better job attacking the
[02:12:52] enemy and I can do a better job of taking care of the guys that work for me that's all good and you
[02:12:57] know what I had to sit through some meetings I had to nod my head and I had to support my
[02:13:00] whatever commanding officer or my master chief when they told me to do something that didn't
[02:13:04] make quite make sense but I did it why not so I could get promoted that's the big difference not
[02:13:09] so I could get promoted and I never did it it was as you know for me it was such a it made my career
[02:13:14] so much easier because I never was worried about getting promoted I never cared if I got promoted
[02:13:21] and it actually helped it helped because I was doing the right things for the right reasons and
[02:13:24] my boss is what look at me and say like yeah this guy cares about the guys and he wants to get
[02:13:28] the mission done let's get him promoted yeah I wasn't doing it to get promoted it's just gonna happen
[02:13:32] if you're doing the right things for the right reasons yeah so there's a weird dichotomy there
[02:13:36] no winning isn't necessarily getting promoted or becoming the president or whatever the case may be
[02:13:41] but if you're looking to have the most amount of influence that take care of your people and your
[02:13:45] troops and your country and your nation that's a really good spot to be in and that that the order
[02:13:50] of that I think is the most important thing because too often in politics people get so attached to
[02:13:55] the position or the title and their entire identity is wrapped around that whether they have it or
[02:14:01] it is their ambition to achieve that position or title that they forget that the real goal is being
[02:14:07] in a position of impact and influence where you can serve and make that positive impact and that's
[02:14:13] where for me even from when I ran for state house through the different political positions that I've
[02:14:18] had like I had no issue and no qualms about walking away from what was beginning what was the
[02:14:25] beginning of some would say would be in a lustre's political career as as a 21 year old elected
[02:14:30] the state house when it came for that decision point are you going to stay or you're going to go I went
[02:14:37] because I wasn't losing anything and like people are going to give up this political career you've
[02:14:43] only just begun I'm not giving up anything I am only choosing at this point to serve in a different
[02:14:51] way and I think that's where when you look at when I've thought about okay well you know winning
[02:14:57] is being in that position of impact and influence and and maybe at some point it does take that form of
[02:15:05] you know serving an elected office in a high position where I can execute on that or maybe it
[02:15:10] takes a different form or a different shape you know for the time being or for whatever it is
[02:15:15] it's staying the order of that staying focused okay this is the goal and the position and the
[02:15:22] platform that I may have at a different point in time to accomplish that goal doesn't change the goal.
[02:15:28] Did you underestimate the power of the swamp?
[02:15:32] Well maybe a little bit but I think even yeah I would say yeah I mean the power of
[02:15:52] the political infrastructure and the party system and how much money
[02:15:56] you know they're limits like if I'm well if when I ran for present around for Congress they're
[02:16:03] limits like if you wanted to make a political contribution to me you know the limit changes
[02:16:08] every election but let's say it's $2,000 that's all you can give. There's no there's no real
[02:16:15] limit to what you can give to either political party so if you wanted to write a $2,000 check
[02:16:21] you could do that no problem and so if you look at the the balance of power that gives the political
[02:16:27] parties a heck of a lot of power to to leverage over a specific candidate or specific and
[02:16:37] combat and to use as the use in the power plays that are you so that that was something that
[02:16:44] that I came into and I think was was unexpected. So just to clarify this I can give
[02:16:50] $2,000 to Tulsi for Congress but I can give $2 million to the Democratic now or $200 million
[02:16:59] or whatever. And therefore the party has that money. Yes. And now they can go all
[02:17:06] it out to the people that are playing with the program that are playing the game. And it's a
[02:17:13] little surprising to you who was a little surprised that how much control they had.
[02:17:18] And and seeing it play out literally on the house floor when votes are
[02:17:26] votes are happening or what about what happened. It's like hey where is this member of Congress?
[02:17:33] I heard he or she is thinking of voting with Republicans we need to find them and
[02:17:40] talk to him and get him in line. And they say and they're actual jobs like I don't you
[02:17:47] have you seen House of Cards? Yeah, you're fine don't worry about it. But it's featured in this
[02:17:55] show House of Cards the the the main character he kind of starts out he's a member of Congress and
[02:18:01] he is the whip and the position is literally called the whip and that's their job is they
[02:18:09] whip votes and so if somebody's you know so I go to you and I say hey Tulsi I know you're kind of
[02:18:16] wavering on this vote but it looks like you got a tough race coming up there and Hawaii could use
[02:18:20] some extra TV advertisement don't you think? Yeah. It's like that like for real yes that's how it is.
[02:18:28] Kind of or that's how it works. It takes different sometimes it can be very direct like that.
[02:18:34] I this is so this is something that that I have not personally directly been the target of
[02:18:42] because they knew. But partially because I I got elected without any help from the Democratic
[02:18:50] Party locally or nationally. There was no fundraising help there was no hey we're going to push you
[02:18:57] you know it was a primary election and generally they don't get involved in primary elections.
[02:19:02] It's not it's not a rule that's always followed but in my case it was and because it's such a strong
[02:19:08] Democratic state generally they'll use their resources to help Democrats get elected or
[02:19:12] reelected in swing districts or Republican districts if they're like, uh Tulsi you're good like
[02:19:17] we don't gotta worry about you in my case then that also means there's no leverage from them.
[02:19:24] But I have friends who I've served with who are in those positions where you know a reelection
[02:19:29] in a congressional race like they've got a race 10 million 20 million bucks which is you know in
[02:19:35] my race I think I raised I raised about I don't know a little over million dollars.
[02:19:42] So for them there is a lot of leverage and it's used it's certainly used to to try to get
[02:19:50] you as a member of Congress to do what what is best for the party rather than what you believe is the
[02:19:56] right thing to do based on your conscience and based on how you feel you can best serve.
[02:20:00] Yeah your constituents. What's the percentage that they're able to wield that sledge hammer
[02:20:09] effectively like how much control? I mean it's it's it's it's pervasive and so that that's one
[02:20:18] example is hey you've got it you're always getting you've got a tough reelection or a tough
[02:20:22] race or a tough challenger whatever that's one approach and the other approaches people who are
[02:20:26] interested in climbing the the ladder and so you will either have a cherry opportunity place before
[02:20:34] you or maybe you won't have that opportunity presented or it'll be taken away. So you know it's
[02:20:42] kind of like you know they'll look at okay what does this person want and what do they need and how
[02:20:47] can we use that as a motivator to try to get them to do what we want them to do and so this is the
[02:20:54] imbalance that needs to be corrected in our political system where this idea of hey anybody can
[02:21:00] go and run for Congress and I know that my member of Congress is always going to go and act in my
[02:21:04] best interest as a voter has unfortunately become so twisted into this thing that is about one
[02:21:11] party versus the other party and it's always about the next election and how they can battle and who is
[02:21:16] going to win rather than how do we work together and actually solve problems and pass meaningful
[02:21:24] legislation and I you know again early on you know there were there were some Republicans
[02:21:30] Obamacare right hugely divisive issue politically that's been weaponized by both sides issue of
[02:21:38] healthcare and there were some republic we found like hey here are some easy fixes this was this was
[02:21:45] that was elected in 2012 Obamacare was passed in 2010 and so you know there were some
[02:21:51] Democrats and Republicans we started to say hey let's figure out what we can do together like
[02:21:55] we're this is we're here in Congress is why we are here and there were some easy kind of very
[02:22:03] simple common sense corrections that we could make it through legislation to this bill
[02:22:09] that are no brainers like not not controversial at all common sense no brainers exact okay sounds good
[02:22:15] good set of I like it and how that work out it turns out that both party leadership
[02:22:23] indirectly expressed opposition to this idea and what we were talking about doing
[02:22:30] on the democratic side because it would require that they would have to admit that the bill had
[02:22:36] some flaws that needed fixing and on the Republicans I'd opposed to it because if you fix
[02:22:44] Obamacare then what do you run against what do you criticize the other side for if you actually
[02:22:49] fix it in a way that it it helps people and if people start to like it then you can't raise money
[02:22:56] off of it and you can't weaponize it for political purposes and that's that was 2013 and unfortunately
[02:23:08] here we are in 2021 and it has only progressively escalated and gotten far worse far divisive to
[02:23:18] the point where as we sit here today you have the speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi referring to
[02:23:22] Republicans as quote unquote the enemy within the enemy within and the implications of that
[02:23:32] like the actual legitimate implications of that where is when you make that statement
[02:23:38] that you do not trust people from the opposing party broadly she's not saying hey this one person
[02:23:45] I feel is a threat to our security and needs to be reported to law enforcement that's a different
[02:23:49] story if that if that were the case we have systems in our government to do that if you think a
[02:23:54] member of Congress poses a security threat to their colleagues report it to law enforcement do it
[02:24:02] but to throw this out in a public setting I think it wasn't a press conference you said that
[02:24:07] that they are the enemy within and other Democrats saying well I don't feel safe around my
[02:24:12] Republican colleagues what you're saying is that if any member and any Democrat goes and tries to
[02:24:19] have a conversation with or reach out to or work with a Republican they are working with the enemy
[02:24:26] they are collaborating with the enemy they are now traders to who to the country to Democrats
[02:24:35] where does that then lead and how is there any possibility of healing and unifying and
[02:24:49] reaching out to get past the inflammatory divisive state that we're in okay so we got that going for us
[02:25:08] it seems like I didn't track every move that you made but certainly one of the if not at least from
[02:25:20] what I know the biggest kind of move that you made that was outside the system is when you went against
[02:25:26] Hillary in 2016 for for president is that was at the straw that broke the camera was by one
[02:25:41] yeah and that was one of those that was one of those big decision points that I had
[02:25:46] where I couldn't I couldn't map out what the actual consequences to that decision would be
[02:25:56] so you knew I knew I knew I obviously knew it was it was a serious decision that would have
[02:26:03] serious implications but exactly what those implications would be I didn't I didn't know
[02:26:09] I had different political advisors and people who you know who knew Washington and who knew me
[02:26:19] giving me very serious warning and just saying what tells you this could be the end of the political
[02:26:24] road for you potentially so just know that before you make this decision and just just to back
[02:26:31] up a little bit why the the backstory that led to my making that decision was I was still
[02:26:37] Vice Chair of the DNC at that point and as an officer of the DNC the rules say you have to be
[02:26:44] neutral in a primary election that the DNC's role is to make sure that the primary election process
[02:26:50] is executed in a fair in a fair way so that voters have the opportunity to make their decision
[02:26:58] on who they would like to be the Democratic nominee to become the president of states and so
[02:27:02] that was my like okay I'm going to make sure that I fulfill that responsibility and make sure that
[02:27:07] our Democratic process works in in this primary and I had I know plans to get involved in the race
[02:27:14] at all and there were you know there were a number of you know this wasn't the reason why ultimately
[02:27:21] made the decision but there were a number of issues that started to present themselves
[02:27:30] in seeing that the chair of the DNC at that time was making unilateral decisions about how
[02:27:37] the primary process would work that made it very clear that it would not be fair or neutral
[02:27:43] and that those the process decisions that were being made would favor Hillary Clinton over any
[02:27:49] other candidate and I and other officers of the DNC expressed privately and then
[02:27:57] our concerns and opposition a to the fact that like hey like we're off to the DNC you're asking
[02:28:03] us to attach our names to decision that you as the chair made but we had absolutely no discussion
[02:28:07] or input to it whatsoever and I'm not comfortable doing that and then when seeing there was no
[02:28:13] it was kind of like okay no like I don't care I don't care the decision's been made and that's it
[02:28:20] and then airing some of those concerns publicly for the purpose of trying to bring some accountability
[02:28:25] and transparency to the process and just to just two two examples one was limiting the initial decision
[02:28:33] that that the chairman made or the chairman made was there would only be six debates in the primary
[02:28:38] election and to me that was ridiculous like there had never been so few debates ever and why
[02:28:44] why that number of debates mattered was because of the second decision that was made which was
[02:28:48] if any candidate participated in a non-DNC sanctioned debate or forum they would be banned from
[02:28:58] participating in any future DNC debate so you'd be punished for actually seeking out opportunities
[02:29:04] to talk to voters both of those decisions seem pretty undemocratic to me while we're standing
[02:29:13] here saying hey we want we want high voter turnout we want people to engage in the process
[02:29:17] we want people to engage with the candidates but we're only going to allow six debates and if they
[02:29:22] do any debate or forum that's not one of our six then they won't be able to come and play with us at all
[02:29:30] because Hillary had such good name and recognition every one of these debates would be an opportunity
[02:29:34] for someone else to get more written name recognition yeah and challenge her track record I mean
[02:29:40] actually God forbid have a real dialogue and conversation and a compare and contrast for voters on
[02:29:47] each of you know I mean obviously Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were kind of the two primary
[02:29:51] candidates but there were a few others who were still running at that time Martin O'Malley was
[02:29:54] wanting to go for Maryland and so that that was kind of already happening but ultimately as
[02:30:03] as this process started to to begin I saw how even in these limited debate settings how
[02:30:13] little attention was being focused by the Democratic Party as well as their their corporate media
[02:30:17] partners on foreign policy and on the the qualifications that voters may look for in a commander
[02:30:27] in chief and what that responsibility meant it was just not it was you know they were talking
[02:30:35] about a bunch of other things most most things that to me like superficial political drama
[02:30:41] and theater like not issues that that really mattered a whole lot when you look at the
[02:30:46] implications on people everyday lives but as a soldier obviously for me like this is the most well
[02:30:53] it's not just as a soldier the most important responsibility that that any president has is to
[02:30:57] service commander and chief you know our constitution very clearly like I can have all the economic
[02:31:03] positions I want and positions on education and positions on health care as president I can't do
[02:31:09] anything of of great impact without working with Congress and that's I mean that that's the it's
[02:31:17] it's the check-in balance that our our founders had in mind for us which is a good thing but there's
[02:31:22] only one commander in chief and it ultimately drove me to resign as vice chair of the DNC
[02:31:32] and and in door Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton because I saw a huge gap and difference
[02:31:43] contrast between the two of them and in Hillary Clinton's very interventionist kind of war
[02:31:51] hawk war-monger track record both the secretary of state and and as a u.a. senator versus Bernie Sanders
[02:32:01] who through his time and service had proven to have more of a non-interventionist leaning
[02:32:07] and be a little bit more critical in questioning of any rush to war and I you know on a whole
[02:32:14] host of other issues I didn't you know Bernie and I agree or disagree on on a number of other
[02:32:19] issues but this was the singular issue that I made my decision on to to resign as vice chair of the
[02:32:25] DNC and endorse Bernie Sanders so that I would have a platform to start to push to be a voice
[02:32:33] to push this question and to challenge the media and to bring to voters here's the differences
[02:32:39] between the two major candidates in this primary you get to decide what kind of commander in chief
[02:32:47] uh you want and so um that was you know I I announced that decision on um Sunday show meet the press
[02:33:00] there in Washington went to the studio um didn't tell him really what I was there to announce it was you
[02:33:06] know I intentionally kept this to myself very very close hold knowing how when sestuous the
[02:33:13] relationships are between politicians and the media and attempts to try to um undermine my ability
[02:33:21] to deliver my message for myself and uh so they're probably like two people in my life who knew
[02:33:31] what I was gonna do uh went live television Sunday morning shared my decision and why
[02:33:38] and then uh you know my phone started ringing off the hook literally I'm in the car rolling away
[02:33:44] from this studio but but the most stark response I got was um and they ranged from like
[02:33:53] tell see that was a brave uh and righteous decision to like you yeah exactly and that's it was
[02:34:01] that was Sunday and then I think it was either Monday or Tuesday we had votes and went back into session
[02:34:04] in congress and and um both Democrats and Republican colleagues of mine were kind of coming up and
[02:34:11] patting me on the back and they're saying that like nice knowing you have a good after life
[02:34:19] and even even some Democrats who who had um like endorsed Obama over Hillary in 2008 early like
[02:34:28] from the beginning and who shared like hey like uh I made that decision and I was on the
[02:34:35] Clint shit list for years before I was able to dig myself out of it and tell see don't you know
[02:34:42] that she's gonna win and you're gonna be on the list and that there is a list and what that means
[02:34:49] in a practical way is you don't get your bill signed into law you don't get funding for the
[02:34:55] things that you need or that your constituents need in your district and that your efforts
[02:35:03] the reason why you're here in the efforts that you are putting forward will be will be blocked
[02:35:08] and so you're rendering yourself ineffective because she will be president and um
[02:35:16] that was that was the Washington response basically you're politically dead
[02:35:21] um you you knew that though right yeah I knew I knew I I was like I I chuckled as people told
[02:35:32] me this I was there was nothing there was nothing that I heard the morning after that did that
[02:35:36] surprise me I knew that there was a kind of feel like a badass when you walked into Congress on Monday
[02:35:43] did you cry I don't I'm not badass or did you feel like a idiot no neither neither I was I was
[02:35:49] um I was amused at like the hushed air for real right yeah for real no joke and like the sideways
[02:35:59] glances like is it okay to go and talk to her now or not and like I don't want to be you know
[02:36:07] like thought to be I don't know part of whatever she's doing like I don't know like there's all these
[02:36:12] different things and how about the fact that now like whoever told you hey now all the things you're
[02:36:18] gonna try to do are gonna get squashed you're not gonna be able to make any progress here that's a
[02:36:22] real thing and so again going back to this strategic decision making if you're trying to take
[02:36:30] here your constituents and you make the worst enemy that you can have in DC that's not good
[02:36:40] well what what I what ended up happening obviously as she did not win the election
[02:36:44] and some of those very same people who remain good friends of mine who were being honest with me then
[02:36:53] saying you're politically finished then came back to me later and said well turns out
[02:37:00] you saw something that nobody else saw at that time so you know
[02:37:06] couldows to you for standing up for your principles and what you believe in and listening to
[02:37:14] both your heart but also recognizing where people in the country are rather than
[02:37:22] listening to the echo chamber within Washington and yeah so so so at that point you got a little
[02:37:32] close back yeah yeah but it's all it's all not I have did the holder really I mean there there
[02:37:39] are there there's a unquestionable that a lot of the the challenges that I that I faced as I was
[02:37:46] running for president can be traced back to that original sin and just how deep you know yeah
[02:37:57] there there there were certainly ramifications but also it was I mean I had the opportunity to
[02:38:04] raise the issues that I ran for Congress to raise and to bring them to the forefront and to get
[02:38:08] conversation starting about you know the issues of war and peace and and when do when is it
[02:38:16] right to send our troops into battle and and what questions should we be asking as leaders in this
[02:38:23] country before we make that decision and recognize like I'm not a pacifist I'm not a piece Nick I
[02:38:31] I care and have dedicated my adult life to that that service to protecting our national
[02:38:37] security the safety of the American people I am just pushing to make sure that we have leaders in
[02:38:43] this country who recognize the seriousness of of of life and death of war and peace and
[02:38:56] when war may be actually necessary and warranted and knowing that our troops have volunteered to go
[02:39:04] knowing that that may mean a sacrificing of their own lives and all of the sacrifices that our loved ones
[02:39:09] and families make and don't think twice about it that's what we sign up for to serve our country
[02:39:17] but also knowing that sometimes the tougher decision to make is to not go to war
[02:39:25] the harder decision may be recognizing that even as there may be a problem that that
[02:39:31] we want to solve in the world that sometimes it requires more strength and courage to recognize
[02:39:40] a it's a problem we can't solve be it trying to do so would not serve our national security
[02:39:50] interests or the or the interests of of the American people and therefore recognizing that the
[02:39:56] right answer may be to do not do anything so so really that's the other part of the strategic move
[02:40:05] is strategically it's going to make you harder and it's going to make your job harder and some
[02:40:09] respects after you execute this move on on Hillary but at the same time it's going to bring
[02:40:15] these important issues to light so strategically it there's an advantage and a disadvantage
[02:40:20] yes and you wait them out and said you know what if I don't bring these subjects to light no one
[02:40:26] is going to do it I could not I could not I was not okay with sitting on the sidelines and watch this
[02:40:36] every presidential election is important there's not a single why every every
[02:40:40] effort election like this is the most important election of our lifetimes every single one is
[02:40:45] important and I could not live with myself if I had chosen to sit on the sidelines and let this
[02:40:55] whole thing play out without doing my very best to insert these most important questions and
[02:41:04] issues and contrasting of records into the dialogue and conversation so that voters would have the
[02:41:11] ability to make the best informed decision possible so then you decide you're going to run
[02:41:19] when is that that's what when do you figure that out when do you figure out when do you
[02:41:25] say to yourself you know what I need to run for president the event that triggered the event
[02:41:40] that ultimately led to my making that decision was the happened in January of 2018 and it was I'm
[02:41:49] sure you remember this echo but it was when on a Saturday morning we got a text alert sent out
[02:41:59] every cell phone in the state civil defense alarms sounding saying missile incoming to Hawaii seek
[02:42:10] immediate shelter this is not a drill and the aftermath of that where immediately we're thinking
[02:42:22] like I've been working the issue related to North Korea for a very long time for obvious reasons
[02:42:29] that North Korea is continuing to develop their nuclear capabilities they're developing their
[02:42:34] intercontinental ballistic missile range capabilities miniaturize nuclear warheads that that not only
[02:42:40] could reach Hawaii but could reach a significant portion of the mainland at that time in 2018 now
[02:42:45] they have continued to develop that and they can reach anywhere in the country but this is the
[02:42:50] scenario that's playing out get this message North Korea is sending you know a nuclear missile
[02:42:58] to us which means we have 15 minutes to live I was in DC when this happened
[02:43:11] all of my loved ones my family everyone is in Hawaii and
[02:43:15] what happened there was absolutely terrifying where you know there there was a video that came
[02:43:27] out after was an iPhone video that this this father took as he lowered his little eight-year-old
[02:43:34] girl by having she was about eight years old down a manhole telling her that this is the only place
[02:43:41] you'll be safe and with the camera saying like if I don't make it you know at least I want you to be
[02:43:49] okay there's countless countless stories of people that I heard from after this event happened about
[02:44:00] about what they went through in you know there was a guy who he had like he had one of his kids
[02:44:06] that was in town another kid that was on the west side of the island and in why and I and he was
[02:44:11] somewhere in the middle and in that moment got that message trying to decide which am I going to
[02:44:18] drive to town or drive to why and I which of my kids am I going to try to get to to spend those
[02:44:24] last minutes of my life with you know mothers going in the bathtub like seek shelter everyone's
[02:44:33] look where do I go friend of mine he's got like a ton of kids I don't know six or seven kids
[02:44:37] he just started driving to the mountains like I just got to go find a cave somewhere and but
[02:44:43] but there was no shelter there's no shelter and so you got this fancy alert system and like okay
[02:44:50] it's blasting out seek immediate shelter there is there is no shelter what what ended up happening
[02:44:55] in those minutes that followed for me as soon as I got that notification on my phone I'm in DC I
[02:45:01] like like it's a holy shit what is happening I need to figure out what's happening and so
[02:45:09] I just started like going through okay I know that I can probably try to reach Indo-Paycom like
[02:45:15] command cell I don't have they don't bring cell phones in the building so that's the problem
[02:45:20] I ended up the first person I called was our state-adjust in general who I knew if something was
[02:45:26] happening he was going to be at that civil defense command and he would obviously know
[02:45:30] and so I called him and I said what's going on he's also my boss in the national guard
[02:45:38] so you know do you will had it there but I called him and I said what's going on and very quickly
[02:45:45] he said it's a false alarm I said I'm gonna put this out publicly you're telling me this is a
[02:45:52] false alarm and he said somebody pushed the wrong button false alarm said there's no missile
[02:45:58] command no missile coming in so I immediately hung up with him typed out a tweet in big block
[02:46:05] letters this is a false alarm I have confirmed with authorities there is no missile incoming
[02:46:12] and that tweet was the first public notification that went out that let people know
[02:46:21] what was going on but you know I just I was on the phone constantly I was calling new stations
[02:46:26] radio stations you know people were calling me and I just literally I was just like false alarm click
[02:46:31] false alarm click just trying to get let people know what was going on and there's a whole other
[02:46:36] you know like incompetence thing like there was no official notification to the public coming from
[02:46:41] the state government until 38 minutes after that initial alert was sent out and that was a
[02:46:47] that was a whole other issue but the thing that led me ultimately to make that decision like to
[02:46:51] start thinking about I need to run for present is because of what everyone went through and
[02:46:56] realizing that you can have this fancy alert system and I'm sure the governor and other people
[02:47:01] are all bunker down somewhere safe but there's no safety or shelter for anyone else and ultimately
[02:47:11] the fact that people the fact that this is a real threat that exists
[02:47:18] and there are others that politicians have created or escalated through political rhetoric
[02:47:32] of heightening tensions with nuclear arm countries, of spurring a nuclear arms race
[02:47:41] and knowing like okay you know that I'm sure there's probably some some mechanism or system in place
[02:47:47] to protect them and their families but what about everybody else in the country people who
[02:47:54] I mean look I mean nuclear war ends in other complete destruction of of the world ultimately
[02:48:01] and having gone through what we went through I wanted to be in a position to do two things
[02:48:10] by running for president I could raise this issue and bring it to the forefront because
[02:48:15] nobody was talking about it maybe there was a day of you know CNN coverage or whatever on what
[02:48:21] happened in Hawaii but then it was it was completely dropped and forgotten there was no like
[02:48:25] hold on a second so wait North Korea has these capabilities they're continually increasing
[02:48:32] this threat is real there is no shelter like if we get attacked then it's kind of it's game over
[02:48:39] what what's being done about this by the leaders and that none of that happened at all
[02:48:43] even in the aftermath of something that was you know terrifying and in such a real way
[02:48:52] and so to be able to address these issues and and the existential threat that we face that comes from
[02:49:00] that continued advancement towards the the brink of nuclear war that that that we're on
[02:49:06] and if elected to be in a position as commander and chief to begin to walk us back away from that
[02:49:14] brink and to actually do something about it to deescalate these tensions to actually work through
[02:49:19] the kinds of negotiations and treaties that previous presidents like you know Ray Yan and JFK did
[02:49:25] when they recognized the seriousness of what happens when you when you are in a cold war and when you
[02:49:32] have nuclear armed countries who either intentionally or accidentally can spark a nuclear war that
[02:49:39] would would result in the end of of humanity on this planet and that was that was the driver
[02:49:48] for me to make that decision to run and unfortunately I very quickly found out that
[02:49:58] neither the media nor the politicians were interested in talking about it or anything that really
[02:50:08] mattered that it was it was about who's saying bad things about who which candidate is you know
[02:50:22] who looks cool who's likeable who's all of these superficial things but whether it was on the debate
[02:50:29] stage when I raise these issues or in interviews with reporters one on one or I mean I talked about
[02:50:39] I talked obviously talked about these issues every day multiple times a day town hall meetings
[02:50:45] that reporters covered or were present for at least with the intent to cover what happened there was
[02:50:52] no interest in in talking about this specific issue about the existential threat of nuclear war
[02:51:00] and what how we got here and where we need to go to prevent it what to speak of of other issues and
[02:51:07] and that was that was the most frustrating those most frustrating thing about about running for
[02:51:13] president was the realization that even as a candidate for president of the United States
[02:51:19] the ability to bring such an issue as serious as this to the American people was so easily
[02:51:27] squashed by the corporate entertainment media and the politicians who benefit from them
[02:51:36] corporate entertainment media that's a good name for the news it's more accurate than news
[02:51:46] so you said you realized very quickly that that no one wanted to hear about this stuff like
[02:51:53] when you say very quickly how long did it take before you looked around and said wait a second
[02:51:58] because I remember hearing about you I mean maybe it was on rogan um I I forget but I remember thinking
[02:52:06] oh you know that's cool and it seemed to me wow what I said wow what a what a viable candidate that's
[02:52:12] interesting and I remember seeing some polling and you were at like 2% and I said oh that's kind of
[02:52:19] weird that's not a very big number at all I was kind of surprised and then maybe that was early on
[02:52:25] but at some point you know you were on rogan again or I saw you in a debate or something and I
[02:52:30] remember thinking oh I'm gonna check that out again she got to be at 30 or 40% now because the
[02:52:36] people that I know are kind of talking about her and I'd look and you'd be at 2% and I was kind
[02:52:42] it was very strange to me that you couldn't get you you weren't getting any traction was that weird to you
[02:52:50] because I mean you did the whole Hawaii thing where you were at 2% and then you went to 20 and then
[02:52:54] you went by 22 and here you are at 2% you like I know factor I got this been here done that
[02:53:02] at what point did you say oh damn this is a little harder than I thought it was going to be
[02:53:08] and was at the same realization as the media doesn't the media and the news and the entertainment
[02:53:14] networks don't care about this stuff the way I do there there were different signs of that
[02:53:25] the first of which started on the very day that I announced officially announced my
[02:53:30] candidacy as in build the event go up on the stage deliver the speech announcing my candidacy and why
[02:53:40] and I talked about them very thing that we talked about as as where did you drive it in Hawaii
[02:53:47] what was it what where outside yeah it was it was outside at in in Wikiki and
[02:53:58] you know there were local and national media cameras there to cover it and you know a bunch of
[02:54:05] supporters and then people came out while I was giving the speech and B.C. News put out an article
[02:54:15] basically making the accusation that I am somehow a favorite of the Russians or being helped by the
[02:54:23] Russians they're talking they're saying nice things I you know it was the article was so vague
[02:54:32] and baseless and lacking in any kind of evidence to back up the claim that they were making that
[02:54:38] it was just it was just so out there and and I knew that they were doing an article because they
[02:54:43] had called and asked for a comment like a few days prior and had said you know without knowing the
[02:54:48] extent of like the the completeness of the article but they said hey you know what I what do you think
[02:54:53] about this and and and they had said okay yeah we're going to publish the article probably
[02:54:58] sometime next week maybe one day or Thursday and I think I think that my announcement was on a
[02:55:04] Saturday whatever day it was they changed their schedule for when they were going to publish the
[02:55:11] article so that it came out on the day that they knew I'd be announcing my candidacy and there's
[02:55:18] thing is like the Russians like Tulsi that's the that's the general and you know like Russian bots
[02:55:25] are like you know Russians state sponsored media or the thing was is you know I think they they
[02:55:32] said oh you know there are a lot of articles that are proving that the Russians like her something
[02:55:38] like that but when you actually go and and look at look at the articles they're citing it's it's
[02:55:46] not accurate first of all and second of all it lacks the context of like hey
[02:55:51] um they're actually just reporting that she's announced that she's running for president
[02:55:58] or uh lacks the context of well when Hillary and Obama ran against each other in 2008
[02:56:06] the Russian media reported much more favorably for Obama than Hillary and so they they chose a narrative
[02:56:13] and chose to launch it on day one of my candidacy that Tulsi would be the the the the Russian
[02:56:21] asset or the favorite of the Russians and planted that seat on day one um you know cited oh you know
[02:56:28] she's gotten donations from for campaign from people who favor Russia and you know one happened
[02:56:36] to be like a Ivy League professor and specializes in foreign policy and is talked about nuclear war
[02:56:43] for decades and you know one was a woman who was trying to promote you know diplomacy and actually
[02:56:50] building relationships between like at a grassroots level between American educators and Russian
[02:56:56] educators or business owners or whatever I mean the the it was just a it was preposterous and very
[02:57:04] transparent a transparent signal and move on day one so that yes one that it start that's when it
[02:57:10] started and then of course it it it continued to progress and escalate and I started to see
[02:57:15] both on the debate stage as the debate started to begin as well as um you know you know you
[02:57:23] nice talked earlier when you know you know you know when you're going into doing an interview like a
[02:57:26] media hit it's probably gonna be four to five minutes long and you know you go in there knowing
[02:57:33] what you want to talk about regardless of the question that they ask you because you know you got like
[02:57:37] you know two senses exactly and so this this was why I was running for president so I took
[02:57:45] every opportunity to raise it on every platform possible and there were no follow-ups there was
[02:57:51] let there was no like oh hey like let's dig deeper into this issue which is clearly very serious no none
[02:57:57] of that it was like well you know what do you think about this candidate what do you think about Trump
[02:58:02] or what do you think about this like superficial drama um and a conscious choice away from actually
[02:58:11] talking about what mattered most and ended you know Hillary Clinton weighed in on the thing when when she
[02:58:19] said that I forget the exact words but basically the Russians have chosen their candidate
[02:58:26] and without saying my name said it was me and that was then covered by the media
[02:58:31] insessantly which is like crazy it is it is and it was a signaling in of itself like why would
[02:58:41] why would the former secretary of state former presidential candidate former US senator former
[02:58:45] first lady go out of her way to place the target on me and why can't the Russian bots do better than
[02:58:55] 2% in the polls are the Russian bots are so freaking powerful why can't they run up your numbers
[02:59:01] a little bit for yeah not not not so much but it it eventually got to the point where
[02:59:11] not like the coverage that I got in that a largely being negative attempts to smear my
[02:59:16] candidacy or question my patriotism and my loyalty so out of the gate I mean is this is this a
[02:59:25] grand conspiracy where they're like oh yeah Tulsi she went against Hillary in 2016 get ready
[02:59:31] we're putting her down and what I certainly appeared that and on top of that hey Tulsi she's we can't
[02:59:37] control her this isn't going to work we don't want someone that we can't control put her down
[02:59:41] it's certainly appeared that way because that was if you look at the outcome it was the outcome
[02:59:56] that that I think they were looking for and again it started from the beginning it ended up with a
[03:00:03] total total media blackout by the end of it polling standards changed to make it so that
[03:00:13] it's like okay here they say hey you got a poll at a certain level in order to qualify for the debate
[03:00:17] and then qualify for the next debate and you know the polling standards often shifted based on
[03:00:22] where you were right like that's that's a little convenient to change it right when I start
[03:00:27] inching up in the polls a little bit more but it also just points to like the the catch 22 that exists
[03:00:34] where in America we'd like to believe that anybody can run for president anybody can run for
[03:00:40] office and that it's up to the candidate to go and make your case to voters and voters actually
[03:00:45] get to decide well in these presidential races so early on you can have very well known
[03:00:53] candidates that everybody in the country's heard of and you can have lesser known candidates that most
[03:00:58] people have like no knowledge of whatsoever well they start running these polls so early on
[03:01:05] that show lesser known candidate like myself at 1% or 2% whereas the better known candidates are
[03:01:13] pulling much higher and then make the determination well Tulsi Gabbard's not a viable candidate
[03:01:17] because he's only pulling it 2% so we're not going to really cover her very much because we don't
[03:01:22] deem her as a viable candidate and by we I mean the media and the political party and so as a
[03:01:30] lesser known candidate then you're not covered as much as the better known candidate so you don't
[03:01:33] have the opportunity to get better known and so it's this you know you're in the prophecy
[03:01:40] yeah of we know who dispersion is so we're going to keep covering it and it allows them to
[03:01:45] it allows them to decide who who they want voters to be exposed to and who they don't believe
[03:01:55] deserves that kind of opportunity to be in front of voters and so it's kind of a pre-selection
[03:02:03] a pre-primary selection before before any vote is cast you have these very powerful people
[03:02:10] within the party and within the media who who make those decisions about who gets to be heard and
[03:02:19] and who doesn't and that that was what we experienced and and it was it was such an incredible
[03:02:26] this was the thing I underestimated the most that I thought hey I can run for president and I can
[03:02:31] bring these ideas forward and yeah I'm at a disadvantage because I'm not as well known as some
[03:02:35] of these other guys but as long as I have the platform to be able to reach people all I got to
[03:02:41] do is like I all I got to do is do my best and trust that voters will make will make the decision
[03:02:46] I underestimated how very quickly and in a sustained way the media the decisions were made to
[03:02:55] to not even allow that platform to exist which left me in a pretty like a pretty helpless place you
[03:03:02] know I was yeah I can live stream my town hall and social media and I did I can reach it maybe a
[03:03:06] few more thousand people in addition to the thousand who were sitting in the room but when you look
[03:03:11] at the numbers in the country it you know when when they choose to not cover you and not allow you
[03:03:18] that platform then you know it's it's you're not only not only was I not able to to raise the issues
[03:03:27] and address the issues that that are not just important to me but important to our country but also
[03:03:35] the the smear attempts and the negative coverage left me in a very helpless and vulnerable position
[03:03:43] where I couldn't fight back I did not have you know did not have the means even if I were a
[03:03:52] billionaire which I'm not and I had a very very very skinny budget our our campaign was pretty
[03:04:01] much fueled by volunteers and I love them so much people who really believed and and set aside
[03:04:06] school or jobs or life and when worked their hearts out to help me get my message out
[03:04:13] but even if I were a well-funded candidate or a self-funded candidate and a billionaire that I
[03:04:18] could go out and purchase ads and I could go out and create by my own platform essentially
[03:04:23] if the media makes a decision to either not cover you or or to smear you and undermine
[03:04:31] therefore undermine whatever it is you're saying and doing it's it's it's um it's difficult
[03:04:40] if not impossible to beat and and I think this is so important to talk about because it is a
[03:04:47] charade of the democracy that we you believe exist in this country and it's certainly a
[03:04:54] charade of the democracy that our founders set out for us in this incredible
[03:05:01] imbalance of power and influence that's in the hands of a very few
[03:05:04] who don't have the best interests of the country at heart
[03:05:17] so we also got that going for us yeah and just to illustrate that I mean the the
[03:05:21] guy who is the CEO of CBS this is I think probably the most stark and direct example
[03:05:26] uh less moon vs his name and he this was this was um yeah I mean this this was in
[03:05:36] 20 this was in 2016 that he said something along the lines of Trump may be bad for the country
[03:05:45] but he's good for business the money is rolling in keep it up Donald Trump keep it up
[03:05:51] and his very direct statement illustrates everything that's wrong because it shows that this
[03:06:02] corporate entertainment media it's about the money it's about the profits it's about the rating
[03:06:08] with no regard whatsoever for what the consequence is for the country and for voters and for
[03:06:18] our future and that is something very serious that we as people in this country need to
[03:06:31] understand be aware of so that we can start to bring about kind of the cultural and societal shifts
[03:06:40] that will ultimately result in in change and in making it so that you know these few
[03:06:49] powerful people don't get to you serve our democracy and our voice is being the voice is that
[03:06:59] matter most in determining who we want to serve as leaders in our country
[03:07:04] so with that you see Donald Trump getting the you know getting the nod from the Republicans
[03:07:13] which many many many Republicans did not want yeah him to be the candidate at all
[03:07:20] never trumpers and and so that was a real thing they there was a lot of people that a lot of
[03:07:26] Republicans that did not want and he was Republican party was not into him for much of the primary
[03:07:31] exactly like he was totally and actually somebody when when we were on uh Rogan's together
[03:07:37] and I said something like wow you got really hammered more than enough seen anyone and someone
[03:07:41] in the youtube comments said hey idiot what about Donald Trump I was like that's a good point
[03:07:46] they hated him apparently as much as they hated you in the democratic party how is it that he was
[03:07:53] able to pull it off does it does it is the Republican party less controlling than the democratic party?
[03:08:02] I don't know the answer to that specific question but how is he able to pull it off
[03:08:09] he was very famous and he had influence they couldn't black him out they couldn't
[03:08:17] ignore him and they were making a shit ton of money off of him because with Donald Trump brought
[03:08:23] eyeballs to their screens whether it was uh Fox News who was initially I think maybe cynical
[03:08:32] or even critical of him and then shifted to like full bore pro trump or if it was CNN and MSNBC
[03:08:39] who are I think initially kind of like how was this even happening to full bore anti-Trump
[03:08:48] regardless in all of these scenarios and from the democratic parties perspective and the
[03:08:54] Republican party's perspective with Trump came money. Democrats get to be the anti-Trump party
[03:09:02] and motivate a lot of people to give money to beat Trump or people who supported Trump and
[03:09:09] members of Congress or whatever and Republicans got to raise a lot of money off of hey look
[03:09:15] they're trying to attack us and they're trying to undermine what's going on and we need your money
[03:09:20] and we need your help to be able to you know defend the party and defend the work or whatever it is
[03:09:25] so that how I think that that's what ultimately ended up and it gave Trump a lot of exposure
[03:09:38] and yeah some some of it or maybe a lot of it was was was was was negative but you look at how
[03:09:45] much the public hates politicians and how much they distrust and hate the media you know you
[03:09:51] can kind of see how generally people who are frustrated and dissatisfied with the powerful
[03:10:00] inmate whether they be in politics or the media would look at it and I friends like this like
[03:10:05] they didn't really agree with anything that Trump was saying they're like finally somebody is
[03:10:09] giving the middle finger to the media and telling him to you know shut up or whatever it was
[03:10:14] Trump had influence and he was very well known and could not be ignored. So at some point
[03:10:29] the somebody come in to somebody come from the outside that's not as brash and not as offensive as
[03:10:35] Trump and would that not be pretty would that not be easier or was it because he's so brash
[03:10:46] and because he's so freaking quotable right good or bad you know he's just going to run they're
[03:10:52] going to put they're going to put his quotes up all day long if somebody comes along that's from the
[03:10:56] outside but that is actually less brash and more calm and more rational do they say okay
[03:11:03] it seems like that would be the the perfect candidate right now someone from the outside that
[03:11:08] can actually roll in and say look this system is totally screwed up we're going to like the the idea
[03:11:15] of draining the swamp was a great quote that's got so many legs or so much legs and you know of
[03:11:22] course it didn't really happen when you look this administration it was like oh yeah more people
[03:11:27] from the swamp or love yeah exactly but but when when someone does this in a more from a better
[03:11:35] from a better like from a better position it seems like it's well this is what I'm getting at
[03:11:41] because I was going to ask you well at some point is a reach a tipping point it seems like the
[03:11:44] tipping point there it's just that someone needs to step in and say okay we are going to actually
[03:11:49] drain out this swamp we're going to actually get rid of this there's lobbies are going to get you
[03:11:53] know controls put on them we're going to do things that we're going to move this in the right
[03:11:58] direction it seems like as you said Americans a lot of Americans are looking at the political
[03:12:03] system going you got to be kidding me and look you tell me stories earlier today before we hit
[03:12:07] record it's got it's sickening it's sickening and so as that word gets out it seems like America's
[03:12:14] ready to go you know what we're done with this shit over here and and Trump was like the first guy
[03:12:20] that said hey I'll help you out and so everyone it cool sounds good you go raise hell basically
[03:12:26] if someone that says yep we're going to fix it we're going to change it I'm for change I'm going to
[03:12:31] make things it seems like we are right for that I was going to ask you will we reach a tipping point
[03:12:37] it seems like we're already there Trump was the guy that got elected based on saying hey we're
[03:12:42] going to drain the swamp people voted for him to go and do that like you said people that you
[03:12:48] knew that didn't agree with any of his politics but he was changed he was different he was going to
[03:12:52] throw it in the face of the system that's where you're ready for and it just so happens at the guy
[03:12:57] that threw it in the face of the system also threw it in the face of everybody that was around him
[03:13:01] I mean just like a grenade going off it's just people are getting hit and there's no direction to it
[03:13:07] so it seems like we're actually ready for that what's it going to take to actually get someone there
[03:13:15] that's going to run that's going to that's that the truth will come out doing the right things
[03:13:19] so the right reasons is going to win in the end someone who has the resources and ammunition
[03:13:30] capable of going to battle with the existing political infrastructure and the corporate entertainment
[03:13:36] media that that's that's the matchup because I agree you know there are there are more people who
[03:13:46] identify as independence in the country today then there are who people who identify as either
[03:13:52] Democrats or Republicans really yes factually factually I go Charles we're going to use that word yes
[03:13:59] thanks that's factually true we can look up we I mean I mean I've seen a variety and this has been
[03:14:06] trending in this direction for quite some time this is not a new phenomenon but the numbers are consistently
[03:14:11] trending towards and and maybe some some of it's generational that that you know the millennial generation
[03:14:18] did not come up identifying like my daddy was a Democrat my granddaddy was a Democrat I got to be a
[03:14:22] Democrat I think there's there's less far less of that in the millennial in post millennial generation
[03:14:30] so I think that's part of it people are looking more at issues than party I think part of it is
[03:14:34] people recognizing and being disillusioned with with both political parties as not looking out for
[03:14:41] their best interest and it's more about the party than the people so I think there's a number of
[03:14:45] of reasons for this but it is a fact that it's over 40% of the country identify themselves as
[03:14:52] independent and therefore lesser numbers who identify as well as one party or another so are the
[03:14:56] people ready for a strong leader who will come in and speak to what's in the best interest of
[03:15:03] the country rather than what's in the best interest of one party or another I would say yes without
[03:15:09] it out so then the next question is how what is necessary to execute on that what is necessary is
[03:15:20] is first of all recognizing you know where's the opposition coming from the opposition will come from
[03:15:27] the people who are benefiting off the status quo and that is the existing two party system
[03:15:32] and the the the the the entertainment media that that is in bed with them and it's not impossible
[03:15:44] it's not insurmountable but it's a pretty serious obstacle and you got to be ready to go to battle
[03:15:50] with some of the most powerful people and so it would take a lot it would take a lot
[03:15:59] and the third party thing is what do you think is that is that dead on arrival not dead on arrival
[03:16:08] not impossible very difficult because I think it was it was back and I forget I think it was the
[03:16:15] first time that Ross Perot ran for president was also in Bill Clinton was running for president
[03:16:22] and I think George H.W. if I'm not mistaken yeah I figure right at a certain point well early on
[03:16:29] though early on at a certain point Ross Perot was pulling higher than Bill Clinton and I
[03:16:35] I believe George Bush as well and that like their like what is going like how is this possible
[03:16:44] and had he continued his campaign at a certain point Ross Perot dropped out of the race
[03:16:50] and then jumped back in a little bit later and he took a big hit for that I don't know
[03:16:55] people probably like want like do not know what you want or like what what are you doing buddy
[03:17:01] but there are political pundits who say that if he had continued on he you know who knows
[03:17:09] he may have become president or he may have posed a more serious threat in the end than he did
[03:17:14] ultimately his numbers took a dive after he re-enter the race and he ended up kind of just being
[03:17:19] the perennial third party guy who stole votes right but it was after that election year that
[03:17:27] the rules started to change in making it with with agreement from both the Democrat
[03:17:34] Republican Party that made it much more difficult for a third party candidate to get ballot access
[03:17:42] just to get their names on the ballot to be included in debates just the basic infrastructure of
[03:17:54] a candidacy changed to the point where and it still it still exists today that
[03:18:00] the the bar is much higher for a third party candidate to to be heard and to be on the ballot
[03:18:07] than it is for candidates who run under one party or or another so that that that just again
[03:18:15] not impossible but from a practical perspective as well as from an exposure perspective
[03:18:24] it's a much much much heavier lift that again requires a certain strategy and a hell of a lot
[03:18:32] of resources to be able to accomplish that so how long how long were you in the race for total
[03:18:42] I think I announced in February of 2019 and I withdrew from the race
[03:18:50] I think in March February or March of I think it was March of 2020 it was it was after COVID
[03:19:03] had kind of already started I was back in Hawaii COVID had started to take a pretty firm hold
[03:19:09] maybe it was even later than that and I just it got to the point where like run locked out at home
[03:19:15] in Hawaii Congress had shut down and I knew that the most effective use of my time
[03:19:24] like the outcome of the primary seemed somewhat inevitable at that point and
[03:19:29] the most effective use of my time would be to focus on how I could best help with the response
[03:19:34] on of COVID and Hawaii and you know I was calling trying to get like and 95 masks and just trying
[03:19:40] to help with that local response in Hawaii so you what it's called dropping out of the races
[03:19:46] what it's called there's some official word for yeah no with Drew my Canada's I grew with
[03:19:51] Canada so you withdrew suspending that's the word they use suspending your Canada's you
[03:19:57] and did you feel like what the hell just happened did you feel like wasted time did you feel like
[03:20:06] man because again I remember looking at you in the polls and you know you might have gotten to
[03:20:12] 3% or 4% I could I was really surprised I was really surprised you know that you just didn't
[03:20:20] get the kind of traction again as as Joe said you're like such a kind of ideal candidate from
[03:20:28] like a box checking your a veteran your a woman you've been you've got experience you got
[03:20:35] combat deployments you're whatever not a white person you got these things that people are looking
[03:20:43] for hoppa yeah you're hopper so you got those things and it just seemed like okay
[03:20:51] it'll be interesting to watch this she's gonna climb right up this thing and you never really made
[03:20:55] that progress does that surprise you I mean in hindsight no because you because you see
[03:21:05] that you had that at that moment like going through it it surprised me that I didn't even
[03:21:13] have the opportunity to earn it to earn the support to get that exposure however you tell me at
[03:21:20] some point you were like the number one most googled name after the first debate after the second
[03:21:24] debate what you you didn't make the third debate for whatever reason yeah I don't remember which you
[03:21:29] know I I think there was there was yeah there was a gap at some point where I didn't make one
[03:21:34] but then I made the the next I don't remember exactly what but in those first in those first debates
[03:21:40] I was the most searched candidate of the night after each of those debates which was the whole point
[03:21:47] you know hey I can go on this stage the national stage and the first debate I think had over
[03:21:51] 20 million viewers and this is the opportunity to introduce myself to the American people
[03:21:59] and the hopes that they might say hmm she looks interesting I want to know more I want to learn
[03:22:03] more and that being starting to kind of crack open the door to be able to make an impact there
[03:22:11] I think one of the other in addition to all the things that we talked about about how
[03:22:17] that opportunity really ultimately did not exist and it started with that first debate
[03:22:23] you know in advance we had set up our our Google ads account so that when people went on
[03:22:30] Google and said hey who is Tulsi Gabbard then you know our links would pop up and they would
[03:22:35] then go to my website and they could look at click issue x-yersy what do you care about biobaccount
[03:22:40] et cetera um that was the hope that that would be I would be the most Google candidate and that
[03:22:47] we therefore ready for it um Google shut down our Google ads account with no reason whatsoever
[03:22:55] at all given during the first debate it was not actually during the debate it was afterward
[03:23:02] but it was during that it was during that window of time that was the golden opportunity
[03:23:09] to capture and it was a limited window and they they just like your your count is suspended no
[03:23:18] explanation no here's what you got to do to fix it or get it you know whatever released and uh and
[03:23:25] to this day we've never gotten you know it was suspended for a certain period of time and then
[03:23:30] it was reinstated and it was not for lack of us trying to reach anybody who would answer us and tell
[03:23:36] us why and what we could do to fix it immediately so you know I mean there's I found a loss
[03:23:43] to get in this Google for that um because of because of the the impact obviously that it had on
[03:23:50] me but also but really the bigger issue that I I wanted to raise by filing this lawsuit was
[03:23:55] you've got this massive big tech company who has the power to um interfere in the public
[03:24:06] square of our democracy and you know who knows still to this day like was it some guy sitting at a
[03:24:13] computer was like man fuck tells you gathered I'm gonna punch this button and show her what's
[03:24:17] up or like who knows I don't know what happened but it happened and if it can happen to a sitting
[03:24:25] member of Congress who's running for the highest office in the land it could happen to anybody
[03:24:31] running for office anybody who's speaking out anybody being critical of whether it's big tech or
[03:24:37] government policy like whatever the motive um this is the power that they have in their hands that's
[03:24:43] incredibly dangerous in undermining the the kind of core pillars of our democracy of a having a
[03:24:52] marketplace of free ideas and voters who can you know get the information they need and ultimately
[03:24:59] make the decision that they want to make are they allowed to are they allowed to mess with like
[03:25:08] Google ad words from a political perspective so I know the words if I was running against you
[03:25:13] and I bought the ad word Tulsi Gabbard and brought it to a freaking Russian newspaper article about how
[03:25:21] they're your favorite so when I Google Tulsi Gabbard I click on the first article that comes
[03:25:25] up it shows me that you're a Russian plant can I do that in the political realm because look they do it
[03:25:31] with like I you know I I have a bunch of companies and sell a bunch of stuff and you type in
[03:25:37] jocco you know the other companies pay for that word for jocco protein and it brings to their site
[03:25:45] so if I was a billionaire and you were running against me I could be like oh cool I'll just buy
[03:25:50] Tulsi Gabbard who is Tulsi Gabbard what is Tulsi Gabbard where is Tulsi Gabbard come from and I'll
[03:25:54] just buy all those things and send them all to Tulsi Gabbard from Russia what ever else I'm going to
[03:25:58] do is that legal in the political I know it's legal in the in the free market because they do it all the time
[03:26:04] is it legal in the political side too far as I know I am not I have not come across any kind of
[03:26:12] like legislation against ad words in Google there are there are no laws or rules in place
[03:26:21] from a government perspective that that limit what these big tech monopolies can do with their
[03:26:30] algorithms and that's part of the whole issue here when we talk about big tech the monopolies the
[03:26:40] power that they have to either promote or push forward certain voices or people or ideas and
[03:26:48] silence others and they can do so while being completely legally immune from any kind of
[03:26:58] accountability through our legal system because they're private companies well because
[03:27:02] yet because they're private companies but this section to 30 provision that exists within the law
[03:27:08] that was was put in place to encourage innovation on the internet early you know decades ago when they
[03:27:19] pass that law it that gave them this legal immunity it said that they can they can remove content that
[03:27:29] they deem to be objectionable without any definition of what that is first of all whatever they want it to
[03:27:37] be whatever they want it to be and then it says whether or not it is protected by the constitution
[03:27:46] dang how I don't know who wrote that part of it probably the same to bastard that clicked
[03:27:56] delete under freaking account for six hours but to have something in there that says you internet you
[03:28:03] know service provider company you can decide what speech you deem or content objectionable or not
[03:28:12] whether or not it is protected by our constitution this is the problem that needs to be fixed within
[03:28:19] our laws today as it relates to big tech and it's a relatively there's a lot of I even I've looked
[03:28:25] at this a lot while I was in Congress and then after for obvious reasons and you know there's a lot
[03:28:30] of different proposals in different ways to kind of bite this apple but the most simple and direct way
[03:28:36] would be to take out that objectionable content just take those words out and instead you know
[03:28:48] you can say unless it is you know you you can remove content unless it is protected under the
[03:28:55] first amendment and there's legal precedence in place through various Supreme Court rulings
[03:29:01] that provide very clear kind of guardrails towards what kind of speeches protected versus what is
[03:29:09] not and that way if if we make this legislative change it would alleviate the kind of pressure that
[03:29:16] these big tech companies are under right now coming from the left and the right because then they
[03:29:22] can just say look these are the guardrails this is speech that's protected and it's going to remain
[03:29:28] on the internet and speech that's not protected then it's up to us to make that decision to to
[03:29:35] to remove it that that's that's the that that's the that's the best answer that I have come across
[03:29:40] on how to address this rather than allowing this you know I mean now we have like okay
[03:29:47] well we're going to cancel anything that's disinformation we're going to cancel anything that's
[03:29:50] misinformation we're going to you know cancel anything that we don't like or you know I mean it's
[03:29:57] it's getting worse and worse and unfortunately the direction that I'm seeing from Democrats in Congress
[03:30:03] is not towards how do we protect free speech but instead it's we need big tech to do more
[03:30:11] to shut people up who are saying things that we deem to be misinformation or disinformation or
[03:30:21] that could mislead people into believing a certain thing or seeing a certain view and it's it is
[03:30:32] you know the fact that this is happening and people don't see the danger of okay you're in power
[03:30:38] today you got Kevin McCarthy who's the head of the Republicans in the house saying I bet my house
[03:30:46] on the fact that Republicans will regain the majority in 2022 what are you going to do in the
[03:30:51] tables turn and then you've got the other guys in power saying yeah you know what we don't want
[03:30:56] Democrats to be misleading people on the internet so we're going to tweak the language a little bit
[03:31:02] and make sure that big tech silences those voices and pushes like it's it's so simple and clear
[03:31:11] how dangerous of position that we are in and that when you when you threaten the first amendment
[03:31:18] like freedom of speech a free press like freedom of religion once you undermine that what do we have
[03:31:26] in America we don't we don't have we don't have the country we don't have our country
[03:31:35] yeah we did the we did a podcast and we recorded it before Christmas but we did it on 1984
[03:31:42] I listened to that yeah and it was really weird because we just you know it's just something
[03:31:45] that I was like all the same things that are going on and I and I you know read that book many
[03:31:50] many years ago and I remembered this one part of this about the language and the importance of
[03:31:55] language and they did therefore the importance of free speech and we recorded it and then like it was
[03:31:59] Christmas time and that that podcast came out January 6th and it was kind of crazy that it came out
[03:32:08] on that just we had recorded it a month prior and you had scheduled it for that it was just that's
[03:32:12] when it's coming out so it came out January 6 then 1984 was trending and then then the tag the hashtag
[03:32:21] 1984 some some hashtag 1984 actually got shut down on Twitter it was it wasn't because of that podcast
[03:32:30] but it was just very coincidental that all that was happening at the same time but
[03:32:36] the point of doing that podcast and this is exactly aligned with what you're saying you have to
[03:32:41] allow people to communicate with each other and you know saying if you if you say something
[03:32:47] to me that's misleading I can't just it's what I started off with I just don't say shut up you're
[03:32:52] not allowed to talk I say okay well actually told me let me show you some other information
[03:32:55] that might change your mind a little bit because by the way when I just tell you to shut up
[03:33:00] I don't move your opinion at all in fact there's a really good chance that I'm just going to make
[03:33:06] you you don't stop on that and that's what's happening in the country and now which is freaking
[03:33:11] nasty and and and and actually that again interestingly as all this was happening we had had
[03:33:18] I talked to echo I was like listen man I don't know what's going to happen in the world and I don't
[03:33:24] know what's going to happen look we don't we're not on here making any inflammatory statements
[03:33:29] we're usually talking about history I said and that's cool will what that's what we're going to do
[03:33:34] but at some point people are starting to change history and I said I don't know what's going to
[03:33:37] even happen with the platforms that were on yeah like these platforms could change the way they
[03:33:42] do business and we started our own platform just to make sure we have someplace to
[03:33:48] someplace to go in the event that things take a turn for the worse and there's a bunch of other
[03:33:53] things that could happen I mean you could have some of these free platform say we're going to
[03:33:57] start charging money and start inserting ads into the middle of you know here's Jaco talking about a
[03:34:02] battle in World War II and it's heavy and crazy and emotional and some someone's going to
[03:34:09] start an ad in there like I don't want that I don't want people to have to put up with that
[03:34:15] so I don't know or do we just get someone to say look hey Jaco you talked about this part of
[03:34:21] history which you know we don't really like we think it's misinformation and pull it down
[03:34:26] that's that's a reality that could happen yeah so we have to be what did that's why we made
[03:34:33] that we made the the Jaco underground just because of that so that's the platform that you guys
[03:34:39] create it's the platform that Jaco underground calm and it's just a backup and look
[03:34:43] somebody like oh you want money I was like no we don't want your money yeah that's not what it's about
[03:34:48] but to not have a contingency plan is ignorant and so and again all that what's
[03:34:56] funny about all this is I had talked to echo about it he's kind of he said hey can you build
[03:34:59] something figure this out and he's you know working and figuring it out and eventually goes yeah
[03:35:03] you know I got it and this was before the end of 2020 this is before the end of 2020 it was a
[03:35:08] let's have a contingency plan in case something happens right and then I said you know what
[03:35:14] this is getting squirrely it's getting squirrely let's launch the contingency plan you know next month
[03:35:20] just to just to get it out there so people know what it is in case something happens and sure enough
[03:35:25] January 6 it was like boom we had it it was so coincidental but it was very it was like and I
[03:35:32] remember texting echo like well I guess this is why we had a contingency plan and then thank God
[03:35:37] it launched today because who knows where it's going to be in six months I don't know I don't know
[03:35:44] it's crazy I remember listening to that night so I don't I have not listened like I have friends
[03:35:52] of mine who have listened to your podcast from number one and then those people in my friends too
[03:35:58] yeah but like in in sequence like chronologically and like a buddy of mine got to the the
[03:36:07] I think it was episode 99 is Musashi 100 100 well he couldn't get past 99 because he didn't
[03:36:13] finish reading the book and I'm like hey Jocco just did this new show on's and I can't do it
[03:36:18] because I can't listen to 100 until I read the book so yeah I'm not one of those people
[03:36:26] I'll jump around I'll jump around like okay what am I in the mood like what am I in the mood for
[03:36:34] wait am I in the mood for dark depressive war am I in the mood for human atrocity where am I
[03:36:40] and I'll tell you a funny story about that in a second but I went straight for that 1984 and I don't
[03:36:48] remember what actual day it was not January 6 but it was in the days after and I I wondered then
[03:36:56] it when you had recorded that because it was literally addressing everything that we were seeing
[03:37:03] play out right right before us as far as the warning signs and the dangers of this is where
[03:37:09] this is where you end up once you allow for this kind of control and once we as people accept it
[03:37:23] but little sidetrack funny story and I'll show you the video after because we'll take me
[03:37:30] a minute to dig it up but it won't surprise you to know that on the presidential campaign trail
[03:37:35] sleep was hard to come by for me and for two reasons one was just a factor of time in the day but
[03:37:42] also it was tough for me to um tough for me to turn turn everything off and actually just get like
[03:37:52] I'm not even talking about hours I'm just talking about just some a good slice of good quality
[03:37:56] rest in sleep um we were in New Hampshire in the middle of winter and there was a rare opportunity
[03:38:05] where I got to take a nap and we'd like rented a like an Airbnb or something like that and um
[03:38:11] so I took a nap and my husband took a video of me taking a nap because he walked in the room
[03:38:19] and I'm lying there and I'm asleep and I'm all bundled up under the covers and I got my phone
[03:38:24] sitting on my um on the top of the covers and I was listening to jaccopodcast with a guy from the
[03:38:33] French foreign legion and I'll show you the video because I am dead asleep and uh my husband came
[03:38:43] and he has the camera going picks up my phone looks at and the reason I remember this is because
[03:38:49] this was on February 11th, February 11th, 2020 and it just so happened that it popped up on my phone
[03:38:57] on February 11th of this year as like the memory thing or whatever and I was debating sending it to you
[03:39:03] and I told my husband I was like we didn't get the wrong idea and think I'm like boarded at
[03:39:09] the spotcast and he's like no what it showed was like I was able to completely tune out the noise of
[03:39:17] of what was going on in my mind of the day to day and and be able to kind of be transported to a
[03:39:23] different conversation and topic and and all this other stuff but it was a great podcast that I
[03:39:29] did end up finishing but you gave me the gift of some really good sleep as well. The soothing
[03:39:36] place of jaccopod talking about war can send anyone to sleep. I don't know what that says about me
[03:39:42] you're a little too serious. Anyhow. I remember when you dropped out of the race and you
[03:39:55] endorsed Biden and I remember thinking because again I didn't know a lot of these things that
[03:40:00] you're telling me right now I knew them kind of but I still I still had some sort of naive sense in my
[03:40:06] heart that it can't be that bad and I I texted you and I said like hey are you gonna get the VP
[03:40:11] nodded because I was kind of surprised you endorsed Biden I was like well you know what oh I said oh I
[03:40:16] know what's happening she's playing the game she's gonna endorse Biden Biden's gonna get her as
[03:40:20] the VP it's on and you were like you like you like however you laugh and text you were like hey
[03:40:27] bro you're a little bit uh you're a little bit lost there. I did nothing from these people. I was like oh
[03:40:33] okay that's how. Pretty much pretty much. And then so so then you wrapped up your your career
[03:40:45] well you wrapped up this portion of your career as a politician in in that was it. We went out to DC
[03:40:52] for the last congressional session. Yeah. Packed up your locker. And you were a second was my last official
[03:40:59] day. We had to pack up the office before Thanksgiving. So uh no kidding you know we were there obviously
[03:41:07] votes going into December there was you know government's gonna shut down if we don't pass a new
[03:41:12] appropriations bill and kind of the unfortunate usual thing that happens at the end of every year.
[03:41:19] But yeah I was working out of my car like parked in front of the capital I had my computer and
[03:41:24] it's COVID so you know votes consist of seven different groups of members of Congress. I was
[03:41:31] group two. It's by alphabetical order where you were only allowed to have a certain number of people
[03:41:36] on the floor at any given time. They decontaminate the whole floor between every vote. And so when
[03:41:42] your group is called you go in cash your vote and then you leave. And so that was like a park my
[03:41:48] guy votes are called sometimes they last for you know an hour or two hours or whatever and
[03:41:53] if you've got four votes in a series then you're doing this running in and out you know four times
[03:41:58] in that series and so yeah I was you know office office shut down before Thanksgiving had to turn
[03:42:03] in everything so that they could transition and start to bring in other members of Congress and I should
[03:42:09] mention now that that I made the decision not to run for reelection to my house seat in October of
[03:42:17] 2019 when it got to the point where I had to make a decision where I would either continue my
[03:42:27] candidacy or I would suspend my presidential campaign and focus on running for reelection in Hawaii
[03:42:33] and I couldn't do both. Legally I could have but just the constraints of time and the tyranny of
[03:42:41] distance it was not I was I would end up doing a crappy job at both so that was the decision I made
[03:42:48] I you know let folks in and I wanted people in Hawaii to know that you know they were not some kind
[03:42:55] of fallback plan for me if this national thing didn't work out and that they would have the
[03:42:59] opportunity and the time to decide who they would want you know to to work for them and other
[03:43:04] candidates who who who were going to run so and that was a decision I never looked back on or regretted
[03:43:13] in any way but as a result of that yeah so things started quickly and having to shut down in DC
[03:43:19] but January 2nd was was the actual final day. Were you heading home kind of stoked
[03:43:28] that it was over or were you heading home kind of bummed out that it was over. Mixed feelings really
[03:43:35] mixed feelings again I made that decision without regret and so it wasn't any surprise that this
[03:43:41] was going to happen at this point in time but I mean I remember landing at Dolace Airport and
[03:43:49] on that last trip and as I was driving into DC like I'm not going to make this drive again
[03:43:56] as a member of Congress at least and even as screwed up as things are and as frustrating as things
[03:44:05] are and have progressively gotten it never takes away the awesomeness of that privilege of being able
[03:44:15] to serve in that in that way and you know there there are grooves have you have you been inside
[03:44:21] the state capital before the US capital when you go inside there are you know marble steps
[03:44:31] that take you up to the actual entrance to the house floor then the second floor and then the
[03:44:36] visitors gather on the third floor when you walk those steps there are there deeply worn grooves
[03:44:43] where countless other leaders from our nation's history have walked those very steps
[03:44:49] and the the it's an amazing thing to never forget those who have come before us those who will
[03:45:03] come after and how special of a privilege it is that the people of Hawaii allowed me that
[03:45:10] privilege to do my best to serve them for the eight years that I was there and that was that was you
[03:45:16] know yeah I there's so much of the political drama and just the theatrics and the
[03:45:25] all of the stuff that you just kind of got of endure in order to try to do the work that you're
[03:45:30] trying to do and and I always hated all that stuff and I know no problem at all leaving that
[03:45:37] that behind but I think the the mixed feelings and emotions part just came from
[03:45:42] just that that reflecting on the time that I've had there and honestly wishing that there
[03:45:48] there are a lot of areas and things that I wish I could have done more on that I could have
[03:45:52] you know legislation that I wish had been able to advance farther or you know it's just
[03:45:58] different things you know assessing kind of what I was able to do what I wish I was able to do and
[03:46:03] but but leaving with the sense of of peace in my heart and in knowing that you know I did my best
[03:46:17] and excited about how I can find how I will find a way to continue to serve.
[03:46:23] So you get back home to Hawaii and I know when I came back from my last deployment to Iraq
[03:46:33] I had home for I was home for like a month and one day I just like woke up on a Saturday and I kind
[03:46:42] of felt like this weird weight I felt good right I felt good and I felt like the weight was
[03:46:52] gone and I was kind of thinking about what what what why do I feel so good right now and I realized oh
[03:46:58] it's because I'm not worried about one my guys getting wounded or killed right now because we're
[03:47:02] home from deployment and it took me about a month for that to go away because it's just your
[03:47:06] instinct every time you wake up you're thinking about what's happening is everyone okay you're
[03:47:13] thinking about that all the time and I never noticed it when I was on deployment because that's just
[03:47:16] how it was it was just you know you just wake up and that's what you're thinking and it's real
[03:47:20] well after a month of waking up and oh no it's not you don't have to worry about the oh no you
[03:47:24] don't have to worry about that and eventually one day I woke up and said why don't feel so
[03:47:27] oh it's because I'm not worried about that thing I've been worried about for so long
[03:47:31] when you got home I mean the how long did it take for that to wear off the pressure the
[03:47:37] the constantly thinking about all this crap that's going on and what you need to do and where
[03:47:42] you need to move and what's the next maneuver and who's mad at you and who's happy with you
[03:47:45] and all this other crap how long did it take you for for you like oh I hope I don't wait
[03:47:51] do I have wax for my surfboard right now how long did that take not very well
[03:47:58] I was ready man but it also you know I mean just this whole COVID situation also
[03:48:08] you know I had been home a lot more than I normally would have been and working from home
[03:48:13] and having virtual committee hearings and and a lot of other stuff that was just it was a
[03:48:18] strange lead up to where the contrast wasn't so different but it was it was odd for me like
[03:48:26] it started August is when our primary elections are in Hawaii and I remember waking up on primary
[03:48:32] election day which is Saturday and Hawaii and I was like oh my gosh I don't have to go sign
[03:48:38] waving at six o'clock in the morning I can I can go surfing like this is a weird feeling
[03:48:47] because I had held elected office for the previous 10 years I'd been on a ballot every single
[03:48:52] election for the previous 10 years and so that was that was strange that was a really weird
[03:48:58] thing that was felt unnatural to me and then you know similarly with with the general election
[03:49:06] but yeah I was I had no issue with that transition and yeah went on just to take full advantage
[03:49:20] of being home and knowing that really a lot of it was being able to regain control over
[03:49:31] how I spent my time and have to to no longer have those very immediate political factors
[03:49:44] playing into decisions that I'm making and just to just to be for the first time and a long time
[03:49:55] not have not been constantly jet lag that was something I didn't realize took such a toll for
[03:50:01] eight years I'm going back and forth two or three times a month between Hawaii and DC five or six
[03:50:05] hours difference every time plane rides are long with that was not nice whatever I can it's playing
[03:50:10] ride but you know like like I can actually like get a schedule happening and stick with it
[03:50:18] and not be up at two o'clock in the morning because it's eight in DC and then you know go to sleep at
[03:50:24] six because it's midnight I guess just you know it was just just basic like simple life things
[03:50:29] like I like to cook like I could actually like hey like I can go grocery shopping and cooking and
[03:50:34] not have to worry like is the food gonna rot by the time I have to leave and then come back it's just
[03:50:38] like simple little things it's it's nice so let's get into what you're settling into now
[03:50:46] the dust is settled and you're able to buy groceries cook them before they rock you're able to
[03:50:54] serve train get on a schedule but obviously that's not what you're gonna do for the rest of your life
[03:51:01] yeah what else is going on what else you got going on in the world so I am so I'm still serving in the
[03:51:09] Army reserves I have I move from the National Guard to the reserves and transition my branch to civil affairs
[03:51:18] awesome which is often called kind of the the warrior diplomat service and yeah it's it's fantastic I
[03:51:32] am it's it's been a great move and one that's focused on building relationships and kind of kind of
[03:51:38] write my life something I've been interested for a long time that that I never pursued because
[03:51:42] it doesn't exist within the National Guard for obvious reasons it's a National Guard focuses domestic
[03:51:47] mission first but civil affairs is 98% of civil affairs forces in the United States Army live
[03:51:56] within the Army reserves there's the remaining whatever 2% is basically lives on on Fort Bragg as
[03:52:05] part of the the unconventional special forces community and so yeah I'm appreciating the training
[03:52:14] the experience and also some of the missions that that have already been able to serve on there
[03:52:18] I as as kind of a direct result of everything that we talked about with my experience with the
[03:52:27] the mainstream media and being filtered into you know or limited to soundbites
[03:52:37] there I'm willing us to go in depth or even really cover any real issues serious issues and just
[03:52:43] the caricatures that they they create I am launching my own show where I will have the opportunity to
[03:52:52] really speak directly to people in an unfiltered way and an unlimited way both both about a lot
[03:53:01] you know some of these issues that we've talked about and and have conversations with people who can
[03:53:04] shed light and bring their expertise or experience on them but also just be able to
[03:53:10] have a platform where I can take some of those experiences that I've had and I'm sure you've
[03:53:18] had the same because I've seen it in the military I've seen it in politics where whether it's
[03:53:23] traveling to different parts of the country or traveling to different parts of the world
[03:53:28] there's there's so much more that we have in common as people than is often focused on or
[03:53:38] that we even we may may realize and so I look forward to being able to have that platform my show is
[03:53:44] called this is Tulsi Gabbard just because it is just me and and use that as as an opportunity to be
[03:53:54] able to fill that gap or or to provide what the mainstream media and the corporate media is not offering
[03:54:05] to people and and that I found there's there is there's a lot of hunger for that for real
[03:54:11] conversation whether it's with people you agree with or or to have a dialogue you know I I want
[03:54:16] to be able to have people on my show who represent different views on an issue and who are interested
[03:54:21] in having a respectful conversation about it and why you hold one view why do you hold the other view
[03:54:27] where is their common ground where is their irretractable differences where where do you draw the line
[03:54:32] and and I think being able to provide this platform I hope will result in more people thinking like
[03:54:43] hey maybe I can start talking to my neighbor who voted for the other guy or the other party and we
[03:54:49] haven't really talked for like a year because of it but maybe we should just like start the conversation
[03:54:54] and see where it goes and that it's okay and that we in America should be encouraging civil discourse
[03:55:01] and dialogue and encouraging when we talk about what we have to protect freedom of speech what is that
[03:55:10] mean well well you know and and how do you do it like let's start with speaking sharing our ideas
[03:55:20] and not as as you started this whole our conversation today not in a way that says I'm right
[03:55:27] you're wrong I have to be heard you don't get to be heard but in a way that that we don't see
[03:55:34] now where if if you believe in something you hold a view that you feel is important strong and
[03:55:40] and communicate that also recognize that not everyone may share that view for whatever reason
[03:55:46] maybe they have a different background a different experience and one that you may not have
[03:55:51] and that the more we can encourage this kind of exchange the stronger we are as a society
[03:55:58] and we don't lose by having a great platforms for people to share them and that that's the
[03:56:08] biggest difference between what we're seeing today versus what I believe our founders envisioned
[03:56:15] for us where somehow we've come to a place where the powerful people in this country think that
[03:56:22] it's it's really a sign of insecurity where if those who hold different views are allowed to
[03:56:29] air them then somehow you'll lose which means maybe you're not confident that what you're
[03:56:39] offering is going to quote unquote win or convince people that it is a superior idea yep
[03:56:46] it plays out leadership strategy and tactics I talk about this you know if you if I'm in charge
[03:56:52] and told you you say hey hey jocco I don't think we should do it like that and my responses
[03:56:56] shut up and do what I told you to do I don't look strong no I look weak yeah I look weak if I
[03:57:02] say well tell see how do you think we should do it and I listen to your idea and I incorporate
[03:57:06] some of your idea into the overall plan because you're able to convince me because you had a different
[03:57:10] perspective than I did you'll see you'll look at me and think oh I really like working with working
[03:57:15] for jocco I really like working with jocco because he's listening to what I'm saying and all of a
[03:57:21] sudden we're coming up with actual better solutions by the way it's not like it's oh I'm doing
[03:57:26] this to appease to all of you right now so she'll you know work hard for me no she's actually got
[03:57:30] a presentation to me that actually makes more sense we're going to use it yeah it's we're trying
[03:57:34] to get some more so this is a podcast your new your new show yeah it'll be you know available
[03:57:40] on all the podcast platforms or anything we're also doing video so I I I I talked to you some time
[03:57:50] ago and ask some questions about how you launch a podcast and such and one of the things you
[03:57:56] told me about was consistency is key both of you that's that's a control that's that's a control
[03:58:00] as a question I just echoed echo Charles's advice on that well the message was received and so
[03:58:06] what I'm doing is so so soon within within the next few weeks but I'm recording a number of
[03:58:13] shows to have in the bank to make sure that you know hey I got to go away training for a couple
[03:58:18] of weeks that we're not gonna we're not gonna skip a beat so how long is the show have you recorded
[03:58:24] somewhere I have yeah you know I there no real time limit but right now they're about not
[03:58:29] like hour and a half ish you're not going to go psycho four hours I'm not a follows to it but
[03:58:38] no no rules no rules and I think that's that's an old thing about it so is that the main focus
[03:58:43] of your effort right now it is yeah you're gonna launch this show and I think probably by the end
[03:58:49] of this month it's what I'm aiming for awesome so where can people find you people can find me at
[03:58:56] Tulsi Gabbard on all the social media platforms and also on my website Tulsi Gabbard.com
[03:59:06] there's there's a few different things that that I'm looking to do there updates and
[03:59:10] and information and I've moved it away from what it was traditionally which is a political campaign
[03:59:15] website and and really focusing more on how we can build communities and conversation
[03:59:22] uh in our in our society I don't care if you're Democrat we public an independent I don't
[03:59:27] care if you voted for Trump or voted for Hillary or whatever none none of that should matter
[03:59:32] as we come together to to rebuild bridges focused on how we collectively as Americans can
[03:59:45] work together for the future of our country
[03:59:48] legit echo channels yes that seems like a good place to wrap this this session maybe this a
[04:00:01] good place to wrap up this session sure Tulsi's obviously been charging hard for
[04:00:07] well since you were 16 years old as water woman which again we will be so real reskowing
[04:00:13] the net for that she's been on the path echo Charles and I'm thinking we should be on the path too
[04:00:20] what what suggestions do you have hey when you go to the grocery store people like stop
[04:00:26] you a lot still in Hawaii definitely how yeah they do that food land which is interesting because
[04:00:31] I say I know you you're water woman I don't know where those kids are now
[04:00:38] I do not remember you where's your cape yeah exactly it's still there it's the same
[04:00:49] down cape yeah on on koai like when you'd see the mayor yeah wherever you know star market for sure
[04:00:57] um yeah you know stop and be like hey you know so would imagine if someone had like something
[04:01:01] you know some thing they want to address they they wouldn't hesitate to stop because you're right
[04:01:06] there it happened most recently um I was out surfing the reef near the mokulu islands and
[04:01:12] the east side of oahu and the surf there only goes off like it's only really good when there's no
[04:01:19] wind and there's swell obviously and it's it's a long it's like three quarters of a mile
[04:01:24] paddle from shore out there but it happened most recently they're like usually it's like
[04:01:29] someone will paddle up be like where do I know you from and then and then like one
[04:01:36] thousand and then it eventually like oh yeah I am told oh my god that's what I thought and then
[04:01:40] word in the lineup travels pretty quickly and the last time I was just a couple of weeks ago
[04:01:44] the ways were really like they stayed out for four hours and um people just like hey don't see
[04:01:51] guys on stand up words looking down at me on my surboard and talking stories like oh what this
[04:01:56] is what it's so it's it's cool I like it yeah imagine so you go to sandy beach
[04:02:02] um I have been I generally stay away I don't want to threaten like my life by
[04:02:09] body search for a break do you oh yeah those are yeah yeah back in the day back in the
[04:02:21] day all right all right we work you know are we surfing yeah snowboarding
[04:02:29] snowboarding oh I skis snowboard but echo Charles has recently become highly engaged in snowboard
[04:02:37] shredding like it but we are working out and training for various things so
[04:02:47] I was pretty stoked when you were running and you'd put like um whatever videos of you do in
[04:02:51] squats yeah and I'm like come on don't growl can we get a couple percentage points of increase on
[04:02:59] just doing burpees I was given credit I was like yeah I kind of leave on leaning in your
[04:03:05] direction to see the new burpees it's all good in the polls yeah and that's all you say okay
[04:03:09] in the polls people watching that saying oh there's totally doing burpees hey let's at least throw
[04:03:13] a dog a bong right come on let me earn it with some burpees yeah thank you guys I didn't really
[04:03:20] see much burpees by Joe Biden or you mean yeah I didn't see Joe Biden doing any burpees yeah nobody else
[04:03:28] nobody really else kind of got on the the fitness kick yeah crazy all good nonetheless we're gonna
[04:03:35] stay on the path so through the path we may need supplementation I would suggest supplementation
[04:03:41] don't worry jocquest I believe in that it's true yeah history there you go so here you go you got
[04:03:47] joints that need attention sometimes especially when we get older we need younger is this the
[04:03:53] collective we it's far okay I'm not I'm not I'm not against it but for those of us who are you
[04:04:03] know we want to get something that helps in the routine supplementation for joints protein
[04:04:09] brain body all this stuff so what do we got joint warfare joints krill oil joints discipline and
[04:04:16] discipline go brain and body how does that discipline go go this this is good I this is the first
[04:04:23] time I'm trying the discipline go jocco pomer drink very good tasty very good no sugar in that yeah
[04:04:32] that's sweet with the monk friend see I use monk fruit like in my protein shakes and stuff like
[04:04:37] no what's up yeah man to sweet to it to sweeten it yeah because you you get you get you get the good
[04:04:43] natural like healthy sweetener without like the carbs of like maple syrup for example yes who just made
[04:04:50] the the clip of the week which maple syrup is my my go like I would only eat pancakes to have maple
[04:05:02] syrup really but you know I can't did you get any maple syrup from peat up in of the main oh
[04:05:08] peat come on yeah he's out there and he used to do it himself but now you know it's just like
[04:05:15] friends and it's real maple syrup you can go up there oh man there's trees are running
[04:05:21] that was and sorry echo I'm messing with your jam here man but it's more than cool one of the coolest
[04:05:28] experiences well there were many but one of the coolest was when I stopped in freedom new hamper
[04:05:33] and went to a sugar shack met with the three generations of family who have passed down from
[04:05:41] you know father to child and got to see the whole thing we went up to the trees saw the taps
[04:05:49] came down saw the whole process and then of course like sampled the goods I like maple
[04:05:56] syrup is it ever since I've been a kid like those little maple leaf candies and you're done finished
[04:06:02] I was up in the main talking to Pete and he's like a sugar addict he obviously can't eat it that's
[04:06:08] why but he he was saying he would take little pencil box you know the pencil box you
[04:06:13] have when you're a little kid he would fill that with sugar cubes and hide it underneath his bed
[04:06:19] and at night when he'd go to bed he'd put like a little arca at it that's that's like level
[04:06:26] I'm like bro what is wrong with you and then he started like going into a different realm
[04:06:32] mental and he goes he goes bro if you ever tried you he's talking to me about yeah like crazy
[04:06:39] you were when were you were talking about that right unlike um I think yeah one of the origin
[04:06:43] videos can't be talking about that yes so it did sound crazy the way you were talking about but
[04:06:49] then I remember like we didn't just buy sugar cubes but every once in a while like you'd get
[04:06:54] the little pack right with all the sugar cubes and it and I eat those two they're like little candies
[04:07:00] yeah but it's like pure it's like main lining the sugar it's been a good I didn't hide
[04:07:04] them on my bed I was gonna say imagine it stealing those things from your own family
[04:07:11] putting a video it's like little cycle right that's different yeah well monk fruit no sugar
[04:07:16] exact that's not sure monk fruit is good stuff it's natural and by the way we went that distance
[04:07:21] and I held out wrong the other thing that's cool about this drink is which was really hard to do
[04:07:26] is the way that you make it stay good on the shelf is it has to you have to preserve it somehow
[04:07:33] and what no companies normally do is they just add chemicals to it right and they're called
[04:07:37] preservatives we've all heard of that right well instead of using preservatives which I didn't want
[04:07:41] to do it's it's pasteurized so it's like cooked so there's no but there's no chemicals in it but
[04:07:48] it costs us up ton of money to get it going and it took us an extra almost took us over six months
[04:07:55] to get this all set up but then we did it now you can drink this and your kids can drink it that's
[04:07:59] my own kids can drink my drink it's it's something that my my mom always encouraged us and it's
[04:08:06] like a habit I got into from a young age just like just read the ingredients before you buy it
[04:08:11] and if you don't understand half of the things that are on the ingredients then
[04:08:15] you know think twice about you know putting it in your body let me ask you if you understand these
[04:08:21] ingredients filtered carbonated water natural flavor citric acid monk fruit that's the ingredient list
[04:08:32] and it has the vitamin B6 and B12 it's got the other positive things but actual the food ingredients
[04:08:38] that's it that's incredible and more people are becoming conscious of this these things really I mean
[04:08:44] more people are becoming aware and whether it's because of health like diabetes and or whatever else
[04:08:49] but I think there's just an increased level of awareness of like hey and and even more so with COVID
[04:08:54] like I really should be healthy I should strengthen my immune system and I should know what I'm
[04:09:01] consuming I felt so bad the last time you visited so whatever three months ago something like that
[04:09:09] you came by we didn't have time to record I didn't have time to record or whatever but you just
[04:09:13] came by to hang out a little bit and whatever two days later I called you up and said hey
[04:09:19] hey or I sent you a text hey how you doing you're like fine I'm like got so detailed you
[04:09:24] you're like why I got COVID it's over that control yeah I had to make luckily I only saw
[04:09:34] the 10 people in that time period of whatever that week was where I knew I had well I had been
[04:09:40] tested positive for COVID taxidako he's like yeah I can't smell anything but it happens
[04:09:53] I'm just gonna knock on wood right now that yeah but yeah so there you go
[04:10:03] yeah you talk about the immunity thing yeah so come to the final jockel has that covered as well
[04:10:08] as far as supplementation goes vitamin D3 also the immunity and a special supplement called cold
[04:10:15] war it was good again this was crazy right like so I before COVID I traveled all the time
[04:10:21] all the time and you know the nightmare of that and you're breathing and everyone's stuff
[04:10:25] and so I said you know what I'm gonna make you know a good immunity booster with a bunch of
[04:10:31] vitamin C and just things that and so I made it and cool and we ended with selling good and whatever
[04:10:36] but then COVID hit and the tooth and I also made vitamin D already made it this isn't like oh
[04:10:42] it's COVID it was already in the system it was already it was already live because I only I take vitamin
[04:10:47] D and boom as soon as COVID hit it was like we could we had to just we sold out almost immediately
[04:10:53] and then we just had to ramp it up but luckily we had already had the formula's built so
[04:10:57] that stuff is awesome cold war and then and the vitamin D3
[04:11:00] it's true oh good for you yeah I mean I'm a I'm a supplement taker just in general but I was
[04:11:08] not taking vitamin D prior to COVID nor was I really aware of how important it was until I started
[04:11:15] to learn and read more and see especially related to COVID how most Americans are deficient
[04:11:22] yeah like vast majority of Americans are deficient in vitamin D and especially people who have
[04:11:27] any kind of you know colored tone to their skin even more so are found to be deficient in vitamin D
[04:11:36] so I am now a daily consumer well vitamin D yeah again I learned that when we had our daughter
[04:11:44] where everything in a reed for best development all this stuff vitamin D was always popping up
[04:11:49] with everything oh yeah vitamin D true but yeah so yeah got some get some vitamin D
[04:11:55] also don't forget about milk this is extra protein in the form of a dessert yeah by the way
[04:12:01] sometimes it's just dessert that has protein straight up straight up yeah especially if you get
[04:12:05] you little formula down like some people they just go milk milk milk milk on the milk whatever cool
[04:12:10] good but some of us we we have our perfectly tuned formula yeah half a spoon of peanut butter
[04:12:18] one scoop mint chocolate one scoop peanut butter chocolate one banana damn wow
[04:12:25] give milk or two percent milk boom that's the formula in my household I randomly tried almond milk
[04:12:32] with peanut butter milk bro yeah the gym what is up that's a freaking milkshake yeah
[04:12:41] that's a milkshake so that I added a banana like reluctantly like I was like okay banana
[04:12:46] because sometimes banana can jam up your whole flavor profile let me ask you this are they frozen
[04:12:52] or fresh both whatever because okay and then because the result is a little bit different
[04:12:57] it's possible I'm not that advanced to tell the difference and here dude here's why I know
[04:13:01] about the frozen banana want a banana starting to get uh right in a little bit past right
[04:13:06] the kind of brown is taking over you can peel it and freeze it as what I do yes I didn't know that
[04:13:11] Sarah told me that yeah it was like cool sure enough she has two of them frozen inside because they
[04:13:16] need a banana so I put the frozen one in I was like man this works perfect yeah they get creamier
[04:13:22] when they're frozen no check that's my job I might as similar to you we had to wait
[04:13:28] over four hours for you to find me drop this knowledge the secret that's gonna be a foodie
[04:13:36] what is that okay good these we grew up my mom used to make ice cream at home from frozen
[04:13:41] bananas and just like literally put them through the champion juicer freeze them put them through
[04:13:45] the champion juicer maybe add a little bit of like whatever some to kind of like put it up to the
[04:13:51] next level but like you have like homemade soft serve immediately so the frozen bananas I vouch for
[04:13:59] I I'm waiting for the plant based milk yeah to come out I don't know if I talk to you or
[04:14:03] paint about that but you may have to hear it but that's what I do is for after my workouts every
[04:14:11] day my first meal that's my first meal as a shake I'd kind of fast until after that but I do the
[04:14:17] the protein powder the almond milk the peanut butter just a healthy healthy so I doll up
[04:14:23] these things and then someone's going to stir up all the food got the frozen banana and then I throw in I throw in some
[04:14:31] chia seeds some pumpkin seeds and flat seeds but you guys maybe feel like a amateur so before I don't
[04:14:39] know that's not really a bad thing I go I go milk I don't make it that's it's true it's a
[04:14:47] hardy shake but then I'm good like I'm good until like you know I look an early dinner. Yeah yeah that's kind
[04:14:54] of the good thing you can use it for many different reasons you know you can do like a meal replacement
[04:15:00] or just a supplementation for the protein or just a dessert or you can just relax it by
[04:15:05] if you said protein that's how I'm the push I didn't smell no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no
[04:15:11] okay for those I would put that as the lotion you said you said protein in flex double flexed your
[04:15:16] body says it happened I'm also witnessed it I witnessed it it's it's serious we're in the
[04:15:23] way so we can get these things at many places you're gonna be on the look up for any of these
[04:15:30] places you can get all this stuff at first wah wah east coast wah was only on the east coast
[04:15:35] right yes okay wah wah um at origin main dot com jockel fuel dot com jockel fuel dot com kind of the same
[04:15:44] what do you call trajectory yeah go vitamin chockel and the vitamin choc yes sir by the way this is
[04:15:50] important actually because shipping is a problem right financially it can cost a lot of money to
[04:15:58] ship something here's the deal if you subscribe to any of these items shipping free wow so we're trying
[04:16:05] to look there's we're talking about tech companies there's obviously some big tech companies out there
[04:16:10] that are hard to compete with in fact we you can't be them join them we join them it's fine
[04:16:14] you can get the stuff there because it's free shipping you know it's like a it's like sort of a
[04:16:19] that's a prime merry reason why people might order from this particular place which is cool we're
[04:16:24] down we appreciate it hundred percent that's fine but if you wanted to just go straight to the source
[04:16:31] but you didn't want to spend money on shipping we got you covered and it took us a while to figure
[04:16:35] out how we could balance it if you subscribe shipping's free on whatever you order so that's kind of
[04:16:41] huge when you're talking about it's a very rich and protein right now yeah and echo no offense
[04:16:52] to echo sometimes he's not quite the pinnacle of organization morning comes
[04:17:00] I'm doing the best it comes it's a matter of it look again look I I preface it by saying no offense
[04:17:06] so therefore you can't be offended yeah yeah I'm doing the best I can't over here I'm out of
[04:17:11] mold by the way there you go why are you subscribed well got issues yeah that is huge nonetheless
[04:17:18] over there flexing your biases right now all the way look this is where how and where we can get
[04:17:23] all these things also way to stay on the path do you do you do to more martial arts martial arts good
[04:17:31] for you it's good for your mind body I'm glad you're being diplomatic now well he's being diplomatic
[04:17:36] and like including all increase my almost life he's never said anything like that before ever
[04:17:42] we talk about doing martial arts we're talking about you do to over here on our side
[04:17:47] that's what we're talking about you are correct but go ahead continue this is a diplomatic
[04:17:51] he's the truth he's diplomacy already today just hang out with you he's got a low-ha
[04:17:56] it's just he's this guy has no a low-hafer other martial arts yeah it's like that you're here
[04:18:02] okay everything's cool well either way whatever martial arts we're doing
[04:18:08] say do that stuff in the event of you doing jujitsu you're gonna need a key and or a
[04:18:13] rash guard get those as well from origin how much did you have you trained a little bit not a lot
[04:18:18] I mean I the most the most if you could I guess within the family would be army combatives
[04:18:25] okay just legit yeah the army combatives is is a great program yeah I'll apply to you do
[04:18:30] guys exactly I I early on I guess the the the the the martial art that I trained the most and was
[04:18:38] was Brazilian cupueta oh that's right I was it makes me laugh every time I hear you pronounce
[04:18:43] English words with a Brazilian Portuguese accent oh okay I was like yeah I know that's about
[04:18:48] go I talk I said earlier starting office program that I'm very I look I just say what I say
[04:18:53] when it comes to you know Brazilian Portuguese words like if you're gonna talk to me about oh you
[04:18:57] train cup wait I've come to that you like a bro that's a little bit of a run now well
[04:19:06] and because of that I took summer classes in Brazilian Portuguese and Hawaii like uh like
[04:19:11] trying to learn the language I was I was getting fully immersed in the culture and and started to
[04:19:15] do a lot of a lot of the my friends who did cupueta also did jujitsu and metal a lot there's a
[04:19:21] huge Brazilian community in Hawaii because of surfing and obviously most of them do either cupueta
[04:19:26] and jujitsu as well and but I just I was kind of um consumed I was training like six hours a day in
[04:19:33] cupueta and that was I was starting to teach and I was doing a bunch of stuff there but yeah so
[04:19:39] so the most time I spent doing any kind of grappling was was army combat of so which was fun
[04:19:44] well it's cool because now you're gonna be on the journey of jujitsu we're gonna get you a key yeah
[04:19:49] I want I really I I want to learn and I'm a big mix martial arts fan I have been for a long time
[04:19:56] and yeah you went up and trained with duku fist right yeah that was an incredible surprise that I
[04:20:01] was not expecting but he was there to train um Jiang Wiley and she was passing through doing
[04:20:08] a publicity thing so I got to meet her and spar with like use that word and very generously
[04:20:15] she's like come at me like kick me punch like do something like I don't know
[04:20:21] but it like like getting to hit some pads of duku was freaking incredible yeah no yeah it was awesome
[04:20:27] I've cornered a bunch of fighters at UFC and and whenever duku fist was there he's just like
[04:20:34] such an awesome guy super cool super nice super I mean obviously he's a great trainer and everything
[04:20:41] but I just remember to think and this guy's just freaking rad yeah totally totally anyway you know
[04:20:46] like he made us feel just great and um but what I was gonna say is the thing that I've always appreciated
[04:20:52] mocks most about mixed martial arts is you know yeah there are guys who are stronger and boxing
[04:20:57] or striking or whatever but this the strategic that goes into fighters who have a very strong
[04:21:03] ground game when you really watch it is I've just incredible and that's what I've loved most about
[04:21:11] the sport is the strategic thinking that goes into like I'm gonna do this and set you up for
[04:21:16] where I'm gonna put you in you know six moves later or whatever so yeah I'm now that I'm a little
[04:21:24] bit more free um I really do I've been telling my husband this I want to I want to learn we have
[04:21:29] connections in Hawaii and Islands uh speaking of geese jiu jiu jiu jiu geese and jeans and boots
[04:21:37] you went to the factory and name right I did have a job in the origin factory and main and
[04:21:42] to say I was stoked as an understatement and we made a little social media video about it and you know
[04:21:48] got some footage of peach on us around and talking about what they do brought the local media with us
[04:21:53] and local media did a story on on on origin but my husband will tell you in the car ride leaving
[04:22:00] I was so freaking stoked it was it was completely unexpected because I've I've had the privilege of
[04:22:06] going and visiting a number of you know local businesses and shops but the thing that really
[04:22:13] like struck home for me like in a in a visceral way was yeah awesome products but
[04:22:21] the spirit uh the spirit of origin came through loud and clear not just because peats good
[04:22:32] at talking about it but because of what I experienced in the people who work there and um the sense
[04:22:41] of pride and the sense of ownership of the thing that says right there we get to do this and
[04:22:52] and how deeply you all have built the foundation of this American business in the fabric of
[04:22:59] America and that like I was like I left there and I'm like I told peos like um like where do I sign up
[04:23:06] like how do I how do I join this because this is freaking amazing and I talked about it and just
[04:23:12] share that that's why I wanted to share um that video and just the experience of being able to go and
[04:23:17] visit and it was not on the way like farming tin main is on the way to nowhere else I was going
[04:23:25] and it was literally like I called an audible on my team and I'm like yeah we're in main and I'm
[04:23:32] going to take a two-hour like detour to go and visit because the story of uh that you guys are
[04:23:40] sharing of origin main is the story that needs to inspire America especially now in what what we
[04:23:49] can do what we can do here at home and that yes this is about supporting a local business is about
[04:23:56] supporting America and American jobs but it goes so much deeper than that that yeah of course
[04:24:02] there are challenges and there as adversity and you know foreign trade and like all of these other
[04:24:07] things but just like um you know peat talks about how he started right and and his freaking
[04:24:15] backyard built a factory because there wasn't one where there's a will there's a way and when you're
[04:24:22] rooted in this foundation of not just hey how can we make a bunch of money but how do how do you
[04:24:31] use business as a means to serve and have a positive impact in your community in the lives of the
[04:24:40] people who work there in the customers who know like hey I'm not just buying a product that's cool
[04:24:46] I'm supporting a mission that's much greater than any one of us as individuals and will have a
[04:24:52] much longer lasting impact yeah if you were to take what you just said if you were to if you
[04:24:59] and I were to look at each other and say hey let's make a business and let's make you know let's
[04:25:02] make clothes let's make a parallel let's make shoes and let's make money the last thing we would
[04:25:08] do to make money is try and build a factory in America correct and source everything from America
[04:25:13] we just said we just say it is absolutely sad and there's company upon company that their primary
[04:25:19] goals to make money that's their primary goal it's not to make a quality product it's not to be
[04:25:25] innovative with their products it's not to rebuild their community it's not to put money back into
[04:25:30] the community it's not to not to bring manufacturing back to America that's that's not even on their
[04:25:35] radar those are our primary goals now in order to do that we do we have to make money yes absolutely
[04:25:41] and we will but that's not why we're doing it if we just wanted to make money we wouldn't be
[04:25:48] there would be no factory it'd be it'd be a sweatshop overseas that's what it would be
[04:25:53] we're not gonna do that we're never gonna do that and you'd be no different than most of the others
[04:25:57] you know and and it would it you wouldn't be you origin wouldn't be origin then absolutely
[04:26:07] and to be quite frank with you money could not drive me or inspire me or motivate me
[04:26:15] one 100th the amount that it does to know that there's people in that town yes that are working
[04:26:26] that are have a career now you know we're taking millennials and teaching them a skill that was
[04:26:34] just always so close to being lost you saw them right there millennials that there's skills that
[04:26:39] were I mean are our our guide Lenny just died but he before he died he was able to pass on his knowledge
[04:26:47] that can be passed on could save it's there we're we're there and it's also also stoked you know
[04:26:54] you and our text and back and forth and I think I was trying to get you a pair of boots I was like
[04:26:58] hey we'll get you some boots and yeah we had some in deliver you boots but for you to go up there
[04:27:03] was I was so stoked that you could go up there and you could see it and and you know it's it's very
[04:27:08] cool to like I'll hear Joe Rogan talking about origin and even though he's not been there
[04:27:15] like he knows that's very cool and when I when I heard him talking about origin and he was just
[04:27:21] talking about it with someone else that was was on his show when I heard him talking about it
[04:27:27] so passionately I realized this is people get it you don't just you look it's awesome when you
[04:27:33] go they're not as soon you go there it's visceral when you go there but even if you don't go there
[04:27:39] you know you know that some that pair of jeans that you're wearing those are those are American
[04:27:45] made the hands that harvested the cotton processed it every step that's the amazing thing is and I you
[04:27:53] know some of my some of my friends and the military especially when they got their stimulus checks
[04:27:59] they're like I'm gonna make a choice with this money and I'm gonna go shopping at origin because
[04:28:06] cool stuff but I'm supporting America with these dollars and that that's the difference and that's
[04:28:14] the impact and and I I I loved sharing the story of my experience there to help inspire others
[04:28:22] who may aspire to do something similar but feel like the obstacles are too great but but
[04:28:28] and whether it's business or whatever I mean that the point is the motivation and the spirit of
[04:28:33] getting back to not planning this but getting back to our origins who we are as a country of
[04:28:40] entrepreneurs and innovators and people who are bringing different ideas to to and the pride
[04:28:48] the pride that goes that goes along with that origin USA yeah origin USA
[04:28:58] dot com if you want to get me stuff from there it's made by Americans for Americans true also
[04:29:05] me point your attention to jocco store dot com this is where you can represent why you're on the path
[04:29:11] there you go so yeah we have some some stuff that we have is from origin we got rash guards on there
[04:29:18] also we have hoodies and shirts and you know discipline equals freedom this kind of stuff I'm saying
[04:29:22] if you're going to go seems to get uncomfortable and you start talking about him
[04:29:25] is it that obvious is that obvious there's a visible shift here yeah in energy what's funny
[04:29:32] is it's kind of like a complimentary relationship because like my comfort increases when his
[04:29:37] disc comfort increases you same so it's like cool that's like you can kind of sense
[04:29:42] some pride when I talk about this store got a store by the way anyway yes this link was for
[04:29:48] him but shirts hoodies rash guards some hats on there some new stuff on there new design coming
[04:29:55] up soon really all that you know these are all things that happen decentralized command yep
[04:30:00] like I'm not over there pointing the finger making things happen that's echo Charles in his own
[04:30:05] little world well it's it's our world we have a subscription situation as well if you want
[04:30:12] like a new type of design kind of um is that what the is that where the run DMC t-shirt just came from yes
[04:30:19] that's legit I was good because I've proved these before they're done or sometimes sometimes
[04:30:25] there is a level of decentralized command but I also some people in the organization will say a case
[04:30:32] they need to get footage check so there is sometimes but occasionally things that by like he just
[04:30:40] made a run DMD run DMC t-shirt but it says discipline but it's D.F was a D.S.C PLN but it looks like the old school
[04:30:49] run DMC t-shirt so it's freaking legit that's it thought so too there's also one's like the element
[04:30:56] in the periodic table yeah element yeah so it's element D and it has all the the atomic weight
[04:31:01] 1434 layers anyway these are kind of off shoot designs but they're cool relevant and there's
[04:31:08] layers oh here's the thing that's jacked up now I just realized if you wanted that run DMC discipline
[04:31:13] shirt you can only get it if you subscribe if you're a subscriber to the shirt locker the shirt locker
[04:31:20] of that hotel yeah once they're gone they're gone so man let me do it that's kind of a bummer
[04:31:27] yeah and by the way it seems like one person at this table does not have a subscription to this
[04:31:33] what's funny is I for real have a subscription to I for real don't oh you don't
[04:31:38] just jacked up brutal brutal I thought you were calling me out by not calling me out
[04:31:42] oh okay there's two people that don't have a subscription apparently thing that makes two of us
[04:31:48] they guess whatever either way maybe I have some extra oh cookie guys oh man that's cool yeah that
[04:31:56] that'd be very nice yeah you could help me up with my own stuff as if you're gonna subscribe to
[04:32:04] this podcast whatever you subscribe to podcast also we have a jocco unraveling which we're
[04:32:10] about to record some of this week awesome grounded podcast warrior kid podcast and by the way you
[04:32:17] also have another podcast to subscribe to which is called this is Tulsi Gabbard this is Tulsi Gabbard
[04:32:23] is actually up already so I posted a trailer you can you go and subscribe and follow now so that you can
[04:32:31] know when we drop the first episode and follow on once you can also join us at the underground
[04:32:40] jocco and around dot com which I already mentioned so I'm not gonna go into a big
[04:32:45] explanation but gotta have a contingency plan don't want to have to be
[04:32:49] don't want to be feeling the chains of control yeah from anyone not sponsors not tech companies no one
[04:33:05] we're so so we gotta go underground yep jocco and around dot com if you want to help us out there
[04:33:10] it costs $8 and $18 a month which is got layers to it yes we can talk about that all fine and look
[04:33:20] we're not if you can't afford that for whatever reason you're running this some tough times right now
[04:33:25] there's covid whatever and you can't afford it or or email assistance at jocco underground dot com
[04:33:33] and we can get that taken care of we have a youtube channel which has a lot of videos on it the good ones
[04:33:42] I'm the assistant director on the rest of them it's echo solo you have a youtube channel too
[04:33:47] do you have a tip you post post all kinds of stuff will be posting will be posting the
[04:33:55] the podcast on there as well but also just you know different things that are happening I often record
[04:34:02] short videos kind of weighing in on maybe issues of the day or news or different things that are
[04:34:07] coming forward and more often than not bring a different perspective than one you're getting in the
[04:34:15] news so yeah I post those across a youtube and across social media tell see gathered
[04:34:22] psychological warfare is an album you did you know that I was an artist tell see
[04:34:28] I'm an recording artist so if you want to get my album and it's the artist is jocco
[04:34:37] and the the album is called psychological warfare and there's a bunch of tracks on there that you can
[04:34:42] listen to whenever you need them is the wake up track one of them the wake up track is right
[04:34:50] apparently so is the sleep track that but you can't wait to get out of it
[04:34:54] it's just me talking about murder sleep dreams
[04:35:01] flip side canvas flips side canvas dot com decoder my brother he makes all kinds of cool stuff
[04:35:07] again American made stuff that that is the highest quality puts all kinds of stuff that you can hang
[04:35:14] on your wall to remind you of the path got a bunch of books
[04:35:18] uh I got a book called final spin which is the novel not out yet comes out in September
[04:35:25] I've been tracking that yeah it's pretty crazy I just got the final or I just did the final
[04:35:32] edits it's freaking I was my daughter my oldest daughter read it I was like how can you review this
[04:35:41] and so she read it and you know your kids are always like gonna be harsh critics or whatever
[04:35:46] and my I said oh you know she got done reading it so you know how how was it how did you like it
[04:35:51] and so she starts going you know I like this and I like that and then she she's got to a point and she
[04:35:56] started because it's an emotional situation she started to cry oh my god this is not lost you this was
[04:36:02] after a day after she read it she started crying and and she was like and and then I was kind of like oh
[04:36:08] I go I guess that's a good she she's like it's just that that part so and I'm okay so it's very interesting
[04:36:15] so not that it's just it's just not a sob story but it's just you want to write a book that moves people
[04:36:22] he well I mean yeah I guess I guess if it's not gonna have any impact or if it's gonna have
[04:36:28] an impact that's a good thing to make people think yeah and it's uh it's it's definitely even as I
[04:36:34] read it and I've read it now a hundred times because I have to edit it you know there's some parts
[04:36:38] where I'm reading it and it's definitely it's it's it's heavy it's heavy and it's got some really funny
[04:36:44] parts too a lot of the dialogue is really funny because you know it's reflective of kind of the
[04:36:50] dialogue that I have with people even though it's not about me or is it I'm watching it's been to
[04:36:56] interpretation yeah it's sort of an alternative
[04:37:02] anyways the book is called Final Spin and you can pre-order right now if you want to get a first
[04:37:07] a dish if you want to get a first a dish order now I look this is gonna be kind of a big deal to
[04:37:14] get the first a dish of the first novel you know I'm the one so I'm over-hyping that is the second
[04:37:20] in the works this this book will have no follow on okay for various reasons it
[04:37:28] pointy it does conclude it is called Final Spin it's not like first spin so it is called
[04:37:38] Final Spin but also I it's it is it is complete sure in my mind it's complete and so I don't want
[04:37:48] to carry the story on but you have more novels in you oh yeah maybe I got 14 novels that I thought
[04:37:54] of during the last half an hour yeah awesome yeah it's unfortunate for me it's always just
[04:38:02] people say I don't know what to write about I'm like god I wish I had that problem so that's that final
[04:38:08] spin pre-order leadership strategy in tactics field manual the code the valuation of protocol
[04:38:13] discipline it was freedom field manual way the warrior kid for field manual that's out way the warrior
[04:38:20] kid one two and three Mikey in the dragons I'll sit in into I was just an adjordan Peterson
[04:38:29] yesterday and he was just going off about the dragons which is a lot of what he does and interestingly
[04:38:38] enough I was like hmm sounds like this book called Mikey in the dragons so check that one out about
[04:38:45] face by David Hacworth there's a forward by me and Tossi you've I just got it in the mail a couple
[04:38:54] of days before I left Hawaii and I have read your forward okay and I'm just starting what's the
[04:39:00] impression starting the book um how incredibly impactful this book and this man has been on your
[04:39:10] life as a person but the thing that really like spoke to me was how this was kind of a your go to
[04:39:21] reference to help guide you through difficult leadership choices decisions challenges that you face
[04:39:27] in some of the most difficult environments I eat being in at war and and that you've never met the man
[04:39:33] and that was that came through very clear and you're gratitude to him in having this this book
[04:39:44] that provided you with that place where you could find the answers that you couldn't find anywhere else
[04:39:50] or help you see things in a different way that you wouldn't have seen otherwise through his experiences
[04:39:55] and how he handled things or his perspective and then the the maybe the most important thing was
[04:40:02] that all of that came from the foremost concern being care for your guys his soldiers your
[04:40:12] seals soldiers who you were were people who you were responsible for and I thought that was a
[04:40:22] really cool thing for me to come at I've only heard you talk about it but to come at this book
[04:40:27] and I'm really looking forward to to read it but to see that bridge in time and that that
[04:40:34] and conflicts and wars between a guy who served in in Vietnam and was a leader of soldiers in
[04:40:40] Vietnam to you in the experience that you had at the leader serving in Iraq and how there was such
[04:40:48] powerful connection between two different leaders and two different wars in different places
[04:40:53] and different times that that's not something I've really heard of before.
[04:41:02] It's weird because I as I read that book have you ever seen the movie that I think it's called the
[04:41:07] 13th Warrior have you heard of this movie Tom Cruise no so anyways it's based on it's based on a book
[04:41:16] by Michael Criton and I can't remember the name of the book that it's based upon but it's about this
[04:41:23] Arabic person who gets somehow mixed up with the Vikings and there's a great scene and the
[04:41:34] Arabic guy is played by some famous actor I can't think of it. I could tell you really where she
[04:41:41] is coming up. But they show they they they do this scene where he's learning to speak
[04:41:48] Norwegian or whatever old Norse whatever language they're speaking and the way that they cut it up they're
[04:41:53] speaking Norwegian and then every once in a while an English word pops in which would have been an
[04:42:00] Arabic movie Arabic word but it's an English speaking movie so every once in a while an English word
[04:42:08] will pop in says about it. It's a rather rather rather rather a rather rather a rather
[04:42:11] bolder tree and so and he starts picking up and it's probably a two minute scene whereby the end
[04:42:18] all the words are in English. The reason I'm telling you this is because as you were talking about
[04:42:24] the book about face I feel like each time I read it like a little because it's not a book about
[04:42:30] leadership and you know you mentioned leadership it's not a book about leadership it's a book about
[04:42:33] a guy's life but it's like as each time I read it a little leadership thing would come through
[04:42:40] and then a little bit more and then a little bit more and eventually the whole thing I realized
[04:42:44] this whole thing is just about leadership and it's about how to take care of your troops and do
[04:42:47] the mission and it's it's I just had that thought as you were as you were describing the
[04:42:55] correlations between what he lived through and what I lived there which by the way just for the
[04:43:00] record not even close. He was in Korean Vietnam he's the he had three distinguished service
[04:43:06] crosses nine silver stuff I mean just totally different but good book check out.
[04:43:14] The closest thing that I can relate to in my time in the military is you mentioned band of
[04:43:20] brothers earlier and I was a brand new maybe I was an E3 or an E4 by that point but I picked up the
[04:43:27] book band of brothers before ever watching the the many series I don't even know if it was made at
[04:43:33] that time yet but I was brand new in the national guard I started reading the book just as we were
[04:43:39] about to go and do an annual training at Fort Indian Town Gap in Pennsylvania and I'm reading the
[04:43:44] book I'd like can't put it down we go there were there for ten days or two weeks or whatever it was
[04:43:49] on the plane going back to Hawaii and I finished the book and at the end of the book it says
[04:43:56] Dick Winners currently resides in Fort Indian Town Gap Pennsylvania where he lives with his wife
[04:44:02] yeah yeah and I'm just like why didn't I finish this two days earlier I would have definitely gone
[04:44:08] and knocked on this man and he was still alive at the time that was but but I've you know gone on
[04:44:15] and watched I mean I've watched this year I don't even know how many times I've watched it
[04:44:20] in OCS we had to write essays on different episodes from a leadership perspective leadership lessons
[04:44:27] good and bad and really analyzed each episode of that and so that's one I'm at that's the only kind
[04:44:34] of closest thing I can relate to we're going back and looking at him and his leadership and I always
[04:44:40] forget the guy's name but the guy who's Ross in France so thank you his his flawed leadership I would say
[04:44:49] and a lessons learned from that and as a specialist then and then a brand new lieutenant I I have
[04:44:56] often gone back to those leadership lessons including the ones of you know some of the
[04:45:03] gosh I'm forgetting the name now some of the enlisted characters and one that was played by Donnie
[04:45:09] Walberg um one of the main e-sixes and and that was I had a chance to meet Donnie Walberg
[04:45:15] out of veterans event and like I don't I don't really care about celebrities in general but I saw
[04:45:21] he was there I'm like I need to go speak to this person about band of brothers and it was it was
[04:45:27] really cool he's a huge huge huge supporter of veterans I was on a show called the billions
[04:45:33] you were yeah and the the one of the main characters and billions of guy name Axel Rod
[04:45:39] uh yeah is he also played dick winners he is forever dick winners in my mind I don't care
[04:45:44] he was in homeland too like yeah whatever your dick winners but we you know he we were sitting
[04:45:49] around and talking and and he said something along the lines of like oh you know I was in something
[04:45:54] called band of brothers like yeah I kind of I know I'm well aware of it and so we talked a
[04:46:00] bunch about it it was it was interesting because in those I'd never done any like Hollywood
[04:46:08] things before actually I was like said yeah yeah he likes to throw that out of me well when you do it
[04:46:15] you film the same thing 10 times if not more so like there's a scene where we're waking the guy up
[04:46:24] in bed and there's me and Ax and Wags have you watched billions before I've only seen one or two
[04:46:34] okay really it's a free-confidentastic show okay so me ax and why it's three characters and so we're
[04:46:39] waking the Guy up the first time we film it is like they're filming all three of us and we
[04:46:47] deliver the lines and then you stop and then they reset up all the cameras and then they do it
[04:46:52] again but they're just filming me and then they reset up the cameras and they do again they're
[04:46:55] just filming Wags they we filmed again they they're just filming Ax and they and they
[04:46:59] we filmed again they're just filming the girl in bed and they reformed again and then they do
[04:47:02] it from a hideous and then do it so it ends up on you and doing this thing 10 times 15 times
[04:47:08] And by the way, if someone messes up, doing it again.
[04:47:12] So I was talking to him and I said,
[04:47:15] how in God's name did you film like a battle scene?
[04:47:18] Yeah.
[04:47:19] How the hell did you do that?
[04:47:20] He's totally different because there's basically
[04:47:23] guys running around with cameras and they do it
[04:47:26] one freaking time and they just have to get it right.
[04:47:30] And they're running through it because explosions
[04:47:32] are going off and like a building is gonna get destroyed.
[04:47:34] And it's only gonna get one take.
[04:47:35] Yeah.
[04:47:36] So that was pretty interesting.
[04:47:38] No pressure, right?
[04:47:39] He's an actor.
[04:47:40] Not only because of that, just the logistics of it,
[04:47:44] but like the history and what you're doing
[04:47:47] and who you're representing like my gosh,
[04:47:50] I can imagine.
[04:47:52] He, um, so if someone messes up,
[04:47:57] the director comes in like talks to him, right?
[04:48:00] He's a rapper man.
[04:48:01] Like I'm serious.
[04:48:02] So if someone, maybe he doesn't mess up,
[04:48:04] but maybe he's not putting the right right,
[04:48:06] stank on it, right?
[04:48:08] You know what I was like,
[04:48:08] your technical intentions too little.
[04:48:10] You know, you're being too emotional.
[04:48:13] And so it happened.
[04:48:14] I didn't really, I didn't know any of this.
[04:48:16] I do playing a military person.
[04:48:19] I played yourself.
[04:48:20] I, I, I had a real stretch of a role.
[04:48:23] I played me.
[04:48:25] Okay.
[04:48:25] All right.
[04:48:26] Yeah, so I played me and I was,
[04:48:27] whenever trying to, I was trying to help a guy
[04:48:29] win a, a smoker's fight of boxing match.
[04:48:32] And we're training him.
[04:48:33] Um, but if you mess up,
[04:48:37] or you don't put enough for you put a little too much or whatever,
[04:48:41] the director, actually the first the assistant director's going to come and give you a little nudge in the right direction of haters.
[04:48:46] You know, you don't be so loud.
[04:48:49] You know, you're too emotional.
[04:48:50] This isn't supposed to be funny or whatever.
[04:48:52] Something like that.
[04:48:52] And so this actually happened to me.
[04:48:54] I don't know if I'm supposed to talk about stuff like this.
[04:48:56] Maybe it's off limits.
[04:48:58] But it's done.
[04:48:59] It's fine.
[04:49:00] It happened to one of the other actors.
[04:49:02] We were doing it is just mean one of their actors in a scene.
[04:49:05] And we do it.
[04:49:07] And I'm just doing what I do.
[04:49:08] So honestly, it's pretty, if I have to get talk to it,
[04:49:11] it's a problem because I'm just a nice guy.
[04:49:12] So I'm doing what I'm doing.
[04:49:15] And the assistant director comes down first and is like,
[04:49:19] you know, I want to back that down a little bit.
[04:49:21] Don't talk to me, but talk to the other guy.
[04:49:22] And, and he's like, well, we're going to do it again.
[04:49:24] He's like, yeah, we're going to do it again,
[04:49:25] which is kind of a big deal like,
[04:49:27] it's not a small thing, right?
[04:49:29] We're actually, because I remember saying,
[04:49:31] wait, we're going to have to shoot this.
[04:49:31] I'm going to go, yeah, we're going to shoot it again.
[04:49:33] So it's kind of, ooh.
[04:49:36] So I realized that this was kind of a thing.
[04:49:39] If you, and then if you continue to mess up,
[04:49:41] then it's not just the assistant director,
[04:49:43] it's the director is going to come down and try and give you,
[04:49:46] you know, whatever, whatever they give you.
[04:49:48] They give you a motivation.
[04:49:50] But this is the problem.
[04:49:52] And so I'm watching this going, I don't want none of this.
[04:49:55] And so I remember what I,
[04:49:58] so now it's me, accent wax,
[04:50:01] and they're the main guys and these guys,
[04:50:03] and I didn't know anything about anything, right?
[04:50:05] But this is a very popular show,
[04:50:07] and it's a incredibly well written show.
[04:50:10] The writers, I know the writers now,
[04:50:12] and they're just so good.
[04:50:14] And you understand, so anyway,
[04:50:16] there, we do a take, right?
[04:50:21] Hollywood.
[04:50:22] We do a take, and like, you can hear,
[04:50:25] you can hear like radios, like you can hear some,
[04:50:27] and you, so now you realize someone messed up, right?
[04:50:31] And then they come walking up,
[04:50:33] and he comes walking up,
[04:50:36] you can use behind us to directly pull
[04:50:38] some of the other guys, and I was like,
[04:50:40] and I said to, accent, I was like,
[04:50:43] real I thought he was coming for me.
[04:50:45] And he goes, we all think that,
[04:50:47] we're like,
[04:50:48] oh, you're not alone, even the pros don't like,
[04:50:52] oh, get the talking to.
[04:50:55] Yeah, yeah, yeah, so there you go.
[04:50:57] Other books, extreme ownership, first book,
[04:50:59] I wrote about leadership, and then the dichotomy of leadership.
[04:51:03] Excellent, leadership, consultancy.
[04:51:05] We saw problems through leadership.
[04:51:06] Go to slonfront.com if you want us to come to your company
[04:51:09] and help. We had EF online,
[04:51:11] it's an online leadership training platform
[04:51:14] to get your whole organization aligned.
[04:51:18] Not just aligned towards a common goal,
[04:51:19] but more important, aligned in how they are going to lead.
[04:51:23] Go to eF online.com for that.
[04:51:25] We got the master, 2021, a bunch of different dates.
[04:51:29] We're going to be coming around the country,
[04:51:32] check extremownership.com.
[04:51:33] If you want to come to one of those,
[04:51:35] they've also about every time we've done one,
[04:51:37] these are going to sell out to.
[04:51:39] So check it early, we've got EF battlefield,
[04:51:42] which is we've done one so far,
[04:51:43] we're doing another one.
[04:51:47] We go out and we walk the grounds of the battlefield
[04:51:52] at Gettysburg.
[04:51:54] Yeah, and we sit there,
[04:51:56] we talk through the decisions that were made.
[04:51:58] We talk about gender we,
[04:51:59] and long-streeting AP Hill and Stuart and Mead
[04:52:03] and Hancock and Reynolds and Joshua Chamberlain from Maine.
[04:52:08] We talk through their personalities,
[04:52:11] decisions that got made, egos that got involved,
[04:52:14] hesitation being overly aggressive,
[04:52:17] not being aggressive enough.
[04:52:18] We talk through all so many lessons to learn.
[04:52:21] And this is a little tiny group of people.
[04:52:24] There's 35 people that we bring to this event.
[04:52:28] It's all day long.
[04:52:30] Me, the rest of the National,
[04:52:31] or quite a few of the National Front instructors
[04:52:34] walking the battlefield,
[04:52:35] we do dinner, we're going to do a Q&A.
[04:52:37] It's, we will answer whatever questions you have
[04:52:40] and we will all learn about these lessons.
[04:52:43] So if you want to go to that,
[04:52:45] go to go to go to www.slauncha.com slash events
[04:52:48] to check that out.
[04:52:49] Did you take a note there on the phone?
[04:52:50] I did.
[04:52:52] Highly recommend.
[04:52:53] I've had the opportunity to do that a few times.
[04:52:56] One of which while I was,
[04:52:59] well, we went to the battlefield of Chickamaga
[04:53:03] when I was in OCS and we did that as a class.
[04:53:07] So good.
[04:53:08] Incredible bringing history to life
[04:53:11] and making it relevant, especially
[04:53:13] from a leadership perspective that applies
[04:53:15] whether you're in the military or not.
[04:53:17] But something I found out pretty cool
[04:53:20] in the last year or so,
[04:53:22] I was asked to be on the show on PBS,
[04:53:25] called Finding Your Roots.
[04:53:27] And it's a show that features different people
[04:53:30] in my episode.
[04:53:31] They also had Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio,
[04:53:34] but like Oprah, they had different people on
[04:53:37] and they dig into your genealogy
[04:53:40] and find stories about your roots,
[04:53:43] where you come from, who you come from.
[04:53:44] And I found out that
[04:53:47] one of my ancestors on my mother's side of the family
[04:53:53] was 39, 40 years old
[04:53:56] when he volunteered to serve in the Union army
[04:54:03] and that he, and they had the documentation there
[04:54:08] of one of those battlefields
[04:54:12] where he fought that I had been to previously
[04:54:16] and visited and walked through.
[04:54:19] And it was the most like,
[04:54:21] it was the most incredible thing on many levels
[04:54:24] to see like this guy gave up his life to go
[04:54:28] and fight for what he believed in
[04:54:32] and that I had generations later,
[04:54:35] not only physically walked through that battlefield
[04:54:37] where he was, but also chose a similar path
[04:54:43] with my life.
[04:54:44] And so it was just, it was, it was
[04:54:47] and I've gone back to Gettysburg a few times since
[04:54:50] and every single time I go,
[04:54:55] it's an incredibly powerful experience
[04:54:58] incredibly powerful.
[04:54:59] And to go to the place where,
[04:55:01] of course, Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg address.
[04:55:05] Yeah, yeah, it's when,
[04:55:08] because we basically we spend the two days walking
[04:55:11] and then when we wrap it up
[04:55:13] and you kind of now you clearly know
[04:55:16] and you've seen the low ground,
[04:55:19] the high ground, the trees, the buildings
[04:55:22] and you're walking worth thousands of men were killed.
[04:55:26] Yeah.
[04:55:28] It's just unbelievable, it's an unbelievable event.
[04:55:34] It's an unbelievable place
[04:55:35] and it's an incredible way to learn and solidify those.
[04:55:38] So that's EF, echelonfront.com slash events
[04:55:42] if you wanna go, it's an April.
[04:55:45] So, and if you wanna help service members,
[04:55:47] active and retired their families,
[04:55:49] gold star families, then check out Mark Lee's mom.
[04:55:53] She's got a charity organization, mom and Lee,
[04:55:57] if you wanna donate or you wanna get involved,
[04:55:59] go to americasmideoriors.org.
[04:56:03] And if you want more of my imposing interrogations
[04:56:08] or you want more of Echos quiet questions.
[04:56:15] And pop culture commentary.
[04:56:17] Pop culture commentary.
[04:56:19] I just, so whatever I'm giving Echos hard time,
[04:56:24] if it's a pretty good one, then he'll say to me like,
[04:56:27] you're happy with yourself, aren't you?
[04:56:29] Really enjoy yourself, aren't you?
[04:56:31] You're really enjoying yourself, aren't you?
[04:56:33] You think you're good, don't you?
[04:56:35] And that's how I know I'm kinda getting there.
[04:56:39] And as I got, as when we got here today,
[04:56:42] as I got out of the car, I was responding
[04:56:45] to Twitter or Instagram, and I had just made a comment.
[04:56:50] And I got out of the car as a day,
[04:56:51] you know, I'll sometimes you say that to me.
[04:56:54] Cause someone had said the last woman
[04:56:56] that was on Holly McKay, someone had said,
[04:56:58] oh, did she, does she stay for the support section?
[04:57:01] Meaning what we've dragged you into
[04:57:03] from the fast freaking hour and just about.
[04:57:06] And I said, no, she was able to withstand,
[04:57:12] you know, ISIS interrogations, but she couldn't hang
[04:57:16] with Echos Charles and the support.
[04:57:19] So there you go.
[04:57:20] Yeah, he's very happy with that one.
[04:57:22] Yeah, he's the pride in the tone of the comment.
[04:57:26] There you go.
[04:57:27] Admittedly so guilty.
[04:57:29] If you want more of us, you can find us on the internet
[04:57:32] and that's including TLC's way.
[04:57:35] TLC's well at TLC Gabbard, Echoes At Echo Charles,
[04:57:39] and I am at Jocca Willing.
[04:57:41] Echo Charles, you got anything else?
[04:57:43] Are you running for president again ever,
[04:57:45] or even possibly?
[04:57:47] Do you think?
[04:57:48] I don't know.
[04:57:48] I'm not thinking about it at all.
[04:57:51] If you did, would you ask about aliens?
[04:57:53] Remember how?
[04:57:54] Who's someone asked about aliens, right?
[04:57:56] I think so.
[04:57:57] I think it was like Clinton or something.
[04:57:59] It's not on the top of my list.
[04:58:01] I understand.
[04:58:02] Put it that way.
[04:58:04] There you go.
[04:58:05] Did I say something about Echoes questions?
[04:58:07] Earlier.
[04:58:09] He saved the best for last.
[04:58:11] What's funny is when I first met you or whatever.
[04:58:14] I was like, I don't think I ever
[04:58:15] met anyone that ran for president before.
[04:58:18] So then you know how you kind of think,
[04:58:19] like, what would I ask?
[04:58:21] And then for some reason.
[04:58:22] This is it.
[04:58:22] Yeah, this is the moment.
[04:58:24] All the rest of the stuff is like, OK, whatever.
[04:58:26] But oh, man.
[04:58:29] God, you have nothing else.
[04:58:31] But thank you.
[04:58:32] Awesome.
[04:58:33] Toll see.
[04:58:34] Thank you.
[04:58:35] Any closing thoughts?
[04:58:36] It's great to be here.
[04:58:38] And we've covered a lot.
[04:58:41] And there's a lot more to come.
[04:58:43] Yeah.
[04:58:44] Awesome.
[04:58:45] Well, obviously, thanks for coming on.
[04:58:48] I know we try to make this happen for a little bit.
[04:58:49] And glad you kind of finally get on here.
[04:58:52] And thanks for your service in the United States government.
[04:58:56] Of course.
[04:58:57] But also, obviously, thanks for your service as a soldier, as a leader.
[04:59:01] You're putting your life on the hold and your life at risk to defend the freedoms and the
[04:59:09] way of life that we hold sacred.
[04:59:13] And the same goes to the rest of the military personnel out there around the world.
[04:59:20] On those forgotten barricades on the front lines of freedom, thank you for defending us.
[04:59:26] And to our police and law enforcement and firefighters and paramedics and EMTs and dispatchers
[04:59:30] and correctional officers and border patrol and secret service and all the first responders,
[04:59:35] thank you for defending us as well here at home.
[04:59:40] And to everyone else out there, well, for one thing, ask yourself, is today the day.
[04:59:53] Is today the day.
[04:59:56] And live your life thinking that today could be the day.
[05:00:03] And that means remember, some of that Aloha spirit that Tulsi talks about.
[05:00:12] Treat people with Aloha, treat them with respect and compassion and try and help out other
[05:00:17] people.
[05:00:18] And you do that.
[05:00:19] All those things by first putting your own ego in check, listen more than you talk, praise
[05:00:31] more than you punish, stand up for what you believe in while respecting other people's
[05:00:39] beliefs to and remember, always remember that we are stronger.
[05:00:48] Together.
[05:00:53] And until next time, this is Tulsi and echo and jacco.