Tulsi Gabbard served as the U.S. Representative for Hawaii s 2nd Congressional District across four terms from 2003 until 2021. She was the first female combat veteran to run for president, as well as the first Hindu member of Congress and the first Samoan American voting member. Both during and after her terms in office, Tulsi has been a formidable voice in the political space, leaning right of center despite her Democrat origins. She continues to make appearances on Fox News while retaining more progressive views on topics such as drug legalization. She is the host of her own show, The TulsiGabbard Show, where she continues to speak on relevant issues with the phrase, Country Before Party. In this episode, we discuss Tulsi s political career, her early involvement with the Democratic Party, and how she became a political voice in a world that was largely run by white, male, corporate interests. She also discusses the importance of having a voice for the voiceless, and why she chose to run as a Democrat in the first place in the country she grew up in. And, of course, she talks about her love of the ocean. Music: Fair Weather Fans by The Water District, courtesy of Pondola, Inc. Additional Compositions by Zapsplat, Inc., courtesy of Lotuspool Records and The Good Fight, LLC. All rights reserved. Used by the creator of the music for this episode was used w/ permission from the artist Thank you, Mr. John Mclean (credited by the artist) is a proud daughter of the late John McElroy (c) (pennyservice, ) (a fellow patron of the Good Morning America, ) (c & , etc) . ( ) ( ) . (c_ ) & (c] (d_a ) is a friend of the good vibee (tray ) and (davie ) , , & (d& ), (f_a) , and (c& (a) (c ) , (d) & (f& , etc) ( ) is (b) is [c) & (e) ) . # (e (s _ (g) & (and ) )
00:00:30.000Hello, everyone. I'm here today with Tulsi Gabbard, an American politician, commentator, and a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves.
00:00:38.480She served as the U.S. Representative for Hawaii's 2nd Congressional District across four terms from 2013 until 2021.
00:00:49.100She was the first female combat veteran to run for president, as well as the first Hindu member of Congress and the first Samoan American voting member.
00:00:58.880Both during and after her terms in office, Gabbard has been a formidable voice in the political space, leaning right of center, despite her Democrat origins, with continued appearances on Fox News, while retaining more progressive views on topics such as drug legalization.
00:01:18.100She is the host of her own program, the Tulsi Gabbard Show, where she continues to speak on relevant issues with the following axiom firmly in mind.
00:01:59.860And so maybe we could start with that.
00:02:01.840And could you just tell the story of being involved with the Democrats?
00:02:04.640Well, I, so I, growing up here in Hawaii, it's a beautiful place, and from a young age, had a pretty deep appreciation for the importance of protecting this place, you know, protecting our oceans and the preservation of clean water.
00:02:26.260We get our water here from water aquifers, and as the most remote island chain in the world, protecting those resources are essential for life.
00:02:36.720And so my motivation and drive to run for the State House of Representatives here in Hawaii when I was 21 years old in 2002 really came from that motivation to want to be in a position where I could actually do that.
00:02:54.560You know, I, previously I had, they wanted to build a big landfill over one of our big water aquifers here, which, you know, even for me as a teenager seemed like such an absurd idea and risk, because once that water is contaminated, then it's done.
00:03:10.780And so I was part of, you know, I went out and got petitions and signatures and joined others to be able to try to stop that, because it was being, the wheels were being greased by a corrupt politician, essentially, who was trying to help his buddy who ran the landfill business.
00:03:28.780And it was a great experience for me as a young person to be a part of stopping that from happening, and that's what drove me to run for office when I was 21 years old.
00:03:41.260It was not out of any kind of design, like, oh, I'm going to have this big political career, and this will be the first stepping stone to get to somewhere else.
00:03:48.820It was really driven by a desire to be of service and make that positive impact.
00:03:56.580You know, my family wasn't one of those, like, legacy party affiliation things that you just did.
00:04:03.080I really was thoughtful at that time about which box I wanted to check in filing those papers to run for office.
00:04:13.200And, you know, for us here in Hawaii, the origins of the Democratic Party really came from a party that fought for people, kind of a more populist perspective.
00:04:25.800We had plantation workers who were being absolutely abused and taken advantage of by the huge landowners here in the state that was essentially being run by elite, wealthy Republicans at the time.
00:04:39.360And it was a Democratic Party that fought for those who didn't have a voice.
00:04:44.380It was a Democratic Party that celebrated civil liberties, that celebrated freedom and individual thought, this big tent party that really was rooted in kind of those traditional liberal JFK-esque ideals.
00:04:56.660And it was a party that had many voices that spoke out for peace.
00:05:01.340And so all of these different things really drew me to the Democratic Party as a party that would fight for the voices of the people.
00:05:08.000You know, in Canada, we have a socialist tradition, the New Democratic Party.
00:05:13.520And I worked for them when I was a kid.
00:05:15.540The man I worked for was the father of Alberta's last premier, second last premier.
00:05:24.160And a lot of the people that were involved in the NDP were labor leaders.
00:05:29.260You know, it was well known in Canada that the conservatives were the party of the establishment and the liberals were, well, they played both sides against the middle very effectively.
00:05:38.040And the socialists, the NDP, British socialists, rather than the communist type, were really, they're really the voice of the working class.
00:07:50.300And so I was campaigning for re-election here in Hawaii in 2004, which looked to be a pretty easy re-election here.
00:08:00.240And to continue the work I was doing, our unit, or the National Guard unit, was activated for a deployment to Iraq, I was told by my commander.
00:08:08.180Going online without ExpressVPN is like not paying attention to the safety demonstration on a flight.
00:08:14.540Most of the time, you'll probably be fine.
00:08:16.620But what if one day that weird yellow mask drops down from overhead and you have no idea what to do?
00:08:22.300In our hyper-connected world, your digital privacy isn't just a luxury.
00:08:27.260Every time you connect to an unsecured network in a cafe, hotel, or airport, you're essentially broadcasting your personal information to anyone with a technical know-how to intercept it.
00:08:36.760And let's be clear, it doesn't take a genius hacker to do this.
00:08:39.940With some off-the-shelf hardware, even a tech-savvy teenager could potentially access your passwords, bank logins, and credit card details.
00:08:47.320Now, you might think, what's the big deal?
00:09:44.240You know, congratulations, you don't have to go.
00:09:49.420Your name is, you know, we've already got someone filling this job in the medical unit where I was serving.
00:09:53.840So you can stay home, and you can continue doing what you're doing.
00:09:56.920But I knew that there was no way, there was just no way that I could stay back and work in some plush office in the state capitol and watch my brothers and sisters in uniform go and deploy to war on the other side of the world.
00:10:13.420And so I left my re-election campaign and volunteered to deploy, got trained in a different job that they needed filling in that medical unit, and went off on an 18-month long deployment.
00:10:31.100So you got hauled out of your life, what did you learn?
00:10:33.140So much, so much about the cost of war, both in the loss of people who I was close to, people who I served with, as well as people who I had never met.
00:10:48.360One, the very first thing that I did in my job while I served in Iraq, we were in a camp about 40 miles north of Baghdad, and the very first thing that I did every single day that I was there was to go through a list of names of American service soldiers who were serving all across that country who had been injured or hurt in combat the day before, the previous 24 hours.
00:11:15.360And I had to go through that list name by name to look to see if there were any of the soldiers from our brigade, which was about close to 3,000 people who were serving in four different parts of Iraq at the time, to make sure that, okay, well, this person has been injured or they've been hurt.
00:11:41.800And basically make sure that they had what they need, whether they were staying in country.
00:11:45.700We eventually got them back home to their families if they had to leave.
00:11:49.820But every single day being confronted with the high human cost of war that is just so often not discussed or talked about in the headlines or even thought about by politicians, even if they might give lip service to it.
00:12:05.080And also, therefore, coming from serving in the state house and even some of our local politicians in Hawaii, they would come out and visit the troops, get the photo op, be on the ground for maybe 24, 48 hours, and then go back and say all of these things as though they knew it was happening.
00:12:22.020And just the hypocrisy, the hypocrisy of the politicians in Washington that voted for that war in Iraq, but really without any care for the consequences of that decision or even thinking through what are we actually doing here?
00:12:38.240Is it serving the interests of the American people?
00:12:40.680Yeah, well, and what were you doing there as far as you're concerned?
00:12:43.600You know, you've had lots of time to think about it now, and you were actually there.
00:12:48.800Well, for our unit, so our specific unit there was there to go after different terrorist elements.
00:12:56.180This was kind of where Al-Qaeda was growing stronger, and obviously the rise of ISIS would occur a little later after we left.
00:13:04.380But, you know, we had a number of different infantry units that were going around in different areas and trying to seek out those insurgents that were attacking Americans.
00:13:17.740And that was the specific mission that we had.
00:13:20.860I served in a medical unit, and so we were providing care primarily for our American troops,
00:13:27.760but also going out and trying to help provide care for local Iraqis in the area where we were.
00:13:38.800This was after the scandal occurred, but I visited the hospital Abu Ghraib prison and was struck there about the medical care that was being provided there to the prisoners,
00:13:49.620which was exactly the same kind of care that we were providing to injured service members who were also in the country.
00:13:58.660But it was seeing past kind of the day-to-day tasks there in being exposed literally on the front lines to the war profiteering and the military-industrial complex,
00:14:15.380the monopoly of KBR Halliburton making an immeasurable amount of money off of this war.
00:14:25.920Again, I was there for all of 2005 in Iraq, and that was in the early days.
00:14:32.000And you look at what has happened since over the ensuing decades in Iraq and Afghanistan.
00:14:38.360And again, you know, my exposure in Hawaii as a state legislator was very limited when it comes to foreign policy.
00:14:45.600There wasn't, you know, a lot that I knew, but being there, experiencing it, and at a basic level,
00:14:51.820understanding government spending and taxpayer dollars and how are we using it, the accountability,
00:14:56.820and going and talking to these, you know, they called them, they labeled them third-country nationals.
00:15:01.720They would import in from places like Nepal and the Philippines and Sri Lanka, pay them pennies, essentially,
00:15:09.160compared to how much they were charging the federal government to do things like,
00:15:13.180okay, well, we're going to cook food for the troops every day.
00:15:17.060And, you know, I started asking, well, how, you know, if I walk into the chow hall tent or building or whatever
00:15:22.200and get a bowl of cereal and a banana for breakfast, how much is KBR Halliburton charging the U.S. federal government for that?
00:17:46.800But then, you know, I have my skepticism about the practical and ethical utility of placing women on the front lines, for example, in battle positions.
00:17:57.500And there's obviously a huge disparity in physical strength and probably an innate aggression.
00:18:03.720And, you know, and that could go one way or another because it isn't completely obvious that the most aggressive soldiers are the best, even though that might seem self-evident.
00:18:16.720So what did you conclude about the integration of women into the armed forces?
00:18:22.500What's good about that and what's not good about it, assuming there is anything not good about it?
00:18:27.180My position on this, and this is based on my experience, is that we should have the best people for the job, whatever that job may be.
00:18:40.020The people who are best equipped, who are best trained, who have the capabilities, both, you know, mental, emotional, and physical.
00:18:48.360And that women on their face, simply for their gender, should not be disqualified from various jobs simply because of that.
00:18:59.720I have served alongside, obviously, many men and women, people who have been very good at their jobs because of their skills and their capabilities, and others who don't have those skills and capabilities.
00:19:13.480And so whether those jobs are serving as an infantry soldier or an artillery soldier, whether you're serving in a combat unit or a support unit, what I want, both as a soldier, who I want to be serving alongside, but also I think when you look at this from a policy perspective, what we should want as a country is we need the best people who are going to do, who are best equipped to do the job.
00:19:40.460Not all women are best equipped to serve in a combat unit.
00:19:44.160Not all men are best equipped to serve in a combat unit.
00:19:47.280So there should not be an arbitrary standard simply based on gender, but rather set the standard.
00:19:55.200And if you meet the standard, whether you're a man or a woman, then you want the job.
00:20:05.380I guess that would bring up—that brings up two problems, I suppose, is one is that there are physical standards set for jobs like firefighter and policeman and obviously military practitioner, soldier.
00:20:17.440And those standards, especially in elite units, are extremely high.
00:20:21.480I mean, they're high enough so most men can't manage them at all.
00:20:24.540And because of the difference, especially in upper body strength, women have a lot of stamina, but difference in upper body strength really differentiates men from women.
00:20:32.300If the physical standards are set high enough to exclude, say, 95% of men, they're going to exclude virtually all women.
00:20:40.540And then the question comes up, well, should you keep the standards?
00:20:43.300And obviously, some level of physical prowess is necessary.
00:20:47.620But if the standard is 100% exclusionary on the sex front, then it raises the question of whether the standard itself is sexist, let's say, in a counterproductive manner.
00:21:00.060I think the question is, what is the basis for the standard?
00:21:04.460And I know that there are some standards that have been set traditionally in the military, well, this is an elite unit, so the standards must be exclusionary, so we only get the most elite people.
00:21:16.180But are those standards simply based on a concept of elite-ism, I guess, in this context?
00:21:22.640Or are they set based on the conditions that soldiers serving in that particular unit will be likely to face?
00:21:29.940Are they based on the reality of the requirements of the job?
00:21:33.760And so if we're in a situation, and there are jobs, both in the military, as you mentioned, first responders and others, if those standards are set on a realistic assessment of what this job will require, and it turns out that, hey, one out of 100 women who apply actually qualifies, then so be it.
00:21:53.600You know, whatever, if there are a greater number of men who qualify, then so be it.
00:21:57.520If we have people who have people who get these jobs who cannot do the job, then it's pointless, and it puts themselves and it puts the entire unit and mission at risk in doing so.
00:22:09.460Well, there's a measurement science that's been devoted to this for a long time, and there are actually guidelines for psychologists who do assessment, let's say, in relationship to a particular job.
00:22:21.080Some of those are enshrined in appropriate law.
00:22:24.280And then the notion is, first of all, that you have to do a job analysis, which is, okay, what is it that the people who are doing this job, who are good at it, spend the bulk of their time doing?
00:22:35.380You can measure that, although that's not easy, for example, it's not that easy to measure the performance of a middle manager, for example, in a corporation, because the outcomes are difficult to specify.
00:22:45.840But you can do a better or worse job of that, and if you do a good job, then you can find out what predicts prowess, and you can do that statistically, and then you define merit, right?
00:22:57.580Merit is what makes it likely that you will do very well doing whatever this job is for.
00:23:08.160The problem is, as you alluded to, if you accept merit defined in that manner as the gold standard, then you're going to have to accept the outcome, which is that there isn't going to be radical equity at all levels of analysis in the candidate pool.
00:23:25.080And so you have to forego that, and it certainly seems, I would say, that on the left side of things now, people are almost entirely unwilling to forego that equity outcome.
00:23:36.200I mean, even Kamala Harris, who should have known better, tweeted out a few weeks ago her support for this concept of equity, and people who aren't paying attention think that means equality of opportunity, which is not what it means at all, which is why it's a different word.
00:23:50.920It means that if the outcomes of the selection process aren't equal across all conceivable combinations of ethnicity and gender, it's sex, et cetera, that intersectional morass, then the system is by definition exclusionary and prejudiced.
00:24:08.380And that, well, that just kills merit, assuming that merit is not completely equally distributed.
00:24:14.920Now, one other question on the female front.
00:24:17.760So one of the things that's disturbed my conscience with regards to women on the front lines is that there's always the possibility that you'll fall into the hands of the enemy.
00:24:27.980And it wasn't very much fun for, let's say, British and American prisoners of war in Nazi camps in World War II, although there were some Geneva Convention arrangements that were still in place.
00:24:42.000But I can't imagine what it would be like to be a frontline woman who fell into enemy hands.
00:24:47.580I mean, that's a level of absolute, bloody, catastrophic hell that I think that we should be very, very cautious about exposing anyone to.
00:24:59.100And so I have a proclivity to think that women are differentially susceptible to exploitation on the captured enemy front.
00:25:09.540And I don't know exactly, you know, given credence to what you say about making sure we have the most qualified people.
00:25:17.580You know, maybe you can ask people to face their death.
00:25:21.180I don't know if it's okay to ask them to face endless gang rape and then death.
00:25:28.220You know, that's pushing the envelope.
00:25:31.320And so I don't know what you think about that.
00:25:32.960I imagine that thoughts of that sort must have gone through your mind from time to time.
00:25:39.280It is the most, war is tragic and ugly to say the least.
00:25:48.920And you're facing some of the most horrific conditions, which is one of the reasons why I don't support the draft is because as a soldier,
00:25:58.880I don't want to be serving alongside anybody who hasn't made that choice to be there, who hasn't made that choice to be willing to make those sacrifices,
00:26:10.300not only to give up one's life in service to our country, but to face the plethora of what could be the absolute worst case scenarios.
00:31:55.220They may have some fancy shelters where they may be able to survive and continue to wage war in the event that we get there,
00:32:02.280but the vast majority of people in this country and people around the world will be the ones that suffer the catastrophic consequences of a nuclear holocaust.
00:32:59.540I made a couple of videos about the Russia-Ukraine war, you know, making a foray into a domain that's obviously contentious enough to produce a war, let's say.
00:34:47.080The Russians haven't got a great history of that.
00:34:49.220And no matter what you think of Putin, it's definitely the case that he isn't the worst leader that emerged in Russia in the last hundred years by any measure.
00:34:59.200And then I think, well, instead of Putin being replaced by someone who could be better but probably won't be, we'll have a Russia that's really fragmented and that, you know, the country in some ways collapses.
00:35:13.160And that's a really bad idea because there's a lot of nuclear bombs there.
00:35:17.660And if you get the fragmentation of that power structure into multiple chieftains, let's say, and a few of them emerge armed with nuclear bombs, then we have a major problem on our hands.
00:35:30.280And that seems to me to be a highly likely outcome.
00:35:33.500And so, and then if we weaken Russia severely and permanently, then we have the problem of a severely and permanently weakened Russia.
00:35:43.960And that's a big problem because they produce a lot of fertilizer.
00:35:47.080And the Europeans happen to be dependent on them for a lot of their energy needs.
00:35:53.880And then we have the absolute bloody catastrophic probability that if Putin starts to lose in any serious way and so starts to believe that Russian territorial integrity is threatened, however he defines that,
00:36:10.680that he has an immense array of unbelievably powerful next generation weapons at his disposal and why the hell wouldn't he use them?
00:36:57.720Make, make a pro, can you make a pro and then a cautionary war case in relationship to the Russia and Ukraine?
00:37:06.180What's in America's true interests as far as you're concerned?
00:37:09.680Well, well, this is, this is exactly, you have very clearly laid out not only the problem with how this, President Biden,
00:37:19.820and frankly, Democrat and Republican leaders in Congress who are applauding and pushing for and escalating this war is how short-sighted they are,
00:37:32.260but also this has been the problem in U.S. foreign policy from our leaders for so long is,
00:37:38.160is they are not actually thinking clearly, if they're thinking at all, about what is, what is our goal?
01:17:08.860But somebody like her who is weak, who lacks understanding in foreign policy, who feels the need to be a
01:17:17.440to prove herself, to prove her strength, to stand up with the big boys and look tough and somehow believe that,
01:17:25.480well, hey, the best way to do that is to go drop some bombs somewhere and start a war.
01:17:30.500This is a terrifying prospect for someone.
01:17:36.600And you see this, yes, with some women who feel like they have to go and look tough, but that only happens if they're not actually strong, internally strong individuals themselves.
01:17:46.940But we also see this with some of the male leaders in this country.
01:17:52.100We saw how, you know, how people react.
01:17:55.840Again, like in the media and in media, how the media and politics, how they react when we go to war.
01:18:01.600We saw how Nancy Pelosi and Brian Williams and others declared Donald Trump.
01:18:06.540This is the first time he seems presidential when he decided to go and launch some rockets and missiles against Syria.
01:18:12.760People who hated him, people who could not stand him and were obsessed with trying to destroy President Trump.
01:18:19.800All of a sudden, he goes and launches some bombs and they're all over the television saying, well, finally, he's acting like a president.
01:18:27.400This is the problem with the lack of leadership that we have and how, you know, you started this question asking about how is it the Democratic Party that should be the party that is,
01:18:36.760at a minimum, skeptical and cynical about the military-industrial complex and going out and starting new wars and regime change and all of this stuff.