This episode is sponsored by a company I've used for well over a decade and that is 511.
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323 of the Behind the Shield podcast with Joel Titoro and Wes Barnett. Welcome to the Behind the
Shield podcast. As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor
to welcome on the show, former congresswoman for Hawaii, army national guard officer and author
Tulsi Gabbard. Now as you will hear, I've been waiting a long time for this conversation and
the reason is this. More often than not, we are presented with people that we don't truly believe
in when it comes to leadership. But what I saw with Tulsi over and over again was truly an element of
walking the walk. So in this conversation, I wanted to pull out some things I hadn't really heard her
discuss before. So we touch on a host of topics from the obesity epidemic, education, physical
fitness, mental health, prisons, addiction, the first responder community, the impact of the
wildland fires in Hawaii, her new book and so much more. Now before we get to this incredible
conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment, go to whichever app you listen to
this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating. Every single five star rating
truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for others to find. And this is a free
library of over 900 episodes now. So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible
men and women stories so I can get them to every single person on planet earth who needs to hear
them. So with that being said, I introduce to you Tulsi Gabbard. Enjoy.
Tulsi Gabbard,
reaching out and your patience and as we've been working on getting this, getting together like
this. And I just appreciate the really important message and conversations that you have
through your podcast, the stories that you share. It's inspirational and I think really powerful
at a time when the noise on social media and in the news can be overwhelming and dark on most days.
So I appreciate you. Yeah, well, I'm excited because I know the reason why I've been so
dogmatic in pursuing this is because I have made it very, very obvious to the people listening
of my discontent in the political world for just good human beings to be able to be allowed to
succeed. And I think that that kind of humanitarian kindness and compassion lens is what we need. So
again, I appreciate you. I understand how busy you are. So for you coming on today. Thank you.
All right. So very first question, where on planet earth we finding you your morning, my afternoon?
Thankfully, I am home in Hawaii. I pretty much live out of a suitcase these days, but
I'm home here now primarily because of my army reserve duties and responsibilities. I'm a battalion
commander of a civil affairs unit right now. And for those who aren't familiar, the question I get
asked most often is, well, what is civil affairs? I've never heard of it before. We are known briefly
as the warrior diplomats of the army. And our job is to our responsibility is to essentially be the
bridge between the commander of a unit. Usually it's a, you know, whether it be the Indo-Pacific
commander, the US Army Pacific commander, commanders at different levels to help them better
understand people, people in the areas where they may be operating or people in areas where they may
be going to or deploying to. This is an area where if we look throughout history, major problems in
different military operations have often been connected to the failure of the military to
actually understand the human element of how that'll impact things either positively or negatively.
And frankly, in our line of work, oftentimes how if you go in and you better understand people and
what they need, what their challenges are, what their hopes, their opportunities are, you have the
opportunity to deescalate or even prevent conflict before it even starts. So as army reserve soldiers,
we've got our two weeks of annual duty coming up. It actually starts tomorrow. And so I have soldiers
coming out here to train in Hawaii, and I've got soldiers who will be going out and training
across the Pacific and I'll be joining both of them.
Interesting segue. We haven't even started on your life journey, but seeing as you mentioned such an
important role and it is an incredibly important role. And I've had so many veterans say, I wish
we'd understood the culture before we deployed in insert place here. But Sebastian Junger, the
author has been on a few times and I think it was the Iroquois that he references that they had a
leader for peacetime and a leader for wartime. What is your perspective on the kind of personality
during those two different chapters of a country's existence?
I think that it's important for our leaders to be able to lead in both environments. There are so
many people, and this has been my experience, as well as others who I've served with, those who
have seen and know and understand firsthand the ugliness and the cost, the true cost of war,
are the people who most loudly advocate for peace. And so within, I served in Congress for eight
years on the foreign affairs and the armed services committees. I've been in the army now,
in the National Garden Reserve for almost 21 years. And it's essential that we have leaders
who are not chomping at the bit to go to war, but who best understand the importance of war.
But who best understand the environment, who have foresight and are committed to exhausting
all peaceful means, diplomatic means, to prevent going to war before seeing war as a last result.
I'm not a pacifist, obviously. I serve in our military. I understand that,
unfortunately, there are sometimes circumstances where war is unavoidable.
But those decisions have to be made very carefully. If we reach that point, then, of course,
our military needs to be trained and ready to go and complete that mission, defeat our enemy,
and ensure the safety, security, and freedom of the American people.
I've always loved that phrase, walk softly, but carry a big stick. I don't know if I'm paraphrasing
or not, but I think that's so important. While we're on this topic, I'm kind of jumping ahead, but
one of the things as a layman, someone who's not in the military at all, just simply a
civilian here looking into this issue, I look at it the same way as I look at the obesity crisis.
I want to get to that in a little while, but when there is so much money to be made from sick people,
which is my world, this is what I did see as a firefighter and a paramedic,
you wonder where's the checks and balances to stop fast food. So, you know, what are the
contributing elements that are then creating more and more customers for the medical industry?
And there are some phenomenal human beings within that industry, but there are a lot of very large
companies making a lot of money. In parallel to that, if I think about the military, when
there are a lot of companies that are going to make a lot of money when we are at war,
where are the checks and balances, like you said, for that diplomacy to stop us being dragged into
another one when we have certain people in very, very high positions in government, you know, that
are going to make a lot of money when we send our young men and women, arguably children, to another
country to fight for us.
I really appreciate your drawing a parallel between those two examples, because when you go and look
at the root cause, I think of both of these challenges, and you're asking where the check
and balance is, the root problem comes from politicians, both elected as well as unelected
bureaucrats, people who exist within this power elite in Washington. These are people who are
chasing generally two things, they're chasing power and or money. And let's look at the
you know, you mentioned the fast food industry, you look at other contributors, you look at big
pharma, you look at these different industries that essentially profit off of people being sick.
They're not actually interested in having a healthy society where people aren't going to
the doctor as often where they're not being told, hey, you have to take this medication for the
rest of your life. Those private industries that profit are doing the same thing.
And those industries that profit are directly connected to those in government who are making
policies, whether they be legislators, or they be bureaucrats, policies that keep people sick.
They're also not actually interested in people being healthy, eating nutritious food, encouraging
exercise, encouraging a healthy lifestyle. Otherwise, we would see a very different food
example being put out by our government, we would see very different priorities being
expressed and implemented in our education system. I can't tell you how many teachers and families
I've met have talked about how you know, yeah, the physical fitness, you know, the PT time at our
kids school was cut a long time ago. So looking at the fact that these things exist because of
the fact that they're not just in the hands of those in power, chasing power, and or chasing money.
This is the same situation with regard to the question of peace and war. President Eisenhower,
you know, he very courageously spoke about this in his farewell address as president of the United
States. When he was a little boy, you know, who had led people courageously during a time of war,
he warned us way back then about the cozy relationship between members of Congress
and the military industrial complex, those industries that profit heavily from us being
in a state of constant war. Well, his warning was was very true, then he saw it happening.
time. We have been at a state of war for longer than half of my life. We've seen how these
politicians and these industries, as soon as one war seems to be coming to an end, they
find another war. They start fomenting fear, hyping up a new Cold War and saying, well,
we need more weapons. People who very carelessly essentially put us at risk, we the American
people, our men and women in uniform, because they are so eager to please their bosses in
the military industrial complex without actually caring for the interests of the American people
or those who are paying the price the most, whether it be in our lives or our families
and the sacrifices that they make or the American taxpayer who's being told, hey, we're going
to send billions and billions, hundreds of billions of dollars more here. We're going
to go spend trillions of American taxpayer dollars here. But guess what? We don't have
enough money to take every homeless veteran off our streets. It was heartbreaking when
I was in Congress to see how tough it was for the first responders from 9-11, many of
whom got sick because of the toxins that they were exposed to, many of whom were already
dying of cancer, how many years they had to fight just to get their health care taken
care of. It's maddening if you look at the consequences of these choices that are being
made where we're not even allowed to ask for an audit of how our money is being spent that's
being shipped off to Ukraine. But meanwhile, our families in West Maui, who suffered the
worst historic fire in over 100 years in our country's history, are having to beg for money
just to be able to keep a roof over their heads. The cause of these problems are the
same. And this is a lot of what I get into in the book that I wrote for Love of Country
is politicians who put their own selfish interests, their desire for power, their partisan interests
ahead of the interests of the people who they have been charged to serve.
Let me ask you probably something you haven't been asked before. When I look at the system
that we use to choose the people that we are given every four years, and I think there's
no better way of understanding the system is broken that people use the word, I have
to choose from the lesser of two evils, 330 million people. But, you know, we have this
system that puts certain people here and then you get at the helm, you get a position where
you could truly make a huge impact for the benefit of the American people, their mental
health, their physical health, their security, their education, and the converse happens.
We have a mental health crisis in this country. And when we think about that, we talk about
suicide, we talk about the fentanyl crisis. But in my opinion, and this is literally Sad
Guru was on Joe Rogan's podcast and he made a passing comment and it just stuck with me.
We never think about the frivolous lawsuit lawyers, the heads of tobacco companies, or,
you know, the Purdue, these kind of people. But in my opinion, there has to be a level
of mental ill health to sleep soundly at night knowing that your decisions are either sending
young Americans to their deaths in war, or, you know, your opiates are destroying West
Virginia and Ohio. So what is your perspective of just the overall health of some of these
people that we find in these positions because of our broken system?
It's an interesting question. And I hesitate to put a label on it like a mental health
issue or mental illness because it kind of puts them in a position of being victims of
some external thing that has caused them to make these kinds of decisions and abuse their
position of power, as you said, whether they be in private industry or in government. But
if you were to say that there is an illness, the illness really is that they find a way
in their own minds to justify their actions. And I'll use the example of war because it's
a very personal one for me. These are people who go and have convinced themselves perhaps
and try to convince us that we must make these sacrifices or risk our own safety and security
or our own freedom. It doesn't matter that their argument doesn't make sense. It doesn't
matter that it's not logical. I'll use the current day example of this proxy war with
Russia that's being waged via Ukraine, using the Ukrainian people and our taxpayer dollars
to do what our government has told us they're doing, which is essentially they want to get
rid of Putin. It's a regime change war. They're telling us that we have to support this. We
have to support endless amounts of money to Ukraine because our democracy is at stake.
And they use the line that's always so easily thrown about, which is, well, if we don't
fight them over there, we're going to have to fight them over here. Let's look at that.
We were told by our own intelligence agencies that Russia was going, when they invaded Ukraine,
which was wrong, they should not have done that, obviously, but we were told that when
they invaded Ukraine, they would take Kiev, they would take control of Kiev, the capital
of Ukraine. I think it was within 72 hours, very short period of time. Well, sadly, this
war has gone on now for almost two years, and Russia has still been, they are still
within the boundaries of Ukraine. They've obviously captured cities along that eastern
border of Ukraine. They still maintain control of Crimea. But the point is, there's a fear
mongering that goes on to justify their actions to make us think that somehow Russia is going
to come knocking on our door and invade the United States of America. They have not been
able to get very far in Ukraine. And so their argument is not at all backed up by evidence
whatsoever. So it's important for us to be discerning and be critical thinkers as we
are being told, well, you know, they always find some justification for their actions.
But when you actually take a look at it and scratch beneath the surface, oftentimes, it
doesn't make sense. And when you scratch beneath the surface, you recognize, okay, as we saw
with the Patriot Act after the terrorist attack on 9-11, as we've seen many more times since
then, Benjamin Franklin warned us saying that, you know, if we're willing to give up a little
bit of our liberty in the name of security, then we deserve to have neither. And unfortunately,
we have politicians and people in power who are exploiting that and fomenting fear in
order to give up power and give up control.
When COVID happened, I remember at the beginning thinking, why are we not talking about making
people healthier in general? This virus is a virus. It's a little tiny piece of biological
material that's going to flow into your body. And it doesn't want you to die because it
wants you to allow it to reproduce and then go spread its love everywhere else. But as
the people in the wellness community started talking about it, it was almost revered as
heresy. It was shouted as heresy. And I watched friends, family, including my own. So there
was this massive division, but it was absolute fear behind it. And luckily, my echo chamber
were grounded people in the wellness space that just held their ground and said, when
you're ready to come back in, we're here for you kind of thing. But two years later, it
was what was really nauseating to me because regardless of whatever people listening's
meaning was, you were very trustworthy. The vaccine, that's where you went. You did it
for your family. Beautiful. You were very anti that and wary of that, but you took care
of your health and beautiful. But the middle line was the healthier the person, the more
resilient we are not only to have this virus, but the next one. And then even if you're
talking about national security, the more chance we have of a stronger military if we've
got lots of young fit people to choose from. But two years later, after being told it was
all about the health of the nation, nothing was done. You touched on PE programs, no PE
programs were reinstated. No real food was put back in schools. There wasn't more pedestrianization
of downtown areas to get people walking more. I saw absolutely nothing. But when you talk
about the people being kind of divided, what I did see was this fear mongering that caused
such a divide that people appeared to lose the ability to think critically, just like
you said. What is your observation of the health of the nation, virus aside, 2020 to
where we are now?
James, this is directly connected to the theme of what we've talked about so far, which is
you have people in power who want to maintain that power and control or grow it. And they
are very cozy with those who have strong financial interests in maintaining a sick society, a
physically sick society, or even a mentally sick society as you brought up mental health.
It was very telling to me during that COVID situation when Jen Psaki, then the White House
press secretary, she was asked by a reporter, I'm sure you saw this, but she was asked by
a reporter about whether or not the White House would be issuing recommendations to
people to exercise, to eat healthy, to try to strengthen their immune system as a means
of mitigating the risk of either getting COVID or getting very sick from COVID if they got
it. And her response was, well, we will issue the guidance that comes from the CDC and that
guidance is everyone needs to get a vaccine. When I saw that, I thought, how is it possible
that the spokesperson for the president of the United States cannot easily say, well,
yes, of course, if we have people who are trying to be more healthy and nutritious in
their eating and trying to exercise and strengthening their immune system, that is a good thing.
And then whatever else she would want to add to that. The fact that she couldn't even say
something that is common sense and proven by science to be generally good for people
in all situations, including in the situation related to COVID really pointed to what we
saw play out throughout that crisis, which was the big vaccine companies, big pharma,
they were getting tons of money from our government charging more than they would otherwise to
expedite the production of this vaccine that the government was mandating that everybody
take. What a great business model for big pharma to find themselves in that situation.
And even now, I think of this as we're seeing still recommendations coming from the CDC,
coming from the government. Well, hey, have you gotten your booster shot? I don't even
know what number they're on right now, but it's just so comical to me because it's always
like, okay, well, there's a new variant as there are with many of these viruses. There's
always a new variant. It's always morphing into some new form because it's grown resistant
to whatever the latest vaccine was. And so they're always coming out, oh my God, we have
to hurry up and develop this booster for this latest variant of COVID. And by the time they
develop this booster, it's already one or two variants along the way. And now we're
at a place where finally they've said, oh, well, this is basically like the common cold,
I believe they said, or the common flu. And yet they're still encouraging people to go
and get the booster. There are still employers who are saying, well, we need all of our employees
to make sure that they have booster number 11 or whatever it may be. I said that this
is comical, but it's actually not funny in the sense that people are being dictated to
and being influenced. Why? It's not because their best interests are at heart. It is about
this cozy relationship between government and big pharma.
It's still affecting my professions too, because I just had a LA FD firefighter on John Knox,
who was terminated in November of 2023 for not taking the vaccine. When you look at the
efficacy or lack thereof, and to be very fair, I had one of my friends who worked in the
ICU and the ER during the pandemic and his observations were vaccinated people were less
likely to actually die from it. Now it doesn't mean I didn't get it. They got it, but it
was a symptom minimizer or symptom reducer possibly. But if we're talking about efficacy,
if I'm understanding, I don't research anything too deeply. It's about a 50-50 now, almost
like kind of placebo numbers. So again, I had it. I had it because I was going home
to Europe. I needed to have it to travel when I was visiting my grandmother who was 105.
I'll take one on the chin for that. That was enough reasons for me. But do I think
that there's any sort of level of proof to show that the unprotected first responders
and doctors and nurses that were out there holding the line with almost no PPE, that
now a year later you have the right to terminate them because they didn't and all of a sudden
they're murderers because they weren't immunized. And then now we see the efficacy is so low
and you're still holding the line trying to take these first responders jobs.
And there's a very real consequence to that, obviously to that individual, to their family,
their ability to have a livelihood to support their families. But also I'll use the example
of Maui County here in the state of Hawaii. Obviously the wildfire that happened last
August, it made international news and for good reason. There were many points of failure
that led to the high casualty and the high level of destruction that occurred because
of that wildfire. One of them, one of the many contributors was the fact that our Maui
Fire Department was undermanned and under resourced. Well, and I don't have the final
number, but I know personally of a friend of mine on Maui who was fired before the fires
took place because he wouldn't take the vaccine. And the fall, they said, okay, fine. If you're
not going to take the vaccine, you have to wear a mask and go in and you've got to get
a COVID test, whatever the frequency was. I don't remember what it was. He refused to
wear the mask and said, I'm happy to take a COVID test, but I'm not going to wear a
mask. They fired him because of that. And so you look at what are the ramifications
and I'm sure there are comparable examples in many localities and cities with nurses
and doctors, healthcare providers who've been fired because of this, first responders who've
been fired because of this, firefighters, police officers. And now we're facing a time
where we have a huge shortage of police officers and law enforcement across the country, a
huge shortage of healthcare providers and nurses, a huge shortage. So the ramifications
of this once again point to putting their exercise of power over the health and wellbeing
and interests of certainly these providers and first responders, but ultimately to the
community that benefits from their willingness to do these jobs in the first place.
I've come to realize that we, the fire service have done a horrible job of branding and the
generation up to pretty much when I was hired. So my generation included, especially we were
very soon after 9 11, there was just a blind loyalty. We're going to go in, we're going
to step up, we're going to do whatever's asked for us. Now fast forward 20 years and we have
this hiring crisis. And what I think has happened, I'd love to get your kind of perspective on
this is I didn't even have any family in the fire service. When I entered from coming from
another country, it was all new to me. Everything from fighting fires to cleaning toilets and
everything in between. But everyone prior to you had done the same thing. So it was
normal. Your baseline was completely skewed, but you shared it with everyone. Well now
fast forward 20 years and we truly are able to see aside from the beautiful profession
that it is, the impact of the way that we work our first responders. And so it's the
cancers, the divorces, the suicides and overdoses, the heart attacks. And so I think what's happened
now is that because in 2024 you can literally Google what's it like being a firefighter,
all the good stuff will come up and that's all that would have come up when I was looking.
But now all the other stuff comes up as well because it's in the news every day. I mean,
we lose I think in law enforcement twice as many officers to suicide than we do any other
line of duty death and firefighters are very, very similar. So if you Google it, it's going
to come up. So for me, the way I look at the hiring crisis is simply that we've asked them
to do so much more with so much less that we've hit a critical mass and people are realizing
I don't want to do that. I don't want to do 56 hours a week and then you call me at seven
in the morning and now I have to stay for another 24 and it's my child's birthday today.
So that's kind of, you know, the first responders lens looking that way. What are you seeing
as far of the reasons that we're struggling to hire professions that once had lines all
the way around the building for? You know, you don't go into any of these lines of work
and I'm curious to learn from you why you chose the fire service over any of the others,
but you don't go into any of these lines of work because you're trying to make a lot of
money or because you don't want to put yourself in a risky situation or environment. You go
in, and this goes across the board for every one of these service professions that we're
talking about. You go into this because you want to serve, you want to protect, you want
to save lives, you want to take care of people knowing the risk that goes with it. And I
can say the same for people who I serve with in the military. You don't go into it because
you're trying to make a million dollars or you're trying to become a real estate investor
when you retire, like all these other things. You go into it knowing exactly what you're
getting into or at least having a good idea. The thing that I've seen, especially over
these last four or five years, is the fact that those who are in positions of leadership
and whether it be in the uniform leadership or be the political leadership, county, state,
federal, in too many cases becomes increasingly clear that they don't actually care about
you, the service provider. That when it comes right down to it, and my sister is in law
enforcement as you know, when it comes right down to it, the bosses don't have your back.
They don't understand what you're sacrificing in personally or with your family and willing
to work with you to make sure that you're able to maintain a healthy family life while
also going above and beyond in the work that you're doing. In the case of law enforcement,
it's become such a politically charged environment where there are too many people in the defund
the police, I don't know, club, I guess you could say, people who are calling police off
officers, names, people who are demonizing police, and there's a lot that I get from
my friends in the military as well, friends who've spent their entire careers serving
in the military and then come to me and say, hey, my kid's about to graduate from high
school and asking me whether or not they should join the military. I'm telling them, no, don't
do it. It's not worth it. All of this is coming from the fact that you have, again, I'm going
to sound like a broken record, but it is the common thread that connects all of these problems
is having people in positions of power, again, bureaucrats and politicians alike, unfortunately,
sometimes those who wear the uniform, including those who are civilians who ultimately are
careerists, they're looking out for how do they get the next promotion or they're looking
out for they don't want to lose their jobs. The bottom line is they're not willing to
be courageous leaders who has the back of their team, who's willing to take a stand
for what's right, even if it comes at a personal or professional cost to themselves. This is
a huge problem in our society, in our country, and our country because of the consequences
and ramifications that we're having where across all of these sectors, the military
included, they're having recruiting problems, they're having retention problems. What boggles
my mind is that those in charge are scratching their heads and throwing up their hands saying,
well, I wonder why nobody wants to join the army these days. I wonder why we don't, as
you said, have people lining up around the corner to join the police force. I wonder
why people aren't lining up to go and become a firefighter and not actually doing the real
honest introspection to determine the answer to that question or having an honest discussion
with people who are in the force, who are in the fire departments and saying, tell us
the honest truth. We need to know why this is that you are getting out. We need to know
why this is that people, you're not encouraging your friends to come in and join. They're
not actually interested. They're not actually interested in knowing the answer to that question
because maybe they realize it, maybe they don't, but the answer forces them to look
in the mirror and fix themselves.
There's such a powerful parallel with what you said and especially in the fire service
and I want to get your take on this too. What I've realized and again, white belt layman
perspective, but going back to my community college economics class or economics, economics,
economics, English.
With English.
Yeah, I guess they're confused now. I'm like literally 50% of my life has been in each
country pretty much, but the term false economy came up and when I look at the way that we
work our first responders, I'm going to take the fire service specifically because their
hours are insane. The average firefighter's base hourly, I'm sorry, weekly hours is 56.
Then you add in, we're short staff, now it's another 24. So a lot of our firefighters are
working 80 hours a week, at least every other week. That's not the federal guys who are
working crazy hours, CDFs and these other ones that are working days and days and days
in a row. So there's a cost of that and it's costing our cities and counties millions and
millions and millions in workman's comp claims, in overtime, in lawsuits when we make mistakes,
in medical retirement, line of duty death benefits. It blows my mind because all we
need is courageous leadership. It's been proven that on every element, it would improve
if you just put that money into your workforce, staff your workforce properly in the fire
service. The 24-72, I think should be a national standards. They do a 24 hour shift with a
72, not a 24. So that gives them roughly enough time to actually recover. And the people that
work those kinds of shifts, they report, not just so much better as far as their ability
to deliver service and the wellness and the longevity and the recruitment, but also saving
money for their city or county. But just like you said, over and over again, when there's
something that really is going to change, change the country or the fire department
for the better, it's on the shoulders of that one leader to be courageous enough to say,
I might not experience the benefits of this, but I'm going to do it for you because it's
the right thing to do.
Exactly. Exactly. It just comes down to care, having leaders who care. I have been for so
long just a huge proponent of servant leadership. And one of the things, and that's essentially
what we need, where does that courage come from? It comes from that mentality and that
mindset of being a servant leader in every one of these examples. And it's not just
limited to first responders or the military or teachers or doctors, but servant leaders
in private industry, servant leaders in our government, servant leaders in every sector
of our society who recognize their responsibility as a leader to care for those who they lead
and care for those who may be their client or end user or customer or constituent. That
courage comes from that care. If you really care about someone in your life, what are
you willing to do for them? What kind of sacrifice are you willing to make for them, whether
it be your child or your spouse or a good friend for us in the military? During a time
of war, so much of this, people are like, oh, you get your courage, you're fighting for
your country. Yes, we are. We are serving our country, but we care for the man and woman
to our left and right. And I know you can relate to this as well through your own service.
That courage comes from care. And I talk about this often and I'm so glad we're getting the
chance and time to really talk about this because when you look back to Martin Luther
King's message about darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate
cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. Love or what we in Hawaii call aloha, it's
too often kind of cast aside as a sign of weakness. That love means you're just like
some false sense of utopia, kumbaya. Everybody just get along and roll over where someone
with strength will come and overpower you. No, love is the source of that strength. Love
is the source of that courage. When you think of what you would do for those who you love,
there really is no limit to the personal cost and risk and sacrifice you're willing to carry
on. So if we have leaders in place who are servant leaders, who are embodying that spirit
of aloha, that spirit of love is their motivation and inspiration, then as you said, we solve
so many of these problems. There is no greater compliment that I've gotten from either a
soldier in my unit under my command or frankly I've had this and it's brought me to tears
when I've met an older kind of grisly retired gunny sergeant in the Marine Corps who's come
up to me, meeting me for the first time and telling me I would be honored to go to war
with you and serve under your command. There is no greater compliment that I could get
and it's very humbling, but it comes from that place. If you care for your people, if
you are a courageous servant leader, then you will have people wanting to come and serve
and knowing that, hey, my boss, my leader, my command, they have my back and they will
go to the ends of the earth for me and I will go to the ends of the earth for them. And
it's not like a selfish, personal kind of bro dude relationship. It's because you are
serving both as a team that greater purpose outside of yourselves, which is to serve others
and make a positive impact on others in your community.
I think that's why a lot of the first responder military community have such a violent reaction
to selfishness. Yes, because when you have served in uniform in this particular example
or whatever other kind of occupation, if it's a selfless one, it just amplifies the selfishness
that we see. And it drives me crazy that the answer is community because we don't have
to be in the White House. We can be a father or a mother in our own home. We can step outside
our front door and be a mentor in our community. But what I don't see from the last two, the
last eight years, put it that way, I haven't seen any conversation on let's come together
on community on it takes a village. And it really saddens me because that's what we need
more than anything now is not people. I said this, a leader unites. It's that simple. A
leader unites. So the last eight years, we haven't had a leader. We've seen people pigeonhole
and drive people apart. So how do we and obviously, you know, you would be a great for this great
fit for this. But how do we as a nation push to get leaders back in these positions, whether
it's at the very top and in DC or whether it's simply in our own communities?
You know, it starts with every one of us as individuals. And this is what I close my book
with because in my book, I get into a lot of the big challenges that we're facing as
a country, some of which we've already talked about. But it's not enough just to point out
the problems it is it is essential for us to answer this question for ourselves is what
difference can I make as an individual because we can we can call for a change in leadership,
we can call for the characteristics that we want our leaders to have. But how are we living
and interacting every day? What are we doing to be a part of that solution? Unfortunately,
a lot of what we see from many politicians is, you know, they're the kind of people put
their you know, their finger up and checks which way is the wind blowing, and then that
will be the position that they take, or that will drive their commentary on a certain situation.
And in the era of social media algorithms, and so on, and the era of of cable news that
that, you know, they see their ratings go up when they foment this kind of divisiveness,
well, we can we can start to be that change by not adding to it, whether it be in our
own personal lives and interactions, or what we may be putting out in social media. And also,
it's not enough to just not react to it, but also make that conscious choice to be that to be that
voice in the room that seeks to bring people together, even when you're with people who may
have disagreements on issues or different things, but encourage that dialogue and conversation with
respect so that we can better understand each other as people, and be reminded here in this
country that we're all Americans. And the the common ground at a bare minimum that we share
are the founding principles of our country, which center around freedom, the Bill of Rights,
the Constitution or Declaration of Independence that reminds us of our God given rights that are
enshrined in these documents. And that points to the limitations that our government is supposed to
abide by to ensure that liberty and freedom in this age of hyper partisanship and divisiveness,
identity politics, all these different things that are contributing to us being torn apart.
We have to start by being that change ourselves with what we're putting out, and also to actually
hold our leaders accountable and communicate what our expectations are of the kind of leaders that
we want at every level of our society. Absolutely. I think one of the things that's very glaring to
me and coming from another country serving in uniform, because I mean, I don't think people
understand the lens that a firefighter paramedic gets in America, like we see America as it actually
is now, of course, you know, we see a lot of the bad stuff, but we see the bad stuff, the stuff that
people kind of gloss over. But coming from the UK, and I want to talk about, you know, health care
in a little bit, there are countries that do certain things so well. And yet a lot of the time,
there's a lot of chest beating in America, we're the greatest country in the world, which I always
say, I don't remember it being a competition anyway. But if you if you don't have humility,
then you can't go to Norway and say, tell me about your prison system, Finland, tell me about
education. So how do we foster that humility and actually learn because we don't need to reinvent
the wheel. And I get it, it's not apples to apples. Finland is very small compared to the US,
for example. But there are some people that have had some phenomenal ideas that have proven that
it works on human beings. And yet I see, you know, zero discussion on, you know, many of these being
implemented here in the US.
I do and I believe that this country is the greatest country in the world. But that should not
equate that should not be equated with arrogance, or or an inability to recognize our room and and
it's more than our room, but really our need to improve, you know, to be that more perfect union
to be able to solve the great challenges of our time. And and I completely agree, you know, I, I
often get labeled with this thing like, oh, she's an isolationist, just because I don't want to go
to war with every freaking country in the world, because I'm an advocate for peace. Oh, she's just
an isolationist. No, I'm not an isolationist. I just think that we need to build relationships
with other countries that are positive that that allow us the space to be able to see, okay, where
do we share common interests, and where are the areas where where we may have adversarial
interests, and find peaceful means diplomatic means to work through those, rather than recognize or
rather than seeing too much of what we often see, which is America, great country, ex bad
economic warfare, drop bombs, that that that is not an oversimplification of the mentality of too
many of our political leaders in our country. And this is where there's opportunity, as you say,
to go and building these relationships. There are so many countries in the world who've benefited
from technology here in America, for example, from the great academic institutions from how our
country for so long has been on the leading and cutting edge of innovation. Well, there are other
countries that have some advantages and some lessons learned that we could benefit from so we
don't have to go through and try to recreate or rebuild, you know, the process or the wheel. But
but that exchange of ideas can only come about when we are able to build those relationships,
just as we would person to person recognizing the the shared humanity of us all, and the fact that
we all share the same home on planet Earth. And so the more we can work together to solve the great
challenges of our time, the more we find that mutual benefit that mutual prosperity and that
mutual peace and security. So so this very much goes along with the mindset of servant leaders,
not those who are are and I years ago, someone came back to me, they're like, What do you mean
servant leader, like the two words, by definition, are diametrically opposed to each other, you can't
be a leader if you are also a servant. And I just think that that mindset right there is part of the
problem, we need leaders who have that servants heart, and who aren't in it for themselves because
of the rank or the attention or the fame or the power, whatever the thing that they are chasing.
But those who are coming with a servant's heart, to see how they can dedicate their time and energy
to have have that positive impact on others and actually truly be of service.
Well, that hits on two kind of points that I've talked about in the past. The first is,
and again, I don't know if this is different through your eyes, but again, through my white
belt perspective, we seem to be presented with an entire nation being the problem. So for example,
everyone in Russia was like, we want to invade Ukraine, I'm pretty sure that most of Russia was
like, where's Ukraine? You know, I mean, that thing they were too busy raising their children
and going to work to worry about invading another country. And so I think this is where these
relationships will be better if you know, the people spoke to the people, there'll be less of
that smoke and mirrors from from politicians. But also with the knowledge sharing, I love that
expression, the rising tide lifts all ships, the more that we interact, the more you know, Norway
takes some American ideas, we take some Norway, Norway's ideas, and everyone gets a little bit
better and prisons become safer and you know, their technology improves. But again, without
humility, we're opposing that and we're breaking down communication and tarring feathering an
entire country and presenting it to the American people. Yeah, you know, that that is one of the
attributes of leadership that I think is too often goes on scene or, you know, not focused on is
exactly that humility, that that being a humble person is a positive attribute. And just like I
talked about with love should not be seen as a sign of weakness. If we have people in positions
of leadership, who are not humble, it means they're not paying attention to what's going on around
them, they're self involved, it means they're unwilling to take that constructive feedback,
and those lessons learned to continue to try to improve and grow as an individual and as a leader
and in certain situations, in certain professions that can lead to a very dangerous outcome and
actually put people's lives at risk.
100%. Well, picking some of the great things from these other country, I want to present them to
you as you know, as what would be a solution in the US. Winston Churchill once said, you can make
the greatness of a nation by the health of its people. Now, currently, we have 70% either obese
or overweight, you know, and a hugely swelling issue with our young people. And I know it was
said about two or three years ago, this is the first time in at least recorded history, where
the parents are going to outlive their children if we carry on the way that we're feeding them and
not exercising them. With the health care system, and I was a big fan of Bernie, not only because
I'm a big fan of Bernie, not, you know, not 1000%, but I was like, oh, this guy actually cares.
This guy wants to do some altruistic work in this country. This is new. So I was kind of more
intrigued with him more down that road. And it was presented that oh, he wants to take all the money
and just give it to the poor people. And the way he described it, and it was great hearing him on
Joe Rogan was he was explaining where the money was coming from. And again, it's downstream.
And so what I love about the NHS back home in the UK, and it's far from a perfect system,
because they've kind of stripped that poor system and they're, you know, again, understaffed and
overworked. But the concept is that we all take care of our own. That's it, basically. But if you
have a tax based system, and it's run correctly, then that next layer is also all well, if it's
taxpayers money, we need to make the country as healthy as possible. To me, that's a huge win,
right now, we have a profit based system, as we touched on earlier, that we need people to stay
sick, so the companies can make a lot of money. It's completely the reverse to me, in my opinion,
of the NHS, because when it's done properly, all efforts are going to be made on, you know,
healthy body weight, smoking cessation, all the things PE programs, healthy food in schools,
that will not only keep the tax, you know, used on health care low, but then obviously,
it helps all the people as well. Yeah, you know, I think pointing to
metrics of success, metrics of effectiveness, is really the key thing here. As you were talking,
I'm just, and I'm not familiar, so familiar with the UK system, but I was thinking through,
I think it was my first year in Congress, I was shocked when an amendment came through, a bill
came through for a vote, that would allow frozen pizzas to meet the fruit and vegetable dietary
requirement in our public school system. And I literally like, I read it, I read it again,
I'm like, well, this can't be right, like, who would be for this? Why is this even being put
forward? Well, it won't surprise you to know that it passed, I obviously voted against it,
because it makes no sense. But the explanation I was given was, well, you know, there's tomato
sauce in frozen pizza. And so that meets that that fruit and vegetable nutrition requirement
that our public schools are supposed to abide by. It's such a joke. And I was like, well, why,
why are we even voting on like this? This is crazy. Well, guess what, there's a huge industry,
that makes frozen pizzas, that has huge government contracts, that go in and feed our kids in schools.
And so it's, it's the many layers that need to be addressed within the United States
sick care system. They're deep, they're deep, and they are tied to the deep pockets of these
different industries that that contribute to, you know, the FDA making decisions that are not in the
best health care interests of people in our country. The same goes for the CDC, the same goes for
those who are making decisions about what kind of food our kids are eating in our public school
system that are taxpayer funded. The same goes into our, our for profit insurance industry. You
know, my husband had to go and get a certain, you know, medical test done recently that, you know,
his doctor said, knew he needed to get done. He knew he needed to get it done, but he had to go
and see like three or four or five different people just to check the block on the, for the
insurance company before they would give him this, this medical test that he had to get. And I've,
there's so many different examples of this. And so when we look at how do we actually solve this,
this healthcare crisis, it is first identifying the sick care system and peeling back the layers
that are directly connected to political money that, that are driving the problem. I think there
are some very creative solutions that we should be able to provide to the people in this country
that don't create the separation between, well, if you're rich and if you have money,
then you can get the best possible health care in this country. And I think that's the
health care in this country. If you're not good luck, you know, president Obama passed the
affordable care act, what he called the affordable care act, what's commonly known as Obama care.
In 2010, this was a couple of years before I made it to Congress, but even that, you know,
it was named the affordable care act. They said the intent was to ensure that this disparity
between wealthy people and those without money didn't exist. So everyone could have affordable
access to the care that they need. Well, you know, I'm sure there was good intent by some.
I also know that there was a ton of input by lobbyists from these big so-called health care
industries in the writing of this legislation that took out some of the best parts of it.
The result is I had a friend who's a single mom living in the Midwest. She's self-employed. And
she was like, I don't know how I'm going to afford 12 or $1,300 per month for health care for her and
her newborn baby. How is that affordable by any means, by, you know, any circumstances?
Then you have people who can't leave their job or move jobs because otherwise they would have to
pay over a thousand dollars just to provide insurance for themselves or their families.
I talked to small business owners who had to make tough decisions about how many employees
they could ensure because they were having to meet these egregious funding requirements
under the affordable care act that they didn't have to meet prior to that. There's so many
different layers of this, but the again, with all of these problems, we have to get to the root cause
of the problem. And the reality that we have a sick care industry that is incentivized, as you said,
to keep people sick and in, and, and nothing changes. These problems are not fixed because
these politicians are in the pockets of these lobbyists and these industries. And so we,
we should have these discussions about how our healthcare industry needs to be reformed,
where health and nutrition is incentivized, but we, we just to be pragmatic about it,
the politicians aren't going to pass this legislation to bring about the kind of real
reforms we need until we send a strong message that they won't be allowed to stay in their jobs.
If they care more about lobbyists than they do about voters. And that, that goes to some of the
reforms we need in our campaign finance system as well. So let's dive into that a little bit more.
It's such a corrupt system at the moment from, you know, the, what you just talked about and
the opposition to the real holistic elements that will actually help. And there's again,
no better example than COVID, you know, they were told literally if you wrote down,
how can I make people more likely to get sick from COVID? It's exactly what we'll just stay inside.
We'll send you food and alcohol and watch tiger king.
Even, exactly. Which I have never seen still yet to this day, which I'm a little proud of,
cause every ball I was like, oh no, it looks, it doesn't even look like something I'd want to
watch. And every one of my friends who said that they watched and they're like, oh man,
it sucked me in. It sucked me in. I watched it, but even things like vitamin D, you know, we,
we have medical professionals saying the majority of people in our country are vitamin D deficient
drastically, which would make people more receptive to both contracting COVID and having
a very negative reaction to it. And yet I know people who were saying, Hey, we should go like,
I think Joe Rogan was one of them. Of course, there were others saying, you should go out and
take like vitamin D. Like we should all be taking this supplement to strengthen our immune systems.
They were crushed online and different supplements. People were saying, and we're not even getting
into the whole ivermectin conversation, but just basic vitamins and supplements to increase and
strengthen your immune system. We're being shut down for, for spreading disinformation on social
media just because they were saying, Hey, do these other things. And, and this is, I'm going on a
little bit of a rant here, but this is, this is exactly the, the, the symptom of this deeply rooted
rot that exists within our government and their partners that they're colluding with in the
mainstream media and big tech and social media. So how do we change it? Because that's again,
laminize immigrant perspective. I see over and over again that, I mean, I'm just going to be
completely blunt. The way it has been very recently, the only way that you can succeed and make it to
the very last person is that you have to be extremely wealthy and you have to be devoid of
ethics. And I just say that because you're taking money from lawless. It's just that simple. So how
do we change it to not only then take these, you know, money hooks away from our politicians,
but also then empower the real leaders. And I would argue not just because just, you know, in
front of me right now, you would absolutely be one of them. And I can just side note when I posted
that we were going to do this, this conversation, nothing but positive comments, no trolling. And
so that just, to me, that speaks volumes. I mean, it's a pretty cool group of people in my community
anyway, but yes, that, you know, we talk about certain topics and oh, wow. Okay. There's a division
there, but this is my point. So whether it's Robert Kennedy, whether it's yourself, whether it's some
of the other people that are actually seeming to be good human beings that want to get to that position.
What do we do to remove these lobbyists and the corruption that is clearly creating a net
that is catching all the good people before they rise to the top? Look in the mirror and see,
see what else, what, what you can do, what you're willing to do for some people that may mean running
for office yourself. You know, the, the, the best candidates that we have in my view are often people
who don't want to do it at all. They don't want the attention. They don't want the limelight. They
don't want, you know, all of the, the, the, the like fake glitter, the plastic trinkets that are
often a flash before people's eyes. They want to do it because they see a need for true servant
leaders to step up to the plate. And that may be for the school board. That may be for your local
county council. It may be for Congress. It may be running for president, whatever the answer to that
may be for you. There, we need more of those leaders. If that's not your thing and you're not
quite prepared to do that, it comes at a great cost. Then find, find a way to support those
candidates who reflect this kind of servant leadership and the courage that goes along with
it, who are openly stating, yeah, no, I'm not taking any money from political action committees
or lobbyists. I'll give you one example. There's a guy who's, he's a special forces veteran of
former army green beret, who's running for Congress in Washington state. His name is Joe Kent.
He and his wife both served in the military, him in the army, she in the Navy, she was killed in
combat and left him with two very young boys to raise. I give him so much credit for finding a way
to continue to serve, serve for stepping up and running for Congress and facing huge obstacles and
adversity in doing so. He ran in 2022. Thankfully he didn't wash his hands of it at that time. He
lost by a sliver of votes. He was one of, it was one of those seats that, that wasn't decided until
days or weeks after the election because of how few votes were, were spread between the difference
between him and the woman who, who ultimately was declared the winner. Thank God he's running again,
because he is one of those leaders who has the courage to speak the truth. He has lived a life
of service. He is not accepting any corporate pack money or money from lobbyists and telling
people very directly, I'm here to serve you and to be accountable to you, not to a party interest.
He had a Republican establishment running against him in that last election, what to speak of the
Democrat establishment. So it's candidates like Joe Kent, and he didn't ask me to do this. I just
think he's a phenomenal American. If you want to go support him, he needs support from the American
people. If you're not going to run for office, find candidates like him and others who are putting
themselves forward across the country in different positions, find a way to support them. If you can
financially support them, do so. If you don't have the means, then say, Hey, how can I volunteer?
Maybe it's a matter of making phone calls or sending emails. Find a way to make that positive
impact so that the millions of dollars, the mainstream propaganda media assault that often
goes against people like me and others who stand up to speak the truth, we have the ability to
counteract that by using the power that exists within our hands through freedom of speech,
even as they are trying to suppress it through our votes and through how we use our time, energy
and resources. And thankfully, through platforms like yours, the alternative media, the new media
through podcasts, through social media, wherever possible, we have to use all of these tools at
our disposal to exercise the power of the people in holding our leaders accountable.
When was that shift where instead of the president or the people high up on that totem pole
representing the people, I feel like it's skewed now to where it's viewed as the people work
for that president. And I feel like there's a lot of loss of power, like self the acknowledgement
that each one of us, if we stood by our side by side, have immense power to force really positive
change. When did when did that skew and how can we get back to where we need to be where we're
reminded that they work for us not the other way around? You know, I don't know that I can point to
a single moment in time, but but there certainly has been a shift. If you walk the halls of
Congress, if you spend a little bit of time in Washington, or you pay attention to some of the
things that they're saying, they throw out the world, the word populism or populist in a very
negative light, they're saying, oh, there's a rise of populism around the world. We are seeing this
and and and talking about it in a way where it is is cast as a threat, it's a cast as a threat on
on the quote unquote norms of society. I challenged someone when I was in Congress,
who was telling me this was warning me about this rise of populism. And I asked him, why,
why is it bad? What is this threat of populism that you speak of? Well, you know, it's upending
the the norms of government, the rules based order, etc, etc. But really what it is, and this is why,
you know, for for a lot of the elite in Washington, they couldn't figure out why there
was a significant chunk of people who supported Bernie Sanders, who then went on to vote for
Donald Trump. They're like, well, gosh, they're completely different people. Where is the, you
know, they were advocating for for very different things. But ultimately, the the commonality that
people saw between the two of them is they were very disruptive of the quote unquote norms of the
elite in Washington. It's, it's the power of the people is real. And they speak about the threat,
the so called threat of populism, whether it be in the United States of America, or as we saw
recently in Argentina, and we've seen in different parts of the world, the threat of populism is not
to the people. It's to those in power who are afraid of what a free people in a free society
poses to their power, that we will challenge their authority that we will not just accept
the so called norms for what they are, because that's the way they've always been done. Well,
we can see how here and now the the so called norms, frankly, haven't served the American
people very well. It's how we got to the position that we are in our founding fathers in this
country very directly and intentionally placed the power in this constitutional republic in the
hands of the people, because they saw how fragile a democracy can be. And how too often throughout
too often throughout history, it's been proven time and time again, how those in positions of power,
too often succumb to, you know, being being greedy for more power in this insatiable hunger,
and essentially trending toward the kind of tyrannical government that the people who the
pilgrims who first came to America were trying to escape. And unfortunately, we've seen the
growth of our government grow bigger and grow more powerful. And the the intent of our founding
fathers has unfortunately been lost. But that's where we find the answer to your question. So
what do we do about this? We the power that we have is only real if we choose to use it.
And that's why we're seeing things like the the disinformation governance board that the
Biden administration being created different entities, both in government as well as in big
tech, where they're trying to control something as as fundamental as free speech in this country,
because they don't want us to be able to challenge their authority. They don't want us to be able to
know the truth that may prove their policies to be idiotic or wrong or harmful, which is why,
as as you know, going back to one of the first questions and topics that you brought up, which
is critical, we have to come together around these fundamental freedoms, we have to come together
around the principles that this country was founded upon, even as we may have huge disagreements on
what candidates we like or don't like, or what policies or solutions we may find, if we cannot
come together around defending our fundamental freedoms that are under direct assault right now,
we will lose them forever. And the country that we love, me as someone who's born a US citizen,
you as someone who chose to become a US citizen through legal means,
we will lose all that we cherish and all that we love about our country. We have to harness
the power that exists within our hands that's rooted in these freedoms and and bring about this
change, not next year or, you know, in five years or maybe sometime down the line when I've retired
and think I've got more time on my hands. This election that we're facing is pivotal,
specifically because of this assault on our freedom that we've seen over these past few years.
Absolutely. I went to the Holocaust Museum, there was an exhibit in I think it was the Imperial War
Museum in London with my son, which is, you know, a powerful experience to take a little 15 year old
boy and show him the real kind of, you know, through line. But it all started with that
censorship and that disinformation and that painting a certain group as the enemy, you know,
and I know to be very fair, four years prior to that, I saw a lot of fuel flow,
flow on the fires of racism and division that way. So that power is abused both ways, but you
start to see these early red flags and it's exactly that. And it was interesting because I
had a guest on a few months ago now and he made a really kind of astute observation. He's like,
America is the poster child for democracy. How do you think we're doing? And I was like, wow,
I never thought of it that way because each and every one of us can be part of that solution.
If you're looking in and we're the shop window of democracy and we have school shootings and
homelessness and, you know, all these other things that of course occur in other places,
but we're supposed to be the shining example and 70% obese and overweight, you know,
we've gone wrong. There's some things that we are told that is the solution that clearly isn't and
we're slipping. And what happens if no one believes in democracy anymore? Exactly. Exactly. And
already this is not a warning of things to come. These are things that are happening right before
our very eyes right now. You know, you talk about America's, the United States of America is supposed
to be this beacon of democracy around the world. You see how President Biden has centered his
entire foreign policy around, you know, spreading democracy around the world and democracy, defeating
autocracies. And yet, and it's often an excuse that's used or justifications that's used to go
and wage wars and regime change wars in other parts of the world. And yet here we are living
at a time where those in power, the Democrat elite, the Biden Harris administration, they're using
our own institutions of government to erode our democracy here at home. However, one feels about
former president Donald Trump, it sets a dangerous precedent when we see over 32
states in our country try to remove him from the ballot so that voters don't even have the choice
to decide who they want to choose from. They are essentially left with, well, you know,
well, President Biden is the main front runner. You see how when the Supreme Court ruled
unanimously, importantly, unanimously, that these attempts by states to remove Donald Trump from
the ballot is unconstitutional. There are very influential people in our country, very influential
Democrats across, you know, elected, unelected figures in the media and others throwing up their
hands and saying the courts got it wrong. The courts have failed. The Supreme Court has failed
the American people. Now the American people are the ones who we have to leave it to the American
people to save democracy. They are so terrified of the possibility that in their minds, the American
people might make the quote unquote wrong choice by returning Donald Trump to the White House and
telling Joe Biden to go home, that they are willing to erode and destroy our democracy
in their minds in order to save it. And that's what's so dangerous about this mentality,
because again, you remove the names from this equation of the names of the candidates,
this sets such a dangerous precedent where if they are allowed to get away with this, if they are,
if there is no consequence or accountability to their actions, then every single election,
every single presidential election now, we will have to deal with the reality of the party that's
in power using any means necessary to take away our right to free speech, our right to vote for
the candidate of our choosing to keep themselves in power. And for the Democrats who think that,
that, oh, well, we've got to do this because, you know, they say President Trump is going to
be a dictator, so they're justified in pursuing this cause in the name of democracy.
I have a hard time believing that they are so stupid or ignorant as to think that if they lose,
that they're setting this precedent is not going to result at some point in the future,
on them being on the receiving end of this. And so again, as we talk about what are the things
that we can come together around in this country, come together around the defense of freedom and
the defense of this democratic republic, come together around the notion that our founders
created intentionally these founding documents, encouraging a thriving and open marketplace of
ideas where candidates running for office have to go in the middle of this open marketplace of ideas
and debate on substance, point to their records, point to their positions on issues, compare and
contrast their solutions to the big problems that we face. This is, this is what a thriving democracy
can be. If we, if we make sure that that happens by not just going along with this abuse and erosion
of our democracy that we're currently seeing and that right there, that right there is the best way
for us to serve as a beacon of democracy for the world, not going in and artificially imposing it
on other countries to try to create these little mini Americas in different parts of the world.
While meanwhile, people are looking at what's happening here, leaders of other countries are
looking what's happening here in our own country right now and saying, like, are you kidding me?
Is this a joke? They're seeing what's going on. And yet, you know, if you turn on some of our cable
news networks, it's just, it's, it's mind blowing how brazen it has become, but it's also why we
should take it so seriously. They are so emboldened to abuse and erode our freedom and our democracy
because they think they can get away with it and that we are not going to force any of these
consequences or accountability on them. And that, that, that is more of a window into their arrogance
and, and therefore the threat that they pose because of that arrogance, as well as it is a reminder
to us about the responsibility that we have. Well, speaking of the way information is being
disseminated, I had a guest on Larry Doyle, who I talk about quite a bit because he was from an
era where journalism was truly still respected and to give you kind of context, he was the first
person to interview Nelson Mandela when he was released from Robin Island. Wow. Phenomenal. So
I asked him what changed, what happened to our media? And he said that back when he was, you know,
at his prime, the media, the news corporation was owned obviously by an umbrella corporation,
and there were other businesses making the money. So the news simply reported the news.
And then there was a shift where they told the media outlets, okay, you need to start making
money now. And that's when we started getting closer and closer to where we are now, where it's
clickbait, you know, rhetoric. And I say this all the time, you know, for people arguing, I don't
think that's news in a split screen that happens to look exactly the same as the opposing political's
media station as well. Right. And so it's only inciting anger. And again, when you have high
anxiety, excuse me, high anxiety, you lose the ability to critically think. So how do we I mean,
obviously, solution one is just turn off, which I did a long, long time ago. But aside from that,
you know, how do we reclaim the media side? So we saw disseminating middle of the road, you know,
news articles were like, this is what happened period the end.
All of these different whether it's social media, or, you know, the media,
social media, or if it's the mainstream media, they profit, their business model and their
profits come from our attention, and our time. So how we use our attention and our time is how we
can start to force that change. I think it's a good thing that we're seeing a lot more people
who are being fed up as you are, and just turning off the mainstream media and looking for new
sources of information and news, because there's a growing volume of that of real quality dialogue,
conversations, news reporting, investigative journalists, people like Glenn Greenwald,
and Matt Ty Eby and others who are actually doing the work that we want journalists that we use used
to be the norm for journalists in our society. But another thing is, you know, I introduced
legislation in Congress that would restore the fairness doctrine. And if folks at home are not
familiar with this, it's something that used to exist, that understanding like these these
different TV stations, cable news stations, they are using the public airwaves, those public air
waves ostensibly belong to us. And so if you're using the public airwaves, there has to be,
if you're going to present one side or one political party's view, you also have to present
the opposing party's view. That was what the fairness doctrine was all about. Well, the
fairness doctrine was repealed, I believe under the Reagan administration, if I'm not mistaken,
and any attempts to restore it have been blocked. There was almost no interest and no support in
Congress to actually passing my bill, which which very simply would restore the fairness doctrine.
So at a minimum, those using the public airwaves would be required to truly put forward balanced
reporting, balanced information. So given our government's failure to fulfill that responsibility,
I just encourage people there's not a single, unfortunately, there's not a singular news source
that I think meets that mark. There are some apps, news apps that I have found that will provide a
rating, for example, they're kind of a collector of articles from various news sources, but they'll
have a rating on there. This leans left or leans right, it leans Democrat or Republican, or it's
down the middle, has a more unbiased rating. So there are different programs out there that you
can use. If you're just looking like, all right, how do I know, you know, what filter this article
is, is being written through? What is their bias? Because even things like the Associated Press,
obviously, NPR, some of these other sources that traditionally you could depend on to just report
facts, take an obvious slant, especially around certain issues. But I encourage people to,
you know, seek out information. I listen to podcasts from people who I know that I'm probably
not going to agree with, as they talk about issues. And I also listen to podcasts with my friends
and people who I like and who I agree with. But going through that, it helps with that critical
thinking process, where, you know, if I hold a certain position on something like the border
crisis and illegal immigration, I want to hear what those who are pushing for open borders are
saying. How are they justifying their position? What is their argument? You know, I advocate very
strongly for secure borders. Without secure borders, we don't really have a country. There
are many reasons why we must enforce our legal immigration laws and fix them and improve them.
I just came from spending a few days at the southern border of California and Mexico,
and there's so much happening there that's never making it into the mainstream news.
And it's not an either or of, well, you can't have a heart for people who are seeking a better life
if you are for secure borders. And if you are for open borders, you can't,
we just have both extremes, unfortunately, that dominate the conversation. The reality that I saw,
and I'm just going to go with this current example, the reality that I saw are a lot of
people who are escaping hardship and who, because of our open borders, are being exploited and harmed
and exposed to greater suffering purely because of that policy. The cartels who are profiting from
this, the other interests who are profiting from this, this is not a means to actually help people
who are seeking help. And so there are reforms that we need to take place there. All of this
speaks to this one issue, but there are many other issues for the need for us to be able to
be discerning in the information that we are getting, be critical thinkers, and therefore be
able to contribute to how can we as a society actually start to solve these problems.
That's a good segue to something I really wanted to talk to you about. I mean, everything I have so
far, I really want to talk to you about, but when we talk about the border crisis, there's never a
discussion on why are so many people fleeing. When we talk about law enforcement, there's never
discussion on why do we have so much violence on our streets? You know, if you look at Oslo or
Lisbon, you're not going to see gangs like that murdering each other like they are all over the
place. Like I witnessed and pulled cheats over teenagers my whole career as a firefighter.
What has been interesting over the seven and a half years now, the podcast is I have seen a shift
when it comes to the conversation on drug prohibition. I actually got to go, my family,
some of my family moved to Portugal and I ended up interviewing Zhao Gu Lao, who's the man who's
spearheaded decriminalization in Portugal. And they went from the worst overdose and addiction
crisis in, I think it was Europe, if not the world, to the lowest within less than 10 years.
Because again, they saw the proactive solution. They saw the money that was just being wasted in
law enforcement and court and all these other areas. And they looked at it with an altruistic
lens and they said, what if we viewed addicts as people with mental health, you know, struggling
trauma, unaddressed trauma, et cetera. What if we put them in the hands of the medical community?
And bearing in mind, this isn't a profit based system in Portugal either. But then they also,
then this is what's missing, I think, from the US conversation. They took all the money that they
were going to be putting into the quote unquote war on drugs because they had the American model
before. And they built addiction centers, they built mental health counseling facilities, they
created incentives for people to employ recovering addicts. And it worked. And then it freed up all
these resources for law enforcement and the court systems and the prisons to actually go after
the dealers, the smugglers and all the real, you know, cut the head off the snake. Yeah. Couple
into that, as you and I both know, our first responders somewhat, especially our military
community are finding incredible success now with psilocybin, ibuprofen, and
some of these therapies that they have to go to another country to get the therapies of what they
did to protect this country. Yeah. My James Gearing's personal opinion is that what they
did in Portugal was phenomenal and all so much of the violence, the sex work, the homelessness,
obviously the overdoses, the gang membership, the murders were related to the ridiculous
prohibition that was put on drugs by Harry Anslinger in the 1930s. And so, you know,
we're talking about the drug abuse that was put on drugs by Harry Anslinger in the 1930s.
And we've had an almost a hundred year longitudinal study. And the same with our obesity crisis. Our
example is this was an epic failure. To me, I feel that we would not only hugely impact, you know,
the overdoses, the homelessness, all these other things, we hugely impact the gang, you know,
culture in this country. And I feel like we'd even impact the crisis on the border because we
were in a crisis and now the cartels aren't having all these customers that are buying illicit drugs
because we legalized addiction, not selling, not smuggling, but addiction. So huge intro to this
question. What is your perspective on the war on drugs and what is your perspective then for or
against the prohibition, full prohibition? That means everything, not be able to buy it in stores,
be able to get it in police stations in wahrbouens, but I think those other겠어요 plans,
prohibition of drugs because it literally is obvious that that is what the border's
issue is. And so I don't know how anyone could see it and potentially be constantly
these of the many smaller countries made the decision of the border in terms of the
tacked from anywhere. Here, how do I understand what you're, how people are
the system that we have is horribly broken. I don't know how anyone could, any common sense
lam evangelists that are freshmen. And or are they después des
person could say otherwise. I think there needs to be a discussion on creative solutions. I'm not
up to date with everything that has been proven in Portugal, but also some of the things that have
been tried here in the United States. I think there has to be a very open and honest discussion
about exactly this. How do we actually address the real problem here? As with any situation,
I don't think it's as simple as taking the Portugal model in a kind of cookie cutter approach
and dropping it in here and thinking that it will work in the same way. But I also think it's
important to look at what are the lessons learned and consider as we have this important discussion
about how can we start to tackle these problems here. I believe it's Portland that lifted the
prohibition on all drugs, if I'm not mistaken, or the state of Oregon. You can correct me if I'm
wrong. It's either Portland or Seattle, but I think it was Portland that actually went through
this recently and cited the Portugal model. Are you familiar with the law that they passed?
I'd heard of it. I'm unsure if they equally also created all these facilities for mental health.
Usually when I hear, oh, they tried it here. No, they didn't try it there because they didn't
put the solution in. They just took away the legal element. Yeah. It's interesting because
over the course of, I think, a couple of years, they lifted the prohibition with the intent that
they would dedicate money and resources to these addiction facilities. Unfortunately, they found
that their thesis didn't work, that actually getting people into those addiction facilities,
and maybe they didn't actually end up building them. I'm not quite sure on the details.
But the long story short is because of public demand, they ended up reinstating not completely
what the law was, but reinstating some form of prohibition again. I think a lot of folks who
were advocating for lifting of the prohibition were disappointed with the outcomes because they
had hoped that it would serve as a model at the state level for something that other states would
be able to implement themselves. I think that, and again, I just listened to a brief podcast
on this recently that pointed to what people on different sides of this in that particular state
were saying. There were some clips from some of the testimony, but I think this is exactly the kind
of thing that we need to look at, learn from, better understand so that we can actually find
real creative solutions to this that have to do with ending the war on drugs.
But it is directly connected to the role that big pharma plays. When we say that ending the war on
drugs, there's a big role that quote unquote legal drugs play in contributing to this as we've seen
with the opioid crisis across the country. As I mentioned, I was just in California and went
into the city of San Diego and walked around the city with some of the local law enforcement and
the police department just to get, again, a firsthand view and understanding of the challenges
that they're facing. We stopped and talked to a guy who was 29 years old with a crack pipe in his
hand. We went and had a conversation with him. He was very, very high on drugs, but was still
coherent enough to have a conversation. We talked to him about fentanyl. He said,
yep, I use fentanyl as well. I usually use it to help me go to sleep. We asked him if he was afraid
of not waking up because of that fentanyl. He said, well, no, I just take a little bit and I
know how to control it. We had quite a long conversation with him, but at the end of it,
it was, hey, man, what would it take to get you off the street and being homeless and off of drugs
into somewhere where you can seek treatment? He basically said, well, all of the treatment places
have rules and I don't want to follow rules. Knowing the risk to his life, knowing that he has
seen and admitting he has seen his friends die because of drug overdoses, nothing at his point
would drive him to go to actually seek help. This is such a complex problem set for us as a society
that obviously has the human element and free will involved that requires, this can't be solved
with someone just saying, well, we're going to pass this law and it's going to solve everything.
It requires a very comprehensive discussion and debate and analysis of what's worked in
other places, what hasn't worked in other places and ultimately, how do we help the individual
person? Because these living conditions and those who are addicted to these different substances,
I don't believe that in a very clear mind that this is what they want for themselves.
No, I think that what I see is twofold. Firstly, for example, you try Obamacare,
which is an absolute piecemeal half-assed attempt at some sort of national health system.
It fails and then people go, see, socialized medicine. I'll call it socialized to make it
sound more communist. Socialized medicine doesn't work and then you do some half-assed thing in the
northwest and don't provide the facilities and you go, see, prohibition didn't work. It's very
convenient for the people that don't want these things to work. But what I've seen a lot of times,
and I'll give you a perfect example, welfare. Oh, there's this woman on welfare and there's an
escalator at the front that, yeah, there's always going to be those people. But if you take away
welfare, what about those people that are just trying to get back on their feet? We screw it
for everyone. So to me, if you put that in, you're going to have these people and Portugal has safe
injection sites. They still have the addicted that are just sadly never going to get from it.
But it's that middle large portion that you would help. And I think a big thing that Portugal did,
firstly, they made it a national conversation, which is beautiful. And the right there opposed
it initially and the next time it got voted again, they were all behind it because it worked.
But you also remove the stigma of addiction. So right now our addicts are hiding from the police.
What they do is illegal. But you take that down and it's not even a force thing. And there they
just say, it's an interview. Here are the resources. When you're ready, just come and we're going to
start taking care of you. And I think that's a difference because then that addict is his own
free will. And they go in versus, all right, I've arrested you. Now you've got to go to an addiction
center for 30 days. Very different than I want to go to an addiction center for 30 days. But when
you empower and some of your fellow addicts start getting better, then maybe the more kind of
hardened ones will finally go, wow, my friends are not in the streets anymore. They're all getting
jobs and marrying people. So maybe just maybe I'll go down that road. And then the others,
at least we tried. But I think it's that middle portion that really loses out every time
we point at the extremes and go, oh, it doesn't work because of that.
Sure. Yeah. Jumping to cast a judgment without really looking at the full picture with a mind
towards problem solving. And the thing too that I think gets unfortunately lost in a lot of these
discussions is just the humanity of it all. That the people who are impacted, the people who are
suffering are people. And I think that's one of the things that caused this opioid crisis to rise
to the forefront in our society was because increasingly there are more and more Americans
in this country who had a loved one or a friend or a colleague who had become addicted to these
opioids because of one reason or another. I've got a close friend of our family here
who was given opioids. I forget which kind or what brand because of, I don't know, he had like a
broken arm or some kind of surgery that was done and he was given a bottle full. And this was years
ago. And unfortunately as a young man, it not only ruined his life, it ruined his family's life.
He is still homeless as a result of this. He is still addicted to drugs. His entire life has been
destroyed and he's a guy who's in his early twenties. He's trying to find his way out. But
it's when we remember that this is not someone else's problem, that this is occurring and
happening to people just like those who we love and who we know, my hope is that there would be
more of a motivation to actually find a real solution to this and not have politicians just
using it as a quick talking point. Absolutely. I think that's it. Again, it takes a village.
If you were any sort of kind of ancient tribe, let's use that term, would you stand by while
people were hurting and just watch them wander off into the woods, battling? No, you'd circle
around them and you'd pull them back in unless they were horrible people and then you could
probably cut their head off. But most people you would encircle with love. Another area where I
feel there's so much judgment around and it's such a revolving door is the prison system.
I think America makes up, if I've got it right, 4% of the world's population, but we have 20%
of the world's incarcerated population. Part of our prison system is profit-based, so it goes back
again, checks and balances what is stopping us from them filling the prison's gap.
Filling the prisons constantly. But then I had an amazing guy who was the superintendent of Bastoi
prison in Norway on the show a couple of times. Their model is so different. Again, like you said,
you can't cook a cut from cookie cutter from one country to another when one doesn't have gangs and
murders and all that stuff. There's got to be a transition period. But Bastoi looks like a housing
community. They have lost their freedom. They are prisoners, but they have to live together, cook,
clean, go to school, learn a trade, and work. They go to work every day. And I forget what their
recidivism rate was, but it was like the mid 70s, I think. I'm sorry, have I got that right?
Only basically, only about 20% ever even committed a crime, so I probably got that backwards.
But their notion was one day this person is going to leave that prison and move in
back next door to me. What kind of human being do I want reintegrate into society?
Exactly.
And so it's that holistic view again. Now, conversely, through my layman eyes again,
if I see a prison that needs prisoners to make money and you watch documentaries like 13th and
you see the industry that is being manned by our prison population, and you see our recidivism
rate, and you see the ability to get drugs in prison, and you hear about all the violence,
this seems to me like another area that maybe we could shift the way we do it and change this
horrendous revolving door of prisons and broken homes that we have at the moment.
Yeah. Yeah, you know, this is where again, the through line here through just about every topic
that we've discussed really comes down to what do we as people and as voters reward with our votes?
There have been some important criminal justice reform bills that have either been proposed
through Congress or actually passed through Congress. During President Trump's administration,
you had Democrats and Republicans working together, people who would be self-described
as very progressive or on the quote unquote far left, working with very conservative Republicans
to pass some of this criminal justice reform legislation that actually sent moms back to
their families, moms who were incarcerated, different measures to be able to encourage
a reduced recidivism rate, setting people up for success who were incarcerated to be able to go and
be productive and contributing members of their family and of society. And unfortunately, there
are also some politicians, some Democrats and some Republicans who were very critical and opposed
that legislation, you know, on one side saying like, you know, criminals need to stay locked up,
criminals should be locked up. And on the other side saying, well, everybody should be sent home.
You know, this is still too restrictive, but really both extremes, not actually offering up
real solutions to achieve that end state that you just talked about, that yes, we need a society
that first of all has laws that make sense and serve the best interests of society. In my opinion,
there are far too many laws on the books that make no sense whatsoever to the point where our
government can find, if they want to go after you, unfortunately, which happens, if they want to go
after you, they can find a law that you've probably broken, that is some arcane out of date,
out of date lives. I've seen this in my time in local city government, the state legislature,
as well as in the federal government, but have laws that serve the best interests of a peaceful
society. Those laws are enforced and that those who break those laws face some form of consequence.
And that as they go through that process, for those who are able to return back to our society,
that it is seen as a rehabilitative process rather than one that is merely punitive.
Again, how do we as people impact this to the policymakers? It's being able to come together
and support what is unfortunately an act of courage for both Democrats and Republicans to
pass this legislation. I had the two leaders of the Judiciary Committee, this was while I was in
Congress, Hakeem Jeffries was the Democrat, was the lead Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.
He is now the top Democrat in the House of Representatives. A guy named Doug Collins,
who was the top Republican on that committee, a very conservative Republican from the state
of Georgia. He is no longer in Congress. He didn't run for reelection, but they came together. I
don't know that they probably came together around any other issue at all, but they came together
around this issue. You had Van Jones, who labels himself as a very progressive person. He's on CNN
all the time. He worked with Jared Kushner and President Trump on this issue of criminal justice
reform. They ended up passing this legislation and President Trump signed it into law that made a
significant change toward that end of people who have paid the price for their crime, who are
rehabilitated and being able to come home and contribute to their society and their families.
Well, there are people who are trying to benefit politically by criticizing that legislation
on both sides without actually having an interest for solving problems. This is a long-winded way of
saying, we as voters need to choose what kind of leaders we want in place. Do you want those
hardline extremists who are unwilling to actually do the hard work of solving problems, which are
problems which requires not a compromising of principles, but requires people with different
backgrounds and ideas to come together and find real workable solutions? This is the kind of
leadership that I think we should keep in place or put in place and reward with our trust and our
votes. Those who clearly are only in it for their own selfish political interests or partisan
interests are the kinds of people that we should not allow to serve in these positions of power.
I think what ties into the prison conversation is what we just talked about as well, prohibition.
The perfect example is if you think about cops, the TV show back in the day, they would have this
crazy car pursuit and then they get out and run through the woods and then they'd be like,
he's got some marijuana and then he gets thrown in jail. Now fast forward, we all have dispensaries
in all our towns now, so it's a very different environment. Again, what are we doing that's
creating more criminals? Which is again, when I talk about law enforcement, no one ever talks about
the dangers on the streets and why they're making mistakes plus the underfunding, under training,
and all the other things. It's just another whole conversation. I had a guest that I invited every
year as a member of Congress when there's a State of the Union address. We get one extra ticket to
invite a guest to sit in the gallery. One year I invited this woman who had written an amazing book
about her story, but long story short, her boyfriend was a drug dealer. She's pregnant,
I believe she already had a child. She refused to snitch on her boy. She had nothing to do with
his trade at all. She was not a drug dealer, but she understood what the consequences would be to
her own safety and the safety of her children if she was a quote unquote snitch on her boyfriend.
She was arrested and thrown in jail for years because of her being accused of breaking the
conspiracy law, conspiracy to aid and abet in her boyfriend's crimes. She talks in detail about the
things that she endured, what her family endured, and how she is one of many examples of people who
are victims of this broken system that really shouldn't be this way. It fails to recognize,
as you pointed out, the circumstances and the reality that exists on our streets and all of
the people at many layers who are impacted by it. Absolutely. The judgment that's made a lot recently
is, well, the problem is there's too many broken homes. Men need to stay with their families. Well,
if we have 20% of the world's prisoners, clearly some of those men are not able to stay with their
families. So the answer to bringing mothers and fathers back to their children, like you said,
with the female prisons, for example, or incarcerated people, is to kind of look at what
we're arresting people for, what we're incarcerating people for. And don't get me wrong, in Norway,
for example, the guy that killed all those students on the island, he's in a box right now,
a very small box. Yeah. So there is an application for that. But a lot of the crimes are usually
related to some sort of addiction, whether it's, like you said, selling and being on that side,
or whether it's breaking and entering because you're trying to pay for your next fix, there's
this ripple effect. So to me, the addiction and the prison problems go hand in hand. And again,
you look at that with a compassionate lens, the people that are in there for something that was
preventable and avoidable, we can make an impact and reduce that number incredibly. And then all
those resources go for all the horrendous people that are beyond broken at that point. And we keep
them away from our community. Yeah. Well said. All right. Well, I want to shift to a couple other
topics before I let you go. The first one you touched on on Maui before that I have, and I've
got some friends, Josh Jukes, for example, Joshua Jukes, sorry, Joshua, you know, that told me about
the lack of support. Meanwhile, we're sending, you know, billions or trillions overseas to wars.
So talk to me about what the Hawaiian people endured during that time. And then what is still
going on today from the ripple effect of that fire? Yeah, you know, James, it was really
telling how I got there three days after the fires occurred and went directly to West Maui,
the community that was directly impacted by this, which was the town of Lahaina that everyone saw
very vividly on their their TV screens and on social media. But there's the surrounding
communities around Lahaina that were also devastated by this fire. And one of the things
that struck me, there were, again, so many failures, so many failures that that allowed
this to happen in the first place that occurred in the immediate response or the lack of a response,
as well as the the response that should have been there in the days and weeks that followed.
We don't have enough time to go into all of that here, but it was very telling to me that
unsolicited as I was going out to these different communities, which, by the way, at that point in
time, they weren't the officials were not allowing allowing any media in to expose what was really
happening there to give these people a voice and a platform so that they could express their
frustrations and their suffering and their anger about what had occurred. No media was allowed back
there at that point in time. But one of the things that struck me was how frequently I heard from
different people in different conversations was, well, gosh, maybe we should change the name of
Maui to Ukraine and then they would pay attention and send us resources. Well, maybe if we were
called Kiev instead of Lahaina, then maybe people in Washington with money and resources would
actually pay attention. It was it was maddening to hear this coming from people who live on a small
island in the most remote island chain in the world after having gone through the devastation that
they just went through and knowing knowing that that our own government was in a rush to send
yet another multibillion dollar tranche of funding in this proxy war against Russia,
then they were about providing real, meaningful, immediate response to the needs that they had in
the hours and days and weeks after it was telling to me that as I was there driving through one
community to another, speaking with different people, bringing support and supplies as we were
able to, I didn't see a single government official at any point in time where I went.
And I thought, OK, well, maybe I'm just missing them. So I started asking people in these
neighborhoods, have you seen anyone from the county, state or FEMA come out here? Nope,
we haven't seen anyone in town after town, community after community. That was that was
the answer that I got. We eventually did run into some community response volunteers that were kind
of closer to the more urban hubs. But it was I can't even begin to convey the anger that I felt
for them, what to speak of what they actually felt as people who live in this community and
who were directly impacted by this. Fast forward to today, these families are still homeless.
The cleanup of the land is still continuing on. I think this is going to continue to be a months
long process to remove the toxins from the land where the fire scorched everything,
including gas stations with underground fuel tanks. You can imagine the kinds of toxins that
that place was exposed to and contaminated with. Families have been put up in in hotels,
they've been put up in Airbnbs, but them being able to find any kind of long term housing
continues to be a challenge that I know the state and the county is grappling with just given the
high cost of living here. It's you know, there was someone who pointed out a comparison where,
yeah, OK, you can go and rent a three bedroom, two bath house listing online for twelve grand a month.
Tell me what single family in Hawaii with middle class, a middle class single family in Hawaii
can afford even half of that. It's just not within the realm of the possible. So this is a
challenge that they're continuing to grapple with. And meanwhile, they are they are essentially
displaced and living out of suitcases. I mean, it's absolutely horrendous. And like I said,
when all that money was going overseas, especially as you've kind of kind of given us a peek of
behind the curtain and some of the reasons for us in some of these conflicts, it is nauseating.
I mean, we had our flag there a long time ago and said, hey, you're one of us. And then this
happens and then we're like, kind of. So that being said, what should have happened through your eyes
from August 8th onwards? Well, first of all, there was a study done prior to that fire taking place
that pointed out the vulnerabilities within the first responder system. There's a long history
of the problems with water on the island of Maui in particular that has to do with the ownership
and control of the water that's left many communities that were once vibrant wetlands,
now very dry and susceptible to fires that's left many of these communities who deal with a very real
water shortage as they did on that day when they turned on their hoses to try to help save their
homes or the homes of their neighbors. All they got was a drip, drip, drip coming out of that hose.
So the precursor to this fire is important to focus on because those are very deeply rooted
problems that the county and the state need to solve and address. You look at the chaos and
confusion that happened once this fire was called in and it was clear it was more than just a
brush fire. There were fire trucks that didn't have off-road capabilities so they couldn't actually
go and squash the fire as quickly as they should have been able to. They were undermanned and
under-resourced. The fires were popping up in a lot of different places so they had to make tough
decisions of like, okay, we think we've gotten this one under control, we've got to send our
resources somewhere else. Meanwhile, it pops up again. There were problems with comms capabilities
between police officers who were trying to direct traffic, a lot of confusion where people are saying
well, why are they pushing them back towards the fire? They weren't quite sure where the fire was
going to and coming from. To the Maui Police Department's credit, they did a self-audit
and a self-assessment to figure out what went wrong and what could have been done better.
And I think their report came out with something like 97 recommendations on fixes that needed to
be made and they actually shared that with cities and counties across the country in the hopes that
their lessons learned in the most tragic way could potentially help other municipalities and other
local law enforcement to preemptively make those fixes themselves. I'm going to try to speed through
this quickly because again, the failures occurred on so many levels. You had an emergency management
director who was not on island. He was in Honolulu, a different island, when the fires broke out at
oddly enough, a FEMA conference. And instead of catching the very first plane to get back
and do his job, I don't think he got back to the island of Maui for a couple of days. He didn't
talk to anyone in the media until seven to 10 days after the fires occurred. He resigned very
shortly thereafter. There were a lot of failures at the county level to immediately respond to go
out to the most affected communities. You know, as a first responder, I know through my own experience
that if you're a leader who cares, you got to show up. Even if you're not bringing truckloads of
food or supplies or water, whatever the need may be, you have to show up and be there for your people.
You have to listen to them. You have to understand what their frustrations are.
Even if their anger is directed toward you, you have to be there and listen and then take action.
Unfortunately, on many levels, we didn't see that occurring at all. This is a community that was in
my district while I was in Congress, so it was obviously very near and dear to my heart. I felt
so much of the emotion that they were expressing and shared that frustration.
The federal government, you look at the response there where you have a bureaucracy of FEMA that
is supposed to be the first one on the ground. They did have people there very quickly, but they
were on the ground in the city hub of Kahului and not actually out in the community where it happened.
You saw the director of FEMA in Washington answering questions from the White House Press
Corps saying, what are you doing? Asking the similar questions we're asking, saying, hey,
you guys are pushing for all this money to go to Ukraine. What are you doing for the people of Maui?
It made me so mad to see the director of FEMA stand there proudly saying, oh, well, we're issuing
a one-time $700 payment to everyone who's been impacted by this fire. As that being the concrete
thing that FEMA is doing, that she stood there proudly announcing to the country. What a horrible
punch in the face. Forget a slap in the face. What a horrible punch in the face to every single person
that both survived that fire, but also those families who lost loved ones in that fire.
Accountability is essential in this situation, both for elected officials and in bureaucrats,
which is why the truth about the failures that occurred really needs to rise to the forefront.
I had hoped that Congress would conduct some kind of oversight hearing given the federal
government's role in this response. I haven't really seen, I know that there have been trips
out there. Members of Congress from both parties have gone out there to assess the disaster.
Obviously, President Biden went out there, but I haven't seen any pursuit of real accountability
for those public officials. The headlines have moved on, sadly. Hardly anyone is talking about
how people are doing in the aftermath, what to speak of leaders in Washington or leaders at any
level, speaking of true, true accountability. Well, again, the sad thing that I'm hearing from
all this is that false economy again. There were all these warning signs. There were an
opportunity to front load that money because, I mean, how much money is going to be spent on
the rebuild that could have been put into fixing these problems before they happen?
That's right. Exponentially more. Exactly. What to speak of the loss of life.
Yeah, which again has no monetary value at all. It's far, far greater than that.
Yeah. All right. Well, I want to be mindful of your time. I know we're right at two hours. So
your latest book, For the Love of Country, Why I Left the Democratic Party, I've used all this
time now. I saw all these other things, but I really am curious. You ran in 2020. You were
under that banner initially. We've obviously touched on some of the things that are starting
to show their face in what seemed initially like a kind of for the people party. What was the
backstory and why did you write the book? Well, the long story short is I joined the
Democratic Party over 20 years ago because I saw a party that appeared to be a big tent party that
celebrated free speech, that talked about the protection of civil liberties and civil rights,
a party that alongside the ACLU actually were willing to put themselves on the line to defend
free speech at a time where defending unpopular speech was not very popular. And I saw party
that stood for conservation and protection of the environment. There were things that attracted me
to the Democratic Party. The party seemed to be the party of the little guy, the party of the people.
Whereas when I looked at the Republican Party at that time, it seemed to be the party of the elite.
And so fast forward to where we are today after I served in Congress for eight years,
served in state and local government, deployed to three different war zones in
different parts of the world as a soldier, it got to a point where unfortunately today's
Democratic Party is unrecognizable from the party that I joined. It has become this party that is
controlled by an elite cabal of warmongers who are doing whatever they feel is necessary to hold on
to power, even being willing to destroy our democracy and to take away our freedoms.
I left the Democratic Party because there was no way that I could be associated with a party
that hates freedom. And ultimately, whether they're willing to admit it or not, hates our country.
And so in the book, it's called For Love of Country, Leave the Democrat Party Behind,
I encourage people who are unsure about where they may stand politically,
people who may have been Democrats for a long time as I have been, but aren't quite sure where to go,
or Americans of any party who recognize the very real threats that we face in our country today
that are coming from within these threats to our fundamental principles and freedoms.
Read this book or share it with a friend who you think needs to hear this message from someone
who's been there, who's experienced and seen firsthand what the Democrat elite are doing to
destroy our country. It's why I'm sounding the alarm bells. And we've talked about a lot of
different things in our conversation that speak to why and how we're going to be able to do that.
Why and how we must come together as Americans to defend freedom and to save our country so that we
may actually begin to solve so many of these really serious problems and challenges that we're facing.
So it's available on amazon.com. It's available on tulsa.gabbert.com if you'd like to order a
signed copy with a 15% discount. And the book will be delivered to your mailbox if you pre-order on
April 30th. Beautiful. One more question. Is there any possibility that we're going to see you on the
ballot in 2024 and if not 2028? I don't know is the answer to both. You know in the world of
possibilities and probabilities we'll see what happens. My aim and my goal is to continue to do
all that I can to be of service, to be of service to God, be of service to others, and to drive real
solutions to these challenges that we are facing. The core message in the book is really about putting
the interests of the American people, putting the interests of people ahead of politics. I've always
been an independent-minded person. I'm going to continue to bring that servant leader's mindset
wherever I may have the opportunity to serve in the future.
Beautiful. Well I just want to say thank you so much. It's been such an amazing conversation. I
didn't even get close to your life journey and what I normally do, but there were so many things
to put to you that I wanted to. So I want to thank you so, so much for being so generous with your
time and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today. I look forward to meeting you in person,
James. Thank you so much. This has been wonderful and you're bringing up so many important things
that I hope drive conversation, more conversation with your viewers and your listeners.