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This episode is sponsored by a company I've used for well over a decade and that is 511.

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I wore their uniforms back in Anaheim, California and have used their products ever since.

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From their incredibly strong yet light footwear to their cut uniforms for both male and female

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responders, I found them hands down the best workwear in all the departments that I've worked for.

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Outside of the fire service, I use their luggage for everything and I travel a lot and they are

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also now sponsoring the 7X team as we embark around the world on the Human Performance Project.

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We have Murph coming up in May and again I bought their plate carrier. I ended up buying real

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ballistic plates rather than the fake weight plates and that has been my ride or die through

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Murph the last few years as well. But one area I want to talk about that I haven't in previous

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sponsorship spots is their brick and mortar element. They were predominantly an online

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company up till more recently but now they are approaching 100 stores all over the US.

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My local store is here in Gainesville Florida and I've been multiple times and the discounts you see

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online are applied also in the stores. So as I mentioned 511 is offering you 15% off every

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purchase that you make but I do want to say more often than not they have an even deeper discount

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especially around holiday times. But if you use the code SHIELD15 you will get 15% off your order

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or in the stores every time you make a purchase. And if you want to hear more about 511, who they

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stand for and who works with them, listen to episode 580 of Behind the Shield podcast with

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511 regional director Will Ayers. This episode is brought to you by THORN and I have some incredible

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organizations. I myself have used them for several years and that is why I brought them on as a

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sponsor. Some of my favorite products they have are their Multivitamin Elite, their Whey Protein,

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the Super EPA and then most recently Cinequel. As a firefighter, a stuntman and a martial artist,

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or member of military. When you click on that, it will take you through verification with GovX.

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behind the shield 10 for a one-time purchase. Now to learn more about THORN, go to episode

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323 of the Behind the Shield podcast with Joel Titoro and Wes Barnett. Welcome to the Behind the

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Shield podcast. As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor

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to welcome on the show, former congresswoman for Hawaii, army national guard officer and author

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Tulsi Gabbard. Now as you will hear, I've been waiting a long time for this conversation and

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the reason is this. More often than not, we are presented with people that we don't truly believe

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in when it comes to leadership. But what I saw with Tulsi over and over again was truly an element of

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walking the walk. So in this conversation, I wanted to pull out some things I hadn't really heard her

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discuss before. So we touch on a host of topics from the obesity epidemic, education, physical

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fitness, mental health, prisons, addiction, the first responder community, the impact of the

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wildland fires in Hawaii, her new book and so much more. Now before we get to this incredible

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conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment, go to whichever app you listen to

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this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating. Every single five star rating

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truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for others to find. And this is a free

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library of over 900 episodes now. So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible

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men and women stories so I can get them to every single person on planet earth who needs to hear

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them. So with that being said, I introduce to you Tulsi Gabbard. Enjoy.

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Tulsi Gabbard,

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reaching out and your patience and as we've been working on getting this, getting together like

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this. And I just appreciate the really important message and conversations that you have

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through your podcast, the stories that you share. It's inspirational and I think really powerful

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at a time when the noise on social media and in the news can be overwhelming and dark on most days.

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So I appreciate you. Yeah, well, I'm excited because I know the reason why I've been so

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dogmatic in pursuing this is because I have made it very, very obvious to the people listening

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of my discontent in the political world for just good human beings to be able to be allowed to

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succeed. And I think that that kind of humanitarian kindness and compassion lens is what we need. So

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again, I appreciate you. I understand how busy you are. So for you coming on today. Thank you.

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All right. So very first question, where on planet earth we finding you your morning, my afternoon?

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Thankfully, I am home in Hawaii. I pretty much live out of a suitcase these days, but

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I'm home here now primarily because of my army reserve duties and responsibilities. I'm a battalion

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commander of a civil affairs unit right now. And for those who aren't familiar, the question I get

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asked most often is, well, what is civil affairs? I've never heard of it before. We are known briefly

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as the warrior diplomats of the army. And our job is to our responsibility is to essentially be the

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bridge between the commander of a unit. Usually it's a, you know, whether it be the Indo-Pacific

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commander, the US Army Pacific commander, commanders at different levels to help them better

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understand people, people in the areas where they may be operating or people in areas where they may

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be going to or deploying to. This is an area where if we look throughout history, major problems in

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different military operations have often been connected to the failure of the military to

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actually understand the human element of how that'll impact things either positively or negatively.

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And frankly, in our line of work, oftentimes how if you go in and you better understand people and

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what they need, what their challenges are, what their hopes, their opportunities are, you have the

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opportunity to deescalate or even prevent conflict before it even starts. So as army reserve soldiers,

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we've got our two weeks of annual duty coming up. It actually starts tomorrow. And so I have soldiers

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coming out here to train in Hawaii, and I've got soldiers who will be going out and training

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across the Pacific and I'll be joining both of them.

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Interesting segue. We haven't even started on your life journey, but seeing as you mentioned such an

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important role and it is an incredibly important role. And I've had so many veterans say, I wish

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we'd understood the culture before we deployed in insert place here. But Sebastian Junger, the

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author has been on a few times and I think it was the Iroquois that he references that they had a

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leader for peacetime and a leader for wartime. What is your perspective on the kind of personality

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during those two different chapters of a country's existence?

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I think that it's important for our leaders to be able to lead in both environments. There are so

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many people, and this has been my experience, as well as others who I've served with, those who

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have seen and know and understand firsthand the ugliness and the cost, the true cost of war,

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are the people who most loudly advocate for peace. And so within, I served in Congress for eight

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years on the foreign affairs and the armed services committees. I've been in the army now,

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in the National Garden Reserve for almost 21 years. And it's essential that we have leaders

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who are not chomping at the bit to go to war, but who best understand the importance of war.

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But who best understand the environment, who have foresight and are committed to exhausting

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all peaceful means, diplomatic means, to prevent going to war before seeing war as a last result.

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I'm not a pacifist, obviously. I serve in our military. I understand that,

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unfortunately, there are sometimes circumstances where war is unavoidable.

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But those decisions have to be made very carefully. If we reach that point, then, of course,

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our military needs to be trained and ready to go and complete that mission, defeat our enemy,

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and ensure the safety, security, and freedom of the American people.

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I've always loved that phrase, walk softly, but carry a big stick. I don't know if I'm paraphrasing

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or not, but I think that's so important. While we're on this topic, I'm kind of jumping ahead, but

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one of the things as a layman, someone who's not in the military at all, just simply a

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civilian here looking into this issue, I look at it the same way as I look at the obesity crisis.

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I want to get to that in a little while, but when there is so much money to be made from sick people,

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which is my world, this is what I did see as a firefighter and a paramedic,

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you wonder where's the checks and balances to stop fast food. So, you know, what are the

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contributing elements that are then creating more and more customers for the medical industry?

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And there are some phenomenal human beings within that industry, but there are a lot of very large

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companies making a lot of money. In parallel to that, if I think about the military, when

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there are a lot of companies that are going to make a lot of money when we are at war,

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where are the checks and balances, like you said, for that diplomacy to stop us being dragged into

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another one when we have certain people in very, very high positions in government, you know, that

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are going to make a lot of money when we send our young men and women, arguably children, to another

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country to fight for us.

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I really appreciate your drawing a parallel between those two examples, because when you go and look

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at the root cause, I think of both of these challenges, and you're asking where the check

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and balance is, the root problem comes from politicians, both elected as well as unelected

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bureaucrats, people who exist within this power elite in Washington. These are people who are

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chasing generally two things, they're chasing power and or money. And let's look at the

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you know, you mentioned the fast food industry, you look at other contributors, you look at big

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pharma, you look at these different industries that essentially profit off of people being sick.

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They're not actually interested in having a healthy society where people aren't going to

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the doctor as often where they're not being told, hey, you have to take this medication for the

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rest of your life. Those private industries that profit are doing the same thing.

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And those industries that profit are directly connected to those in government who are making

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policies, whether they be legislators, or they be bureaucrats, policies that keep people sick.

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They're also not actually interested in people being healthy, eating nutritious food, encouraging

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exercise, encouraging a healthy lifestyle. Otherwise, we would see a very different food

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example being put out by our government, we would see very different priorities being

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expressed and implemented in our education system. I can't tell you how many teachers and families

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I've met have talked about how you know, yeah, the physical fitness, you know, the PT time at our

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kids school was cut a long time ago. So looking at the fact that these things exist because of

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the fact that they're not just in the hands of those in power, chasing power, and or chasing money.

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This is the same situation with regard to the question of peace and war. President Eisenhower,

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you know, he very courageously spoke about this in his farewell address as president of the United

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States. When he was a little boy, you know, who had led people courageously during a time of war,

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he warned us way back then about the cozy relationship between members of Congress

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and the military industrial complex, those industries that profit heavily from us being

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in a state of constant war. Well, his warning was was very true, then he saw it happening.

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time. We have been at a state of war for longer than half of my life. We've seen how these

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politicians and these industries, as soon as one war seems to be coming to an end, they

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find another war. They start fomenting fear, hyping up a new Cold War and saying, well,

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we need more weapons. People who very carelessly essentially put us at risk, we the American

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people, our men and women in uniform, because they are so eager to please their bosses in

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the military industrial complex without actually caring for the interests of the American people

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or those who are paying the price the most, whether it be in our lives or our families

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and the sacrifices that they make or the American taxpayer who's being told, hey, we're going

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to send billions and billions, hundreds of billions of dollars more here. We're going

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to go spend trillions of American taxpayer dollars here. But guess what? We don't have

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enough money to take every homeless veteran off our streets. It was heartbreaking when

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I was in Congress to see how tough it was for the first responders from 9-11, many of

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whom got sick because of the toxins that they were exposed to, many of whom were already

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dying of cancer, how many years they had to fight just to get their health care taken

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care of. It's maddening if you look at the consequences of these choices that are being

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made where we're not even allowed to ask for an audit of how our money is being spent that's

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being shipped off to Ukraine. But meanwhile, our families in West Maui, who suffered the

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worst historic fire in over 100 years in our country's history, are having to beg for money

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just to be able to keep a roof over their heads. The cause of these problems are the

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same. And this is a lot of what I get into in the book that I wrote for Love of Country

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is politicians who put their own selfish interests, their desire for power, their partisan interests

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ahead of the interests of the people who they have been charged to serve.

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Let me ask you probably something you haven't been asked before. When I look at the system

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that we use to choose the people that we are given every four years, and I think there's

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no better way of understanding the system is broken that people use the word, I have

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to choose from the lesser of two evils, 330 million people. But, you know, we have this

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system that puts certain people here and then you get at the helm, you get a position where

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you could truly make a huge impact for the benefit of the American people, their mental

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health, their physical health, their security, their education, and the converse happens.

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We have a mental health crisis in this country. And when we think about that, we talk about

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suicide, we talk about the fentanyl crisis. But in my opinion, and this is literally Sad

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Guru was on Joe Rogan's podcast and he made a passing comment and it just stuck with me.

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We never think about the frivolous lawsuit lawyers, the heads of tobacco companies, or,

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you know, the Purdue, these kind of people. But in my opinion, there has to be a level

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of mental ill health to sleep soundly at night knowing that your decisions are either sending

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young Americans to their deaths in war, or, you know, your opiates are destroying West

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Virginia and Ohio. So what is your perspective of just the overall health of some of these

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people that we find in these positions because of our broken system?

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It's an interesting question. And I hesitate to put a label on it like a mental health

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issue or mental illness because it kind of puts them in a position of being victims of

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some external thing that has caused them to make these kinds of decisions and abuse their

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position of power, as you said, whether they be in private industry or in government. But

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if you were to say that there is an illness, the illness really is that they find a way

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in their own minds to justify their actions. And I'll use the example of war because it's

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a very personal one for me. These are people who go and have convinced themselves perhaps

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and try to convince us that we must make these sacrifices or risk our own safety and security

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or our own freedom. It doesn't matter that their argument doesn't make sense. It doesn't

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matter that it's not logical. I'll use the current day example of this proxy war with

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Russia that's being waged via Ukraine, using the Ukrainian people and our taxpayer dollars

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to do what our government has told us they're doing, which is essentially they want to get

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rid of Putin. It's a regime change war. They're telling us that we have to support this. We

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have to support endless amounts of money to Ukraine because our democracy is at stake.

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And they use the line that's always so easily thrown about, which is, well, if we don't

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fight them over there, we're going to have to fight them over here. Let's look at that.

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We were told by our own intelligence agencies that Russia was going, when they invaded Ukraine,

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which was wrong, they should not have done that, obviously, but we were told that when

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they invaded Ukraine, they would take Kiev, they would take control of Kiev, the capital

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of Ukraine. I think it was within 72 hours, very short period of time. Well, sadly, this

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war has gone on now for almost two years, and Russia has still been, they are still

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within the boundaries of Ukraine. They've obviously captured cities along that eastern

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border of Ukraine. They still maintain control of Crimea. But the point is, there's a fear

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mongering that goes on to justify their actions to make us think that somehow Russia is going

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to come knocking on our door and invade the United States of America. They have not been

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able to get very far in Ukraine. And so their argument is not at all backed up by evidence

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whatsoever. So it's important for us to be discerning and be critical thinkers as we

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are being told, well, you know, they always find some justification for their actions.

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But when you actually take a look at it and scratch beneath the surface, oftentimes, it

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doesn't make sense. And when you scratch beneath the surface, you recognize, okay, as we saw

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with the Patriot Act after the terrorist attack on 9-11, as we've seen many more times since

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then, Benjamin Franklin warned us saying that, you know, if we're willing to give up a little

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bit of our liberty in the name of security, then we deserve to have neither. And unfortunately,

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we have politicians and people in power who are exploiting that and fomenting fear in

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order to give up power and give up control.

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When COVID happened, I remember at the beginning thinking, why are we not talking about making

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people healthier in general? This virus is a virus. It's a little tiny piece of biological

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material that's going to flow into your body. And it doesn't want you to die because it

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wants you to allow it to reproduce and then go spread its love everywhere else. But as

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the people in the wellness community started talking about it, it was almost revered as

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heresy. It was shouted as heresy. And I watched friends, family, including my own. So there

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was this massive division, but it was absolute fear behind it. And luckily, my echo chamber

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were grounded people in the wellness space that just held their ground and said, when

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you're ready to come back in, we're here for you kind of thing. But two years later, it

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was what was really nauseating to me because regardless of whatever people listening's

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meaning was, you were very trustworthy. The vaccine, that's where you went. You did it

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for your family. Beautiful. You were very anti that and wary of that, but you took care

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of your health and beautiful. But the middle line was the healthier the person, the more

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resilient we are not only to have this virus, but the next one. And then even if you're

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talking about national security, the more chance we have of a stronger military if we've

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got lots of young fit people to choose from. But two years later, after being told it was

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all about the health of the nation, nothing was done. You touched on PE programs, no PE

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programs were reinstated. No real food was put back in schools. There wasn't more pedestrianization

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of downtown areas to get people walking more. I saw absolutely nothing. But when you talk

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about the people being kind of divided, what I did see was this fear mongering that caused

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such a divide that people appeared to lose the ability to think critically, just like

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you said. What is your observation of the health of the nation, virus aside, 2020 to

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where we are now?

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James, this is directly connected to the theme of what we've talked about so far, which is

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you have people in power who want to maintain that power and control or grow it. And they

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are very cozy with those who have strong financial interests in maintaining a sick society, a

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physically sick society, or even a mentally sick society as you brought up mental health.

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It was very telling to me during that COVID situation when Jen Psaki, then the White House

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press secretary, she was asked by a reporter, I'm sure you saw this, but she was asked by

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a reporter about whether or not the White House would be issuing recommendations to

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people to exercise, to eat healthy, to try to strengthen their immune system as a means

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of mitigating the risk of either getting COVID or getting very sick from COVID if they got

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it. And her response was, well, we will issue the guidance that comes from the CDC and that

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guidance is everyone needs to get a vaccine. When I saw that, I thought, how is it possible

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that the spokesperson for the president of the United States cannot easily say, well,

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yes, of course, if we have people who are trying to be more healthy and nutritious in

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their eating and trying to exercise and strengthening their immune system, that is a good thing.

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And then whatever else she would want to add to that. The fact that she couldn't even say

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something that is common sense and proven by science to be generally good for people

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in all situations, including in the situation related to COVID really pointed to what we

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saw play out throughout that crisis, which was the big vaccine companies, big pharma,

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they were getting tons of money from our government charging more than they would otherwise to

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expedite the production of this vaccine that the government was mandating that everybody

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take. What a great business model for big pharma to find themselves in that situation.

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And even now, I think of this as we're seeing still recommendations coming from the CDC,

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coming from the government. Well, hey, have you gotten your booster shot? I don't even

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know what number they're on right now, but it's just so comical to me because it's always

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like, okay, well, there's a new variant as there are with many of these viruses. There's

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always a new variant. It's always morphing into some new form because it's grown resistant

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to whatever the latest vaccine was. And so they're always coming out, oh my God, we have

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to hurry up and develop this booster for this latest variant of COVID. And by the time they

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develop this booster, it's already one or two variants along the way. And now we're

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at a place where finally they've said, oh, well, this is basically like the common cold,

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I believe they said, or the common flu. And yet they're still encouraging people to go

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and get the booster. There are still employers who are saying, well, we need all of our employees

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to make sure that they have booster number 11 or whatever it may be. I said that this

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is comical, but it's actually not funny in the sense that people are being dictated to

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and being influenced. Why? It's not because their best interests are at heart. It is about

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this cozy relationship between government and big pharma.

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It's still affecting my professions too, because I just had a LA FD firefighter on John Knox,

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who was terminated in November of 2023 for not taking the vaccine. When you look at the

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efficacy or lack thereof, and to be very fair, I had one of my friends who worked in the

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ICU and the ER during the pandemic and his observations were vaccinated people were less

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likely to actually die from it. Now it doesn't mean I didn't get it. They got it, but it

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was a symptom minimizer or symptom reducer possibly. But if we're talking about efficacy,

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if I'm understanding, I don't research anything too deeply. It's about a 50-50 now, almost

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like kind of placebo numbers. So again, I had it. I had it because I was going home

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to Europe. I needed to have it to travel when I was visiting my grandmother who was 105.

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I'll take one on the chin for that. That was enough reasons for me. But do I think

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that there's any sort of level of proof to show that the unprotected first responders

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and doctors and nurses that were out there holding the line with almost no PPE, that

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now a year later you have the right to terminate them because they didn't and all of a sudden

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they're murderers because they weren't immunized. And then now we see the efficacy is so low

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and you're still holding the line trying to take these first responders jobs.

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And there's a very real consequence to that, obviously to that individual, to their family,

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their ability to have a livelihood to support their families. But also I'll use the example

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of Maui County here in the state of Hawaii. Obviously the wildfire that happened last

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August, it made international news and for good reason. There were many points of failure

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that led to the high casualty and the high level of destruction that occurred because

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of that wildfire. One of them, one of the many contributors was the fact that our Maui

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Fire Department was undermanned and under resourced. Well, and I don't have the final

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number, but I know personally of a friend of mine on Maui who was fired before the fires

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took place because he wouldn't take the vaccine. And the fall, they said, okay, fine. If you're

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not going to take the vaccine, you have to wear a mask and go in and you've got to get

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a COVID test, whatever the frequency was. I don't remember what it was. He refused to

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wear the mask and said, I'm happy to take a COVID test, but I'm not going to wear a

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mask. They fired him because of that. And so you look at what are the ramifications

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and I'm sure there are comparable examples in many localities and cities with nurses

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and doctors, healthcare providers who've been fired because of this, first responders who've

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been fired because of this, firefighters, police officers. And now we're facing a time

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where we have a huge shortage of police officers and law enforcement across the country, a

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huge shortage of healthcare providers and nurses, a huge shortage. So the ramifications

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of this once again point to putting their exercise of power over the health and wellbeing

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and interests of certainly these providers and first responders, but ultimately to the

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community that benefits from their willingness to do these jobs in the first place.

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I've come to realize that we, the fire service have done a horrible job of branding and the

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generation up to pretty much when I was hired. So my generation included, especially we were

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very soon after 9 11, there was just a blind loyalty. We're going to go in, we're going

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to step up, we're going to do whatever's asked for us. Now fast forward 20 years and we have

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this hiring crisis. And what I think has happened, I'd love to get your kind of perspective on

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this is I didn't even have any family in the fire service. When I entered from coming from

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another country, it was all new to me. Everything from fighting fires to cleaning toilets and

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everything in between. But everyone prior to you had done the same thing. So it was

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normal. Your baseline was completely skewed, but you shared it with everyone. Well now

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fast forward 20 years and we truly are able to see aside from the beautiful profession

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that it is, the impact of the way that we work our first responders. And so it's the

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cancers, the divorces, the suicides and overdoses, the heart attacks. And so I think what's happened

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now is that because in 2024 you can literally Google what's it like being a firefighter,

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all the good stuff will come up and that's all that would have come up when I was looking.

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But now all the other stuff comes up as well because it's in the news every day. I mean,

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we lose I think in law enforcement twice as many officers to suicide than we do any other

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line of duty death and firefighters are very, very similar. So if you Google it, it's going

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to come up. So for me, the way I look at the hiring crisis is simply that we've asked them

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to do so much more with so much less that we've hit a critical mass and people are realizing

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I don't want to do that. I don't want to do 56 hours a week and then you call me at seven

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in the morning and now I have to stay for another 24 and it's my child's birthday today.

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So that's kind of, you know, the first responders lens looking that way. What are you seeing

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as far of the reasons that we're struggling to hire professions that once had lines all

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the way around the building for? You know, you don't go into any of these lines of work

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and I'm curious to learn from you why you chose the fire service over any of the others,

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but you don't go into any of these lines of work because you're trying to make a lot of

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money or because you don't want to put yourself in a risky situation or environment. You go

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in, and this goes across the board for every one of these service professions that we're

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talking about. You go into this because you want to serve, you want to protect, you want

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to save lives, you want to take care of people knowing the risk that goes with it. And I

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can say the same for people who I serve with in the military. You don't go into it because

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you're trying to make a million dollars or you're trying to become a real estate investor

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when you retire, like all these other things. You go into it knowing exactly what you're

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getting into or at least having a good idea. The thing that I've seen, especially over

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these last four or five years, is the fact that those who are in positions of leadership

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and whether it be in the uniform leadership or be the political leadership, county, state,

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federal, in too many cases becomes increasingly clear that they don't actually care about

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you, the service provider. That when it comes right down to it, and my sister is in law

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enforcement as you know, when it comes right down to it, the bosses don't have your back.

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They don't understand what you're sacrificing in personally or with your family and willing

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to work with you to make sure that you're able to maintain a healthy family life while

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also going above and beyond in the work that you're doing. In the case of law enforcement,

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it's become such a politically charged environment where there are too many people in the defund

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the police, I don't know, club, I guess you could say, people who are calling police off

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officers, names, people who are demonizing police, and there's a lot that I get from

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my friends in the military as well, friends who've spent their entire careers serving

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in the military and then come to me and say, hey, my kid's about to graduate from high

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school and asking me whether or not they should join the military. I'm telling them, no, don't

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do it. It's not worth it. All of this is coming from the fact that you have, again, I'm going

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to sound like a broken record, but it is the common thread that connects all of these problems

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is having people in positions of power, again, bureaucrats and politicians alike, unfortunately,

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sometimes those who wear the uniform, including those who are civilians who ultimately are

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careerists, they're looking out for how do they get the next promotion or they're looking

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out for they don't want to lose their jobs. The bottom line is they're not willing to

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be courageous leaders who has the back of their team, who's willing to take a stand

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for what's right, even if it comes at a personal or professional cost to themselves. This is

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a huge problem in our society, in our country, and our country because of the consequences

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and ramifications that we're having where across all of these sectors, the military

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included, they're having recruiting problems, they're having retention problems. What boggles

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my mind is that those in charge are scratching their heads and throwing up their hands saying,

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well, I wonder why nobody wants to join the army these days. I wonder why we don't, as

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you said, have people lining up around the corner to join the police force. I wonder

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why people aren't lining up to go and become a firefighter and not actually doing the real

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honest introspection to determine the answer to that question or having an honest discussion

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with people who are in the force, who are in the fire departments and saying, tell us

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the honest truth. We need to know why this is that you are getting out. We need to know

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why this is that people, you're not encouraging your friends to come in and join. They're

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not actually interested. They're not actually interested in knowing the answer to that question

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because maybe they realize it, maybe they don't, but the answer forces them to look

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in the mirror and fix themselves.

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There's such a powerful parallel with what you said and especially in the fire service

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and I want to get your take on this too. What I've realized and again, white belt layman

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perspective, but going back to my community college economics class or economics, economics,

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economics, English.

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With English.

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Yeah, I guess they're confused now. I'm like literally 50% of my life has been in each

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country pretty much, but the term false economy came up and when I look at the way that we

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work our first responders, I'm going to take the fire service specifically because their

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hours are insane. The average firefighter's base hourly, I'm sorry, weekly hours is 56.

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Then you add in, we're short staff, now it's another 24. So a lot of our firefighters are

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working 80 hours a week, at least every other week. That's not the federal guys who are

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working crazy hours, CDFs and these other ones that are working days and days and days

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in a row. So there's a cost of that and it's costing our cities and counties millions and

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millions and millions in workman's comp claims, in overtime, in lawsuits when we make mistakes,

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in medical retirement, line of duty death benefits. It blows my mind because all we

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need is courageous leadership. It's been proven that on every element, it would improve

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if you just put that money into your workforce, staff your workforce properly in the fire

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service. The 24-72, I think should be a national standards. They do a 24 hour shift with a

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72, not a 24. So that gives them roughly enough time to actually recover. And the people that

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work those kinds of shifts, they report, not just so much better as far as their ability

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to deliver service and the wellness and the longevity and the recruitment, but also saving

397
00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:54,600
money for their city or county. But just like you said, over and over again, when there's

398
00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:59,000
something that really is going to change, change the country or the fire department

399
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:03,520
for the better, it's on the shoulders of that one leader to be courageous enough to say,

400
00:40:03,520 --> 00:40:07,320
I might not experience the benefits of this, but I'm going to do it for you because it's

401
00:40:07,320 --> 00:40:09,120
the right thing to do.

402
00:40:09,120 --> 00:40:16,320
Exactly. Exactly. It just comes down to care, having leaders who care. I have been for so

403
00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:22,760
long just a huge proponent of servant leadership. And one of the things, and that's essentially

404
00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:29,680
what we need, where does that courage come from? It comes from that mentality and that

405
00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:35,120
mindset of being a servant leader in every one of these examples. And it's not just

406
00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:42,360
limited to first responders or the military or teachers or doctors, but servant leaders

407
00:40:42,360 --> 00:40:47,320
in private industry, servant leaders in our government, servant leaders in every sector

408
00:40:47,320 --> 00:40:54,520
of our society who recognize their responsibility as a leader to care for those who they lead

409
00:40:54,520 --> 00:41:02,840
and care for those who may be their client or end user or customer or constituent. That

410
00:41:02,840 --> 00:41:07,720
courage comes from that care. If you really care about someone in your life, what are

411
00:41:07,720 --> 00:41:12,800
you willing to do for them? What kind of sacrifice are you willing to make for them, whether

412
00:41:12,800 --> 00:41:20,160
it be your child or your spouse or a good friend for us in the military? During a time

413
00:41:20,160 --> 00:41:24,720
of war, so much of this, people are like, oh, you get your courage, you're fighting for

414
00:41:24,720 --> 00:41:29,520
your country. Yes, we are. We are serving our country, but we care for the man and woman

415
00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:35,600
to our left and right. And I know you can relate to this as well through your own service.

416
00:41:35,600 --> 00:41:42,580
That courage comes from care. And I talk about this often and I'm so glad we're getting the

417
00:41:42,580 --> 00:41:49,800
chance and time to really talk about this because when you look back to Martin Luther

418
00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:55,960
King's message about darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate

419
00:41:55,960 --> 00:42:02,360
cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. Love or what we in Hawaii call aloha, it's

420
00:42:02,360 --> 00:42:10,200
too often kind of cast aside as a sign of weakness. That love means you're just like

421
00:42:10,200 --> 00:42:17,020
some false sense of utopia, kumbaya. Everybody just get along and roll over where someone

422
00:42:17,020 --> 00:42:22,720
with strength will come and overpower you. No, love is the source of that strength. Love

423
00:42:22,720 --> 00:42:28,320
is the source of that courage. When you think of what you would do for those who you love,

424
00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:35,000
there really is no limit to the personal cost and risk and sacrifice you're willing to carry

425
00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:40,760
on. So if we have leaders in place who are servant leaders, who are embodying that spirit

426
00:42:40,760 --> 00:42:46,480
of aloha, that spirit of love is their motivation and inspiration, then as you said, we solve

427
00:42:46,480 --> 00:42:53,160
so many of these problems. There is no greater compliment that I've gotten from either a

428
00:42:53,160 --> 00:43:00,400
soldier in my unit under my command or frankly I've had this and it's brought me to tears

429
00:43:00,400 --> 00:43:08,760
when I've met an older kind of grisly retired gunny sergeant in the Marine Corps who's come

430
00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:15,880
up to me, meeting me for the first time and telling me I would be honored to go to war

431
00:43:15,880 --> 00:43:22,200
with you and serve under your command. There is no greater compliment that I could get

432
00:43:22,200 --> 00:43:28,880
and it's very humbling, but it comes from that place. If you care for your people, if

433
00:43:28,880 --> 00:43:37,000
you are a courageous servant leader, then you will have people wanting to come and serve

434
00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:43,680
and knowing that, hey, my boss, my leader, my command, they have my back and they will

435
00:43:43,680 --> 00:43:48,520
go to the ends of the earth for me and I will go to the ends of the earth for them. And

436
00:43:48,520 --> 00:43:53,600
it's not like a selfish, personal kind of bro dude relationship. It's because you are

437
00:43:53,600 --> 00:44:03,480
serving both as a team that greater purpose outside of yourselves, which is to serve others

438
00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:08,360
and make a positive impact on others in your community.

439
00:44:08,360 --> 00:44:15,400
I think that's why a lot of the first responder military community have such a violent reaction

440
00:44:15,400 --> 00:44:21,240
to selfishness. Yes, because when you have served in uniform in this particular example

441
00:44:21,240 --> 00:44:27,960
or whatever other kind of occupation, if it's a selfless one, it just amplifies the selfishness

442
00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:34,320
that we see. And it drives me crazy that the answer is community because we don't have

443
00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:38,680
to be in the White House. We can be a father or a mother in our own home. We can step outside

444
00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:45,120
our front door and be a mentor in our community. But what I don't see from the last two, the

445
00:44:45,120 --> 00:44:50,720
last eight years, put it that way, I haven't seen any conversation on let's come together

446
00:44:50,720 --> 00:44:57,400
on community on it takes a village. And it really saddens me because that's what we need

447
00:44:57,400 --> 00:45:02,400
more than anything now is not people. I said this, a leader unites. It's that simple. A

448
00:45:02,400 --> 00:45:06,840
leader unites. So the last eight years, we haven't had a leader. We've seen people pigeonhole

449
00:45:06,840 --> 00:45:13,200
and drive people apart. So how do we and obviously, you know, you would be a great for this great

450
00:45:13,200 --> 00:45:19,900
fit for this. But how do we as a nation push to get leaders back in these positions, whether

451
00:45:19,900 --> 00:45:26,280
it's at the very top and in DC or whether it's simply in our own communities?

452
00:45:26,280 --> 00:45:32,040
You know, it starts with every one of us as individuals. And this is what I close my book

453
00:45:32,040 --> 00:45:37,480
with because in my book, I get into a lot of the big challenges that we're facing as

454
00:45:37,480 --> 00:45:42,880
a country, some of which we've already talked about. But it's not enough just to point out

455
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:48,920
the problems it is it is essential for us to answer this question for ourselves is what

456
00:45:48,920 --> 00:45:55,080
difference can I make as an individual because we can we can call for a change in leadership,

457
00:45:55,080 --> 00:46:01,800
we can call for the characteristics that we want our leaders to have. But how are we living

458
00:46:01,800 --> 00:46:08,040
and interacting every day? What are we doing to be a part of that solution? Unfortunately,

459
00:46:08,040 --> 00:46:14,280
a lot of what we see from many politicians is, you know, they're the kind of people put

460
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:18,600
their you know, their finger up and checks which way is the wind blowing, and then that

461
00:46:18,600 --> 00:46:24,960
will be the position that they take, or that will drive their commentary on a certain situation.

462
00:46:24,960 --> 00:46:30,840
And in the era of social media algorithms, and so on, and the era of of cable news that

463
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:35,800
that, you know, they see their ratings go up when they foment this kind of divisiveness,

464
00:46:36,440 --> 00:46:42,920
well, we can we can start to be that change by not adding to it, whether it be in our

465
00:46:42,920 --> 00:46:48,600
own personal lives and interactions, or what we may be putting out in social media. And also,

466
00:46:49,320 --> 00:46:57,240
it's not enough to just not react to it, but also make that conscious choice to be that to be that

467
00:46:57,240 --> 00:47:02,040
voice in the room that seeks to bring people together, even when you're with people who may

468
00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:07,640
have disagreements on issues or different things, but encourage that dialogue and conversation with

469
00:47:07,640 --> 00:47:12,440
respect so that we can better understand each other as people, and be reminded here in this

470
00:47:12,440 --> 00:47:18,680
country that we're all Americans. And the the common ground at a bare minimum that we share

471
00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:26,120
are the founding principles of our country, which center around freedom, the Bill of Rights,

472
00:47:26,120 --> 00:47:31,880
the Constitution or Declaration of Independence that reminds us of our God given rights that are

473
00:47:31,880 --> 00:47:38,520
enshrined in these documents. And that points to the limitations that our government is supposed to

474
00:47:38,520 --> 00:47:46,760
abide by to ensure that liberty and freedom in this age of hyper partisanship and divisiveness,

475
00:47:46,760 --> 00:47:51,800
identity politics, all these different things that are contributing to us being torn apart.

476
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:59,640
We have to start by being that change ourselves with what we're putting out, and also to actually

477
00:47:59,640 --> 00:48:06,920
hold our leaders accountable and communicate what our expectations are of the kind of leaders that

478
00:48:06,920 --> 00:48:14,920
we want at every level of our society. Absolutely. I think one of the things that's very glaring to

479
00:48:14,920 --> 00:48:19,720
me and coming from another country serving in uniform, because I mean, I don't think people

480
00:48:19,720 --> 00:48:25,880
understand the lens that a firefighter paramedic gets in America, like we see America as it actually

481
00:48:25,880 --> 00:48:30,200
is now, of course, you know, we see a lot of the bad stuff, but we see the bad stuff, the stuff that

482
00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:35,240
people kind of gloss over. But coming from the UK, and I want to talk about, you know, health care

483
00:48:35,240 --> 00:48:42,680
in a little bit, there are countries that do certain things so well. And yet a lot of the time,

484
00:48:42,680 --> 00:48:46,120
there's a lot of chest beating in America, we're the greatest country in the world, which I always

485
00:48:46,120 --> 00:48:51,240
say, I don't remember it being a competition anyway. But if you if you don't have humility,

486
00:48:51,240 --> 00:48:56,200
then you can't go to Norway and say, tell me about your prison system, Finland, tell me about

487
00:48:56,200 --> 00:49:02,840
education. So how do we foster that humility and actually learn because we don't need to reinvent

488
00:49:02,840 --> 00:49:07,000
the wheel. And I get it, it's not apples to apples. Finland is very small compared to the US,

489
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:12,200
for example. But there are some people that have had some phenomenal ideas that have proven that

490
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:19,400
it works on human beings. And yet I see, you know, zero discussion on, you know, many of these being

491
00:49:19,400 --> 00:49:20,920
implemented here in the US.

492
00:49:23,720 --> 00:49:30,120
I do and I believe that this country is the greatest country in the world. But that should not

493
00:49:30,120 --> 00:49:39,960
equate that should not be equated with arrogance, or or an inability to recognize our room and and

494
00:49:39,960 --> 00:49:47,160
it's more than our room, but really our need to improve, you know, to be that more perfect union

495
00:49:47,160 --> 00:49:53,960
to be able to solve the great challenges of our time. And and I completely agree, you know, I, I

496
00:49:53,960 --> 00:49:59,640
often get labeled with this thing like, oh, she's an isolationist, just because I don't want to go

497
00:49:59,640 --> 00:50:04,840
to war with every freaking country in the world, because I'm an advocate for peace. Oh, she's just

498
00:50:04,840 --> 00:50:09,800
an isolationist. No, I'm not an isolationist. I just think that we need to build relationships

499
00:50:09,800 --> 00:50:16,280
with other countries that are positive that that allow us the space to be able to see, okay, where

500
00:50:16,280 --> 00:50:21,960
do we share common interests, and where are the areas where where we may have adversarial

501
00:50:21,960 --> 00:50:28,760
interests, and find peaceful means diplomatic means to work through those, rather than recognize or

502
00:50:28,760 --> 00:50:35,880
rather than seeing too much of what we often see, which is America, great country, ex bad

503
00:50:35,880 --> 00:50:44,200
economic warfare, drop bombs, that that that is not an oversimplification of the mentality of too

504
00:50:44,200 --> 00:50:50,680
many of our political leaders in our country. And this is where there's opportunity, as you say,

505
00:50:50,680 --> 00:50:55,960
to go and building these relationships. There are so many countries in the world who've benefited

506
00:50:55,960 --> 00:51:01,720
from technology here in America, for example, from the great academic institutions from how our

507
00:51:01,720 --> 00:51:06,680
country for so long has been on the leading and cutting edge of innovation. Well, there are other

508
00:51:06,680 --> 00:51:12,520
countries that have some advantages and some lessons learned that we could benefit from so we

509
00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:18,520
don't have to go through and try to recreate or rebuild, you know, the process or the wheel. But

510
00:51:18,520 --> 00:51:27,080
but that exchange of ideas can only come about when we are able to build those relationships,

511
00:51:27,080 --> 00:51:33,800
just as we would person to person recognizing the the shared humanity of us all, and the fact that

512
00:51:33,800 --> 00:51:40,600
we all share the same home on planet Earth. And so the more we can work together to solve the great

513
00:51:40,600 --> 00:51:45,880
challenges of our time, the more we find that mutual benefit that mutual prosperity and that

514
00:51:45,880 --> 00:51:55,000
mutual peace and security. So so this very much goes along with the mindset of servant leaders,

515
00:51:55,720 --> 00:52:03,640
not those who are are and I years ago, someone came back to me, they're like, What do you mean

516
00:52:03,640 --> 00:52:11,160
servant leader, like the two words, by definition, are diametrically opposed to each other, you can't

517
00:52:11,160 --> 00:52:19,080
be a leader if you are also a servant. And I just think that that mindset right there is part of the

518
00:52:19,080 --> 00:52:26,680
problem, we need leaders who have that servants heart, and who aren't in it for themselves because

519
00:52:26,680 --> 00:52:31,480
of the rank or the attention or the fame or the power, whatever the thing that they are chasing.

520
00:52:32,040 --> 00:52:36,920
But those who are coming with a servant's heart, to see how they can dedicate their time and energy

521
00:52:36,920 --> 00:52:41,480
to have have that positive impact on others and actually truly be of service.

522
00:52:42,600 --> 00:52:47,160
Well, that hits on two kind of points that I've talked about in the past. The first is,

523
00:52:47,160 --> 00:52:51,160
and again, I don't know if this is different through your eyes, but again, through my white

524
00:52:51,160 --> 00:52:59,080
belt perspective, we seem to be presented with an entire nation being the problem. So for example,

525
00:52:59,080 --> 00:53:04,200
everyone in Russia was like, we want to invade Ukraine, I'm pretty sure that most of Russia was

526
00:53:04,200 --> 00:53:08,200
like, where's Ukraine? You know, I mean, that thing they were too busy raising their children

527
00:53:08,200 --> 00:53:13,080
and going to work to worry about invading another country. And so I think this is where these

528
00:53:13,080 --> 00:53:17,080
relationships will be better if you know, the people spoke to the people, there'll be less of

529
00:53:17,080 --> 00:53:22,520
that smoke and mirrors from from politicians. But also with the knowledge sharing, I love that

530
00:53:22,520 --> 00:53:28,280
expression, the rising tide lifts all ships, the more that we interact, the more you know, Norway

531
00:53:28,280 --> 00:53:33,000
takes some American ideas, we take some Norway, Norway's ideas, and everyone gets a little bit

532
00:53:33,000 --> 00:53:38,760
better and prisons become safer and you know, their technology improves. But again, without

533
00:53:38,760 --> 00:53:44,760
humility, we're opposing that and we're breaking down communication and tarring feathering an

534
00:53:44,760 --> 00:53:50,920
entire country and presenting it to the American people. Yeah, you know, that that is one of the

535
00:53:50,920 --> 00:54:00,440
attributes of leadership that I think is too often goes on scene or, you know, not focused on is

536
00:54:00,440 --> 00:54:08,840
exactly that humility, that that being a humble person is a positive attribute. And just like I

537
00:54:08,840 --> 00:54:15,400
talked about with love should not be seen as a sign of weakness. If we have people in positions

538
00:54:15,400 --> 00:54:22,760
of leadership, who are not humble, it means they're not paying attention to what's going on around

539
00:54:22,760 --> 00:54:28,600
them, they're self involved, it means they're unwilling to take that constructive feedback,

540
00:54:28,600 --> 00:54:34,760
and those lessons learned to continue to try to improve and grow as an individual and as a leader

541
00:54:34,760 --> 00:54:42,200
and in certain situations, in certain professions that can lead to a very dangerous outcome and

542
00:54:42,200 --> 00:54:45,160
actually put people's lives at risk.

543
00:54:46,200 --> 00:54:51,080
100%. Well, picking some of the great things from these other country, I want to present them to

544
00:54:51,080 --> 00:54:57,240
you as you know, as what would be a solution in the US. Winston Churchill once said, you can make

545
00:54:57,240 --> 00:55:03,640
the greatness of a nation by the health of its people. Now, currently, we have 70% either obese

546
00:55:03,640 --> 00:55:09,000
or overweight, you know, and a hugely swelling issue with our young people. And I know it was

547
00:55:09,000 --> 00:55:14,760
said about two or three years ago, this is the first time in at least recorded history, where

548
00:55:14,760 --> 00:55:19,000
the parents are going to outlive their children if we carry on the way that we're feeding them and

549
00:55:19,000 --> 00:55:26,360
not exercising them. With the health care system, and I was a big fan of Bernie, not only because

550
00:55:26,360 --> 00:55:31,400
I'm a big fan of Bernie, not, you know, not 1000%, but I was like, oh, this guy actually cares.

551
00:55:31,400 --> 00:55:36,680
This guy wants to do some altruistic work in this country. This is new. So I was kind of more

552
00:55:36,680 --> 00:55:40,920
intrigued with him more down that road. And it was presented that oh, he wants to take all the money

553
00:55:40,920 --> 00:55:45,480
and just give it to the poor people. And the way he described it, and it was great hearing him on

554
00:55:45,480 --> 00:55:49,800
Joe Rogan was he was explaining where the money was coming from. And again, it's downstream.

555
00:55:50,680 --> 00:55:56,120
And so what I love about the NHS back home in the UK, and it's far from a perfect system,

556
00:55:56,120 --> 00:56:00,920
because they've kind of stripped that poor system and they're, you know, again, understaffed and

557
00:56:00,920 --> 00:56:08,360
overworked. But the concept is that we all take care of our own. That's it, basically. But if you

558
00:56:08,360 --> 00:56:15,880
have a tax based system, and it's run correctly, then that next layer is also all well, if it's

559
00:56:15,880 --> 00:56:20,920
taxpayers money, we need to make the country as healthy as possible. To me, that's a huge win,

560
00:56:20,920 --> 00:56:26,360
right now, we have a profit based system, as we touched on earlier, that we need people to stay

561
00:56:26,360 --> 00:56:31,480
sick, so the companies can make a lot of money. It's completely the reverse to me, in my opinion,

562
00:56:31,480 --> 00:56:36,440
of the NHS, because when it's done properly, all efforts are going to be made on, you know,

563
00:56:36,440 --> 00:56:41,640
healthy body weight, smoking cessation, all the things PE programs, healthy food in schools,

564
00:56:41,640 --> 00:56:46,920
that will not only keep the tax, you know, used on health care low, but then obviously,

565
00:56:46,920 --> 00:56:51,880
it helps all the people as well. Yeah, you know, I think pointing to

566
00:56:53,800 --> 00:57:03,720
metrics of success, metrics of effectiveness, is really the key thing here. As you were talking,

567
00:57:03,720 --> 00:57:09,720
I'm just, and I'm not familiar, so familiar with the UK system, but I was thinking through,

568
00:57:09,720 --> 00:57:16,280
I think it was my first year in Congress, I was shocked when an amendment came through, a bill

569
00:57:16,280 --> 00:57:24,440
came through for a vote, that would allow frozen pizzas to meet the fruit and vegetable dietary

570
00:57:24,440 --> 00:57:30,040
requirement in our public school system. And I literally like, I read it, I read it again,

571
00:57:30,040 --> 00:57:35,640
I'm like, well, this can't be right, like, who would be for this? Why is this even being put

572
00:57:35,640 --> 00:57:40,920
forward? Well, it won't surprise you to know that it passed, I obviously voted against it,

573
00:57:40,920 --> 00:57:45,720
because it makes no sense. But the explanation I was given was, well, you know, there's tomato

574
00:57:45,720 --> 00:57:53,160
sauce in frozen pizza. And so that meets that that fruit and vegetable nutrition requirement

575
00:57:53,720 --> 00:57:58,760
that our public schools are supposed to abide by. It's such a joke. And I was like, well, why,

576
00:57:58,760 --> 00:58:03,960
why are we even voting on like this? This is crazy. Well, guess what, there's a huge industry,

577
00:58:03,960 --> 00:58:09,720
that makes frozen pizzas, that has huge government contracts, that go in and feed our kids in schools.

578
00:58:10,520 --> 00:58:17,320
And so it's, it's the many layers that need to be addressed within the United States

579
00:58:18,360 --> 00:58:25,560
sick care system. They're deep, they're deep, and they are tied to the deep pockets of these

580
00:58:25,560 --> 00:58:32,280
different industries that that contribute to, you know, the FDA making decisions that are not in the

581
00:58:32,280 --> 00:58:39,880
best health care interests of people in our country. The same goes for the CDC, the same goes for

582
00:58:39,880 --> 00:58:44,520
those who are making decisions about what kind of food our kids are eating in our public school

583
00:58:44,520 --> 00:58:52,920
system that are taxpayer funded. The same goes into our, our for profit insurance industry. You

584
00:58:52,920 --> 00:58:59,560
know, my husband had to go and get a certain, you know, medical test done recently that, you know,

585
00:58:59,560 --> 00:59:03,400
his doctor said, knew he needed to get done. He knew he needed to get it done, but he had to go

586
00:59:03,400 --> 00:59:08,520
and see like three or four or five different people just to check the block on the, for the

587
00:59:08,520 --> 00:59:14,280
insurance company before they would give him this, this medical test that he had to get. And I've,

588
00:59:14,280 --> 00:59:22,760
there's so many different examples of this. And so when we look at how do we actually solve this,

589
00:59:22,760 --> 00:59:29,400
this healthcare crisis, it is first identifying the sick care system and peeling back the layers

590
00:59:29,400 --> 00:59:36,360
that are directly connected to political money that, that are driving the problem. I think there

591
00:59:36,360 --> 00:59:41,400
are some very creative solutions that we should be able to provide to the people in this country

592
00:59:41,960 --> 00:59:47,720
that don't create the separation between, well, if you're rich and if you have money,

593
00:59:47,720 --> 00:59:51,960
then you can get the best possible health care in this country. And I think that's the

594
00:59:51,960 --> 00:59:57,880
health care in this country. If you're not good luck, you know, president Obama passed the

595
00:59:57,880 --> 01:00:02,520
affordable care act, what he called the affordable care act, what's commonly known as Obama care.

596
01:00:03,080 --> 01:00:09,240
In 2010, this was a couple of years before I made it to Congress, but even that, you know,

597
01:00:09,240 --> 01:00:15,800
it was named the affordable care act. They said the intent was to ensure that this disparity

598
01:00:15,800 --> 01:00:20,680
between wealthy people and those without money didn't exist. So everyone could have affordable

599
01:00:20,680 --> 01:00:26,920
access to the care that they need. Well, you know, I'm sure there was good intent by some.

600
01:00:26,920 --> 01:00:33,160
I also know that there was a ton of input by lobbyists from these big so-called health care

601
01:00:33,160 --> 01:00:38,760
industries in the writing of this legislation that took out some of the best parts of it.

602
01:00:39,480 --> 01:00:46,200
The result is I had a friend who's a single mom living in the Midwest. She's self-employed. And

603
01:00:46,200 --> 01:00:53,320
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

604
01:00:53,320 --> 01:01:00,520
her newborn baby. How is that affordable by any means, by, you know, any circumstances?

605
01:01:01,160 --> 01:01:05,720
Then you have people who can't leave their job or move jobs because otherwise they would have to

606
01:01:05,720 --> 01:01:09,480
pay over a thousand dollars just to provide insurance for themselves or their families.

607
01:01:10,520 --> 01:01:15,800
I talked to small business owners who had to make tough decisions about how many employees

608
01:01:15,800 --> 01:01:21,480
they could ensure because they were having to meet these egregious funding requirements

609
01:01:21,480 --> 01:01:25,800
under the affordable care act that they didn't have to meet prior to that. There's so many

610
01:01:25,800 --> 01:01:30,600
different layers of this, but the again, with all of these problems, we have to get to the root cause

611
01:01:30,600 --> 01:01:37,240
of the problem. And the reality that we have a sick care industry that is incentivized, as you said,

612
01:01:37,240 --> 01:01:44,120
to keep people sick and in, and, and nothing changes. These problems are not fixed because

613
01:01:44,120 --> 01:01:51,400
these politicians are in the pockets of these lobbyists and these industries. And so we,

614
01:01:51,400 --> 01:01:55,560
we should have these discussions about how our healthcare industry needs to be reformed,

615
01:01:55,560 --> 01:02:02,040
where health and nutrition is incentivized, but we, we just to be pragmatic about it,

616
01:02:02,600 --> 01:02:07,240
the politicians aren't going to pass this legislation to bring about the kind of real

617
01:02:07,240 --> 01:02:12,600
reforms we need until we send a strong message that they won't be allowed to stay in their jobs.

618
01:02:12,600 --> 01:02:19,480
If they care more about lobbyists than they do about voters. And that, that goes to some of the

619
01:02:19,480 --> 01:02:25,160
reforms we need in our campaign finance system as well. So let's dive into that a little bit more.

620
01:02:25,160 --> 01:02:29,240
It's such a corrupt system at the moment from, you know, the, what you just talked about and

621
01:02:29,240 --> 01:02:33,640
the opposition to the real holistic elements that will actually help. And there's again,

622
01:02:33,640 --> 01:02:38,360
no better example than COVID, you know, they were told literally if you wrote down,

623
01:02:38,360 --> 01:02:42,520
how can I make people more likely to get sick from COVID? It's exactly what we'll just stay inside.

624
01:02:42,520 --> 01:02:45,400
We'll send you food and alcohol and watch tiger king.

625
01:02:45,400 --> 01:02:53,000
Even, exactly. Which I have never seen still yet to this day, which I'm a little proud of,

626
01:02:53,000 --> 01:02:57,400
cause every ball I was like, oh no, it looks, it doesn't even look like something I'd want to

627
01:02:57,400 --> 01:03:00,120
watch. And every one of my friends who said that they watched and they're like, oh man,

628
01:03:00,120 --> 01:03:07,000
it sucked me in. It sucked me in. I watched it, but even things like vitamin D, you know, we,

629
01:03:07,000 --> 01:03:12,520
we have medical professionals saying the majority of people in our country are vitamin D deficient

630
01:03:12,520 --> 01:03:18,760
drastically, which would make people more receptive to both contracting COVID and having

631
01:03:19,400 --> 01:03:26,120
a very negative reaction to it. And yet I know people who were saying, Hey, we should go like,

632
01:03:26,120 --> 01:03:29,080
I think Joe Rogan was one of them. Of course, there were others saying, you should go out and

633
01:03:29,080 --> 01:03:33,960
take like vitamin D. Like we should all be taking this supplement to strengthen our immune systems.

634
01:03:33,960 --> 01:03:38,760
They were crushed online and different supplements. People were saying, and we're not even getting

635
01:03:38,760 --> 01:03:44,520
into the whole ivermectin conversation, but just basic vitamins and supplements to increase and

636
01:03:44,520 --> 01:03:49,960
strengthen your immune system. We're being shut down for, for spreading disinformation on social

637
01:03:49,960 --> 01:03:56,200
media just because they were saying, Hey, do these other things. And, and this is, I'm going on a

638
01:03:56,200 --> 01:04:06,120
little bit of a rant here, but this is, this is exactly the, the, the symptom of this deeply rooted

639
01:04:07,080 --> 01:04:13,720
rot that exists within our government and their partners that they're colluding with in the

640
01:04:13,720 --> 01:04:20,200
mainstream media and big tech and social media. So how do we change it? Because that's again,

641
01:04:20,200 --> 01:04:26,920
laminize immigrant perspective. I see over and over again that, I mean, I'm just going to be

642
01:04:26,920 --> 01:04:31,640
completely blunt. The way it has been very recently, the only way that you can succeed and make it to

643
01:04:31,640 --> 01:04:36,760
the very last person is that you have to be extremely wealthy and you have to be devoid of

644
01:04:36,760 --> 01:04:41,400
ethics. And I just say that because you're taking money from lawless. It's just that simple. So how

645
01:04:41,400 --> 01:04:47,000
do we change it to not only then take these, you know, money hooks away from our politicians,

646
01:04:47,000 --> 01:04:52,200
but also then empower the real leaders. And I would argue not just because just, you know, in

647
01:04:52,200 --> 01:04:57,320
front of me right now, you would absolutely be one of them. And I can just side note when I posted

648
01:04:57,320 --> 01:05:03,560
that we were going to do this, this conversation, nothing but positive comments, no trolling. And

649
01:05:03,560 --> 01:05:07,880
so that just, to me, that speaks volumes. I mean, it's a pretty cool group of people in my community

650
01:05:07,880 --> 01:05:12,600
anyway, but yes, that, you know, we talk about certain topics and oh, wow. Okay. There's a division

651
01:05:12,600 --> 01:05:16,840
there, but this is my point. So whether it's Robert Kennedy, whether it's yourself, whether it's some

652
01:05:16,840 --> 01:05:22,360
of the other people that are actually seeming to be good human beings that want to get to that position.

653
01:05:23,080 --> 01:05:29,560
What do we do to remove these lobbyists and the corruption that is clearly creating a net

654
01:05:29,560 --> 01:05:36,840
that is catching all the good people before they rise to the top? Look in the mirror and see,

655
01:05:36,840 --> 01:05:42,280
see what else, what, what you can do, what you're willing to do for some people that may mean running

656
01:05:42,280 --> 01:05:49,720
for office yourself. You know, the, the, the best candidates that we have in my view are often people

657
01:05:49,720 --> 01:05:54,360
who don't want to do it at all. They don't want the attention. They don't want the limelight. They

658
01:05:54,360 --> 01:06:02,200
don't want, you know, all of the, the, the, the like fake glitter, the plastic trinkets that are

659
01:06:02,200 --> 01:06:12,760
often a flash before people's eyes. They want to do it because they see a need for true servant

660
01:06:12,760 --> 01:06:18,280
leaders to step up to the plate. And that may be for the school board. That may be for your local

661
01:06:18,280 --> 01:06:23,480
county council. It may be for Congress. It may be running for president, whatever the answer to that

662
01:06:23,480 --> 01:06:30,840
may be for you. There, we need more of those leaders. If that's not your thing and you're not

663
01:06:30,840 --> 01:06:37,720
quite prepared to do that, it comes at a great cost. Then find, find a way to support those

664
01:06:37,720 --> 01:06:42,760
candidates who reflect this kind of servant leadership and the courage that goes along with

665
01:06:42,760 --> 01:06:49,080
it, who are openly stating, yeah, no, I'm not taking any money from political action committees

666
01:06:49,080 --> 01:06:56,040
or lobbyists. I'll give you one example. There's a guy who's, he's a special forces veteran of

667
01:06:56,040 --> 01:07:01,720
former army green beret, who's running for Congress in Washington state. His name is Joe Kent.

668
01:07:02,600 --> 01:07:08,520
He and his wife both served in the military, him in the army, she in the Navy, she was killed in

669
01:07:08,520 --> 01:07:17,160
combat and left him with two very young boys to raise. I give him so much credit for finding a way

670
01:07:17,160 --> 01:07:24,280
to continue to serve, serve for stepping up and running for Congress and facing huge obstacles and

671
01:07:24,280 --> 01:07:31,320
adversity in doing so. He ran in 2022. Thankfully he didn't wash his hands of it at that time. He

672
01:07:31,320 --> 01:07:38,600
lost by a sliver of votes. He was one of, it was one of those seats that, that wasn't decided until

673
01:07:38,600 --> 01:07:45,800
days or weeks after the election because of how few votes were, were spread between the difference

674
01:07:45,800 --> 01:07:51,160
between him and the woman who, who ultimately was declared the winner. Thank God he's running again,

675
01:07:51,160 --> 01:07:56,600
because he is one of those leaders who has the courage to speak the truth. He has lived a life

676
01:07:56,600 --> 01:08:03,800
of service. He is not accepting any corporate pack money or money from lobbyists and telling

677
01:08:03,800 --> 01:08:09,800
people very directly, I'm here to serve you and to be accountable to you, not to a party interest.

678
01:08:09,800 --> 01:08:15,080
He had a Republican establishment running against him in that last election, what to speak of the

679
01:08:15,080 --> 01:08:21,080
Democrat establishment. So it's candidates like Joe Kent, and he didn't ask me to do this. I just

680
01:08:21,080 --> 01:08:27,160
think he's a phenomenal American. If you want to go support him, he needs support from the American

681
01:08:27,160 --> 01:08:34,440
people. If you're not going to run for office, find candidates like him and others who are putting

682
01:08:34,440 --> 01:08:39,480
themselves forward across the country in different positions, find a way to support them. If you can

683
01:08:39,480 --> 01:08:44,120
financially support them, do so. If you don't have the means, then say, Hey, how can I volunteer?

684
01:08:44,120 --> 01:08:49,640
Maybe it's a matter of making phone calls or sending emails. Find a way to make that positive

685
01:08:49,640 --> 01:08:56,360
impact so that the millions of dollars, the mainstream propaganda media assault that often

686
01:08:56,360 --> 01:09:02,440
goes against people like me and others who stand up to speak the truth, we have the ability to

687
01:09:02,440 --> 01:09:07,640
counteract that by using the power that exists within our hands through freedom of speech,

688
01:09:08,280 --> 01:09:15,240
even as they are trying to suppress it through our votes and through how we use our time, energy

689
01:09:15,240 --> 01:09:20,360
and resources. And thankfully, through platforms like yours, the alternative media, the new media

690
01:09:20,360 --> 01:09:25,800
through podcasts, through social media, wherever possible, we have to use all of these tools at

691
01:09:25,800 --> 01:09:32,760
our disposal to exercise the power of the people in holding our leaders accountable.

692
01:09:34,760 --> 01:09:43,880
When was that shift where instead of the president or the people high up on that totem pole

693
01:09:43,880 --> 01:09:50,680
representing the people, I feel like it's skewed now to where it's viewed as the people work

694
01:09:51,240 --> 01:09:58,280
for that president. And I feel like there's a lot of loss of power, like self the acknowledgement

695
01:09:58,280 --> 01:10:05,000
that each one of us, if we stood by our side by side, have immense power to force really positive

696
01:10:05,000 --> 01:10:09,960
change. When did when did that skew and how can we get back to where we need to be where we're

697
01:10:09,960 --> 01:10:16,760
reminded that they work for us not the other way around? You know, I don't know that I can point to

698
01:10:16,760 --> 01:10:25,160
a single moment in time, but but there certainly has been a shift. If you walk the halls of

699
01:10:25,880 --> 01:10:30,600
Congress, if you spend a little bit of time in Washington, or you pay attention to some of the

700
01:10:30,600 --> 01:10:37,720
things that they're saying, they throw out the world, the word populism or populist in a very

701
01:10:37,720 --> 01:10:43,480
negative light, they're saying, oh, there's a rise of populism around the world. We are seeing this

702
01:10:43,480 --> 01:10:51,240
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

703
01:10:51,800 --> 01:10:59,320
on the quote unquote norms of society. I challenged someone when I was in Congress,

704
01:10:59,320 --> 01:11:03,960
who was telling me this was warning me about this rise of populism. And I asked him, why,

705
01:11:03,960 --> 01:11:09,960
why is it bad? What is this threat of populism that you speak of? Well, you know, it's upending

706
01:11:09,960 --> 01:11:17,320
the the norms of government, the rules based order, etc, etc. But really what it is, and this is why,

707
01:11:17,320 --> 01:11:22,840
you know, for for a lot of the elite in Washington, they couldn't figure out why there

708
01:11:22,840 --> 01:11:28,920
was a significant chunk of people who supported Bernie Sanders, who then went on to vote for

709
01:11:28,920 --> 01:11:34,200
Donald Trump. They're like, well, gosh, they're completely different people. Where is the, you

710
01:11:34,200 --> 01:11:41,160
know, they were advocating for for very different things. But ultimately, the the commonality that

711
01:11:41,160 --> 01:11:48,040
people saw between the two of them is they were very disruptive of the quote unquote norms of the

712
01:11:48,040 --> 01:11:59,160
elite in Washington. It's, it's the power of the people is real. And they speak about the threat,

713
01:11:59,240 --> 01:12:05,640
the so called threat of populism, whether it be in the United States of America, or as we saw

714
01:12:05,640 --> 01:12:12,840
recently in Argentina, and we've seen in different parts of the world, the threat of populism is not

715
01:12:12,840 --> 01:12:20,760
to the people. It's to those in power who are afraid of what a free people in a free society

716
01:12:22,440 --> 01:12:29,480
poses to their power, that we will challenge their authority that we will not just accept

717
01:12:29,480 --> 01:12:34,280
the so called norms for what they are, because that's the way they've always been done. Well,

718
01:12:34,280 --> 01:12:39,640
we can see how here and now the the so called norms, frankly, haven't served the American

719
01:12:39,640 --> 01:12:46,200
people very well. It's how we got to the position that we are in our founding fathers in this

720
01:12:46,200 --> 01:12:53,640
country very directly and intentionally placed the power in this constitutional republic in the

721
01:12:53,640 --> 01:13:02,120
hands of the people, because they saw how fragile a democracy can be. And how too often throughout

722
01:13:02,120 --> 01:13:09,880
too often throughout history, it's been proven time and time again, how those in positions of power,

723
01:13:09,880 --> 01:13:18,280
too often succumb to, you know, being being greedy for more power in this insatiable hunger,

724
01:13:18,280 --> 01:13:24,680
and essentially trending toward the kind of tyrannical government that the people who the

725
01:13:24,680 --> 01:13:31,720
pilgrims who first came to America were trying to escape. And unfortunately, we've seen the

726
01:13:31,720 --> 01:13:38,040
growth of our government grow bigger and grow more powerful. And the the intent of our founding

727
01:13:38,040 --> 01:13:42,200
fathers has unfortunately been lost. But that's where we find the answer to your question. So

728
01:13:42,200 --> 01:13:49,960
what do we do about this? We the power that we have is only real if we choose to use it.

729
01:13:51,000 --> 01:13:57,000
And that's why we're seeing things like the the disinformation governance board that the

730
01:13:57,000 --> 01:14:03,080
Biden administration being created different entities, both in government as well as in big

731
01:14:03,080 --> 01:14:09,000
tech, where they're trying to control something as as fundamental as free speech in this country,

732
01:14:09,000 --> 01:14:12,920
because they don't want us to be able to challenge their authority. They don't want us to be able to

733
01:14:12,920 --> 01:14:20,200
know the truth that may prove their policies to be idiotic or wrong or harmful, which is why,

734
01:14:21,000 --> 01:14:25,080
as as you know, going back to one of the first questions and topics that you brought up, which

735
01:14:25,080 --> 01:14:32,520
is critical, we have to come together around these fundamental freedoms, we have to come together

736
01:14:32,520 --> 01:14:37,960
around the principles that this country was founded upon, even as we may have huge disagreements on

737
01:14:37,960 --> 01:14:44,440
what candidates we like or don't like, or what policies or solutions we may find, if we cannot

738
01:14:44,440 --> 01:14:50,680
come together around defending our fundamental freedoms that are under direct assault right now,

739
01:14:50,680 --> 01:14:57,080
we will lose them forever. And the country that we love, me as someone who's born a US citizen,

740
01:14:57,080 --> 01:15:02,120
you as someone who chose to become a US citizen through legal means,

741
01:15:04,600 --> 01:15:10,840
we will lose all that we cherish and all that we love about our country. We have to harness

742
01:15:10,840 --> 01:15:17,480
the power that exists within our hands that's rooted in these freedoms and and bring about this

743
01:15:17,480 --> 01:15:24,280
change, not next year or, you know, in five years or maybe sometime down the line when I've retired

744
01:15:24,280 --> 01:15:28,600
and think I've got more time on my hands. This election that we're facing is pivotal,

745
01:15:28,600 --> 01:15:32,920
specifically because of this assault on our freedom that we've seen over these past few years.

746
01:15:34,440 --> 01:15:40,440
Absolutely. I went to the Holocaust Museum, there was an exhibit in I think it was the Imperial War

747
01:15:40,440 --> 01:15:45,000
Museum in London with my son, which is, you know, a powerful experience to take a little 15 year old

748
01:15:45,000 --> 01:15:50,920
boy and show him the real kind of, you know, through line. But it all started with that

749
01:15:50,920 --> 01:15:55,960
censorship and that disinformation and that painting a certain group as the enemy, you know,

750
01:15:55,960 --> 01:16:00,280
and I know to be very fair, four years prior to that, I saw a lot of fuel flow,

751
01:16:00,280 --> 01:16:07,320
flow on the fires of racism and division that way. So that power is abused both ways, but you

752
01:16:07,320 --> 01:16:11,880
start to see these early red flags and it's exactly that. And it was interesting because I

753
01:16:11,880 --> 01:16:17,720
had a guest on a few months ago now and he made a really kind of astute observation. He's like,

754
01:16:18,280 --> 01:16:25,800
America is the poster child for democracy. How do you think we're doing? And I was like, wow,

755
01:16:25,800 --> 01:16:29,320
I never thought of it that way because each and every one of us can be part of that solution.

756
01:16:29,320 --> 01:16:34,520
If you're looking in and we're the shop window of democracy and we have school shootings and

757
01:16:34,520 --> 01:16:39,560
homelessness and, you know, all these other things that of course occur in other places,

758
01:16:39,560 --> 01:16:44,200
but we're supposed to be the shining example and 70% obese and overweight, you know,

759
01:16:45,160 --> 01:16:49,960
we've gone wrong. There's some things that we are told that is the solution that clearly isn't and

760
01:16:49,960 --> 01:16:56,760
we're slipping. And what happens if no one believes in democracy anymore? Exactly. Exactly. And

761
01:16:56,760 --> 01:17:01,560
already this is not a warning of things to come. These are things that are happening right before

762
01:17:01,560 --> 01:17:08,120
our very eyes right now. You know, you talk about America's, the United States of America is supposed

763
01:17:08,120 --> 01:17:14,520
to be this beacon of democracy around the world. You see how President Biden has centered his

764
01:17:14,520 --> 01:17:23,000
entire foreign policy around, you know, spreading democracy around the world and democracy, defeating

765
01:17:23,000 --> 01:17:31,000
autocracies. And yet, and it's often an excuse that's used or justifications that's used to go

766
01:17:31,000 --> 01:17:39,400
and wage wars and regime change wars in other parts of the world. And yet here we are living

767
01:17:39,400 --> 01:17:44,680
at a time where those in power, the Democrat elite, the Biden Harris administration, they're using

768
01:17:45,400 --> 01:17:52,360
our own institutions of government to erode our democracy here at home. However, one feels about

769
01:17:53,240 --> 01:17:59,960
former president Donald Trump, it sets a dangerous precedent when we see over 32

770
01:17:59,960 --> 01:18:05,960
states in our country try to remove him from the ballot so that voters don't even have the choice

771
01:18:05,960 --> 01:18:09,960
to decide who they want to choose from. They are essentially left with, well, you know,

772
01:18:09,960 --> 01:18:15,800
well, President Biden is the main front runner. You see how when the Supreme Court ruled

773
01:18:15,800 --> 01:18:22,920
unanimously, importantly, unanimously, that these attempts by states to remove Donald Trump from

774
01:18:22,920 --> 01:18:29,160
the ballot is unconstitutional. There are very influential people in our country, very influential

775
01:18:29,160 --> 01:18:35,800
Democrats across, you know, elected, unelected figures in the media and others throwing up their

776
01:18:35,800 --> 01:18:41,160
hands and saying the courts got it wrong. The courts have failed. The Supreme Court has failed

777
01:18:41,160 --> 01:18:48,360
the American people. Now the American people are the ones who we have to leave it to the American

778
01:18:48,360 --> 01:18:56,040
people to save democracy. They are so terrified of the possibility that in their minds, the American

779
01:18:56,040 --> 01:19:02,120
people might make the quote unquote wrong choice by returning Donald Trump to the White House and

780
01:19:02,120 --> 01:19:10,280
telling Joe Biden to go home, that they are willing to erode and destroy our democracy

781
01:19:10,280 --> 01:19:15,960
in their minds in order to save it. And that's what's so dangerous about this mentality,

782
01:19:15,960 --> 01:19:20,120
because again, you remove the names from this equation of the names of the candidates,

783
01:19:20,120 --> 01:19:26,280
this sets such a dangerous precedent where if they are allowed to get away with this, if they are,

784
01:19:27,560 --> 01:19:33,480
if there is no consequence or accountability to their actions, then every single election,

785
01:19:33,480 --> 01:19:40,760
every single presidential election now, we will have to deal with the reality of the party that's

786
01:19:40,760 --> 01:19:49,240
in power using any means necessary to take away our right to free speech, our right to vote for

787
01:19:49,240 --> 01:19:56,840
the candidate of our choosing to keep themselves in power. And for the Democrats who think that,

788
01:19:56,840 --> 01:20:00,600
that, oh, well, we've got to do this because, you know, they say President Trump is going to

789
01:20:00,600 --> 01:20:05,240
be a dictator, so they're justified in pursuing this cause in the name of democracy.

790
01:20:06,600 --> 01:20:13,080
I have a hard time believing that they are so stupid or ignorant as to think that if they lose,

791
01:20:14,040 --> 01:20:18,440
that they're setting this precedent is not going to result at some point in the future,

792
01:20:18,440 --> 01:20:24,280
on them being on the receiving end of this. And so again, as we talk about what are the things

793
01:20:24,280 --> 01:20:29,800
that we can come together around in this country, come together around the defense of freedom and

794
01:20:29,800 --> 01:20:37,400
the defense of this democratic republic, come together around the notion that our founders

795
01:20:38,280 --> 01:20:44,280
created intentionally these founding documents, encouraging a thriving and open marketplace of

796
01:20:44,280 --> 01:20:50,920
ideas where candidates running for office have to go in the middle of this open marketplace of ideas

797
01:20:51,320 --> 01:20:57,160
and debate on substance, point to their records, point to their positions on issues, compare and

798
01:20:57,160 --> 01:21:03,400
contrast their solutions to the big problems that we face. This is, this is what a thriving democracy

799
01:21:04,280 --> 01:21:12,440
can be. If we, if we make sure that that happens by not just going along with this abuse and erosion

800
01:21:12,440 --> 01:21:19,800
of our democracy that we're currently seeing and that right there, that right there is the best way

801
01:21:19,800 --> 01:21:27,160
for us to serve as a beacon of democracy for the world, not going in and artificially imposing it

802
01:21:27,160 --> 01:21:32,600
on other countries to try to create these little mini Americas in different parts of the world.

803
01:21:32,600 --> 01:21:36,840
While meanwhile, people are looking at what's happening here, leaders of other countries are

804
01:21:36,840 --> 01:21:40,360
looking what's happening here in our own country right now and saying, like, are you kidding me?

805
01:21:40,360 --> 01:21:48,520
Is this a joke? They're seeing what's going on. And yet, you know, if you turn on some of our cable

806
01:21:48,520 --> 01:21:57,000
news networks, it's just, it's, it's mind blowing how brazen it has become, but it's also why we

807
01:21:57,000 --> 01:22:03,000
should take it so seriously. They are so emboldened to abuse and erode our freedom and our democracy

808
01:22:03,000 --> 01:22:08,680
because they think they can get away with it and that we are not going to force any of these

809
01:22:08,680 --> 01:22:15,800
consequences or accountability on them. And that, that, that is more of a window into their arrogance

810
01:22:15,800 --> 01:22:22,760
and, and therefore the threat that they pose because of that arrogance, as well as it is a reminder

811
01:22:22,760 --> 01:22:28,520
to us about the responsibility that we have. Well, speaking of the way information is being

812
01:22:28,520 --> 01:22:34,520
disseminated, I had a guest on Larry Doyle, who I talk about quite a bit because he was from an

813
01:22:34,520 --> 01:22:39,320
era where journalism was truly still respected and to give you kind of context, he was the first

814
01:22:39,320 --> 01:22:44,600
person to interview Nelson Mandela when he was released from Robin Island. Wow. Phenomenal. So

815
01:22:44,600 --> 01:22:52,280
I asked him what changed, what happened to our media? And he said that back when he was, you know,

816
01:22:52,280 --> 01:22:58,040
at his prime, the media, the news corporation was owned obviously by an umbrella corporation,

817
01:22:58,040 --> 01:23:02,120
and there were other businesses making the money. So the news simply reported the news.

818
01:23:02,120 --> 01:23:06,520
And then there was a shift where they told the media outlets, okay, you need to start making

819
01:23:06,520 --> 01:23:11,080
money now. And that's when we started getting closer and closer to where we are now, where it's

820
01:23:11,080 --> 01:23:16,520
clickbait, you know, rhetoric. And I say this all the time, you know, for people arguing, I don't

821
01:23:16,520 --> 01:23:21,160
think that's news in a split screen that happens to look exactly the same as the opposing political's

822
01:23:21,160 --> 01:23:27,080
media station as well. Right. And so it's only inciting anger. And again, when you have high

823
01:23:27,080 --> 01:23:33,400
anxiety, excuse me, high anxiety, you lose the ability to critically think. So how do we I mean,

824
01:23:33,400 --> 01:23:38,520
obviously, solution one is just turn off, which I did a long, long time ago. But aside from that,

825
01:23:38,520 --> 01:23:45,000
you know, how do we reclaim the media side? So we saw disseminating middle of the road, you know,

826
01:23:45,000 --> 01:23:49,240
news articles were like, this is what happened period the end.

827
01:23:50,760 --> 01:23:55,800
All of these different whether it's social media, or, you know, the media,

828
01:23:55,800 --> 01:24:03,720
social media, or if it's the mainstream media, they profit, their business model and their

829
01:24:03,720 --> 01:24:13,000
profits come from our attention, and our time. So how we use our attention and our time is how we

830
01:24:13,000 --> 01:24:19,400
can start to force that change. I think it's a good thing that we're seeing a lot more people

831
01:24:20,200 --> 01:24:25,720
who are being fed up as you are, and just turning off the mainstream media and looking for new

832
01:24:25,720 --> 01:24:34,120
sources of information and news, because there's a growing volume of that of real quality dialogue,

833
01:24:34,120 --> 01:24:39,480
conversations, news reporting, investigative journalists, people like Glenn Greenwald,

834
01:24:39,480 --> 01:24:46,760
and Matt Ty Eby and others who are actually doing the work that we want journalists that we use used

835
01:24:46,760 --> 01:24:52,760
to be the norm for journalists in our society. But another thing is, you know, I introduced

836
01:24:52,760 --> 01:25:00,440
legislation in Congress that would restore the fairness doctrine. And if folks at home are not

837
01:25:00,440 --> 01:25:05,880
familiar with this, it's something that used to exist, that understanding like these these

838
01:25:05,880 --> 01:25:11,800
different TV stations, cable news stations, they are using the public airwaves, those public air

839
01:25:11,800 --> 01:25:17,880
waves ostensibly belong to us. And so if you're using the public airwaves, there has to be,

840
01:25:17,880 --> 01:25:24,040
if you're going to present one side or one political party's view, you also have to present

841
01:25:24,040 --> 01:25:29,800
the opposing party's view. That was what the fairness doctrine was all about. Well, the

842
01:25:29,800 --> 01:25:35,080
fairness doctrine was repealed, I believe under the Reagan administration, if I'm not mistaken,

843
01:25:35,800 --> 01:25:41,080
and any attempts to restore it have been blocked. There was almost no interest and no support in

844
01:25:41,080 --> 01:25:47,880
Congress to actually passing my bill, which which very simply would restore the fairness doctrine.

845
01:25:47,880 --> 01:25:55,560
So at a minimum, those using the public airwaves would be required to truly put forward balanced

846
01:25:55,560 --> 01:26:03,320
reporting, balanced information. So given our government's failure to fulfill that responsibility,

847
01:26:03,320 --> 01:26:08,120
I just encourage people there's not a single, unfortunately, there's not a singular news source

848
01:26:08,120 --> 01:26:16,840
that I think meets that mark. There are some apps, news apps that I have found that will provide a

849
01:26:16,840 --> 01:26:24,200
rating, for example, they're kind of a collector of articles from various news sources, but they'll

850
01:26:24,200 --> 01:26:29,240
have a rating on there. This leans left or leans right, it leans Democrat or Republican, or it's

851
01:26:29,240 --> 01:26:34,280
down the middle, has a more unbiased rating. So there are different programs out there that you

852
01:26:34,280 --> 01:26:40,440
can use. If you're just looking like, all right, how do I know, you know, what filter this article

853
01:26:40,440 --> 01:26:47,320
is, is being written through? What is their bias? Because even things like the Associated Press,

854
01:26:48,040 --> 01:26:53,560
obviously, NPR, some of these other sources that traditionally you could depend on to just report

855
01:26:53,560 --> 01:27:00,760
facts, take an obvious slant, especially around certain issues. But I encourage people to,

856
01:27:00,760 --> 01:27:06,680
you know, seek out information. I listen to podcasts from people who I know that I'm probably

857
01:27:06,680 --> 01:27:11,880
not going to agree with, as they talk about issues. And I also listen to podcasts with my friends

858
01:27:11,880 --> 01:27:19,400
and people who I like and who I agree with. But going through that, it helps with that critical

859
01:27:19,400 --> 01:27:26,120
thinking process, where, you know, if I hold a certain position on something like the border

860
01:27:26,120 --> 01:27:33,240
crisis and illegal immigration, I want to hear what those who are pushing for open borders are

861
01:27:33,240 --> 01:27:40,200
saying. How are they justifying their position? What is their argument? You know, I advocate very

862
01:27:40,200 --> 01:27:46,120
strongly for secure borders. Without secure borders, we don't really have a country. There

863
01:27:46,120 --> 01:27:53,160
are many reasons why we must enforce our legal immigration laws and fix them and improve them.

864
01:27:53,160 --> 01:27:57,800
I just came from spending a few days at the southern border of California and Mexico,

865
01:27:57,800 --> 01:28:02,280
and there's so much happening there that's never making it into the mainstream news.

866
01:28:03,000 --> 01:28:10,680
And it's not an either or of, well, you can't have a heart for people who are seeking a better life

867
01:28:11,960 --> 01:28:17,560
if you are for secure borders. And if you are for open borders, you can't,

868
01:28:17,560 --> 01:28:23,560
we just have both extremes, unfortunately, that dominate the conversation. The reality that I saw,

869
01:28:23,560 --> 01:28:29,960
and I'm just going to go with this current example, the reality that I saw are a lot of

870
01:28:30,600 --> 01:28:38,040
people who are escaping hardship and who, because of our open borders, are being exploited and harmed

871
01:28:38,040 --> 01:28:45,080
and exposed to greater suffering purely because of that policy. The cartels who are profiting from

872
01:28:45,080 --> 01:28:52,040
this, the other interests who are profiting from this, this is not a means to actually help people

873
01:28:52,040 --> 01:28:58,680
who are seeking help. And so there are reforms that we need to take place there. All of this

874
01:28:59,800 --> 01:29:04,920
speaks to this one issue, but there are many other issues for the need for us to be able to

875
01:29:04,920 --> 01:29:09,640
be discerning in the information that we are getting, be critical thinkers, and therefore be

876
01:29:09,640 --> 01:29:15,160
able to contribute to how can we as a society actually start to solve these problems.

877
01:29:15,880 --> 01:29:19,320
That's a good segue to something I really wanted to talk to you about. I mean, everything I have so

878
01:29:19,320 --> 01:29:25,640
far, I really want to talk to you about, but when we talk about the border crisis, there's never a

879
01:29:25,640 --> 01:29:30,600
discussion on why are so many people fleeing. When we talk about law enforcement, there's never

880
01:29:30,600 --> 01:29:36,760
discussion on why do we have so much violence on our streets? You know, if you look at Oslo or

881
01:29:36,760 --> 01:29:41,080
Lisbon, you're not going to see gangs like that murdering each other like they are all over the

882
01:29:41,080 --> 01:29:46,360
place. Like I witnessed and pulled cheats over teenagers my whole career as a firefighter.

883
01:29:47,480 --> 01:29:53,880
What has been interesting over the seven and a half years now, the podcast is I have seen a shift

884
01:29:53,880 --> 01:29:58,760
when it comes to the conversation on drug prohibition. I actually got to go, my family,

885
01:29:58,760 --> 01:30:03,160
some of my family moved to Portugal and I ended up interviewing Zhao Gu Lao, who's the man who's

886
01:30:03,160 --> 01:30:09,160
spearheaded decriminalization in Portugal. And they went from the worst overdose and addiction

887
01:30:09,160 --> 01:30:14,200
crisis in, I think it was Europe, if not the world, to the lowest within less than 10 years.

888
01:30:14,200 --> 01:30:19,560
Because again, they saw the proactive solution. They saw the money that was just being wasted in

889
01:30:19,560 --> 01:30:24,040
law enforcement and court and all these other areas. And they looked at it with an altruistic

890
01:30:24,040 --> 01:30:30,840
lens and they said, what if we viewed addicts as people with mental health, you know, struggling

891
01:30:30,840 --> 01:30:35,560
trauma, unaddressed trauma, et cetera. What if we put them in the hands of the medical community?

892
01:30:35,560 --> 01:30:41,560
And bearing in mind, this isn't a profit based system in Portugal either. But then they also,

893
01:30:41,560 --> 01:30:45,800
then this is what's missing, I think, from the US conversation. They took all the money that they

894
01:30:45,800 --> 01:30:49,880
were going to be putting into the quote unquote war on drugs because they had the American model

895
01:30:49,880 --> 01:30:55,720
before. And they built addiction centers, they built mental health counseling facilities, they

896
01:30:55,720 --> 01:31:01,640
created incentives for people to employ recovering addicts. And it worked. And then it freed up all

897
01:31:01,640 --> 01:31:06,360
these resources for law enforcement and the court systems and the prisons to actually go after

898
01:31:06,920 --> 01:31:12,040
the dealers, the smugglers and all the real, you know, cut the head off the snake. Yeah. Couple

899
01:31:12,040 --> 01:31:18,760
into that, as you and I both know, our first responders somewhat, especially our military

900
01:31:18,760 --> 01:31:22,280
community are finding incredible success now with psilocybin, ibuprofen, and

901
01:31:22,280 --> 01:31:27,080
some of these therapies that they have to go to another country to get the therapies of what they

902
01:31:27,080 --> 01:31:31,880
did to protect this country. Yeah. My James Gearing's personal opinion is that what they

903
01:31:31,880 --> 01:31:38,280
did in Portugal was phenomenal and all so much of the violence, the sex work, the homelessness,

904
01:31:39,320 --> 01:31:44,680
obviously the overdoses, the gang membership, the murders were related to the ridiculous

905
01:31:44,680 --> 01:31:50,200
prohibition that was put on drugs by Harry Anslinger in the 1930s. And so, you know,

906
01:31:50,200 --> 01:31:55,000
we're talking about the drug abuse that was put on drugs by Harry Anslinger in the 1930s.

907
01:31:55,000 --> 01:32:00,600
And we've had an almost a hundred year longitudinal study. And the same with our obesity crisis. Our

908
01:32:00,600 --> 01:32:08,040
example is this was an epic failure. To me, I feel that we would not only hugely impact, you know,

909
01:32:08,040 --> 01:32:12,600
the overdoses, the homelessness, all these other things, we hugely impact the gang, you know,

910
01:32:12,600 --> 01:32:17,080
culture in this country. And I feel like we'd even impact the crisis on the border because we

911
01:32:17,080 --> 01:32:23,240
were in a crisis and now the cartels aren't having all these customers that are buying illicit drugs

912
01:32:23,240 --> 01:32:30,760
because we legalized addiction, not selling, not smuggling, but addiction. So huge intro to this

913
01:32:30,760 --> 01:32:38,360
question. What is your perspective on the war on drugs and what is your perspective then for or

914
01:32:38,360 --> 01:32:43,320
against the prohibition, full prohibition? That means everything, not be able to buy it in stores,

915
01:32:43,320 --> 01:32:48,500
be able to get it in police stations in wahrbouens, but I think those other겠어요 plans,

916
01:32:46,760 --> 01:32:48,160
prohibition of drugs because it literally is obvious that that is what the border's

917
01:32:48,160 --> 01:32:51,100
issue is. And so I don't know how anyone could see it and potentially be constantly

918
01:32:48,500 --> 01:32:56,240
these of the many smaller countries made the decision of the border in terms of the

919
01:32:49,980 --> 01:32:57,060
tacked from anywhere. Here, how do I understand what you're, how people are

920
01:32:53,040 --> 01:33:02,400
the system that we have is horribly broken. I don't know how anyone could, any common sense

921
01:32:59,540 --> 01:33:02,220
lam evangelists that are freshmen. And or are they después des

922
01:33:02,400 --> 01:33:10,160
person could say otherwise. I think there needs to be a discussion on creative solutions. I'm not

923
01:33:11,440 --> 01:33:18,640
up to date with everything that has been proven in Portugal, but also some of the things that have

924
01:33:18,640 --> 01:33:25,760
been tried here in the United States. I think there has to be a very open and honest discussion

925
01:33:25,760 --> 01:33:33,120
about exactly this. How do we actually address the real problem here? As with any situation,

926
01:33:33,120 --> 01:33:39,120
I don't think it's as simple as taking the Portugal model in a kind of cookie cutter approach

927
01:33:39,120 --> 01:33:44,160
and dropping it in here and thinking that it will work in the same way. But I also think it's

928
01:33:44,160 --> 01:33:49,520
important to look at what are the lessons learned and consider as we have this important discussion

929
01:33:49,520 --> 01:33:57,840
about how can we start to tackle these problems here. I believe it's Portland that lifted the

930
01:33:57,840 --> 01:34:03,680
prohibition on all drugs, if I'm not mistaken, or the state of Oregon. You can correct me if I'm

931
01:34:03,680 --> 01:34:08,800
wrong. It's either Portland or Seattle, but I think it was Portland that actually went through

932
01:34:08,800 --> 01:34:14,400
this recently and cited the Portugal model. Are you familiar with the law that they passed?

933
01:34:15,280 --> 01:34:22,160
I'd heard of it. I'm unsure if they equally also created all these facilities for mental health.

934
01:34:22,160 --> 01:34:26,160
Usually when I hear, oh, they tried it here. No, they didn't try it there because they didn't

935
01:34:26,160 --> 01:34:33,920
put the solution in. They just took away the legal element. Yeah. It's interesting because

936
01:34:33,920 --> 01:34:40,880
over the course of, I think, a couple of years, they lifted the prohibition with the intent that

937
01:34:40,880 --> 01:34:48,640
they would dedicate money and resources to these addiction facilities. Unfortunately, they found

938
01:34:48,640 --> 01:34:56,160
that their thesis didn't work, that actually getting people into those addiction facilities,

939
01:34:56,160 --> 01:34:59,680
and maybe they didn't actually end up building them. I'm not quite sure on the details.

940
01:34:59,680 --> 01:35:07,120
But the long story short is because of public demand, they ended up reinstating not completely

941
01:35:07,120 --> 01:35:14,960
what the law was, but reinstating some form of prohibition again. I think a lot of folks who

942
01:35:14,960 --> 01:35:22,320
were advocating for lifting of the prohibition were disappointed with the outcomes because they

943
01:35:22,320 --> 01:35:27,520
had hoped that it would serve as a model at the state level for something that other states would

944
01:35:27,520 --> 01:35:34,080
be able to implement themselves. I think that, and again, I just listened to a brief podcast

945
01:35:34,080 --> 01:35:42,720
on this recently that pointed to what people on different sides of this in that particular state

946
01:35:42,720 --> 01:35:47,600
were saying. There were some clips from some of the testimony, but I think this is exactly the kind

947
01:35:47,600 --> 01:35:53,360
of thing that we need to look at, learn from, better understand so that we can actually find

948
01:35:53,360 --> 01:35:57,680
real creative solutions to this that have to do with ending the war on drugs.

949
01:35:58,560 --> 01:36:08,720
But it is directly connected to the role that big pharma plays. When we say that ending the war on

950
01:36:08,720 --> 01:36:16,560
drugs, there's a big role that quote unquote legal drugs play in contributing to this as we've seen

951
01:36:16,560 --> 01:36:24,640
with the opioid crisis across the country. As I mentioned, I was just in California and went

952
01:36:24,640 --> 01:36:33,600
into the city of San Diego and walked around the city with some of the local law enforcement and

953
01:36:33,600 --> 01:36:41,200
the police department just to get, again, a firsthand view and understanding of the challenges

954
01:36:41,200 --> 01:36:50,240
that they're facing. We stopped and talked to a guy who was 29 years old with a crack pipe in his

955
01:36:50,240 --> 01:36:57,520
hand. We went and had a conversation with him. He was very, very high on drugs, but was still

956
01:36:57,520 --> 01:37:04,160
coherent enough to have a conversation. We talked to him about fentanyl. He said,

957
01:37:04,160 --> 01:37:12,480
yep, I use fentanyl as well. I usually use it to help me go to sleep. We asked him if he was afraid

958
01:37:12,480 --> 01:37:18,800
of not waking up because of that fentanyl. He said, well, no, I just take a little bit and I

959
01:37:18,800 --> 01:37:25,440
know how to control it. We had quite a long conversation with him, but at the end of it,

960
01:37:25,440 --> 01:37:33,360
it was, hey, man, what would it take to get you off the street and being homeless and off of drugs

961
01:37:33,360 --> 01:37:40,080
into somewhere where you can seek treatment? He basically said, well, all of the treatment places

962
01:37:40,080 --> 01:37:47,200
have rules and I don't want to follow rules. Knowing the risk to his life, knowing that he has

963
01:37:47,200 --> 01:37:56,560
seen and admitting he has seen his friends die because of drug overdoses, nothing at his point

964
01:37:56,560 --> 01:38:06,160
would drive him to go to actually seek help. This is such a complex problem set for us as a society

965
01:38:06,160 --> 01:38:16,960
that obviously has the human element and free will involved that requires, this can't be solved

966
01:38:16,960 --> 01:38:19,760
with someone just saying, well, we're going to pass this law and it's going to solve everything.

967
01:38:20,720 --> 01:38:26,240
It requires a very comprehensive discussion and debate and analysis of what's worked in

968
01:38:26,240 --> 01:38:31,360
other places, what hasn't worked in other places and ultimately, how do we help the individual

969
01:38:31,920 --> 01:38:38,640
person? Because these living conditions and those who are addicted to these different substances,

970
01:38:40,960 --> 01:38:46,000
I don't believe that in a very clear mind that this is what they want for themselves.

971
01:38:46,960 --> 01:38:53,360
No, I think that what I see is twofold. Firstly, for example, you try Obamacare,

972
01:38:53,360 --> 01:38:57,680
which is an absolute piecemeal half-assed attempt at some sort of national health system.

973
01:38:58,240 --> 01:39:02,240
It fails and then people go, see, socialized medicine. I'll call it socialized to make it

974
01:39:02,240 --> 01:39:07,520
sound more communist. Socialized medicine doesn't work and then you do some half-assed thing in the

975
01:39:07,520 --> 01:39:12,880
northwest and don't provide the facilities and you go, see, prohibition didn't work. It's very

976
01:39:12,880 --> 01:39:17,760
convenient for the people that don't want these things to work. But what I've seen a lot of times,

977
01:39:17,760 --> 01:39:22,960
and I'll give you a perfect example, welfare. Oh, there's this woman on welfare and there's an

978
01:39:22,960 --> 01:39:27,520
escalator at the front that, yeah, there's always going to be those people. But if you take away

979
01:39:27,520 --> 01:39:32,560
welfare, what about those people that are just trying to get back on their feet? We screw it

980
01:39:32,560 --> 01:39:39,680
for everyone. So to me, if you put that in, you're going to have these people and Portugal has safe

981
01:39:40,240 --> 01:39:45,200
injection sites. They still have the addicted that are just sadly never going to get from it.

982
01:39:45,920 --> 01:39:51,600
But it's that middle large portion that you would help. And I think a big thing that Portugal did,

983
01:39:51,600 --> 01:39:56,880
firstly, they made it a national conversation, which is beautiful. And the right there opposed

984
01:39:56,880 --> 01:40:01,280
it initially and the next time it got voted again, they were all behind it because it worked.

985
01:40:02,080 --> 01:40:09,920
But you also remove the stigma of addiction. So right now our addicts are hiding from the police.

986
01:40:09,920 --> 01:40:14,800
What they do is illegal. But you take that down and it's not even a force thing. And there they

987
01:40:14,800 --> 01:40:20,080
just say, it's an interview. Here are the resources. When you're ready, just come and we're going to

988
01:40:20,080 --> 01:40:24,320
start taking care of you. And I think that's a difference because then that addict is his own

989
01:40:24,320 --> 01:40:30,400
free will. And they go in versus, all right, I've arrested you. Now you've got to go to an addiction

990
01:40:30,400 --> 01:40:36,480
center for 30 days. Very different than I want to go to an addiction center for 30 days. But when

991
01:40:36,480 --> 01:40:41,760
you empower and some of your fellow addicts start getting better, then maybe the more kind of

992
01:40:41,760 --> 01:40:46,720
hardened ones will finally go, wow, my friends are not in the streets anymore. They're all getting

993
01:40:46,720 --> 01:40:51,440
jobs and marrying people. So maybe just maybe I'll go down that road. And then the others,

994
01:40:52,400 --> 01:40:57,280
at least we tried. But I think it's that middle portion that really loses out every time

995
01:40:57,280 --> 01:41:00,640
we point at the extremes and go, oh, it doesn't work because of that.

996
01:41:00,640 --> 01:41:09,120
Sure. Yeah. Jumping to cast a judgment without really looking at the full picture with a mind

997
01:41:09,120 --> 01:41:15,760
towards problem solving. And the thing too that I think gets unfortunately lost in a lot of these

998
01:41:15,760 --> 01:41:22,320
discussions is just the humanity of it all. That the people who are impacted, the people who are

999
01:41:22,320 --> 01:41:32,320
suffering are people. And I think that's one of the things that caused this opioid crisis to rise

1000
01:41:32,320 --> 01:41:36,960
to the forefront in our society was because increasingly there are more and more Americans

1001
01:41:36,960 --> 01:41:45,520
in this country who had a loved one or a friend or a colleague who had become addicted to these

1002
01:41:45,520 --> 01:41:50,800
opioids because of one reason or another. I've got a close friend of our family here

1003
01:41:51,840 --> 01:41:57,760
who was given opioids. I forget which kind or what brand because of, I don't know, he had like a

1004
01:41:57,760 --> 01:42:02,960
broken arm or some kind of surgery that was done and he was given a bottle full. And this was years

1005
01:42:02,960 --> 01:42:10,480
ago. And unfortunately as a young man, it not only ruined his life, it ruined his family's life.

1006
01:42:10,480 --> 01:42:16,160
He is still homeless as a result of this. He is still addicted to drugs. His entire life has been

1007
01:42:16,880 --> 01:42:22,720
destroyed and he's a guy who's in his early twenties. He's trying to find his way out. But

1008
01:42:23,600 --> 01:42:31,840
it's when we remember that this is not someone else's problem, that this is occurring and

1009
01:42:31,840 --> 01:42:37,600
happening to people just like those who we love and who we know, my hope is that there would be

1010
01:42:37,600 --> 01:42:43,120
more of a motivation to actually find a real solution to this and not have politicians just

1011
01:42:43,120 --> 01:42:49,040
using it as a quick talking point. Absolutely. I think that's it. Again, it takes a village.

1012
01:42:49,040 --> 01:42:56,960
If you were any sort of kind of ancient tribe, let's use that term, would you stand by while

1013
01:42:56,960 --> 01:43:01,920
people were hurting and just watch them wander off into the woods, battling? No, you'd circle

1014
01:43:01,920 --> 01:43:05,040
around them and you'd pull them back in unless they were horrible people and then you could

1015
01:43:05,040 --> 01:43:10,560
probably cut their head off. But most people you would encircle with love. Another area where I

1016
01:43:10,560 --> 01:43:17,360
feel there's so much judgment around and it's such a revolving door is the prison system.

1017
01:43:17,360 --> 01:43:22,560
I think America makes up, if I've got it right, 4% of the world's population, but we have 20%

1018
01:43:22,560 --> 01:43:28,800
of the world's incarcerated population. Part of our prison system is profit-based, so it goes back

1019
01:43:28,800 --> 01:43:33,680
again, checks and balances what is stopping us from them filling the prison's gap.

1020
01:43:33,680 --> 01:43:40,960
Filling the prisons constantly. But then I had an amazing guy who was the superintendent of Bastoi

1021
01:43:40,960 --> 01:43:46,480
prison in Norway on the show a couple of times. Their model is so different. Again, like you said,

1022
01:43:46,480 --> 01:43:52,000
you can't cook a cut from cookie cutter from one country to another when one doesn't have gangs and

1023
01:43:52,000 --> 01:43:58,480
murders and all that stuff. There's got to be a transition period. But Bastoi looks like a housing

1024
01:43:58,480 --> 01:44:03,680
community. They have lost their freedom. They are prisoners, but they have to live together, cook,

1025
01:44:03,680 --> 01:44:09,840
clean, go to school, learn a trade, and work. They go to work every day. And I forget what their

1026
01:44:09,840 --> 01:44:15,760
recidivism rate was, but it was like the mid 70s, I think. I'm sorry, have I got that right?

1027
01:44:16,560 --> 01:44:20,880
Only basically, only about 20% ever even committed a crime, so I probably got that backwards.

1028
01:44:21,520 --> 01:44:27,120
But their notion was one day this person is going to leave that prison and move in

1029
01:44:27,120 --> 01:44:31,760
back next door to me. What kind of human being do I want reintegrate into society?

1030
01:44:31,760 --> 01:44:32,320
Exactly.

1031
01:44:32,320 --> 01:44:37,680
And so it's that holistic view again. Now, conversely, through my layman eyes again,

1032
01:44:38,480 --> 01:44:43,360
if I see a prison that needs prisoners to make money and you watch documentaries like 13th and

1033
01:44:43,360 --> 01:44:50,160
you see the industry that is being manned by our prison population, and you see our recidivism

1034
01:44:50,160 --> 01:44:55,280
rate, and you see the ability to get drugs in prison, and you hear about all the violence,

1035
01:44:55,280 --> 01:45:01,120
this seems to me like another area that maybe we could shift the way we do it and change this

1036
01:45:01,120 --> 01:45:05,040
horrendous revolving door of prisons and broken homes that we have at the moment.

1037
01:45:05,040 --> 01:45:13,440
Yeah. Yeah, you know, this is where again, the through line here through just about every topic

1038
01:45:13,440 --> 01:45:23,440
that we've discussed really comes down to what do we as people and as voters reward with our votes?

1039
01:45:23,440 --> 01:45:28,480
There have been some important criminal justice reform bills that have either been proposed

1040
01:45:28,480 --> 01:45:34,880
through Congress or actually passed through Congress. During President Trump's administration,

1041
01:45:34,880 --> 01:45:40,640
you had Democrats and Republicans working together, people who would be self-described

1042
01:45:40,640 --> 01:45:48,160
as very progressive or on the quote unquote far left, working with very conservative Republicans

1043
01:45:48,160 --> 01:45:57,520
to pass some of this criminal justice reform legislation that actually sent moms back to

1044
01:45:57,520 --> 01:46:04,240
their families, moms who were incarcerated, different measures to be able to encourage

1045
01:46:04,880 --> 01:46:11,440
a reduced recidivism rate, setting people up for success who were incarcerated to be able to go and

1046
01:46:11,440 --> 01:46:18,640
be productive and contributing members of their family and of society. And unfortunately, there

1047
01:46:18,640 --> 01:46:27,120
are also some politicians, some Democrats and some Republicans who were very critical and opposed

1048
01:46:27,120 --> 01:46:32,080
that legislation, you know, on one side saying like, you know, criminals need to stay locked up,

1049
01:46:32,080 --> 01:46:37,360
criminals should be locked up. And on the other side saying, well, everybody should be sent home.

1050
01:46:37,360 --> 01:46:43,920
You know, this is still too restrictive, but really both extremes, not actually offering up

1051
01:46:43,920 --> 01:46:52,400
real solutions to achieve that end state that you just talked about, that yes, we need a society

1052
01:46:52,400 --> 01:46:59,120
that first of all has laws that make sense and serve the best interests of society. In my opinion,

1053
01:46:59,120 --> 01:47:05,920
there are far too many laws on the books that make no sense whatsoever to the point where our

1054
01:47:05,920 --> 01:47:11,520
government can find, if they want to go after you, unfortunately, which happens, if they want to go

1055
01:47:11,520 --> 01:47:17,520
after you, they can find a law that you've probably broken, that is some arcane out of date,

1056
01:47:18,160 --> 01:47:24,240
out of date lives. I've seen this in my time in local city government, the state legislature,

1057
01:47:24,240 --> 01:47:29,520
as well as in the federal government, but have laws that serve the best interests of a peaceful

1058
01:47:29,520 --> 01:47:38,080
society. Those laws are enforced and that those who break those laws face some form of consequence.

1059
01:47:38,640 --> 01:47:46,080
And that as they go through that process, for those who are able to return back to our society,

1060
01:47:46,080 --> 01:47:53,520
that it is seen as a rehabilitative process rather than one that is merely punitive.

1061
01:47:53,520 --> 01:48:04,640
Again, how do we as people impact this to the policymakers? It's being able to come together

1062
01:48:04,640 --> 01:48:10,160
and support what is unfortunately an act of courage for both Democrats and Republicans to

1063
01:48:10,160 --> 01:48:17,360
pass this legislation. I had the two leaders of the Judiciary Committee, this was while I was in

1064
01:48:17,360 --> 01:48:23,280
Congress, Hakeem Jeffries was the Democrat, was the lead Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.

1065
01:48:23,280 --> 01:48:28,720
He is now the top Democrat in the House of Representatives. A guy named Doug Collins,

1066
01:48:28,720 --> 01:48:33,120
who was the top Republican on that committee, a very conservative Republican from the state

1067
01:48:33,120 --> 01:48:39,120
of Georgia. He is no longer in Congress. He didn't run for reelection, but they came together. I

1068
01:48:39,120 --> 01:48:43,920
don't know that they probably came together around any other issue at all, but they came together

1069
01:48:43,920 --> 01:48:51,760
around this issue. You had Van Jones, who labels himself as a very progressive person. He's on CNN

1070
01:48:51,760 --> 01:48:58,720
all the time. He worked with Jared Kushner and President Trump on this issue of criminal justice

1071
01:48:58,720 --> 01:49:06,240
reform. They ended up passing this legislation and President Trump signed it into law that made a

1072
01:49:06,240 --> 01:49:13,200
significant change toward that end of people who have paid the price for their crime, who are

1073
01:49:13,200 --> 01:49:17,840
rehabilitated and being able to come home and contribute to their society and their families.

1074
01:49:17,840 --> 01:49:23,280
Well, there are people who are trying to benefit politically by criticizing that legislation

1075
01:49:24,080 --> 01:49:32,080
on both sides without actually having an interest for solving problems. This is a long-winded way of

1076
01:49:32,080 --> 01:49:39,760
saying, we as voters need to choose what kind of leaders we want in place. Do you want those

1077
01:49:40,480 --> 01:49:46,960
hardline extremists who are unwilling to actually do the hard work of solving problems, which are

1078
01:49:46,960 --> 01:49:52,960
problems which requires not a compromising of principles, but requires people with different

1079
01:49:52,960 --> 01:49:59,200
backgrounds and ideas to come together and find real workable solutions? This is the kind of

1080
01:49:59,200 --> 01:50:08,400
leadership that I think we should keep in place or put in place and reward with our trust and our

1081
01:50:08,400 --> 01:50:14,720
votes. Those who clearly are only in it for their own selfish political interests or partisan

1082
01:50:14,720 --> 01:50:21,120
interests are the kinds of people that we should not allow to serve in these positions of power.

1083
01:50:22,880 --> 01:50:27,840
I think what ties into the prison conversation is what we just talked about as well, prohibition.

1084
01:50:28,400 --> 01:50:33,600
The perfect example is if you think about cops, the TV show back in the day, they would have this

1085
01:50:33,600 --> 01:50:37,760
crazy car pursuit and then they get out and run through the woods and then they'd be like,

1086
01:50:37,760 --> 01:50:43,920
he's got some marijuana and then he gets thrown in jail. Now fast forward, we all have dispensaries

1087
01:50:43,920 --> 01:50:49,520
in all our towns now, so it's a very different environment. Again, what are we doing that's

1088
01:50:49,520 --> 01:50:54,000
creating more criminals? Which is again, when I talk about law enforcement, no one ever talks about

1089
01:50:54,000 --> 01:50:58,160
the dangers on the streets and why they're making mistakes plus the underfunding, under training,

1090
01:50:58,160 --> 01:51:03,360
and all the other things. It's just another whole conversation. I had a guest that I invited every

1091
01:51:03,360 --> 01:51:10,000
year as a member of Congress when there's a State of the Union address. We get one extra ticket to

1092
01:51:10,000 --> 01:51:16,720
invite a guest to sit in the gallery. One year I invited this woman who had written an amazing book

1093
01:51:16,720 --> 01:51:25,520
about her story, but long story short, her boyfriend was a drug dealer. She's pregnant,

1094
01:51:25,520 --> 01:51:33,280
I believe she already had a child. She refused to snitch on her boy. She had nothing to do with

1095
01:51:33,280 --> 01:51:40,800
his trade at all. She was not a drug dealer, but she understood what the consequences would be to

1096
01:51:40,800 --> 01:51:46,800
her own safety and the safety of her children if she was a quote unquote snitch on her boyfriend.

1097
01:51:48,480 --> 01:51:55,360
She was arrested and thrown in jail for years because of her being accused of breaking the

1098
01:51:55,360 --> 01:52:03,200
conspiracy law, conspiracy to aid and abet in her boyfriend's crimes. She talks in detail about the

1099
01:52:03,200 --> 01:52:10,080
things that she endured, what her family endured, and how she is one of many examples of people who

1100
01:52:10,080 --> 01:52:18,960
are victims of this broken system that really shouldn't be this way. It fails to recognize,

1101
01:52:18,960 --> 01:52:24,480
as you pointed out, the circumstances and the reality that exists on our streets and all of

1102
01:52:24,480 --> 01:52:31,520
the people at many layers who are impacted by it. Absolutely. The judgment that's made a lot recently

1103
01:52:31,520 --> 01:52:37,600
is, well, the problem is there's too many broken homes. Men need to stay with their families. Well,

1104
01:52:37,600 --> 01:52:42,560
if we have 20% of the world's prisoners, clearly some of those men are not able to stay with their

1105
01:52:42,560 --> 01:52:49,360
families. So the answer to bringing mothers and fathers back to their children, like you said,

1106
01:52:49,360 --> 01:52:55,360
with the female prisons, for example, or incarcerated people, is to kind of look at what

1107
01:52:55,360 --> 01:52:59,600
we're arresting people for, what we're incarcerating people for. And don't get me wrong, in Norway,

1108
01:52:59,600 --> 01:53:04,080
for example, the guy that killed all those students on the island, he's in a box right now,

1109
01:53:04,080 --> 01:53:09,920
a very small box. Yeah. So there is an application for that. But a lot of the crimes are usually

1110
01:53:09,920 --> 01:53:14,400
related to some sort of addiction, whether it's, like you said, selling and being on that side,

1111
01:53:14,400 --> 01:53:17,920
or whether it's breaking and entering because you're trying to pay for your next fix, there's

1112
01:53:17,920 --> 01:53:23,840
this ripple effect. So to me, the addiction and the prison problems go hand in hand. And again,

1113
01:53:23,840 --> 01:53:29,280
you look at that with a compassionate lens, the people that are in there for something that was

1114
01:53:29,280 --> 01:53:34,640
preventable and avoidable, we can make an impact and reduce that number incredibly. And then all

1115
01:53:34,640 --> 01:53:40,400
those resources go for all the horrendous people that are beyond broken at that point. And we keep

1116
01:53:40,400 --> 01:53:47,120
them away from our community. Yeah. Well said. All right. Well, I want to shift to a couple other

1117
01:53:47,120 --> 01:53:55,280
topics before I let you go. The first one you touched on on Maui before that I have, and I've

1118
01:53:55,280 --> 01:54:00,560
got some friends, Josh Jukes, for example, Joshua Jukes, sorry, Joshua, you know, that told me about

1119
01:54:00,560 --> 01:54:06,480
the lack of support. Meanwhile, we're sending, you know, billions or trillions overseas to wars.

1120
01:54:07,040 --> 01:54:12,160
So talk to me about what the Hawaiian people endured during that time. And then what is still

1121
01:54:12,160 --> 01:54:16,880
going on today from the ripple effect of that fire? Yeah, you know, James, it was really

1122
01:54:16,880 --> 01:54:24,240
telling how I got there three days after the fires occurred and went directly to West Maui,

1123
01:54:24,240 --> 01:54:30,720
the community that was directly impacted by this, which was the town of Lahaina that everyone saw

1124
01:54:30,720 --> 01:54:36,720
very vividly on their their TV screens and on social media. But there's the surrounding

1125
01:54:36,720 --> 01:54:42,640
communities around Lahaina that were also devastated by this fire. And one of the things

1126
01:54:42,640 --> 01:54:49,600
that struck me, there were, again, so many failures, so many failures that that allowed

1127
01:54:49,600 --> 01:54:54,640
this to happen in the first place that occurred in the immediate response or the lack of a response,

1128
01:54:54,640 --> 01:55:00,800
as well as the the response that should have been there in the days and weeks that followed.

1129
01:55:00,800 --> 01:55:04,960
We don't have enough time to go into all of that here, but it was very telling to me that

1130
01:55:04,960 --> 01:55:09,840
unsolicited as I was going out to these different communities, which, by the way, at that point in

1131
01:55:09,840 --> 01:55:16,560
time, they weren't the officials were not allowing allowing any media in to expose what was really

1132
01:55:16,560 --> 01:55:22,320
happening there to give these people a voice and a platform so that they could express their

1133
01:55:22,320 --> 01:55:26,960
frustrations and their suffering and their anger about what had occurred. No media was allowed back

1134
01:55:26,960 --> 01:55:32,560
there at that point in time. But one of the things that struck me was how frequently I heard from

1135
01:55:32,560 --> 01:55:37,520
different people in different conversations was, well, gosh, maybe we should change the name of

1136
01:55:37,520 --> 01:55:42,880
Maui to Ukraine and then they would pay attention and send us resources. Well, maybe if we were

1137
01:55:42,880 --> 01:55:49,360
called Kiev instead of Lahaina, then maybe people in Washington with money and resources would

1138
01:55:49,360 --> 01:55:56,560
actually pay attention. It was it was maddening to hear this coming from people who live on a small

1139
01:55:56,560 --> 01:56:02,560
island in the most remote island chain in the world after having gone through the devastation that

1140
01:56:02,560 --> 01:56:11,280
they just went through and knowing knowing that that our own government was in a rush to send

1141
01:56:11,280 --> 01:56:17,520
yet another multibillion dollar tranche of funding in this proxy war against Russia,

1142
01:56:18,080 --> 01:56:25,680
then they were about providing real, meaningful, immediate response to the needs that they had in

1143
01:56:25,680 --> 01:56:32,080
the hours and days and weeks after it was telling to me that as I was there driving through one

1144
01:56:32,080 --> 01:56:36,240
community to another, speaking with different people, bringing support and supplies as we were

1145
01:56:36,240 --> 01:56:43,360
able to, I didn't see a single government official at any point in time where I went.

1146
01:56:43,920 --> 01:56:47,520
And I thought, OK, well, maybe I'm just missing them. So I started asking people in these

1147
01:56:47,520 --> 01:56:52,800
neighborhoods, have you seen anyone from the county, state or FEMA come out here? Nope,

1148
01:56:52,800 --> 01:57:00,000
we haven't seen anyone in town after town, community after community. That was that was

1149
01:57:00,000 --> 01:57:06,320
the answer that I got. We eventually did run into some community response volunteers that were kind

1150
01:57:06,320 --> 01:57:13,360
of closer to the more urban hubs. But it was I can't even begin to convey the anger that I felt

1151
01:57:14,320 --> 01:57:18,640
for them, what to speak of what they actually felt as people who live in this community and

1152
01:57:18,640 --> 01:57:24,880
who were directly impacted by this. Fast forward to today, these families are still homeless.

1153
01:57:24,880 --> 01:57:32,000
The cleanup of the land is still continuing on. I think this is going to continue to be a months

1154
01:57:32,000 --> 01:57:38,560
long process to remove the toxins from the land where the fire scorched everything,

1155
01:57:38,560 --> 01:57:44,400
including gas stations with underground fuel tanks. You can imagine the kinds of toxins that

1156
01:57:46,000 --> 01:57:52,320
that place was exposed to and contaminated with. Families have been put up in in hotels,

1157
01:57:52,320 --> 01:57:58,960
they've been put up in Airbnbs, but them being able to find any kind of long term housing

1158
01:57:59,760 --> 01:58:05,120
continues to be a challenge that I know the state and the county is grappling with just given the

1159
01:58:05,120 --> 01:58:11,520
high cost of living here. It's you know, there was someone who pointed out a comparison where,

1160
01:58:11,520 --> 01:58:16,960
yeah, OK, you can go and rent a three bedroom, two bath house listing online for twelve grand a month.

1161
01:58:16,960 --> 01:58:23,520
Tell me what single family in Hawaii with middle class, a middle class single family in Hawaii

1162
01:58:23,520 --> 01:58:30,320
can afford even half of that. It's just not within the realm of the possible. So this is a

1163
01:58:30,320 --> 01:58:36,000
challenge that they're continuing to grapple with. And meanwhile, they are they are essentially

1164
01:58:36,000 --> 01:58:41,520
displaced and living out of suitcases. I mean, it's absolutely horrendous. And like I said,

1165
01:58:41,520 --> 01:58:45,520
when all that money was going overseas, especially as you've kind of kind of given us a peek of

1166
01:58:45,520 --> 01:58:50,080
behind the curtain and some of the reasons for us in some of these conflicts, it is nauseating.

1167
01:58:50,080 --> 01:58:54,080
I mean, we had our flag there a long time ago and said, hey, you're one of us. And then this

1168
01:58:54,080 --> 01:59:00,480
happens and then we're like, kind of. So that being said, what should have happened through your eyes

1169
01:59:00,480 --> 01:59:07,680
from August 8th onwards? Well, first of all, there was a study done prior to that fire taking place

1170
01:59:07,680 --> 01:59:14,480
that pointed out the vulnerabilities within the first responder system. There's a long history

1171
01:59:14,480 --> 01:59:21,040
of the problems with water on the island of Maui in particular that has to do with the ownership

1172
01:59:21,040 --> 01:59:26,000
and control of the water that's left many communities that were once vibrant wetlands,

1173
01:59:26,000 --> 01:59:34,160
now very dry and susceptible to fires that's left many of these communities who deal with a very real

1174
01:59:34,160 --> 01:59:40,320
water shortage as they did on that day when they turned on their hoses to try to help save their

1175
01:59:40,320 --> 01:59:47,120
homes or the homes of their neighbors. All they got was a drip, drip, drip coming out of that hose.

1176
01:59:47,120 --> 01:59:52,720
So the precursor to this fire is important to focus on because those are very deeply rooted

1177
01:59:52,720 --> 02:00:02,640
problems that the county and the state need to solve and address. You look at the chaos and

1178
02:00:02,640 --> 02:00:10,080
confusion that happened once this fire was called in and it was clear it was more than just a

1179
02:00:10,080 --> 02:00:14,880
brush fire. There were fire trucks that didn't have off-road capabilities so they couldn't actually

1180
02:00:14,880 --> 02:00:20,480
go and squash the fire as quickly as they should have been able to. They were undermanned and

1181
02:00:20,480 --> 02:00:25,280
under-resourced. The fires were popping up in a lot of different places so they had to make tough

1182
02:00:25,280 --> 02:00:28,960
decisions of like, okay, we think we've gotten this one under control, we've got to send our

1183
02:00:28,960 --> 02:00:36,880
resources somewhere else. Meanwhile, it pops up again. There were problems with comms capabilities

1184
02:00:36,880 --> 02:00:44,000
between police officers who were trying to direct traffic, a lot of confusion where people are saying

1185
02:00:44,000 --> 02:00:48,240
well, why are they pushing them back towards the fire? They weren't quite sure where the fire was

1186
02:00:48,240 --> 02:00:54,080
going to and coming from. To the Maui Police Department's credit, they did a self-audit

1187
02:00:54,080 --> 02:00:58,720
and a self-assessment to figure out what went wrong and what could have been done better.

1188
02:00:58,720 --> 02:01:05,600
And I think their report came out with something like 97 recommendations on fixes that needed to

1189
02:01:05,600 --> 02:01:10,560
be made and they actually shared that with cities and counties across the country in the hopes that

1190
02:01:10,560 --> 02:01:17,520
their lessons learned in the most tragic way could potentially help other municipalities and other

1191
02:01:18,480 --> 02:01:26,480
local law enforcement to preemptively make those fixes themselves. I'm going to try to speed through

1192
02:01:26,480 --> 02:01:31,600
this quickly because again, the failures occurred on so many levels. You had an emergency management

1193
02:01:31,600 --> 02:01:38,160
director who was not on island. He was in Honolulu, a different island, when the fires broke out at

1194
02:01:38,160 --> 02:01:44,880
oddly enough, a FEMA conference. And instead of catching the very first plane to get back

1195
02:01:44,880 --> 02:01:51,440
and do his job, I don't think he got back to the island of Maui for a couple of days. He didn't

1196
02:01:51,440 --> 02:01:58,480
talk to anyone in the media until seven to 10 days after the fires occurred. He resigned very

1197
02:01:58,480 --> 02:02:06,720
shortly thereafter. There were a lot of failures at the county level to immediately respond to go

1198
02:02:06,720 --> 02:02:12,560
out to the most affected communities. You know, as a first responder, I know through my own experience

1199
02:02:13,280 --> 02:02:21,600
that if you're a leader who cares, you got to show up. Even if you're not bringing truckloads of

1200
02:02:21,600 --> 02:02:28,720
food or supplies or water, whatever the need may be, you have to show up and be there for your people.

1201
02:02:28,720 --> 02:02:33,120
You have to listen to them. You have to understand what their frustrations are.

1202
02:02:33,120 --> 02:02:39,920
Even if their anger is directed toward you, you have to be there and listen and then take action.

1203
02:02:40,720 --> 02:02:47,200
Unfortunately, on many levels, we didn't see that occurring at all. This is a community that was in

1204
02:02:47,200 --> 02:02:54,960
my district while I was in Congress, so it was obviously very near and dear to my heart. I felt

1205
02:02:55,920 --> 02:03:00,480
so much of the emotion that they were expressing and shared that frustration.

1206
02:03:01,280 --> 02:03:06,400
The federal government, you look at the response there where you have a bureaucracy of FEMA that

1207
02:03:06,400 --> 02:03:12,080
is supposed to be the first one on the ground. They did have people there very quickly, but they

1208
02:03:12,080 --> 02:03:20,480
were on the ground in the city hub of Kahului and not actually out in the community where it happened.

1209
02:03:21,280 --> 02:03:26,640
You saw the director of FEMA in Washington answering questions from the White House Press

1210
02:03:26,640 --> 02:03:30,000
Corps saying, what are you doing? Asking the similar questions we're asking, saying, hey,

1211
02:03:30,000 --> 02:03:34,560
you guys are pushing for all this money to go to Ukraine. What are you doing for the people of Maui?

1212
02:03:35,680 --> 02:03:41,840
It made me so mad to see the director of FEMA stand there proudly saying, oh, well, we're issuing

1213
02:03:41,840 --> 02:03:48,080
a one-time $700 payment to everyone who's been impacted by this fire. As that being the concrete

1214
02:03:48,080 --> 02:03:56,800
thing that FEMA is doing, that she stood there proudly announcing to the country. What a horrible

1215
02:03:56,800 --> 02:04:02,400
punch in the face. Forget a slap in the face. What a horrible punch in the face to every single person

1216
02:04:02,400 --> 02:04:11,440
that both survived that fire, but also those families who lost loved ones in that fire.

1217
02:04:11,440 --> 02:04:19,120
Accountability is essential in this situation, both for elected officials and in bureaucrats,

1218
02:04:19,840 --> 02:04:26,480
which is why the truth about the failures that occurred really needs to rise to the forefront.

1219
02:04:26,480 --> 02:04:32,960
I had hoped that Congress would conduct some kind of oversight hearing given the federal

1220
02:04:32,960 --> 02:04:38,720
government's role in this response. I haven't really seen, I know that there have been trips

1221
02:04:38,720 --> 02:04:43,520
out there. Members of Congress from both parties have gone out there to assess the disaster.

1222
02:04:43,520 --> 02:04:50,320
Obviously, President Biden went out there, but I haven't seen any pursuit of real accountability

1223
02:04:50,320 --> 02:04:58,560
for those public officials. The headlines have moved on, sadly. Hardly anyone is talking about

1224
02:04:59,280 --> 02:05:05,360
how people are doing in the aftermath, what to speak of leaders in Washington or leaders at any

1225
02:05:05,360 --> 02:05:12,560
level, speaking of true, true accountability. Well, again, the sad thing that I'm hearing from

1226
02:05:12,560 --> 02:05:15,920
all this is that false economy again. There were all these warning signs. There were an

1227
02:05:15,920 --> 02:05:19,600
opportunity to front load that money because, I mean, how much money is going to be spent on

1228
02:05:19,600 --> 02:05:24,160
the rebuild that could have been put into fixing these problems before they happen?

1229
02:05:24,160 --> 02:05:30,160
That's right. Exponentially more. Exactly. What to speak of the loss of life.

1230
02:05:31,120 --> 02:05:35,600
Yeah, which again has no monetary value at all. It's far, far greater than that.

1231
02:05:35,600 --> 02:05:40,640
Yeah. All right. Well, I want to be mindful of your time. I know we're right at two hours. So

1232
02:05:40,640 --> 02:05:47,600
your latest book, For the Love of Country, Why I Left the Democratic Party, I've used all this

1233
02:05:47,600 --> 02:05:53,760
time now. I saw all these other things, but I really am curious. You ran in 2020. You were

1234
02:05:53,760 --> 02:05:58,480
under that banner initially. We've obviously touched on some of the things that are starting

1235
02:05:58,480 --> 02:06:04,880
to show their face in what seemed initially like a kind of for the people party. What was the

1236
02:06:04,880 --> 02:06:11,840
backstory and why did you write the book? Well, the long story short is I joined the

1237
02:06:11,840 --> 02:06:19,200
Democratic Party over 20 years ago because I saw a party that appeared to be a big tent party that

1238
02:06:19,200 --> 02:06:26,400
celebrated free speech, that talked about the protection of civil liberties and civil rights,

1239
02:06:27,040 --> 02:06:32,720
a party that alongside the ACLU actually were willing to put themselves on the line to defend

1240
02:06:32,720 --> 02:06:40,800
free speech at a time where defending unpopular speech was not very popular. And I saw party

1241
02:06:40,800 --> 02:06:46,080
that stood for conservation and protection of the environment. There were things that attracted me

1242
02:06:46,080 --> 02:06:50,400
to the Democratic Party. The party seemed to be the party of the little guy, the party of the people.

1243
02:06:51,120 --> 02:06:56,400
Whereas when I looked at the Republican Party at that time, it seemed to be the party of the elite.

1244
02:06:57,120 --> 02:07:03,760
And so fast forward to where we are today after I served in Congress for eight years,

1245
02:07:03,760 --> 02:07:09,120
served in state and local government, deployed to three different war zones in

1246
02:07:09,120 --> 02:07:18,080
different parts of the world as a soldier, it got to a point where unfortunately today's

1247
02:07:18,080 --> 02:07:24,000
Democratic Party is unrecognizable from the party that I joined. It has become this party that is

1248
02:07:24,000 --> 02:07:32,480
controlled by an elite cabal of warmongers who are doing whatever they feel is necessary to hold on

1249
02:07:32,480 --> 02:07:39,600
to power, even being willing to destroy our democracy and to take away our freedoms.

1250
02:07:40,240 --> 02:07:44,880
I left the Democratic Party because there was no way that I could be associated with a party

1251
02:07:45,440 --> 02:07:51,600
that hates freedom. And ultimately, whether they're willing to admit it or not, hates our country.

1252
02:07:52,400 --> 02:07:58,000
And so in the book, it's called For Love of Country, Leave the Democrat Party Behind,

1253
02:07:58,000 --> 02:08:02,960
I encourage people who are unsure about where they may stand politically,

1254
02:08:03,600 --> 02:08:10,240
people who may have been Democrats for a long time as I have been, but aren't quite sure where to go,

1255
02:08:11,040 --> 02:08:18,320
or Americans of any party who recognize the very real threats that we face in our country today

1256
02:08:18,320 --> 02:08:23,360
that are coming from within these threats to our fundamental principles and freedoms.

1257
02:08:23,360 --> 02:08:32,160
Read this book or share it with a friend who you think needs to hear this message from someone

1258
02:08:32,160 --> 02:08:38,960
who's been there, who's experienced and seen firsthand what the Democrat elite are doing to

1259
02:08:38,960 --> 02:08:44,320
destroy our country. It's why I'm sounding the alarm bells. And we've talked about a lot of

1260
02:08:44,320 --> 02:08:51,920
different things in our conversation that speak to why and how we're going to be able to do that.

1261
02:08:51,920 --> 02:09:00,160
Why and how we must come together as Americans to defend freedom and to save our country so that we

1262
02:09:00,160 --> 02:09:06,720
may actually begin to solve so many of these really serious problems and challenges that we're facing.

1263
02:09:06,720 --> 02:09:11,360
So it's available on amazon.com. It's available on tulsa.gabbert.com if you'd like to order a

1264
02:09:11,360 --> 02:09:18,800
signed copy with a 15% discount. And the book will be delivered to your mailbox if you pre-order on

1265
02:09:18,800 --> 02:09:26,960
April 30th. Beautiful. One more question. Is there any possibility that we're going to see you on the

1266
02:09:26,960 --> 02:09:39,200
ballot in 2024 and if not 2028? I don't know is the answer to both. You know in the world of

1267
02:09:39,200 --> 02:09:47,760
possibilities and probabilities we'll see what happens. My aim and my goal is to continue to do

1268
02:09:47,760 --> 02:09:55,520
all that I can to be of service, to be of service to God, be of service to others, and to drive real

1269
02:09:55,520 --> 02:10:02,320
solutions to these challenges that we are facing. The core message in the book is really about putting

1270
02:10:02,320 --> 02:10:07,840
the interests of the American people, putting the interests of people ahead of politics. I've always

1271
02:10:07,840 --> 02:10:12,880
been an independent-minded person. I'm going to continue to bring that servant leader's mindset

1272
02:10:13,760 --> 02:10:16,320
wherever I may have the opportunity to serve in the future.

1273
02:10:16,320 --> 02:10:21,440
Beautiful. Well I just want to say thank you so much. It's been such an amazing conversation. I

1274
02:10:21,440 --> 02:10:25,760
didn't even get close to your life journey and what I normally do, but there were so many things

1275
02:10:25,760 --> 02:10:30,400
to put to you that I wanted to. So I want to thank you so, so much for being so generous with your

1276
02:10:30,400 --> 02:10:34,560
time and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today. I look forward to meeting you in person,

1277
02:10:34,560 --> 02:10:39,760
James. Thank you so much. This has been wonderful and you're bringing up so many important things

1278
02:10:39,760 --> 02:10:54,480
that I hope drive conversation, more conversation with your viewers and your listeners.