#1170 - Tulsi Gabbard

September 10, 2018

Tulsi Gabbard is an American politician of the Democratic Party serving as the U.S. Representative for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district since 2013.

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hey ladies and gentlemen I said it before I got to say it again unfortunately truck ronto we moved the date it was September 29th at the Ricoh Coliseum it's still September 29th but now is at the Scotiabank Arena and everybody who had tickets for the Ricoh Coliseum your tickets have been moved over to the Scotiabank I think I erroneously said refunded at one point in time I meant rescheduled or replaced I'm fucking stupid don't listen to me but listen to the people that if that's the whole deal was there is a union dispute at the Ricoh Coliseum we're not going to cross into Union picket lines so we decided to move it to the Scotiabank Arena which is also Union venue it's just they don't have a contract dispute at that venue so we're clear everything is kosher and there's also a thousand plus more tickets for sale most of those are

go to JoeRogan.Com for all that stuff the other thing is this week Thursday I'm in Philadelphia I think there's like 10 tickets available for one of the shows and that's it and then on Friday Columbus the Schottenstein got it Schottenstein Center and that is almost sold out this very few tickets left that's for Friday the 14th Columbus Ohio in the motherfukin house Mark to have her call was going to be there

how long was Matt Brown alright this episode of podcast is brought to you or JoeRogan.Com for tickets once I get stuff the best place to go to roku.com website run smooth because of my website it is how we built my website you can make a website if you need a website you no longer need to rely on someone else all you have to do is go on over to Squarespace and Squarespace is so confident that let that let you try that shit for free what free yes go to squarespace.com go for a free trial because they have the dopest interface and easy-to-use drag-and-drop user interface and beautiful beautiful beautiful designer templates that let you the regular person create a fucking bang and professional website

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my guess today is a brilliant woman a congresswoman and from the great state of Hawaii and I have listen to her talk many times online and very impressed with her and I wanted to sit down and talk to her I was even more impressive in person please give it up for Tulsi Gabbard

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broken we live Hawaii in the house I love to go to Washington I tell you what that's one place it wasn't for the storms and the fact that it's really a volcano evidence just recently here for Thanksgiving Eve convince me to go 2 years in a row it was awesome I loved it but then this year I might. That's been that's it so that's my district my district in Hawaii covers basically the whole state except for the the densely populated Urban quarter of Honolulu you cover everything except the problems by the city the city so I know it's it's been tough it's been a tough year because of those folks in the addition to putting out with the volcano

we have gone through a few near misses with hurricane some big flooding on Kawaii and now we've got another one that's knocking on her door cars just what was it a level 4 just passed it was 5 they were expecting it to be kind of the same intensity that Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands saw so we were really like encouraging everyone to get prepared getting prepared ourselves like boarding up all the doors and windows and then thank God it turned into a tropical storm at the end and that's a lot of rain still had some flooding but compared to what it could have been more fortunate and then on top of that you guys had a false alarm we're text went out to everybody in the island saying that a nuclear missile was headed your way in this was not a drill what the hell happened to my gosh I was in Washington when that happened was a Saturday afternoon ish and DC time no early morning in Hawaii and some bud

from Hawaii sent me a screen capture of that alert that went out over million cell phones across our state saying you know ballistic missile headed towards Hawaii seek cover this is not a drill

wow yeah what is I feel like

I mean till you find out that's how long does it take before you found out that it wasn't real immediately started thinking so many things running through my head I'm thinking about my parents my husband my family everybody's in Hawaii starting about what's going on in the state is this real is it not real so that was kind of the first thing like I kicked into gear right okay let's let's make sure this to this legitimate the actual threat from North Korea is a very real one so it could very well be it was not obvious that this was just a mistake that people should blow off and that was what I think most of the people in the state understood as they started thinking through what do we do with the last minutes of Our Lives

so I called the first person I called is our state adjutant general who's also the head of our civil defense in the National Guard and called his cell phone thank God he answered the phone and I said I got this message what's going on and he said it's a false alarm it was sent out as a mistake but it's okay I'm going to blast that out so I got on Twitter and I put that out just saying hey this is not accurate I forget exactly what I said would basically

is it a false alarm and then just start getting on the phone making as many calls as I possibly could but as I was doing that I was getting text messages and emails and things from people who are freaking out how far is Korea from Hawaii it's it's over 4000 miles

that's not very far for an intercontinental ballistic missile and knowing progressively just over the six years that I've been in Congress this is a major issue that I can bring up since I've been there in just raising the alarm Bells at North Korea is increasing their capacity and their their ballistic missile capabilities that put Hawaii closer and closer than reach Hawaii and Alaska particularly and that's why you know an end after people started getting the word that this was a false alarm I started hearing from folks who just share their stories of what they went through and you know the news they showed the guy was lowering his daughter down a manhole side of the street is little girl

I heard from another guy who said that you know I had one kid in town in Honolulu and another kid and why and I over an hour drive and he literally sat there thinking how am I going to choose which child I'm going to go and spend the last minutes of my life with cuz you're either driving in One Direction or the other two are so many so many stories of happen

guy pushed clicked on the wrong on the wrong alert message on his computers what is ultimately what happened the one that said this is a drill

do you have like no glasses on or something there's there's so many theories and and his story has changed a few times and of course of the subject of major investigations and then after a while he got fired he's actually suing that he was wrongfully terminated and almost stuff going on and if ever there was something you could be fired for how could you be wrongfully terminated for that mistake that's my question understand the magnitude of your decision made out of that is a giant fuck up yeah oh my God I think it's

it really woke people up there were clear vulnerabilities in our state alert system that would even allow this like allow one person to have that power to do that is not obviously not good and so they're they're things that were working too just to strengthen our civil defense alert system but also just to bring attention to North Korea and and make it so that people aren't living under this threat of possibility that that could be a real thing in that alarm could come through your phone and know that you now have around 18 minutes to find good cover or say our final goodbyes What's So Scary because it's such an erratic and dangers for GMAT means when you see what that guy is already done and the people he is executed including family members mean he's

quite a maniac and a legitimate dictator in the old world kind of sense it's very strange that he's still I mean you what you think in the age that we live in they'll be very difficult to control the entire country the way that they've been trolled North Korea for so long since the Korean War but they still can do it they are and I think that while

maybe easy to write him off as a maniac there has also been a very consistent that they're there has been a consistency throughout the different regimes of the Kim family as they've developed this nuclear nuclear missile capability in that they are doing it to protect themselves against regime-change War essentially and they have said it directly out of our US foreign policy experts point that out that this is the reason why they're developing this capability because they have seen how you look at Libya for example when Qaddafi was looking at you know building in acquiring nuclear weapons he was doing so also as you know to protect himself in his regime we made a deal with the United States saying okay give up your nuclear weapons program and we're not going to you know don't worry about it we're not going to touch you and then of course we know what happened the u.s. LED this

regime change War top of Gaddafi and and North Korea says okay so that's what you do when you have you know leader of a country without nuclear weapons to protect themselves well it's also the consequences of that regime change is a failed State and it's more terrifying than even went good. He was in control. I'm sure you seen the the slave trade videos from there since saying it is horrifying you're watching it on then to be in our lifetime and that this this this failed state has happened as a direct result of our policy that are failed continuation of these regime-change wars that we carry out in different parts of the world it's almost like we don't learn from our mistakes I don't know what the the proper solution is mean do you keep someone like Saddam Hussein or someone like momar Khadafi do you keep them in power and let them still be horrific dictators and evil maniacs

do you step in and cause more damage being so it's almost a lose-lose situation it it's it's not a good situation but it's where we as the United States need to be pragmatic about the situation in the fact that we live in the world that exists not some kind of idealistic world that is a fantasy and then think about how counterproductive our acting as the world's police has been has proven to be in example after example after example so yes there are bad people in the world who do horrifying things but

is it really in our place to go in and take action and say okay we're going to remove this person and then we're going to put this person in and this is how you're going to govern this country and and really acting acting as the world's police and therefore and then as a result as we've seen any Rock and Livia now in Syria the people in those countries are far worse off than they were before we have a 10 it's counterproductive for our interest as well because we have

Al Qaeda Isis these other terrorist groups who have been strengthened directly as a result of our policies in these countries when you talk to people in the intelligence Community what what did they think I mean they're off the Record or on the record what did they think is the solution for situations like that

many of them are hesitant to to share their own opinion because especially in the intelligence Community their job is to report on what you're hearing what they're Gathering Intel that they're bringing in and so on and so forth but you know what when you when you talk with folks who operate in that space the ones who are honest and not trying to further specific agenda cover somebody else's bad decisions there is a recognition of how our policies of of the past two decades have failed people in those countries and us

they failed but have they failed as bad or equally bad as if we did if we did nothing like worse worse for sure yes or no worse for the people in those countries words for the people in those countries as well as as as we should be thinking about before we take any of these actions is how does this best serve the interests of our people in this country and these actions have been counter to those best interests

and a lot of different things that go into that and to drive that you know you have the military industrial complex that benefits and makes a lot of money off of our being in a in a Perpetual state of War you have a lot of other countries like Saudi Arabia for example who dumped a lot of money into the United States and and kind of try to use our US military is there forced to go in and and do certain things the Middle East that's more beneficial to Saudi Arabia we see this happening in Yemen right now yet another example interventionist War jumping in there we're supporting Saudi Arabia and their Coalition in this war that's

created the worst humanitarian disaster in the world they just bombed a school bus and killed 40 kids a couple of weeks ago and yeah man yeah many civilians bombed weddings in Yemen and yeah our US government is not saying hey we're going to stop and yank all of our servers are there but they're continuing to do it but you're a veteran as a veteran do you mean you you've served our country you've put yourself In Harm's Way you you were a part of the military

there's so many people are making these decisions that have not done that you think that's part of the problem yes and that was that was one of the main reasons that I ran for congress in the first place having come back from my own deployments the Middle East at the Hawaii Army National Guard experiencing and seeing firsthand the cost of War both on our troops on our friends who didn't make that trip home with us as well as on the people the people in these countries where we were and I came back in and saw

just the Cavalier attitude that the lot of politicians take to making these decisions in an end I I work in a medical unit in my deployment to Iraq we were in a base about 40 miles north of Baghdad and

our base or we were was was nicknamed and Morty ritaville because of the constant almost daily mortar attacks and everyday part of my job was to go through a list of all the American injuries and casualties that it happened the day before to try to see if there were any of our close to 3000 Hawaii soldiers who had been hurt and two then make sure that they were getting the care they needed either and Country or getting evacuated quickly as possible and just going through going through that list named by name every day whether there were people on there who I knew personally or you know people who I would never meet

and knowing about

the family members and loved ones moms dads kids at home who were

stressed out everyday fearing getting that phone call that their loved one that had been hurt or Worse killed in action and I wondered then you know how many of these politicians who make these votes and who make these decisions actually think about this or Hulu sleep on this

do you think a solution to that would be mandatory military service for people who are in those positions I don't know what do you think the solution in my Foxhole doesn't want to be there first of all I think it's me. Having an all-volunteer Force which we have is a positive thing I think that

the American people need to impress upon their leaders

the importance of taking these decisions very seriously that if they want to represent and make represent the American people and make these decisions for our troops and for our country they need to understand who pay is that price for the cost of War

and yes it is every single one of our service members both those who paid the ultimate price as well as those who come home with both visible and invisible wounds and will continue paying that price for a very long time to come but also

every one of our communities filled of people who may not have worn the uniform but who had trillions of dollars taken out of their wallet to pay for these counterproductive interventionist Wars as we use in Hawaii for example struggle to put air conditioners in schools where kids are trying to study and over a hundred degree Heat

as we deal with massive infrastructure problems people in Michigan they just shut down the water system in a bunch of schools in Detroit because they have lead poison in the water for the kids to the kids are not able to use the water fountains at school she has major infrastructure major challenges and issues and so making sure that leaders are held accountable for the decisions that they're making is ultimately what needs to happen about you and your interviews is an obvious genuine person like if you're not genuine I'd be very shocked that's very rare So when you're talking about these politicians and how many people being held accountable it's a real problem but one of the problems with politics and one of the problems with public speaking and being charismatic is a lot of these people are just really good at being full of shit and because they're really good at being full of shit a lot of slack-jawed Dum Dums out there buying do it Hook Line & Sinker waived

they both these dummies in the office and this happens time and time again so saying you need these people need to be aware of the consequences or they need to be held accountable I firmly believe there's more sociopaths and we really think I really do I think if you look at the general consensus is something like what is it one out of a hundred or something like that what I think it is maybe more

I think I might be 10% I think there's a lot of people that get through life doing things and getting away with things and not doing things that are going to cause them either danger or social consequences but they but they managed to get through life with a song and a dance but they're not genuine I think this is a giant problem with people that want to be in a position of power in the first place yes like why would they like why does a guy like Donald Trump want to be the fucking president when you have billions of dollars in the bank like what are you doing why you doing that what's there's a weird motivation that a lot of these people have and that motivation is to be the Uber and I want to be the king to be the top of the heat to be the queen whatever it is I don't know how you change that in those who don't think making them aware of the consequences of their decisions is going to work it's just a type of people who they are in the first place

I don't think you're not wrong however I've Just Seen over the last few years

the level of awareness amongst people amongst the voters has been increasing as there are more and more kind of non mainstream media Outlets that are Shining Light on these kind of issues on Main Street mainstream have been holding back I think that especially I think that you only get a certain narrative and it depends on it changes based on what Channel you flip 2 or whatever because if you very in that narrative then you get less access I guess you could say that to get less access to the people that you want to have on those shows cuz that's how you get your ratings in the first but yeah yeah with a lot of these news channels is is it is driven by ratings and if you're bringing in differing viewpoints in different perspectives I don't know maybe it affects their ratings I don't I don't pay too much attention to that but I do know that when you look at

guys like Jimmy Dore for example you know Jimmy Dore talks about a lot of things that you'll never hear if you flick on the TV on the on the cable news channels and has very interesting conversations and he can bring back some different things to life that people don't otherwise feel like they have access to well there's way more of that today than there ever has been paid for and that's where I see there's opportunity and because the more people are learning like holy crap this is what you're doing this is the consequences of those decisions cuz there's a ton of votes that happened every single day in Congress that most people don't know about unless you're really following it closely yourself does that that in itself itself is a job that that you know CNN MSNBC Fox News they're not covering so really a lot of kind of these alternative sites and and voices are coming through that are helping to helping to inform and educate people

yeah the the the idea of trying to educate politicians on the consequences and what that what that really means and this the Cavalier attitude that you were talking about like what's a worst example that like when you when you're talking about Cavalier Behavior by these people that make these decisions like what kind of things have you seen

I'll speak to something that happened most recently I think they're probably number of examples but just a couple of months ago in the big defense authorization bill that that is kind of one of the the the only must pass pieces of legislation in Congress every year

there was a three-page provision that was kind of put in there without really any debate in the committee or anything like that that would essentially authorized the United States to go to war with Iran that you would think something like that with that magnitude would be kind of a big deal you would want to have hearings you would want to have you a question on strategy objectives cost like all of these different things that didn't happen so when this bill came to the floor of the house where all 435 members of Congress have the ability to vote Yes or no

I just put in an amendment that would have deleted those three pages from this big thousands page Bill and and basically those Provisions said that Congress is authorizing the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense to create and Implement a strategy to counter Iran

not just coming hey bring us your strategy and let us talk about it and see whether or not we agree and approve it was giving the power to the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense to create and Implement a strategy to counter Iran extremely dangerous and a blank check to essentially start a brand new war that currently has not been declared I introduced this amendment and if you want to take a guess on how many people voted for it 60

60 why wouldn't they

why would they want that blank check there are some people who legitimately do want to do you want us to go to war with Iran who were those people or I would say it's a bipartisan feeling and wanted they want that because Iran they they feel that Iran is a threat to both the United States and Israel and Iran is and has been for a long time they feel

a menace I guess it's actually and our enemy even though Congress has not declared war even though you know we are country just signed a nuclear deal to make it so that they can't build a nuclear weapon it sits it gets to a point where it seems like hysteria but again it's not based on an actual thinking through tactically and strategically and responsibly what we're actually doing and what our policy is

you one of the younger people in Congress yeah you could say that there's there's a handful of us who were under 40 not many small handful

is that your your person who would you like 37 you're not allowed to ask ladies usually your congresswoman auditions are an exception I guess everything has to be on the table if we have to be a certain age to run for office so you know a lot of people have been especially with everything that's going on I've been kind of urging me to

the considerate I'm focused on Hall and focused on Hawaii on do my very best to be able to serve them in our country and yeah it's too much work to it's a lot it seems like too much at the lot at age is the shit out of me where does one slice of low and Obama bomb was a rough one too yeah yeah me too just dance just no getting away from that and if it doesn't then they should probably think I should probably not too far. Yeah I mean it's crazy business

that have few younger members of Congress there are one of the things I do when I first got elected I started something called the future caucus and it was a bipartisan kind of millennial focused caucus saying that we as a generation recognize the need to work together to drop all the partisan hyper-partisan crap that is tearing this country apart and focus on Solutions and actually solving problems and so you know different people have come and gone in Congress but I think what's what's exciting now is that there is a lot more energy interest in activity I think from young people in this country who may fall in different places on ideological spectrum of politics but recognize that you know there's no reason why I should give my voice to someone from another generation who has no idea what are challenges are or the challenges that we will face from the decisions they made in Left Behind

when I see someone like Jeff sessions and then I see someone like you obviously you're different you know different Realms of the ideological Spectrum but

there's a big difference between someone who formed their view of the world while the internet was active and that's you versus this crazy old asshole thinks that people smoke marijuana are bad people meet me there it's a weird thing when you see some of these Old Guard they are there relic of the past but yet they're still in the position of power and control and they're they're making these decisions based on this old world that there really doesn't exist anymore

and there's so many different ways that that actually has a very real impact in I think the sum of the hearing that we've seen most recently dealing with Facebook and Twitter and Google are perfect example you had people asking questions and it becomes very obvious quickly yes they don't know how to log into Facebook in their lives some of these people are very proud that they either don't have a cell phone or they still have a flip phone which is fine if that's your personal decision that's fine but if if you're the regulatory body that should be exercising oversight over how technology is rapidly changing the world that we live in yourself with people who to especially when it pertains to selling people's privacy or using people's data to influence elections and using you know the stuff that's been happening with Facebook is even more

because I don't know how you stop but there was a fantastic NPR Podcast about these Russian troll Farms about their jobs people show up for work and their job is to spread misinformation and propaganda you know about whatever the subject is what at whatever ideological point they're trying to push through but they're trying to influence the way people look at things in there targeting people's comments sections and news feeds and Twitter feeds and the trying to do something that injects ideas into people's minds and sways their perception in their point of view and it's very strange when you think that a foreign country is doing this and that people from a foreign country that this is actually a job so much there but they must be some sort of reason for this and then when you see those people that are questioning

what's his name Facebook guy Zuckerberg not Jeff Zuckerberg Mark Zuckerberg yeah I know CNN now that's not as well that I'm I almost wanted to go hey stop this is not you man where's the real you this is weird the way you're sipping water on your way your talking to people so odd yeah these are some of my friends on that committee who actually are under 40 years old who are members of Congress and who prepared and and you know when in and we're asking some tough questions

we're very frustrated just cuz they didn't feel like they were getting they were actually getting many answers first of all lot of a lot of kind of Legally speaking circles and that kind of thing and I think when you're at when you're talking about and there's so many I don't know I'm kind of going in a few different directions here with with the social media Giants how they're being misused to further certain agendas in different ways but

when you're talking about like these Russian troll Farms that you're

that you mentioned

what is missing from all of the news coverage around this and all of the outrage about how this foreign countries trying to influence our elections which is wrong and which American people need to be aware of where this information is coming from is the fact that we just saying why why does somebody do that while because this country does want to influence who are electing I would rather work with this person we know that person's I can be nice to us United States has been doing this for a very long time sure and countries around the world both overly and covertly through through these kinds of disinformation campaigns

not not even counting like the outright regime-change wars were going to physically take you out and I think it is very hypocritical for us to be discussing this issue as a country without actually being honest about how this goes both ways so yes we need to stop these other foreign countries in the end Russia's not the only one there are others from trying to influence the American people in our elections we also need to stop doing the same thing in other countries

without doubt but there's also there with the questions what is Russia trying to achieve like why do they want someone like Donald Trump in office versus Hillary killary Clinton and in how much you know I mean how much do they benefit from that this is what's really one of the big questions it's going on right now yeah with all the Russian hearings in the nation and trying to get to the bottom of all this and why they did what they did what they did and there's many people are blowing this off and they don't think that it's important and that you know that the president's claiming it's a Witch Hunt but it's very odd that we're having this conversation in the first place it's never existed before in any single presidential election there was never been talk of us or any politician that's running for president being influenced by a foreign superpower before today it just amazing that it took until 2016 for this became a real issue that's true that's true

talk about Hillary and uranium and all kinds of other different issues and you know I'm not a giant Hillary Clinton fan and one of the reasons why I'm not as it I just think she's a politician you know and I don't think she's a genuine person I just don't think you get to level of lying and the way they conduct themselves in the way they've been doing it for so long that they don't even think it's a bad thing it's just a thing you do but one of the weird ones that I ever saw from her was after the Libya after Gaddafi was killed where she was not on the record but she was still being recorded there talking to her you know what I'm talking about to wear it she said we came we saw it what was it we came we saw he died what was things I don't know that one

we came we saw and he's dead or something I'm literally laughing but this is this is exactly what I'm talking about about that Cavalier attitude in Washington and for me that was that was really the main reason why in 2016 I was a vice chair of the Democratic National party as an officer the party you're supposed to stay neutral in these Democratic primaries but it got to a point where I felt that I step down from that position resigned as vice-chair to endorse Bernie Sanders largely because of the huge difference in their world views with Hillary Clinton's very hawkish interventionist foreign policy and track record Libya is is a very prominent in a recent example

a rock is another and Bernie Sanders who generally takes a more non-interventionist worldview that was an issue again like every other people weren't really raising the differences or say no she was secretary of state so she's great on foreign policy but not actually what is the actual policy run and what kind of judgment would either of these individuals have when they're serving in that most important job of commander-in-chief and that was that was a very key difference and I was sorry I talked about a lot as I can paint with Bernie around the country and and that was something that I saw and heard from people in a big city small towns Midwest north south east west people who appreciated

just being told the truth

well there was also the the speeches that she gave where she wouldn't give up the transcripts for those gigantic paint smells right in front of Bank Wall Street which is crazy that that's legal I mean that is essentially there is no way she is so entertainment and entertaining or not talking about Jay-Z concert or Kevin Hart isn't doing stand-up talk for an hour like that's not real good then I really paying you a quarter million dogs cuz you're so awesome they really wanted to talk for an hour this is some sort of a bribe this is some sort of a deal you're making a business Arrangement there's no question about it there is no way that it's that valuable it's just not her talking for an hour what a hot ticket Jesus how do I get ahold of that ticket me that is crazy yeah the fact that someone could play that off is if this is a legitimate business transaction that's nonsense and and there's a direct correlation there though

with with Wall Street Big Money In general is your talking about that influence on politics I was talking to the guy who is Woody cons of a recovering kind of Finance guy from Wall Street who's left and is now come here to LA and and and he talked directly about that and we were talking about how even after 2008 all the too-big-to-fail banks that were bailed out and people are suffering and losing their homes are pensions and all of this stuff

these banks are bigger today than they were back then and overtime and and even over the last few years Congress is slowly and this is not just Republicans there Democrats are on the take two or taking this Wall Street money and you're starting to see these bills passed peeling away the very small amount of regulations that were put on after that crash to get us back to an even worse situation then we were back in 2005 what how could we allow this to happen there's a ton of money that's coming from Wall Street and funding politicians campaigns lobbyist who were there helping to write the legislation or kill the bad bills and again who's who's talking about this no one how do you stop that though like how do you stop the funding their campaigns a and then the paid speeches beat those two things alone if you can just cut that out and send them know you have to be legitimate mean love or hate Bernie Sanders you've got to respect the fact that guy never took any money from anybody last night

and he said I'll give you my all my transcripts cuz I don't have any I didn't get paid to do any speeches now and he's clean I mean this is a reason why he can say that and Hillary just ignored it I mean she just didn't you didn't respond she didn't say I'll give you the transcripts cuz all I said was I love America and we're going to fix everything and you Bankers are dirty it's just and they don't pay you to call him names exactly what it's just so strange that there

well it's not strange in terms of the real obvious benefit if you're going to be a politician you want to run for office it's incredibly expensive to win so you need some money so you have to make deals with people were willing to give you some of that money and you've got to figure out a way to be able to do this and still convince the people that have to vote for you that you're on their side and this is where that narrative is being disproven that somehow if you run for office and if you want to serve people within that political round that do you that you have to go and shout out to the corporate interest in the people with the big money in order to be able to fund the campaign or to answer you can do good work for the people but I'll see you kind of got you told these other guys you're going to make them happy too I don't take any corporate Pac money or contributions from Paxil obvious or anything else and there are more candidates running this year to be over a hundred candidates running for congress this year who have sworn off any of those

types of contributions and who run their campaigns fueled by individual donors where is people giving five bucks people giving more if they can give more and that and they're winning their of their number for candidates who are showing that they're out raising their opponents who are backed by packs and lobbyists they're raising more money from people who are giving me small-dollar contributions and disproving that Power Balance were the people really do have the powerful stand up and get engaged and involved what are you up to what's the change like what's what's causing this tank a big change happen when Bernie Sanders ran for president I think he did a lot better than then he first expected that he would and the fact that he was able to raise in some cases more money than Hillary Clinton in certain quarters he was he was very competitive and all of that came from those small dollar individual contributions you know you talked about it you know $27 is the average

tribution that he got in that was kind of a a rallying cry a lot of his events but people I think people through that experience really woke up to their own power in this democracy not to have a true strong democracy it really does take us all doing our part in whatever way that we can it burn called you up tomorrow and said I want you to be my vice president would you be down we have to have a conversation come on man I mean

he can't run again if he doesn't win in 20 right yeah dude is aging you don't have so much life in you you on your way then you can hang in there for 8 years

you're not saying anything for your wheels are spinning here's here's the way that I've always made my decisions

from the time I ran for the State House Representatives in Hawaii and I was 21 years old lot of people said like what are you doing at 21 this is crazy but I I care very much for my home my community about environmental issues and things that I saw were not being addressed by many leaders in our state my fault we're out of touch and joining the National Guard in later running for cars they try to make my decisions based on how and where I feel like I can make the most impact so that's that's what I will continue to do

we definitely can make the most impact as Vice President of the United States of America do anything you ask I would say that's a pretty big platform guy you don't hear people that guy he just kind of hiding what you make of it I guess just like any job. Just elected vice president that they think that's a joke I think less you watch a different story right now yeah that's next level I don't know how

somebody asked me if that show for the first season came out like some of my family especially may have been my mother like honey is that really what it's like it's supposed to be Loosely based on the clintons there there are some quotes and some things like that that Kevin Spacey had as a whip in the house and there's some things in there like oh wow I like she heard people say that but all that all the salacious stuff like that they come for my mom's like now I'm not like catching the subway late at night and Yeah Yeah Yeahs spoiler alert for a lot of people that is their education on politics yeah unfortunately it's just such a complicated process if you're a person that has in a full-time job and a mortgage and kids and maybe got high

you're supposed to be paying attention to these people that are running the country or whatever it is the political just too complicated to like what you were talking about with these bills I could pass that have these hidden agendas deeply written into 1000 page document how can a person who has 3 kids and a mortgage and 40 plus hour a week job plus commuter how can I pay attention all this it's very hard and that's where you come in like I try to put stuff out on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram social media because most of us are on those platforms and is your scrolling through like maybe you're going to see that one thing like hey you know Congress passes Bill making idiom deregulating fracking and then liquid natural gas that's affecting your water in your ear and connecting the dots between what can seem like very out of touch policy wonky things to okay how does this actually affect you your family your kid

your house educate like the things that really do take up most of people's time Consciousness and Care on it on a daily basis and that's one of the more dangerous things I think about having a person like Trump as president is that it's a roading people's confidence in the person that runs the Big Show is that your that's one of that's one of a number of things that have eroded people's confidence I think if you if you take that one step further and look at how people's confidence in our entire election system has been eroded when you look at all of the vulnerabilities that exist a lot of the stuff that's being talked about now you mean in terms of electronic voting with the machine yes or yes for all people doubt whether or not their votes matter first of all did you see the documentary hacking democracy now I didn't it's fascinating and it was in regards to what what year was that

say it's 2008 was it 8

6 so it was about Bush and Kerry Wright

wasn't that bush and Gore was Bush and Gore

whatever it was actually okay but it showed how there is built-in third party access so it's literally built in the system right that a third-party can influence the count and they showed how they did it on the in the actual documentary they used these machines and influence the results

yeah what to speak of the the Defcon hacking conference that just happened or happened to annually in Vegas but they just had one this year a couple of months ago maybe a few weeks ago where an 11 11 year old girl hacked into a replica of Florida's election system and change the outcome of their election in less than 15 minutes there it is 11 year old hacked into u.s. voting system Falcon 10 minutes this weekend 11 years old that's what we do here with smart exactly right if they don't like her growing up with computers from the time they're little and in learning coding like you're learning the English language that

desire to take things to the night not just say okay okay this is an iPad this is how it works that's fine like oh how do we make the next the next generation of this you know how do we break this and makes the next better thing we can Bank online right out why can't they vote online why can't they make all this is secure as they do banking what do you still see every now and then fraud direct bank fraud but you also see Banks get hacked and yeah they've got I mean they've got you know their reserves and all that other stuff and they try to deal with those vulnerabilities and try to stay ahead of them but even the technology that Banks use is not foolproof and when were talking again about voters having confidence that when they take that time on Election Day take off from work or school or whatever and go cast that vote that it's going to be counted and counted accurately like this is what's at stake if people don't have confidence in that

then then we are in serious trouble so one thing that I introduced to build a few months ago based on last year's Defcon hacking Conference results that that really showed the best way to secure our elections system the actual system to self is either use paper ballots or have a voter verified paperback up if you're going to use an electronic system so you have an electronic system of voter verified paperback up right so if there's any whatsoever then you go to the paper out of the paper correspond to the paper for example you can choose when I go vote I can grab a paper ballot traditional or I can go to the machine which I usually do go through and make my selections and before I hit the final submit ballot button there's little print out that pops up in a little window that shows my voter number who I selected to vote for so I can actually check the paper myself before hitting submit

sorry honey I just did that Virginia has off your Statewide elections so they had theirs in 2017 and after that Defcon hacking conference happened it last year they said we have to fix this before our election and they did or they did paper ballot voter verified paper backups and their election Commissioners came and testified in Congress of after the elections were done and they said that that was the first time in their entire careers that they didn't have a single complaint about the accuracy of the vote count itself we're in previous years they had but there proof that you can like you identify the problem is not going to take years to fix like you can action that within weeks and actually secure the outcome of Elections that's what I've been pushing for in Congress especially as we had to these midterms especially as we head into 20/20 but again it goes bad

to the point like my bill hasn't gotten to vote yet why is that a very simple like a non-partisan Bill here's a problem here's a solution we can action this now but you have leaders in both parties were just continuing to fighting and Fred and moan and groan about how we have all these vulnerabilities in our elections but not actually doing anything about it using it as a partisan kind of political football but again why why don't you actually solve it why do you think because it's issues like this that it help with fundraising and they help kind of motivate people and they worry people when they bring all these fears about is good for Ratings it says all these different reasons that frustrate people frankly who know about it I went or not actually seeing you know deliver results you talking about a problem now for months Congressman talking about this for months

where's the results so you think they actively are ignoring the potential Solutions or that they literally want to keep his problem going that's a good question but that the you know we have been talking about this and number of outside kind of election Security Experts have been talking about this time of the hackers have been talking about the fact that the only way you can secure an election is by using paper

I cannot I cannot come up with an excuse for why the leaders in these committees in Congress have not actually like whether it's my bill or someone else's Bill why haven't they actually solve this because it's something that could potentially impact Us in the coming weeks and months

remember that the hanging chad controversy different votes got thrown out and there was there was also so many people that were denied the right to vote was it in Florida because they

these are the same name or similar names with people that had some sort of a criminal record somebody made a typo when they put their their name in the system and then they were they were made ineligible and then there was also some concern that some of that was delivered so much of it was taking place in Democratic districts yeah it's it's very disconcerting the idea that someone would try to rig an election me we would like to think that is an absolutely unamerican thing to think of what people location of very awful acts and this is where people who have been arguing to keep the system of superdelegates where in a state like mine in Hawaii for example we've got for super delegate votes

two phone numbers of Congress into for the Senators

created by the political parties themselves so Democratic party has has been using the super delegates system where as people are running for president you have a certain number of of delegates that go to one person or another based on that states rules so some State say it's winner-take-all other states say that it's proportional so if you get 60% about that means you get 60% of the delegates but then you have the special category of superdelegates which they're they're over 700 of them it includes all 435 members of sorry all Democratic members of Congress Democrats in the Senate and people who are appointed by the party leadership both of the state and the national level

and so what we saw in in in my state of Hawaii for example is

over 70% of the voters voted for Bernie Sanders but out of those for super delegate votes he got one because mine so the superdelegates don't have to cast their votes to reflect how the their constituents voted for Hillary so that puts you in a situation where and this is not about will Bernie would have won without Siri. This is not even what that's about this is about really looking at people casting their votes and then you have the special group of people who are their elected or appointed who can then saving I don't I don't agree with the way that the people in my stator my district voted so I'm just going to vote the other way and then shift potentially the outcome of that election for that state or for the country so did it shifted for Hawaii Hillary won Hawaii's superdelegates but the people voted differently

and it was 70% of the people vote for president wasn't close it was it was but she want to stay and now is how you how you saw some states where you know I think I don't know Vermont are there in a few other states that I remember looking at where

when they were counting the votes as they were coming in they would report one number but if Bernie won the state his number was zero and then there was a certain number that was already built into Hillary's count before the votes were even finally tallied because she had already had the declared support of those superdelegates within that state

so the Republicans don't do this I think they may have superdelegates but those super delegates are required to reflect the votes of their constituencies so they don't have the freedom to change their change the voter change their mind but yeah this is this is so this is something that I've been I've been fighting to try to reform within our party is to get rid of super delegates to make it so that we have open primaries so that you don't have to be a card-carrying party member to vote in Democratic primaries that was another problem we saw cross the country or people were turned away because in some cases why you didn't register with the party a year ago which is a requirement and so have open primaries and then you have same-day registration not registered but you should be able to register to vote on the day of the election so that you can participate in their democracy

those things seem so clear-cut it seems so long drive but the super delicate issue in particular it's that's so disturbing yeah but seems so dirty so there's been some progress made since then though just recently the DNC had a meeting where it was a very strong majority of people who voted to bar superdelegates from casting their their own free votes in the first ballot in a presidential convention

so I don't know if it's been a long time since it's gone to the second or third ballot but that that was a major step forward to make sure that has people are going in casting their votes in these primaries that they're not risking being overruled by again a group of special individuals who are elected officials who are lobbyists and who are Party officials and people coming from all different backgrounds

is there any resistance to getting rid of these superdelegates the resistance is very strong it was not a given that this people that all people who are very very invested in this system seems like they would have to be invested in keeping the system rigged like making it easy to influence elections by having these few people that you can control having influence over these people these people have massive influence over the results of the election so it's so counter-intuitive to what we stand for with our democracy there is I mean it's a fear of losing power I think ultimately is what it comes down to and you have people who said hey look I've given my life to the party and I put in all of this time and energy of a volunteer of doing this and all that which all of that is is fine and it's great but that shouldn't make it so that like he has as myself at the Superdome have talked about this

shouldn't have any my vote shouldn't count for any more than yours or anyone else's and that we should be strengthening and and empowering uplifting the voices of the people rather than saying well this small Elite group has way more power than you so we'll see what they think about things it's so bizarre that that's a part of the system it just seems like that's something that should have been eradicated a long, should have been now Bernie Sanders had to be fuming I mean that from that and then from finding out the DNC actively conspire to have him lose the primary all of that one last thing I'm on the superdelegates did that some of those who supported have said is that it is their job to be able to save the country in case the people elect someone who isn't good

really yeah that is a hilarious justification know you know better than the whole country you must be super smart to do yeah it is certainly not a written test of Congress or you're somebody who the party chooses wow the idea that the reason to keep that is because you know better I mean that's essentially what they're saying you know better than all the people that voted yea so disrespectful to it's crazy people is really crazy and so that's been I think a positive thing that has come through all of this is more people are saying like you know I honestly wasn't paying a bunch of attention to superdelegates before all of this and a lot of people at their eyes opened up to say okay this is clearly wrong why was it there in the first place let's do something to fix the process will most people don't think until this election the general public was even aware that that was

that was a kid and then when

you don't people find out about to go wait wait wait what what they can just decide to not vote the same way that people voted yeah and then they can the state can lose it mean the person can lose the state even though 70% of the state voted for that person right that's insane did you read Donna brazile's book I didn't read the whole book excerpts from it and of it I was shocked that they conspired to have Hillary win the primaries I was more shocked that more people are not reached yeah what does that tell you tell me the people have sort of resigned to the idea that this is a corrupt system that they don't have time and me goes back to what we're saying earlier that you know people are exhausted most people most people exhausted and I think that's where you see a lot of

a lot of the energy that came around for somebody like Bernie Sanders or somebody like Donald Trump who are perceived as being not of the system

but it it shows us it shows us where we need to go honestly and you're talking about authentic honest leaders who have integrity and and I think people are not as blind to that people can tell you can tell if you're being real or not or if you're signing a false bill of goods yeah pay more attention enough footage of people now it's easy to go back and say what is interview from 4 years ago when they were completely different like what happened I mean it's at this also like calculated Maneuvers that people do politically to align themselves as one group to another with a realize like okay there's a lot of money in being a of this that's of that you know there's a lot of money and being whatever it is Republican or Democrat are there stairs

an angle for Success right that's all of those different labels and things that people are capitalizing on it in the political world I think are the things that are turning off more and more people right to the politics because then it's like well if you're not branded with this label that I'm not going to talk to you I'm not going to have a conversation or it's this Camp forces another canvas try versus another try rather than recognizing even amongst our own families and friends and communities like we we figure out ways to talk things through and find ways to collaborate areas where we agree we can agree to disagree on certain things we can do that with you don't we and white collar and with respect and actually find a way through

to move forward there's a lot of things that have been discussed in terms of the future of

of economics in particular with regards to artificial intelligence and Automation and these radical changes that are probably coming whether we like it or not and one of the things that's been discussed as a potential solution to some of the economic woes is a universal basic income have you studied I'm looking at some of the places that have have or are currently kind of launching pilot projects I know there's a European country that did a two-year pilot and then they decided not to go down that route I think there are so so I'm taking a hard look at this because there are there strong arguments I think on on both sides we got to look and see what what were the effects actually be yeah I'm some turn on as well I'm very open to the idea of it because I think that we will be very well could run into a situation where millions of people are almost instantly out of jobs

there's no solution for that and then out of jobs by their choice or out of John Foy automation exactly is a real problem and I don't think I don't think it's going to I don't think it's going to happen slowly right I think that problems going to stumble onto US very quickly and we are not prepared for this and then there's a problem psychologically people that say that well if you just give people money you take away their ambition and their will and one of the things that makes America great is a people hustle and that you give a bunch of people money but they don't learn and they're going to be lazy yeah this is the different counter arguments and I think there's two if you look at how much how much taxpayer dollars are spent on like Section 8 housing or different affordable housing programs on food stamps

kind of these different social welfare programs how much are we spending on overhead to administer those programs and so would it make more economic sense to just kind of compile all of those benefits into one package and just give people a check instead of piecing it out through all of these different things and would we actually save money as a country by doing so in the argument to incentivize productivity even amongst people that are accepting Universal basic income I believe is to let them keep it no matter what so the idea even if you make $10 a year you're going to still get x amount of dollars per month and I Universal basic income and you can choose to donate that two causes of your choice but if your person who was concerned that this is going to somehow another stifle people's motivation to get jobs as if we get a job then they won't get that money which is the case with welfare

it's very difficult to get someone when you giving him free money to say look you're going to have to work harder and then going to get less to work harder so the ideas and I believe Elon Musk only one that came up with this way don't take away the money like everybody gets it no matter what you can choose to do whatever you want with it but the way to incentivize action productivity is to make that money just University available to everyone over so aspect of of that I kind of believe that

just culturally people we were talking about these young kids for example you know me they're not getting one paid one thing or another but just their Drive in their interest in kind of their intellectual Direction and I think people are are are not necessarily Lazy by nature and and I think there's something to be said for wanting to actually get things done and I think you you open up rather than saying well we've just got to our purposes just to work in a job you may be brought in that Spectrum to wear your purpose in life is not just to work good paying job but actually that have meaning and purpose to what you're doing with your life right in the large part maybe the problem is planting the seed in young people at an early age that you're you're not supposed to judge

try to make money to survive that here here's your money to survive just what do you want what do you want what what do you do how do you think you would best fit in in this world like what is your contribution what did you do I think that's that's that opens it up into kind of how we view education in this country and how you know there's all this this drive towards well you got to get a college degree if I do this you got to do that but really there's there's a lot more people aren't asking those questions like what do you really want to do with your life asking that that most important question of purpose and seeing well getting getting a bachelor's degree or master's degree or whatever that may not that may not be what you want or how you feel you can best use your time your skills and whether it's vocational training or doing something else or be starting up a business right away or or anything else I think there's we just have to broaden at the Spectrum here so they were not so tunnel vision

we're saying well you're going to have to go $60,000 in debt because you've got to get a college degree of which you will have no guarantee that you will get this high paying job that you were hoping to get that you make lots of money and then you end up wasting your life wondering what the hell did I do with my stuff that's a very good point because I think the system that we have in place is not perfect but yet we're not fixing it right or not changing it and college education is essentially subsidized and you have so much money at these kids are in debt with by the time they graduate mean I had a friend who made it through medical school and by the time he got out he owed more than a quarter million dollars I was like that is fucking crazy and he's like when people talk about doctors and they talk about doctors Being Greedy because you have to understand that so many of them are struggling just to stay alive is struggling just to pay their own bills and keep the lights on the reason why they want to see 20-30 people a day and just keep pumping in the numbers and just constantly you know do whatever they have to do with operations or whatever it is and that they're not can

sidering the overall Health and Welfare these people and looking at all these different solutions whether it's nutrition or maybe there's a way to avoid surgery or maybe there's a way to you know figure out a way to strengthen your body first before we do this or maybe we all to your diet and maybe not getting enough sleep will take that in consideration and what kind of pills do you wanted how are they negatively affecting your help you don't have the time for that they have another person that's waiting there another person waiting to keep those people coming in because they need that money but it is that's where they were talking about the cost of Education or the cost of healthcare for that matter when we when we look at technology and how we can both bring down cost and improve quality in these areas I think there's there's tremendous opportunity in Hawaii there's a pilot program on the Big Island right now called paramedicine where current like Medicare reimbursement laws say that as are EMTs go out an ambulance to pick up somebody

they will only get reimbursed if they pick up that person and take them to an emergency room so never mind if that person needs to get their prescription drugs refilled which happens call nine-one-one for that for living out in the boonies somewhere they can't get to where they need to go or if that person needs to see a mental health professional or a social worker or anything else so his idea of paramedicine that we're working on trying to build an actually changed in federal policy to help support his

really look out for what is this person actually need and not just shove them into this Healthcare System that drives up the cost for everyone and also use technology to do that so I was asking okay so you're not to be able to physically bring a social worker with you on all these calls like that's not how you're going to economize your cost here and so don't know we bring an iPad with us so the social worker at the clinic and then we can dial them and they can FaceTime with a person whose house that we've gone too if that's the service that they need and they can start helping connect them to resources so that's where you're able to help kind of both bring down cost but also making sure that we have the service is accessible to those who need them things of Bernie Sanders brought up when he was running for president. That was great very intriguing was the possibility of free education and obviously we have public schools

when it comes to high school and Junior High School and all that other stuff but the idea of a public

education through University to degree do you think that's possible but I think it doesn't get to the root cause of the problem which is the cost of education and I think that if you write that ticket then you are at risk of then these education institutions just saying okay so if you are guaranteeing X number of dollars for a student to go through and get that education then we're going to adjust our cost to make it meet that amount or if it's a blank check then they'll know that they have a blank check so we we we have to we have to get to the root cause of these challenges on whether it is education or health care we have to get to the root cause of why are these costs being driven up so dramatically and not just say what we were going to pay for everything without actually dealing with the fact

that things are not affordable as they are how did education get to a point where you could go bankrupt with any other kind of debt and you're no longer required to pay that debt so if your credit card money you lose your house whatever it is but if you owe money because of a college loan you owe that money until your dad is strange minutes one of the weirder things that we have in our culture is that we saddle these young ambitious people with insurmountable debt right and that there are institutions that are really making a lot of money off of this interest attached to a addicted to this money and this is a part of the system and they profiting off of it and they don't want to go away and somehow to talk someone into passing these laws that make these kids

stuck with this bill no matter what happens in your life you know I'm getting the car accident no longer take care of yourself tough shit and pay that bill I mean it's really mafia-like back into the financial industry it's really

what when you pull the veil back on kind of the crony capitalism that exist in this country then you start to see and connect how it really impact people's lives in so many different ways and how it affects the policies in our country what was Bernie solution for that when he wanted to Institute some sort of a free education system for higher education what what did he how did he Envision eye and I don't know his bill chapter and verse but I believe it was focused on public colleges not private institutions that it was by levying some sort of tax on Wall Street to pay for it

that was the big criticism that everything was going to be tax tax tax tax tax but in an efficient system was going to chew up a lot of your tax dollars so people were thinking their hard-earned dollars going to go to some bureaucracy in a bunch of red tape in horseshit and too many people that are working doing too many different things just to try to keep jobs going yeah that's right yeah yeah I think that the focus on

on Wall Street I think is is a very specific one however as you're looking at possible funding in the tax sources but again I mean I just point to sound bites can can be catch fire easily but getting to the root cause of how we solve some of these problems is really what we need to do how are we delivering education to people why is it that these colleges why is it the cost of education has gone so far up and really in an in an uncontrolled manner would look at Health Care why is it that you know these prescription drug companies can raise their prices hundreds if not thousands of percent on life-saving medication for people why is it that doctors are not required to go through any kind of nutrition training as they get their certification to go through their of their medical school when you look at how closely connected diet is and what people put into their

bodies to the kinds of major sicknesses that are rampant in our communities at diabetes for example you're not seeing that connection we have doctors were trained even a little bit and nutrition and how connecting that kind of preventive medicine and using food food as medicine is not does not even play a partial role in a lot of the medicine Western medicine is delivered today

it is strange but is this

is this the business of the federal government to get involved in how doctors are educated and how do you fix that without getting your hands and everything cuz obviously we would like to believe that medical schools know more about how to raise doctors then URI

government pays a lot of money to help take care of people and make sure that they have access to education especially those who don't have money and so it is it is our responsibility to try to do what we can to help improve that system to make it so it's affordable and to look at these preventive measures I have yet to get a good answer from anyone in a medical school or in a in that field about why even I'm not even talking to you have to become a licensed nutrition professional but just having this basic education that will help them better take care of people why that doesn't exist well it's all so bizarre that mean

it's such a complicated thing especially diet and nutrition it's so complicated that even nutritionist don't agree I mean you have extra shirts in nutrition that. I mean I am having a bunch of debate coming up in the future are two of them in at the end of this month 1 a vegan dr. versus a former vegan paleo scientist who believes that organ meat in in in eating animal meat is the key to health health and happiness the vegan obviously believes that that's not the case and you know there's people that believe in high-carbohydrate low-fat low-carbohydrate the different diets that are out there it's hot so hard and then there's the reality that every person physiologically varies yeah yeah they're there folks some friends of mine in Waimanalo in Hawaii who have a little cafe in a farm in their goal is to be able to feed healthy food to their community and so one of the things that they

do

they identify people on the island who you know are dealing with like 30 plus year old guy was dealing with major heart failures already and who's obese in dealing with diabetes all these other issues and helping people like him change your diet so they provide free meals to them for I think it was like 3 months and they have a doctor who supervising and monitoring what the effect on their body is in my friend malea she told me that one of these guys who came in she's like you know you should you should try to eat more salad in your diet try to eat at least once a day should have a salad he's like oh no problem fighting mac salad everyday

like mayonnaise small Ronnie salad salad I thought that was a sound stable right minimizing fried food like those kinds of things we can't take for granted that everybody just knows this but she brought up in a certain way or certain kind of culture whatever that that may not be something that you're taught that that is really dumb is that you can Hackley health care costs if you're getting sick you are lowering the cost of of Highly escalating Healthcare and we're also looking out for each other information that we're Distributing to listen to you want to have your loved ones live longer and be

healthier and not finding quality in my mind that you'll get with your family and with your kids and being mobile and getting getting out and around and and so that you using the example of these that these people in Waimanalo that's what they've seen with the folks that they've been able to help is about education and like here's how you could eat in a in a healthy way that's good for you and seeing how that is impacting those individuals personal health and their families has been really life-changing for some of these guys are you seeing that you you see in the system that you would like to change of fix

civil liberties is one that I have I have and continue to be focused on in an area where there is bipartisan support when you look at a lot of the abuses that we have seen and continue to see in agencies like the NSA and end in the post Patriot Act world where laws were passed licensing warrantless spying on Americans that that is an area where we still need to make a lot of changes Criminal Justice Reform is another and this is one where uniquely right now I think there's a moment in time where you have organizations like the ACLU partnering with the Koch brothers very conservative Koch brothers coming and supporting the same pieces of legislation to end federal marijuana prohibition to deal with sentencing reform to deal with prison reform

make it so that we're not constantly cycling the same people through our prison systems and that were not throwing people into already overcrowded prisons I who have no business being there

yeah those are really important points and I'm glad you brought that up I've heard argument that the wiretapping and that the surveillance program is necessary to prevent terrorist activity does that make any sense to you

is it is it is the most often used argument

the point here is that it is illegal to spy on Americans without a warrant

so if you have somebody that that you know has raised some level of Suspicion then as a law enforcement officer agency you need we're protected by our constitution in this way or you have to do the tough work of building your evidence and actually getting a warrant to do this but there have been example after example how

this has been grossly abused and how you know whether it's our cell phone records that were being gathered and mass by the NSA or other things were seeing that because of the Patriot Act their their new loopholes that have been created that have allowed these agencies to exploit that there's also some weird rules we're like if you get pulled over they can't ask you for your PIN number for your phone but they can use your thumbprint to access your phone

I didn't know about that one that's accurate I'm pretty sure it is I'm up believe it pertains to whatever the crime is I don't think they could do it if you get caught speeding but I think if they believe that you're involved in something that may or may not be a felony that they can check your phone and there's actually these devices that they've been selling to police departments that allow them to crack into iPhones what you're supposed to lie and credit you I'm sure if they have that unless I mean if you if you need a warrant to access someone's iPhone me and you're going to go to whatever Federal jurisdiction that's involved in that they would have some sort of device but Police Department I got me get this technology so they can access your phone with your thumb print so then go give me a hand towel see fam and then they got in your phone look at pictures you naked I'm going to ignore those and please confirm receipt

fingerprint to unlock your phone like what the hell is that what the problem is and this is good and bad cops are people okay they're just you and I and they're just folks that have a very difficult job and a very high-level responsibility but why would you allow them to decide whether or not they can go into someone's personal property and view their information and look at their emails through the text messages and make a determination as to whether or not this person is involved in illegal activity without a judge and a search warrant right that's crazy cause I don't know if this post patriot act as is because of this or is this just one of the things that happens sometimes is that technology accelerate at a rate where we don't have laws that are pertinent to that technology that's also a problem and there there's some legislation that we've worked on

that we are continuing to try to get past to try to help get that technology get the laws caught up with where we are today and there there's one bill that we have that deals with with emails for example where you know the correct it is it's against the law to open up someone else's mail but it's not necessarily against the law to open up someone else's email go through because the law the law was written back when you know how it is whatever handwritten letters or letters sent through the the US Postal Service with the only way people communicate and it has not been updated to this day. Seems crazy what are you feelings on private prisons

when you're making money off of keeping people in prison then you have a serious you have a serious problem the fact that we have a criminal justice system that is so broken that we're allowing these corporations to make money off of keeping their prison beds filled we are doing a disservice to those people to our communities our family and and every taxpayer who's paying money for these private prisons seems an obvious conflict Venture exactly do you have no you have no incentive whatsoever to actually you know help rehabilitate people help help provide people with transitional training with the drug rehab with with all of these other things that can help people who have been incarcerated for one reason or another leave and never come back and that's one of the bills that that the one of the one of the good news stories that actually has happened recently in Congress was we we pass this bill called the first step Act

that deal specifically with this prison reform issue to help make sure that those who don't belong in prison like nonviolent drug offenders don't go there in the first place and to make it so that those who are there and those who are the returning

you know there was returning inmates are are actually dressing what is it that is that you need to make so you don't keep coming back and that was something that face to my position on both sides of the aisle but again it's one of those examples where when you focus on okay we may come at this from different directions like some folks are more concerned about the social cost the impact on families and communities and how your criminalizing people others are more concerned about the fiscal impact and how much money we're spending on these people cycling through our prisons regardless we both want the same outcome Which is less people in our prisons and bringing down the cost both economic and social and so that was a bill that we passed through the house at sitting before the Senate right now but it has support from the White House and ironically there is a Republican senator in the Senate who is the number one opposition against this bill passed like another over 300 members

the house who voted for it so there's there's some hope there but there's some work to be done in that area how did we get to the situation how did how this whole private prison thing happened before people even realize it to replace you know I don't know the exact history of who made it happen or who you know allowed for this government contract to take place but I think the sick part about it is that you have people who recognized that they could make money off of people who are going to jail I'm sure you're aware of that Pennsylvania judge who sentenced who was

he was irresponsibly and wrongfully sentencing young people to jail for profit yeah and so people would think well you know you're never going to see if that that's not going to be that's that couldn't be real but this is one of the real problems with profit with the idea that you can make profit off of having people in your cell having people in your salad and when you look at all of the other impacts of the adhan and this is this is what I often talk about we talk about ending the federal marijuana prohibition look at how it is impacting the lives of those individuals who will not have a criminal record the fall of them everywhere look at how it's impacting their children their family members there opportunities for their future and how these impacts are often very very long reaching and an impact a lot of these other social systems and programs that exist

and how much more prevalent these arrests are than most people realize yeah and then there's the economic windfall that takes place when you legalize it right that's the only thing that you're seeing where the states are voting for because I realize there's a massive amount of tax dollars so they can make might mean it. I think Colorado is 39% tax on recreational marijuana if people are like they just pay it because it's even then it's still not that expensive that's true what to speak of the people who are actually benefiting from especially in these kids with epilepsy and those other medical disorders I've met with families in States like Iowa for example that was families met with their kids who they are breaking both state and federal law and then Iowa we're even CBD products are not legal so they're having to find ways to get it there and they're trying to

this within their own state to change the laws but you know these people who consider themselves conservative Republicans are talking about this issue that they feel as a life-saving issue for their children but once you see people that have cancer that can't eat and they're going through chemotherapy and you even realize that it is maybe one of the only things you can give someone then give them their appetite back when you see children that have severe autism and one of the only things I can stop there seizures is medical marijuana and do you realize there so many different things that we could help people with it's not just about getting hot now there is personal freedom issues that you really shouldn't be able to tell someone that they can go get whiskey but they can't get marijuana out of it cuz it's foolish absolutely and it's ancient mean it's one of those really it we're stuck with these Legacy laws that were perpetrated by people who are doing it just for profit and it's not at this is a grand mystery that the writing is all he could read it all

we know exactly how it all took place we know why prohibition was enacted and it wasn't an active to save the public it wasn't an act because we're really worried about people who use people trying to profit that's exactly right and the same thing is happening now with this opioid epidemic how there are states that have legalized either weather is a just medical or full legalization there has proven to be a direct correlation to drastic reduction opiate-related deaths in those States for people have access again either to medical or non-medical use of marijuana and you see you wonder okay if we know this and every one of the leaders in this country are so concerned about this opioid epidemic why hasn't this been brought forward

you learn about the prescription drug companies who make a lot of these opioids for now making the other prescription drugs to help wean people off of the opioids and so they're making money on both ends of the spectrum Without Really any care for the person there and end their welfare and their well-being meanwhile people are people are dying their lives are being ruined by there's also things that are federally legal like federally illegal like ibogaine which has an incredible result ratio in terms of getting people to kick addictions whether it's alcohol heroin pills there's clinics in Mexico that people go to on a regular basis to take this one psychedelic medicine that's been shown to have radical results it's not killing people yet it's extremely illegal to schedule one drug in America and its

which one of the best examples I mean they're also using Scylla syban I mean there's a John Hopkins study there's several studies that they're doing right now that they're trying to show that there's a direct correlation between use of Scylla syban in these clinicals situations where there curing cigarettes heroin all these different addictions with different psychedelic drugs that are schedule 1 inch there's a lot of work being done right now Maps is involved with one thing that they're doing that's helping a tremendous amount of soldiers and people with PTSD is with MDMA is assisted MDMA therapy and there's there's a lot of these that are being explored now where people had demonized these particular drugs are plants and they were thought to be something that would ruin your life and now they're really realize he know these like many things can be used or abused and that there's their solutions for a lot

bar problem but there's a lot of resistance to this a lot of resistance in particular from I mean that the resistance about CBD is one of the dumbest ones of all time does CBD is non-addictive non-toxic not her in massively beneficial to so many people whether it's helping them with anxiety alleviation of pain and stress I mean I even got Ted Nugent on it I've never done anything with anything that it had anything to do with hamper marijuana and he's got bad knees rubbing CBD lotion on his knees he's like to stuff some miracle we go I mean if you can talk Ted Nugent into using CBD I think there's there's there's hope for the world Kentucky I think it's another state that the leader in this slowly Patrol the doors opening up with that we realize it's not psychoactive it's incredibly beneficial whether it's for food whether it's for textile with an S4

oil me there's so many benefits mean you can there's a thing called hempcrete where they're making concrete concrete at a ham heard about it's a lighter incredibly durable flame resistant there any benefits to it and it's so economically viable it's so cheap it's a weed in a grow Hemp stock it's one of the most bizarre things because it is hard as it soak and it's his light is styrofoam it's so weird it's such a it's an alien plant a very strange plant wow but you know demon eyes for so long and one of the things that scare from being economically viable and it's just people that don't want it to become a part of the competition they just don't want to compete with it with whatever they're profiting from what is the people are selling pain pills are the people that are using it for me to be an issue we made illegal because of paper

also own newspaper so we started demonizing it to get people to think that if we made hemp legal we were going to have people running around on the marijuana killing people and jump out of Windows it's crazy we have a I'm working with republican from Florida and Carlos curbelo we just introduced a bill to essentially commission a study by the National Academy of Science made up of objectives reports and other studies that have been done from states that have already legalized to one extensor another marijuana to compile a fact and independent fact-based report for the federal government on what what has come about in those States in every respect to time about Healthcare economy or criminal justice and law apply to every single thing look at this in a very diverse way and then to have this entity do it that that's it's just that sits outside of the federal government because the challenge that we keep coming up against both

Federal level as well as at the state level in some cases as they say well there are no studies that show the benefits of what good will come about if you end the federal marijuana prohibition has one example in Hawaii just recently the State Legislature House and Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill to allow opioid addiction to be added to the acceptable things that medical marijuana can treat so even though medical marijuana is legal in Hawaii there are limited list of you know the ailments or whatever that you can prove your eligibility opioid addiction is not one of them legislature said it should be. I agree it should be but it was vetoed by the governor who said well

those studies aren't proving that this will help those who are opioid addicts and there is a bureaucratic process that takes a really long time if people really want this to happen

what are the other things that are of concern to you as a congresswoman that you're seeing not addressed or that are somehow or another still in place when you feel like they should have been eradicated there's there's there's there's a long laundry list of issues and I think you can go through each of the major issues that a lot of folks are concerned about and pick those apart and say hey hear the things that we need to address and improve in each of those but I think that the conversation that I hope more people start having is about how why aren't these things being fixed or addressed and that that speaks directly to people's unwillingness to actually talk to each other to stop demonizing each other because you're from the other camp and actually engaged based on our common mission of serving the people serving the people of this country and you know that's something I've I look back to during my time in uniform serving

Army National Guard you got diverse people diverse opinions diverse ideas but ultimately you know we wear the same flag on their uniform and we are focused singer Leon on that same purpose and Mission and unfortunately that's what we're missing a lot of in Congress is the hyper-partisanship and the political winds too often take precedence over the reason why people in our district hire us to go and work there and a lot of that comes from not having a basic level of respect or Aloha for each other is people and instead just saying hey it's us against them

pick your label and that's where the battles are fought and end who suffers as a result of his the people who are suffering who are dealing with a lot of the challenges that we've been talking about so that's something that you know I try to bring I try to bring Hawaii's Aloha to Washington and try to bring that through in the work that I'm trying to do on these different issues in the conversation that we're having sometimes that means you talk with people who who you disagree with or you may have different ideas then they have about how you solve these problems but if you're even if you're able to come together on one thing then we can start to see problems actually being solved in and delivering results well what I saw from you and video is exactly what I've seen from you in person you're very genuine person you're very intelligent and you give me hope you give me hope that there are politicians that are legitimately in it for the right reason and that they have a real vision of how to fix things so thank you thank you and thanks for being you

tell people how to find you online I am on social media at Tulsi gabbard Instagram and Twitter Rhea all those things and you can go to my website which is vote chelsea.com go there don't tell C thank you who should be president

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