Tulsi Gabbard

00:00you know five four three two one boom and we're live Hawaii in the house Aloha good to see you nice - thanks thanks what a great place to be a congressperson the best you're in paradise yeah it's it's hard to leave to go to Washington I tell you what that's one place if it wasn't for the storms and the fact that it's really a volcano yeah as we've seen all too evident just recently yeah I have a friend who goes to the Big Island every year for Thanksgiving he convinced me to go two years in a row it was awesome I loved it but then this year I might seems like it's shooting rocks into the sky and half of its on fire yeah 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 corridor of Honolulu oh so you're lucky yeah you cover everything except the problems bar the

00:59city the city so no it's it's been tough it's been a tough year because of those folks in the district to puno at the volcano you know we have gone through a few near misses with hurricanes some big flooding on Kauai and now we've got another one that's knocking on our door yeah you guys just what was it a level four just was hot it was five 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 had some lot of rain we still had some flooding but compared to what it could have been we're fortunate and then on top of that you guys had a false alarm where text went out to everybody in the island saying that a nuclear missile was headed

01:51your way and this was not a drill what the hell happened there that my gosh I was in Washington when that happened it was a Saturday Oh afternoon ish in DC time you know early morning in Hawaii and somebody from Hawaii sent me a screen capture of that alert that went out to over millions cell phones across our state saying you know a ballistic missile headed towards Hawaii seek cover this is not a drill Wow yeah what does that feel like I mean until you find out that's not how long did it take before you found out that it wasn't so I immediately started thinking I mean 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 like okay let's let's make sure this is legitimate the actual

02:51threat 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 was 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 so I said okay I'm gonna 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 but basically this is a false alarm and then just started getting on the phone making as many calls as I possibly could but as I was

03:43doing that I was getting text messages and emails and things from people who were freaking out how far is Korea from Hawaii it's it's over four thousand miles but that's not very far it's for an intercontinental ballistic missile and knowing progressively just over the six years that I've been in Congress and this was a major issue that I've been bringing up since I've been there in just raising the alarm bells that 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 I you know and and after people started getting the word that this was a false alarm I started hearing from folks who just shared their stories of what they went through and you know in the news they showed the guy who was lowering his daughter down a manhole on the side of

04:41the street his little girl oh god I heard from another guy who said that you know I had one kid in town in Honolulu and another kid in Waianae over an hour drive and he literally sat there thinking how am I gonna choose which child I'm gonna go and spend the last minutes of my life with because you're either driving in one direction or the other there's so many so many stories of it happen guy pushed clicked on the wrong on the wrong alert message on his computers was ultimately what happened the one that said this is a drill did he 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 is the subject of major investigations and then after a while he got fired he's actually suing saying he was wrongfully terminated and almost going on and if ever there was something you could be fired for how could you be

05:45wrongfully terminated for that mistake that's my question to understand the magnitude of your decision I mean that is a giant yeah oh my god but there it you know I think it 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 it's obviously not good and so there there are things that were working to 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 and that alarm could come through your phone and know that you now have around 18 minutes to find good cover or say your final goodbyes well it's so scary because it's such an erratic and dangerous regime I mean it's when you see what that guy has already done

06:41and the people he's executed including family members yeah I mean he's quite a maniac and a legitimate dictator in the old world kind of sense it's very strange that he still I mean you you think in the age that we live in they would be very difficult to control an entire country the way that they've controlled North Korea for so long yeah since the Korean War but yeah they still can do it that they are and I think that while it may be easy to write him off as a maniac there has also been a very consistent that there there has been a consistency throughout the different regimes of the Kim family as they've developed this nuclear a nuclear missile capability in that they are doing it to protect themselves against regime change war essentially and they have said it directly you know our US foreign policy experts point that out that this is the reason why they're developing this

07:46capability because they have seen how if you look at Libya for example when Gaddafi was looking at you know building and acquiring nuclear weapons he was doing so also as you know to protect himself in his regime and then he made a deal with the United States saying okay give up your nuclear weapons program and we're not gonna 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 toppled Gadhafi and and North Korea says okay so that's what you do when you have you know a 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 when Gadhafi was in control I mean I'm sure you've seen the the slave trade videos from their fights insane it is horrifying it won't happen to ya right in our lifetime

08:45you know and that this this this failed state has happened as a direct result of our policy there are failed continuation of these change wars that we carry out in different parts of the world right it's almost like we don't learn from our mistakes and I don't know what the proper solution is I mean do you keep someone like Saddam Hussein or someone like Muammar Qaddafi do you keep them in power and let them still be horrific dictators and evil maniacs or do you step in and cause more damage I mean it's it's almost a lose-lose situation it's yeah it's not a good situation but it's where we as the United States need to be pragmatic about the situation and 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

09:45in 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 gonna remove this person and then we're gonna 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 in Iraq and Libya and now in Syria the people in those countries are far worse off than they were before we have and it's counterproductive for our interests as well because we have al Qaeda Isis and 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 do they think I mean you they're off the record or on the record what do they think is the

10:38solution for situations like that many of them are hesitant to share their own opinion because especially in the intelligence community their job is to report on what they're hearing what they're gathering in the Intel that they're bringing in and so on and so forth but you know when you when you talk with folks who operate in that space the ones who are honest and not trying to further specific agenda or cover somebody else's bad decisions there is a recognition of how our policies of the past decades have failed people in those countries and us they've failed but have they failed as bad or equally bad as if we did if we did nothing like worse worse for sure we yes you know yes worse for the people in those countries worse 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

11:45best serve the interests of our people in this country and these actions have been counter to those best interests and so your question about so why do we keep doing this I think there are 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 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 as their 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

12:45school bus and killed 40 kids a couple of weeks ago and Yemen Yemeni civilians bombed weddings in Yemen and yet our US government is not saying hey we're gonna stop and yank all of our support force I review they're continuing to do it now you're a veteran as a veteran deep mean--you you've served our country you you've put yourself in harm's way you you were a part of the military there's so many people that are making these decisions that have not yeah do you think that's a 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 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

13:50and I came back and saw just the cavalier attitude that a lot of politicians take due to making these decisions and and I worked in a medical unit and my deployment to Iraq we were in a base about 40 miles north of Baghdad and our base where we were was was nicknamed more tarita Ville because of the constant almost daily mortar attacks and every day part of my job was to go through a list of all of the American injuries and casualties that had happened the day before to try to see if there were any of our close to 3,000 Hawaii soldiers who had been hurt and to then make sure that they were getting the care they needed either in country or get him evacuate as quickly as possible and just going through going through that list name 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

15:01family members and loved ones moms dads kids at home who were stressed out every day 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 who lose sleep on this do you think a solution to that would be mandatory military service for people who are in positions I don't you don't know what do you think the solution because as a soldier I don't you know I don't want somebody in my foxhole who doesn't want to be there first of all I think it's you know 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

16:03American people and make these decisions for our troops and for our country they need to understand who pays that price for the cost of war and yes it is every single one of our servicemembers both those who pay the ultimate price as well as those who come home with both visible and invisible wounds and who will continue paying that price for a very long time to come but also every one of our communities filled with people who may not have worn the uniform but who've had trillions of dollars taken out of their wallet to pay for these counterproductive interventionist Wars as weaves in Hawaii for example struggle to put air conditioners in schools where kids are trying to study in 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 and poison in the

16:59water for the kids so the kids are not able to use the water fountains at school so we have 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 one of the things I like about you and one of the things I've liked about a lot of your interviews is you're of 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 having these 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 and because they're really good at being full of a lot of slack jawed dum-dums out there buy into it hook line and sinker waved that flag and kiss

17:47those babies and they vote these dummies into 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 do they think it is maybe more I think it might be ten percent 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 manage to get through life with a song and a dance yeah but they're not genuine and 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

18:39guy like Donald Trump want to be the president when you have billions of dollars in the bank like what are you doing why are you doing that well it's there's a weird motivation that a lot of these people have and that motivation is to be the uber you know to be the king to be the the top of the heap to be the queen whatever it is I don't know how you change that in those people I don't think making them aware of the consequences of their decisions is gonna work there it's just the type of people who they are in the first place I don't yeah yeah I think you're not wrong however I've just seen over the last few years the level of awareness amongst people amongst voters has been increasing as there are more and more kind of non mainstream media outlets that are shining light on these kinds of issues and I'm just a non mainstream shooting do you think that mainstream

19:36have been holding back I think that especially I think that you only get a certain narrative right and it depends and it changes based on what channel you flick to or whatever because if you vary in that narrative then you get less access yeah I guess you could say that you get less access to the people that you want to have on those shows because that's how you get your ratings in the first place yeah yeah I mean and that's that's the problem with these with a lot of these news channels is it is driven by ratings and if you're bringing in differing viewpoints and differing perspectives I don't know maybe it affects their ratings I don't know I don't pay too much attention to that but I do know that when you look at you know guys like jimmy dore for example yes 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

20:27and has very interesting conversations and again bringing facts and 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 exactly 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 because there's a ton of votes that happen every single day in congress that most people don't know about unless you're really following it closely yourself just that that and it's of itself as 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 idea of trying to educate politicians on the consequences and what

21:21that what that really means and this the the cavalier attitude that you were talking about like what's a worst example that like when when you were 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 there are probably a 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 authorize the United States to go to war with Iran now 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 the question on

22:17strategy 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 come and 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 in a blank check to essentially start a brand-new war that currently has not been declared I introduced this amendment and if you

23:22want to take a guess on how many people voted for it how many 60 60 why wouldn't they why would they want that blank check there are some people who legitimately do want to do want us to go to war with Iran well who are those people you have to name names there there's it there are I would say it's a bipartisan feeling and why do 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 essentially and our enemy even though Congress has not declared war even though you know we our country just signed a nuclear deal to make it so that they can't build a nuclear weapon it's it's it gets to a point where it seems like hysteria but again it's not based on an actual thinking through tactically and strategically in responsive what we're actually doing and what our

24:30policy is are you one of the younger people in Congress yeah you could say that there's there's a handful of us who are under 40 not many small handful and is that I mean you're you're a person who would you like 37 you you're not allowed to ask ladies usually but yeah your congresswoman politicians are an exception I guess on the table we have to be a certain age to run for office so you know right well how would you have to be to be President 35 oh so you could get in there yeah we thought about it you know a lot of people have been especially with everything that's going on have been kind of urging me to to consider it you know you know I'm folk I'm focused on home and focused on Hawaii right one do my very best to be able to serve them and our country and yeah this seems like it's too much work too it's a lot it seems like too much it's a lot it ages

25:33the out those those morphe pictures are always like interesting because George Bush is one of the weirdest ones whoa an Obama Obama's a rough one too yeah yeah I mean it just does yeah all right there's no getting away from that and if it doesn't then they should probably probably not doing your job yeah I mean it's you're in a crazy business but I think to that to that point just talking about that how 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

26:33what's what's exciting now is that there's a lot more energy interest and activity I think 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 our challenges are or the challenges that we will face from the decisions they made and 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 yeah while the internet was active and that's you versus this crazy old who thinks that people smoked marijuana are bad people I mean there's a it's a weird thing when you see some of these old guard they are they're a relic of the past but yet

27:31they're still in a position of power and control and they're they're making these decisions based on this old world that that really doesn't exist anymore yeah and there's so many different ways that that actually has a very real impact and I think the some of the hearings that we've seen most recently dealing with Facebook and Twitter and Google or a perfect example where you have people asking questions and it becomes very obvious quickly yes they don't even they don't know how to log into Facebook right they've never sent a tweet in their lives some of these people are very proud that they either don't have a cellphone 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 the regulatory body that should be exercising oversight over how technology is rapidly changing the world that we live in right you got

28:24to know something about it or be surround yourself with people who do well especially in when it pertains to selling people's privacy or using exactly people's data to influence elections and using you know the stuff that's been happening with Facebook is even more strange because I don't know how you stop like 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 without whatever ideological point they're trying to push through but they're trying to influence the way people look at things and they're targeting people's comment sections and news feeds and Twitter feeds and they're 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

29:24foreign country is doing this and that people from a foreign country that this is actually a job so much there but there must be some sort of a reason for this and then when you see those people that are questioning what's his name Facebook guy Berg Zuckerberg not Jeff Zuckerberg Mark Zuckerberg Jeff Zuckerberg the guy runs NBC CBS right what did NBC know is it ya know CNN oh what a strange name but Zuckerberg you know he was so guarded in that as well that I almost wanted to go hey stop this is not you man where's the real you yeah this is weird the way you're sipping water and you're just the way you're talking to people so odd yeah the finality of it all yeah some of my friends on that committee who actually are under 40 years old who were members of Congress and who prepared and and you know went in and we're asking some tough questions we're very frustrated just because they

30:29didn't feel like they were getting they were actually getting many answers first of all a lot of a lot of kind of legally speaking circles and that kind of thing and I think when you're when you're talking about and and there's so many I don't know I'm kind of going in a few different directions here with with these 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 country is trying to influence our elections which is wrong and which the American people need to be aware of where this information is coming from is the fact that we and you're saying why does somebody do that well because this country does want to influence who we're electing right

31:26you know we'd rather work with this person we know that person is not gonna be nice to us the United States has been doing this for a very long time sure in countries around the world both overtly and covertly through through these kinds of disinformation campaigns not not even counting like the outright regime-change Wars we're gonna 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 and Russia is 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 um but there's also the question is what is Russia trying to achieve like why do they want someone like Donald Trump in office versus someone like Hillary

32:27Clinton like what is to be gained and in how much you know I mean how much do they benefit from that yeah this is what's really one of the big questions that's going on right now yeah with all the Russian hearings and the Mueller investigation and trying to get to the bottom of all this and why they did what they did and what they did mean in there's many people that are blowing this off and they don't think that it's important and you know 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's never been talk of us or any politician that's running for president being influenced by a foreign superpower before today it's just amazing that it took until 2016 before this became a real issue that's true that's true there's talk about Hillary

33:16and uranium and all kinds of other different issues and you know I mean I'm not a giant Hillary and one of the reasons why I'm not is I just I think she's a politician you know and I don't think she's a genuine person I just don't I think you get to a level of lying and the way they conduct themselves and the way they've been doing it for so long that it they don't even think it's a bad thing it's just a thing you do but one of the weirder ones that I ever saw from her was after the Libya after Qaddafi was killed where she was not on the record but she was still being recorded they were talking to her you know what I'm talking idea where she said we came we saw what was it we came we we saw him he died what was the example yeah we came we saw and he's dead or something yeah and she was laughing yeah like literally laughing but this is this is exactly what I'm talking about

34:12about that cavalier attitude yeah with in Washington right 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 office or the party you're supposed to stay neutral in these Democratic primaries but it got to a point where I felt I stepped down from that position resigned as vice chair to endorse Bernie Sanders largely because of the huge difference in their worldviews with Hillary Clinton's very hawkish interventionist foreign policy and track record Libya's is a very prominent and recent example Iraq is another and Bernie Sanders who generally takes a more non interventionist world view that was an issue again like it's redundant that people weren't really raising the differences or saying oh she was Secretary of State so she's great on foreign policy but not actually looking what is the actual policy right and what

35:12kind of judgment would either of these individuals have when they're serving and that most important job of commander-in-chief and that was that was a very key difference and that was something I talked about a lot as I campaigned with Bernie around the country and and that was something that I saw and heard from people in you know big cities small towns Midwest north south east west people who appreciated just being told the truth well there was also the speeches that she gave where she wouldn't give up the transcripts for those gigantic came from a bank Wall Street yeah which is crazy that that's legal I mean that is essentially look there is no way she is so entertainment entertaining we're not talking about a jay-z concert or Kevin Hart isn't doing stand-up they paid her a quarter million dollars to talk for an hour like that's not real okay they're not really paying

36:11you a quarter million dollars cuz you're so awesome they really want you 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 I mean that is crazy yeah the fact that someone could play that off is if this is a legitimate business transaction that's nonsense yeah and and there's a direct correlation there though with with Wall Street big money in general as you're talking about that influence on politics I was talking with a guy whose what'd he call himself a recovering kind of finance guy from Wall Street who's left and has now come here to LA and and and he talked directly about that and we were talking about how even after 2008

37:02all the too-big-to-fail banks they were bailed out and people are suffering they're losing their homes or pensions and all of this stuff these banks are bigger today than they were back then and over time and and even over the last few years Congress is slowly and this is not just Republicans there are Democrats who are on the take too or taken this Wall Street money and you're starting to see these bills pass peeling away the very small amount of regulations that were put on after that crash to get us back to an even worse situation than we were back in 2000 why well how could we allow this to happen there's a ton of money that's coming from Wall Street and funding politicians campaigns lobbyists who are there helping to write the legislation or kill the bad bill and again who's who's talking about this no one right very few people how do you stop that though like how do you stop

37:55the funding their campaigns a and then the paid speeches be those two things alone if you could just cut that out and say no no you have to be legitimate I mean that love or hate Bernie Sanders you've got to respect the fact that guy never took any money from anybody that's right and he he said I'll give him all my transcripts cuz I don't have any I didn't get paid to do any speeches yeah and he's clean yeah I mean this is the reason why he can say that and Hillary just ignored it yeah I mean she just didn't who didn't respond she didn't say I'll give you the transcripts cuz all I said was I love America and we're gonna fix everything and you bankers are dirty you know it's just ya they don't pay you to call them names exactly but it's just so strange that they're that well it's not strange in terms of the real obvious benefit if you're gonna be a politician and you

38:46want to run for office it's incredibly expensive to win so you need some money so you have to make deals with people who are 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 yeah 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 realm that you that you have to go and kowtow to the corporate interests and the people with the big money in order to be able to fund a campaign in order to win so you can do good work for the people but also you kind of got you told these other guys you're gonna make them happy too I don't take any corporate PAC money or contributions from PACs or lobbyists or anything else and there are more candidates running this year there's

39:33over 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 well there's people giving five bucks people giving more if they can give more and that and they're winning there there are a number of candidates who are showing that they're out raising their opponents who are backed by PACs and lobbyists they're raising more money from people who are giving these small dollar contributions and proving that power balance where the people really do have the power if we stand up and get engaged and involved what do you attribute that to what's the change like what's what's causing this I think a big change happened when Bernie Sanders ran for president I think he did a lot better than he first expected that he would and the fact that he was able to raise in some cases more money than

40:26Hillary Clinton in certain quarters he was he was very competitive and all of that came from those small-dollar individual contributions you know he talked about it you know twenty seven dollars is the average contribution that he got and that was kind of a rallying cry at a lot of his events but people I think people through that experience really woke up to their own power in this democracy and that to have a true strong democracy it really does take us all doing our part in whatever way that we can if bernie called you up tomorrow and said i want you to be my vice president would you be down we'd have to have a conversation come on man well you know he can't I mean he can't run again if he doesn't win in 20 right yeah it means basically dude I mean unless someone invents some crazy new medical technology that reverses Aging you only have so much life in you yeah you own

41:24the end you can hang in there for eight years your wheels are spinning lady look I I 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 a lot of people said like what are you doing at 21 this is crazy but I I cared 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 who I felt were out of touch and joining the National Guard and later running for Congress I 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 well you definitely can make the most impact as vice president of the United States of America depends who you ask well if you ask me yeah thank you that your opinion I would say yeah I would say that's a pretty big platform all

42:29that that Pence guy you don't hear a peep out of that guy he's kind of hiding that's what you make of it I guess it's just like any job right it's you make of it but it's like isn't that a joke like if you want someone to disappear just elect them vice president I think that's a joke unless you want to be right that's a different story right right or House cards - yeah I think um that's next level yeah yeah they're gonna keep going I don't know I'm gonna kill that guy off somehow Oh somebody asked me when that that show for the first season came out like some of my family especially it 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 the whip in the house like there are some things in there like oh wow I've actually heard people say that

43:20mm-hmm but all that all the salacious stuff like I've had to comfort my moms like no I'm not like catching the subway late at night and Brian yeah well that's that's a little some of the top yeah that was a little ridiculous meet me by the subway yeah yeah spoiler yeah yeah but for a lot of people that is their education on politics yeah unfortunately but it's just such a complicated process if you're a person that has you know full-time job and a mortgage and kids and maybe you got a hobby and you're supposed to be paying attention to these people that are running the country we're running whatever it is running the Senate or anything political it's just too complicated it's tough like what you were talking about with these bills that get passed that have these hidden agendas deeply written into a thousand page document how can a person who has three kids and a mortgage

44:19and 40-plus hour week job plus commuting how can they pay attention all this no it's very hard and that's where you yeah and you know like I try to put stuff out on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram social media because most of us are on those platforms and as you're scrolling through like maybe you're gonna see that one thing like hey you know Congress just passed this bill making it you know deregulating fracking and liquid natural gas that's affecting your water in your air and connecting the dots between what can seem like very out of touch policy wonky things - okay how does this actually affect you your family your kids your house educate like the things that really do take up most of people's time and consciousness and care on it on a daily basis yeah 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

45:17people's confidence in the person that runs the big show is that 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 do you mean in terms of electronic voting like the Machine yes or yes I think overall people doubt whether or not their votes matter first of all did you see the documentary hacking democracy no I didn't it's fascinating and it was in regards to what what year was that I want to say it's 2008 was it eight six so it was about Bush and Kerry right wasn't that bush and gore was it bush and gore whatever it was both elections actually oh yeah okay but it showed how there is built-in third party access so

46:24it's literally built into the system right that a third party can influence the count yeah and they showed how they did it on the in the actual documentary they used these machines and influence the results yeah I mean it's what to speak of the the the DEFCON hacking conference that just happened or happens 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 changed the outcome of their election in less than 15 minutes there it is an 11 year old hacked into u.s. voting system relic in 10 minutes this weekend well that's American ingenuity ma'am that's what we do here we breed them young and smart that kid exactly right there's tons more tons more like her there's probably millions now I mean kids growing up with computers from the

47:27time they're little in learning coding like they're learning the English language and just like the drive and kind of the thought process and that that kind of desire to take things to them not just say okay okay this is an iPad this is how it works that's fine it's like oh how do we make the next the next generation of this yeah how do we break this and makes the next better thing but we can Bank online right yeah why can't they vote online why can't they make all this as secure as they do banking well you you still see every now and then in fraud well yeah there's Bank Fathers direct bank fraud but you also see banks get hacked yeah 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 right and when

48:23we're 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 a bill a few months ago based on last year's DEFCON hacking conference results that that really showed the best way to secure our elections some of the actual systems itself is either used paper ballots or have a voter verified paper backup if you're going to use an electronic system so you have an electronic system and then a voter verified paper backup right so if there's any dispute whatsoever then you go to the paper go to the payment they don't correspond you go to the paper yeah so in Hawaii for example you can

49:16choose when I go vote I can grab a paper ballot traditional or I can go to the the machine which I usually do go through and make my selections and before I hit the final submit ballot button there's a little printout 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 so Virginia just did this Virginia has off-year statewide elections so they had theirs in 2017 and after that defcon hacking conference happened last year they said we have to fix this before our election and they did how do that's what they implemented it they did paper ballots or they did paper about voter verified paper backups and their elections commissioners came and testified in Congress after the elections were done and they said that that was the first time in their entire careers that they didn't

50:13have a single complaint about the accuracy of the vote count itself were in previous years they had but they're proof that you can turn like you identify the problem this is not going to take years to fix like you can action that within weeks and actually secure the outcome of these elections that's what I've been pushing for in Congress especially as we head to these midterms especially as we head into 2020 but again it goes back to the point like my bill hasn't gotten a vote yet why is that's a very simple like non partisan bill here's a problem here's a solution we can action this now but you have leaders in both parties who are just continuing to fightin and fret 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

51:06actually solve it why do you think they don't solve it because it's issues like this that help with fundraising and they help kind of motivate people and they worry people and they bring all these fears about it's good for ratings it's all these different reasons that frustrate people frankly who know about it when they're not actually seeing you know deliver results you're talking about a problem now for months Congress has been talking about this for months where's the results so you think they they actively are ignoring the potential solutions or that they literally want to keep this problem going that's a good question but the the you know we have been talking about this a number of outside kind of election security experts have been talking about this some of the hackers have been talking about the fact that the only way you can secure an election is by using paper I

51:58cannot I cannot come up with an excuse for why the leaders in these committees and in Congress have not actually it's like whether it's my bill or someone else's bill why haven't they actually solved this because it's something that could potentially impact us in the coming weeks and months well I remember the hanging Chad yeah controversy yeah yeah and how many 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 had either the same name or similar names with people that had some sort of a criminal record if 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 deliberate because so much of it was taking place in democratic districts yeah it's um it's very disconcerting the idea that

52:56someone would try to rig an election yeah I mean we would like to think that that is an absolutely unamerican thing to think of but people can it is we can come up with very strange reasons for justification of very awful acts yeah and this seems to be one of them if they think their side is right well that that points to the super delegate issue the Democrats have been dealing with we're people who have been arguing to keep the system of super-delegates we're in a state like mine in Hawaii for example we've got four super delegate votes two for the members of Congress and two for the senator explain anthem people don't know what a super dos so this is something that is created by the political parties themselves so the Democratic Party has has been using the super delegate system where as people are running for president you have a certain number of delegates that go to

53:56one person or another based on that state's rules so some states say it's winner-take-all other states say that it's proportional so if you get 60% of the vote that means you get 60% of the delegates but then you have this special category of super-delegates which there are 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 at the state and the national level and so what we saw in in my state of Hawaii for example is over 70 percent of the voters voted for Bernie Sanders but out of those four super delegate votes he got one which is mine so the super-delegates don't have to cast their votes to reflect how the their constituents voted so kind of the rest of them vote they voted for Hillary so that puts you in a situation where and this is not about well Bernie would

55:01have won without super dough this is not even what that's about this is about really looking at people casting their votes and then you have this special group of people who are they're elected or appointed who can then say no I don't I don't agree with the way that the people in my state or my district voted so I'm just gonna vote the other way and then shift potentially the outcome of that election for that state or for the country so did it shift it for Hawaii yeah yeah so Hillary won Hawaii's super delegates but the people voted different and there was 70% of the people yeah for everything it wasn't close it was it was but she won all state and that was how how you saw so in some states where you know I think I don't know if Vermont there were there are 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

55:58number but if Bernie won the state his number was zero and then there was a certain number that was already built in to Hillary's count before the votes were even finally tallied because she had already had the declared support of those super-delegates within that state so the Republicans don't do this I think they may have super-delegates but those super-delegates are required to reflect the votes of their constituencies so they don't have the freedom to change their change their vote or change their mind but yeah this is this 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 the Democratic primary because I was another problem we saw across the country where people were turned away

56:52because in some cases well you didn't register with the party a year ago which is the requirement and so have open primaries and then you have same-day registration if you're not registered vote should be able to register to vote on the day of the election so that you can participate in our democracy those things seem so clear-cut that seems say I'm dry but the the the super delicate issue in particular it's that's so disturbing yeah that seems so dirty yeah 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 super-delegates from casting their their own free votes in the first ballot in a presidential convention so I don't know 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 as people are going and

57:51casting 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 who coming from all different backgrounds is there any resistance to getting rid of these super-delegates the resistance was very strong it was not a given that was going to pass at all people who are very very invested in this system it 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 it's it is it's it's so counterintuitive to what we stand for with our democracy yeah and I think there is I mean it's a fear of losing power I think ultimately is what it

58:44comes down to and you have people who said hey look I've given my life to the party you know I've put in all of this time and energy I'm a volunteer I'm doing this and all of that which all of that is is fine and it's great but that shouldn't make it so that like you know as myself as a super delegate I've talked about this I shouldn't have any my vote shouldn't count for any more than yours or anyone elses and that we should be strengthening and and empowering and 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 time I should have been now Bernie Sanders had to be fuming yeah I mean that from that and then from finding out the DNC actively conspired

59:38to have him lose the primary all of that sorry one last thing on the super dealer said that some of those who support it 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 hilarious yeah that is a hilarious justification oh you know better than the whole country you must be super smart yeah what can I test you have to take it super delicate to become a super delegate what do you have to do yeah it's certainly not a written test usually it's it's really I mean again you're either you're either an elected member 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 yeah so disrespectful to it's crazy to people it's really crazy yeah mmm so I mean

60:29that that's been I think a positive thing that has come through all of this is is more people are saying like you know I I honestly wasn't paying a bunch of attention to super-delegates before all this and a lot of people had their eyes opened up to say okay this is clearly wrong you know why was it there in the first place let's do something to fix the process well most people I don't think until this election the general public wasn't even aware that that was that that was the case yeah and then when you know people find out about they go wait wait what they can just decide to not vote the same way that people voted yeah and then the state can lose or I mean the person can lose the state even though 70 percent of the state voted for that person right that's insane yeah did you read Donna Brazil's book I didn't read the whole book I heard I got a excerpt excerpts from it and of it I was

61:22shocked that they conspired to have Hillary win the primaries I was more shocked that more people weren't outraged yeah what does that tell you it tells you that people have sort of resigned to the idea that this is a corrupt system yeah that they don't have time and me it goes back to what we're saying earlier that you know people are exhausted yeah most people most people are 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 yeah but 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 the how people can tell you can tell if you're being real or not or if you're selling them a false bill of goods I think they're better at it now

62:27yeah yeah yeah pay more attention well it's also this there's enough footage of people now that's yeah everybody's a reporter now yeah I mean it's it's easy to go back and you say but look at this interview from four years ago yeah when they were completely different like what happened I mean it's there's also like calculated maneuvers that people do politically to align themselves with one group or another where they realize like okay there's a lot of money and being a this that's of that you know there's a lot of money and being a whatever it is yeah Republican or Democrat or there's there's an angle for success right yeah that's um all of those different labels and things that people are capitalizing on within 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

63:18not branded with this label then I'm not going to talk to you I'm not going to have a conversation or it's this camp versus another camp this tribe versus another tribe rather than like 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 and areas where we agree we can agree to disagree on certain things we can do that with you know we in Hawaii call Aloha and with respect yeah 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 whoa is a universal basic income hmm have you

64:19studied this I'm studying it now 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's uh so yeah I'm taking a hard look at this because there there are strong arguments I think on on both sides we got to look and see what what would the effects actually be yeah I'm torn on it as well I'm very open to the idea of it because I think that we very well could run into a situation where millions of people are almost instantly out of jobs and there's no solution for that and then out of jobs by their choice or out of jobs by automation yes exactly their position right I mean this is a real problem yeah and and I don't think I don't think it's gonna I don't think it's kind of happened slowly right

65:16I think that problems gonna stumble onto us very quickly yeah and we are not prepared for this and then there's a problem psychologically people to 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 it people hustle mm-hmm and that you give a bunch of people money that they don't earn and they're gonna be lazy yeah this is the yeah there's different arguments and I think there's another one that points to if you look at how much how much taxpayer dollars are spent on like section 8 housing are different affordable housing programs on food stamps on 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

66:15instead of piecing it out through all of these different things and would we actually save money as a country by doing so and 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 is even if you make 10 million dollars a year you're gonna still get X amount of dollars per month as a universal basic income and you can choose to donate that to causes of your choice but if you're a person who's concerned that this is going to somehow another stifle people's motivation to get jobs because if you get a job then they won't get that money which is the case with welfare yeah right so the idea that you know you you it's very difficult to get someone when you're giving them free money to say look you're gonna have to work harder and then you're gonna get less mm-hmm

67:06they're gonna go why why would I work harder so the idea is and I believe Elon Musk is one of the ones that came up with this well don't take away the money like everybody gets it no matter what you could choose to do whatever you want with it but the way to incentivize action and productivity is to make that money just universally available to everyone yeah it's the universal aspect of of that yeah you know I mean I I kind of believe that I mean just culturally people and we were talking about these young kids for example you know I mean they're not getting one paid one thing or another but just their Drive and their interest in kind of their intellectual direction I don't know I think people 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 gotta

68:01our purpose is just to work in a job you may be broad in that spectrum to where your purpose in life is not just to work good-paying job but actually have meaning and purpose to what you're doing with your life that's best-case scenario yeah best case scenario with universal basic income is you give people the opportunity to pursue their dreams right yeah I mean I think that in in large part maybe the problem is planting the seed in young people at an early age that you're you're not supposed to just 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 how do you think you would best fit in in this world like what is your contribution what could you do and 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've

68:57got to get a college degree you've got to do this you've got to do that but really there's there's a lot more where 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 yeah 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 of 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 the spectrum here so that we're not so tunnel visioned more we're saying well you're gonna 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 so that you make lots of

69:42money and then you end up wasting your life wondering what the hell did I do with myself 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 we're not changing it and college education is essentially subsidized and you have so much money that these kids are in debt with by the time they graduate I 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 crazy and he's like when people talk about doctors and they talk about doctors being greedy he goes you have to understand that so many of them are struggling just to stay alive they're 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

70:29they have to do whether it's operations or whatever it is and that they're not considering the overall health and welfare of 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 it out always strengthen your body first before we do this or maybe we alter your diet and maybe not getting enough sleep let's take that into consideration and what kind of pills you want and how are they negatively affecting your health they don't have that time for that they have another person that's waiting and then another person that's waiting and to keep those people coming in because they need that money yeah yeah but that bananas it is and and that's where whether we're talking about the cost of education or the cost of health care for that matter when we look at technology

71:11and 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 our 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 they'll call 9-1-1 for that they're living out in the boonies somewhere and 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 this idea of para medicine that we're working on trying to build and actually change some federal policy to help support is really look out for what does this person actually

72:07need 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 him okay so you're not gonna be able to physically bring a social worker with you on all these calls like that's not how you're gonna economize your cost here he said oh no we bring an iPad with us so as a social worker at the clinic and then we can dial them in and they can FaceTime with the person whose house that we've gone to 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 services accessible to those who need them well that's a fantastic idea just to avoid the trips to the doctor or rudimentary things right but one of the things that Bernie Sanders brought up when he was

72:55running for president that I thought that was very very intriguing was the possibility of free education and you know 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 full education through university to degree do you think that's possible I think you know the I think it'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 whether it is

73:58education 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 well we we're gonna pay for everything without actually dealing with the fact that things are not affordable as they are well how did I 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 you'll 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 you're dead that is strange I mean it's 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 yes off of this right there they're just attached to it they've become addicted to this money right and this is a part of the

74:56system and they're profiting off of it and they don't want it to go away and somehow another they've talked someone into passing these laws that make these kids stuck with this bill no matter what happens in their life yeah you know getting a car accident no longer take care yourself tough and pay that bill mm-hmm I mean it's really mafia like yeah back into the financial industry yeah so it's it's really when you pull the veil back on kind of the crony capitalism that exists in this country then you start to see and connect how it really impacts 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 I and I don't know his bill chapter and verse but I believe it was

75:52focused on public colleges not private institutions and 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 but an inefficient system is gonna chew up a lot of your tax dollars so people were thinking their hard-earned dollars we're gonna go to some bureaucracy and a bunch of red tape and horseshit and too many people that are working doing too many different things just to try to keep jobs going yeah that's a fear right yeah that's the big Republican fear yeah the the ticular I mean you know I think the the focus on on Wall Street I think is is a very specific one however as you're looking at possible funding and 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

76:54to 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 uncontrolled manner we 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 they go through their 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 ramp in our communities like diabetes for example you're not seeing that connection where you have doctors who are trained even a little bit in nutrition and how connecting that kind of preventive medicine and using food food as medicine is not does not even

77:53play a partial role in a lot of the medicine the Western medicine that's delivered today it is strange but is this is this the business of the federal government to get involved in how doctors are educated I mean how do you fix that without getting your hands into everything because obviously we would like to believe that medical schools know more about how to raise doctors than you or I mm-hmm the 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 that it's affordable and to look at these preventive health measures I have yet to get a good answer from anyone in a medical school or in a in that field about why if I'm not even talking to a licensed nutrition professional but just

79:01having this basic education that will help them better take care of people why that doesn't exist well it's also bizarre that I mean it's such a complicated thing especially diet and nutrition it's so complicated that even nutritionists don't agree I mean you have at shirts in nutrition that I mean I'm having a bunch of debates coming up in the future two of them in at the end of this month one a vegan doctor versus a former vegan paleo scientist who believes that organ meat and 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 and low carbohydrate diets that are out there it's so hard yeah then there's the reality that every person physiologically varies yeah oh absolutely but I mean I'm just talking about like the basics sugar yes alcohol

79:59yes yeah and and there there are folks some friends of mine in Waimanalo in Hawaii who have a little cafe and a farm and their goal is to be able to feed healthy food to their community and so one of the things that they do is they identify people on the island who you know are dealing with like 30-plus year old guy who's dealing with major heart failures already and who's obese and dealing with weight and diabetes and all these other issues and helping people like him change their diet so they provide free meals to them for I think it was like three months and they have a doctor who's supervising and monitoring what the effect on their body is and my friend Malia she told me that one of these guys who came in she's like you know he should you should try to eat more salad in your die to eat at least once a day should have a salad he's like oh no problem i Mac salad every day like

80:56mayonnaise mopper oh nice a legitimately that he's like oh yeah no problem I came really mented it's like no price right so that that's I mean that's what I'm talk about the basic level of just like you know foods and you know cutting out sugar and you know minimizing fried foods like those kinds of things we can't take for granted that everybody just knows this ryan's by shooting you're brought up in a certain way or certain kind of culture or whatever that that may not be something that you're taught and really all of us right taxpayers is that you exactly less health care costs if you're preventing people from getting sick yeah then you are lowering the cost of highly escalating health care right and we're also looking out for each other because there's information that we're distributing this and you want to have your loved ones live longer and be

81:55healthier and not pretty thin quality guys my gosh you know just the time 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 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 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 now as a congresswoman what other bottlenecks are you seeing that you you you see in the system that you would like to change or 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

82:49agencies like the NSA and and 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 at and and supporting the same pieces of legislation to end the federal marijuana prohibition to deal with sentencing reform to deal with prison reform and to make it so that we're not constantly cycling these same people through our prison systems and that were not throwing people into already overcrowded prisons 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

83:56that this surveillance program is necessary to prevent terrorist activity does that make any sense to you 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 where 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 in mass by the NSA or other things we're seeing that because of the Patriot Act they're they're the loopholes that have been created that have allowed these agencies to exploit that there's also some weird rules where like if you get

85:08pulled over they can't ask you for your PIN number for your phone but they can use your thumbprint to access your phone hmm I didn't know about that one yeah see if that's accurate I'm pretty sure it is I 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 yeah 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 which are supposedly and credit you I'm sure yes yeah I mean why else would they have that unless I mean if you if you need a warrant to access someone's iPhone I mean you're gonna go to whatever federal jurisdiction that's involved in that yeah they would have some sort of device but police departments yeah let me get

86:01this technology how's it go I'm accurate yeah okay so they can access your phone with your thumbprint hmm so they can go give me your hand tulsi BAM and then they got into your phone oh look at pictures are you naked I'm gonna ignore those and I'm gonna look at this please can force you to use your fingerprint to unlock your phone like what how is that who it is no difference well the problem is and there's 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 look at the text messages and make a determination as to whether or not this person's involved in illegal activity without a judge right and a search warrant right that's crazy and without

86:51cause yeah I don't know if this is post Patriot Act is is because of this or is this just one of the things that happens sometimes is that technology accelerates 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 passed to try to help get that technology at 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 current it is it's against the law to open up someone else's mail mmm but it's not necessarily against a law to open up someone else's email that seems crazy because the law the law was written back when you know had whatever hand written letters or letters sent through the the US Postal Service was the only way people communicate it and it has not been

87:47updated to this day that seems crazy yeah 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 it seems an obvious conflict of interest 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 you know 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

88:50one of the one of the good news stories that actually has happened recently in Congress was we we passed this bill called the first step act that deals 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 the returning inmates are we're actually addressing what is it that is that you need to make so you don't keep coming back and that was something that faced some opposition 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 and the impact on families and communities and how you're criminalizing people others are more concerned about the

89:45fiscal 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 it's 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 it passed like I don't know there were over 300 members of 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 this situation how did how did this whole private prison thing happen before people even realized it took place 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

90:38think the sick part about it is that you have people who recognize that they could make money off of people who are going to jail I'm sure you're aware of that Pennsylvania judge who was sentenced who he was irresponsibly and wrongfully sentencing young PS to jail for profit yeah and so people would think well you know you're never gonna see that that's not gonna 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 yeah having people in your cell and when you look at all of the other impacts of that and and this is this is what I often talk about we talk about ending the federal marijuana prohibition yeah is look at how it is impacting the lives of those individuals who will not have a criminal record I'll follow them everywhere look at how it's impacting their children their

91:36family members their opportunities for their future and how these impacts are often very very long reaching and and 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 yeah that's the only thing that you're seeing or these states are voting for it because they realize there's massive amounts of tax dollars that they can make right I mean I think Colorado is thirty nine percent tax on recreational marijuana and people are like okay yeah like they just pay it yeah because it's even then it's still not that expensive that's true yeah it's what to speak of I mean that you know I the people who are actually benefiting from especially you know these kids with epilepsy and those with other medical disorders I've met

92:32with families in states like Iowa for example met with families met with their kids who you know they are breaking both state and federal law and in Iowa where even CBD products are not legal you know and so they're having to find ways to get it there and they're trying to fight 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 is a life-saving issue for their children well once you see people that have cancer that can't eat and they're going through chemotherapy and you realize that there's maybe one of the only things you can give someone they're given their appetite back when you see children that have severe autism and one of the only things that can stop their seizures is medical marijuana I mean do you realize there's so many different things that we could help

93:26people with it's not just about getting hot no no 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 because it's foolish absolutely and it's ancient I mean it's one of those really it we're stuck with these legacy laws that were perpetrated by people who were doing it just for profit and they mean it's not what this is a grand mystery the the writing is all we could read it all yeah we know exactly how it all took place we know why prohibition was enacted and it wasn't enacted to save the public it wasn't enacted because we were really worried about people because 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 whether it's just medical or full legalization there has proven to be a

94:14direct correlation to a drastic reduction in opioid related deaths in those states you know where people have access again either to medical or non-medical use of marijuana and you see it 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 who are 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 and their welfare and their well-being and meanwhile people are people are dying their lives are being ruined by it well then there's also things that are federally illegal like federally illegal like ibogaine which has an incredible result ratio in terms

95:10of getting people to kick addictions whether it's alcohol heroin pills there is 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 it's a Schedule one drug in America and it's it's one of the best examples I mean they're also using psilocybin 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 psilocybin in these clinicals situations where they're curing cigarettes heroin all these different addictions with different psychedelic drugs that are Schedule one interests 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

96:08with 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 or plants and they were thought to be something that would ruin your life and now they're real is realizing know these like many things can be used or abused and that there's their solutions for a lot of our problems yeah but there's a lot of resistance to this there's a lot of resistance in particular from I mean the resistance about CBD is one of the dumbest ones of all time yeah because CBD is non-addictive non-toxic Zach not her and 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 yeah Ted has never done anything with anything that had anything to do with hemp or marijuana and he's got bad knees so I

97:04got him rubbing CBD lotion on his knees he's like this stuff's a miracle Mike yeah here we go I mean if you could talk Ted Nugent into using CBD that's incredible for the world yeah but you just mentioned I mean whether it's CBD and hemp is another example that's something we're trying to do in Hawaii I think Kentucky I think is another state that's a leader in this slowly but surely doors standing up with that you realize it's not psychoactive it's incredibly beneficial whether it's for food whether it's for textiles whether that's for oil I mean there's so many benefits I mean you can there's a thing called hempcrete where they're making concrete concrete at a hand I've heard it's a lighter incredibly durable flame resistant there's so many benefits to it and it's so economically viable it's so cheap it's a weed right I mean and it grows it I don't know if you really well

97:53a hemp stock it's one of the most bizarre things because it is as hard as this oak and it's as light as styrofoam it's so weird it's such a it's an alien plants a very strange plant Wow but you know demonized for so long and one of the things that's kept it from being economically viable and is just people that don't want it to become a part of the competition yeah they just don't want to compete with it with whatever they're profiting from whether it's the people that are selling pain pills are the people that are using it for I mean it was initially made illegal because of paper yeah William Randolph Hearst got involved in it because he had paper mills right and you know he also owned newspapers so we started demonizing it to get people to think that if we made hemp legal we were gonna have people running around on the marijuana killing people and jump it out of windows yeah

98:43that's crazy we have I'm working with a Republican from Florida named Carlos corbello we just introduced a bill to essentially commissioned a study by the National Academy of Science made up of objective reports and other studies that have been done from states that have already legalized to one extent or 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 we're talking about healthcare economy or criminal justice and law enforcement 'ti do it that thats it's just that sits outside of the federal government because the challenge that we keep coming up against both at the federal level as well as at the state level in some cases is they say well there are no studies that show the benefits of what good will come about if you end the marijuana prohibition it's one example

99:46in 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 is a limited list of you know the ailments or whatever that you can yeah 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's 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 you know there's there's there's there's a long laundry

100:45list 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 here are the things that we need to address and improve in each of those but I think the 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 engage based on our common mission of serving the people serving the people of this country and you know that's something I to during my time in uniform serving the whole army national guard you got diverse people diverse opinions diverse ideas that ultimately you know we wear the same flag on our uniform and we are focused singularly on on that same purpose and mission and

101:45unfortunately 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 districts higher to go and work there and a lot of that comes from not having a basic level of respect or Aloha for each other as people and instead just saying hey it's us against them pick your label and that's where the battles are fought and and who suffers as a result of this the people who are suffering and we're 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 I try to bring that through in the work that I'm trying to do on these different issues in the conversations that we're having sometimes it means you talk with people who who you disagree with or you may have different ideas than they have

102:38about how you solve these problems but if even if you're able to come together on one thing then we can start to see problems actually being solved and delivering results well what I saw from you and video is exactly what I've seen from you in person you're a 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 here really appreciate it thanks so much tell people how to find you online I am on social media at Tulsi Gabbard in France where yeah all of those things and you can go to my website which is vote Tulsi com go there folk Tulsi thank you maybe should be President Aloha let's close with Aloha there you go