Joe Rogan Experience #1599 - Tulsi Gabbard

1. 0:02 – 2:01

   Life after Congress and the country’s escalating polarization

   1. NANarrator0:02

      (drum music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. TGTulsi Gabbard0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. NANarrator0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music plays)

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:14

      Hey. What's up, Tulsi?

   5. TGTulsi Gabbard0:15

      Good to see you, my friend.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:15

      Good to see you too. You got notes. Look at you, you're prepared.

   7. TGTulsi Gabbard0:18

      Yeah, you know-

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:18

      What are you, a congresswoman or something?

   9. TGTulsi Gabbard0:19

      ... I was just thinking ... Ah, something like that.

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:21

       (laughs)

   11. TGTulsi Gabbard0:21

       I was. I was.

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:22

       You were.

   13. TGTulsi Gabbard0:22

       (laughs)

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:22

       Does it feel weird to be a former congresswoman?

   15. TGTulsi Gabbard0:25

       (laughs) Um, I don't know. It's, it's, uh, it's a crazy time and I'm back in Hawaii. I'm getting a lot of surf in and (laughs) yoga, meditation, and yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan0:39

       Does it feel better?

   17. TGTulsi Gabbard0:40

       Y- Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, I'm, I'm so grateful to the people of Hawaii that I had the privilege of being able to serve them and represent them. Um, it's, it's getting crazier and crazier to see the divisiveness in the country and the divisiveness in Congress, and unfortunately, it's just getting worse. I mean, it, it seems to be getting progressively worse over the time that I've been there, but, but especially now.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:07

       It just ... The, the thing that really concerns me is that I don't see a way it turns around. Like, I don't ... I s- I don't see a method. I don't see a mechanism where this ship just goes (imitates screeching) and turns, turns back into the port of normal-ville.

   19. TGTulsi Gabbard1:22

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:22

       It seems like once the division becomes so strong and so polarizing, the other side wants to destroy the other side, and th- the two are in, in ... locked in mortal combat, and there's no recognition that we're all part of one gigantic continental community-

   21. TGTulsi Gabbard1:41

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:42

       ... called the United States. I mean, that, that's what it's supposed to be. We're supposed to be a part of this ... We're a country. We're supposed to be a part of a community.

   23. TGTulsi Gabbard1:49

       The United States of America.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:51

       Yeah. We're in the la- We're literally in a non- I mean, non- I don't wanna say completely non-violent, but semi-non-violent civil war.

   25. TGTulsi Gabbard1:59

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan2:00

       I mean, that's what it seems like.

2. 2:01 – 8:07

   How politicians, media, and social algorithms monetize conflict

   1. TGTulsi Gabbard2:01

      It's ... I mean, it, it's not rocket science on, on how and why we got here when you look at, uh, politicians, people in both parties, uh, capitalizing off of this divisiveness for fundraising for themselves, their campaigns, uh, their political parties, um, stoking these divisions so that they can win elections and so on. And then you have so much of the mainstream media doing the exact same thing. Uh, big tech and social media doing the exact same thing, stoking these divisions, fueling that fire because they figured out it gives them better ratings-

   2. JRJoe Rogan2:40

      Yeah.

   3. TGTulsi Gabbard2:40

      ... they get more eyeballs watching and, and same thing on social media. They start pushing, uh, so much of this divisive rhetoric towards people that that stokes more of these flames and gets more clicks and more attention and more views, which goes to kind of the heart of, okay, so how do we start to turn this ship? I mean, it comes down to ... It comes down to leadership. It comes down to who we as voters choose through our elections to lead us in this country, people not motivated by, uh, you know, their hunger for power, uh, and also, uh, making decisions about, you know, hey, where, where are we getting our information? How are we responding to kind of this divisive rhetoric and, and, and this hate?

   4. JRJoe Rogan3:23

      Yeah. I ... Uh, when I ... I'm in, I'm in the middle of Matt Taibbi's book, Hate, Inc., which is excellent.

   5. TGTulsi Gabbard3:27

      Mm. I haven't read it yet.

   6. JRJoe Rogan3:28

      It's very good. And, uh, although I sent him a, a message today. I'm like, "Why don't you read your own books?" 'Cause I'm listening to the audio.

   7. TGTulsi Gabbard3:34

      The audiobook.

   8. JRJoe Rogan3:35

      And it's some other dude-

   9. TGTulsi Gabbard3:36

      Those are always best, when the author reads their own book, right?

   10. JRJoe Rogan3:38

       Yes. That's what I think.

   11. TGTulsi Gabbard3:39

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan3:39

       Especially when it's someone who's distinct as Matt, like-

   13. TGTulsi Gabbard3:42

       Right.

   14. JRJoe Rogan3:43

       His voice is very ... I wanna hear him read it, but-

   15. TGTulsi Gabbard3:45

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan3:45

       It's probably annoying to do. But also I think a lot of the publishers don't want the authors to read it. They wanna hire a professional to do it.

   17. TGTulsi Gabbard3:52

       Really?

   18. JRJoe Rogan3:52

       Yeah. I've had friends that have written books that have encountered that.

   19. TGTulsi Gabbard3:55

       Hm.

   20. JRJoe Rogan3:55

       But anyway, the book is excellent and it sort of highlights how all these factors sort of coalesced together and created this tsunami of shit that we're living in right now.

   21. TGTulsi Gabbard4:06

       (laughs)

   22. JRJoe Rogan4:06

       And, uh, it's, it's ... It, it's g- It's really confusing because you could sit around i- with total peace of mind and try to imagine a way that this resolves itself, and I don't see it, other than, like you said, some spectacular leader, like someone who ... But even that, if you find someone, the, the other side will find some way to demonize them or, or distort their, their positions or, you know, take anything they've said out of context and paint them as the worst person that's ever lived. We, we live in this world of no nuance.

   23. TGTulsi Gabbard4:48

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan4:49

       We live in this world of clickbait and the social media algorithms that really fuel hate in the, the most spectacular way I think that our civilization has ever seen.

   25. TGTulsi Gabbard5:01

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan5:01

       I don't think we've ever seen, like, a force like social media, like the algorithms that people are locked into with Facebook and with all, all these other platforms that literally send all the things that piss you off your way.

   27. TGTulsi Gabbard5:15

       Mm-hmm.

   28. JRJoe Rogan5:16

       Because those are the things that we engage with more.

   29. TGTulsi Gabbard5:20

       Yeah. I agree. There, there's not been a phenomena like social media that our country, or the world for that matter, has, has dealt with before. Um, it's, it's gonna take more than just one phenomenal leader to unify the country, uh, and to start to deescalate the kinds of divisive tensions that we're seeing. It's gonna take a whole host of, uh, leaders at every level that we as voters choose to, to serve the people and to serve the best interests of the country and who will then take the kinds of legislative action necessary to start to reign in this, um, almost unlimited power that these big tech monopolies have to, to, uh, manipulate the information that people are seeing, the kinds of posts that people are ... you know, people are, are exposed to, again, without consideration for what the consequence is, but instead saying, "Hey, this will get the most clicks. This is how we can sell this information to get more ads and make money." Uh, and, and so on. And, and that's where I've seen ... As much as politicians today may complain about-... the censorship that they're seeing through Big Tech, um, and the kinds of power that they have, and this is on both sides of the aisle, how come they're not actually doing anything about it? They've held some hearings and they've done some things, but when you look at the legislative changes that, that can and should be made to this Section 230 provision that essentially gives Big Tech, um, legal immunity to do kinda whatever they want, um, wh- why aren't they doing something about it? And this is where you have leaders who take money from all these Big Tech monopolies and, and, you know, uh, raise money from them and all their friends for their campaigns and whatever. They're, they're almost beholden to them, and therefore, I don't expect that we'll see any action on, on meaningful reforms to, to address this unless we get new people in office or we say, you know, "Hey, you, you can't, you can't take money from these PACs." You, we've talked about this before, about the corrosive and corruptive influence that it has on leaders who are supposed to be serving the people.

   30. JRJoe Rogan7:30

       Yeah.
3. 8:07 – 13:05

   Big Tech power, Section 230, and the Parler deplatforming dilemma

   1. JRJoe Rogan8:07

      And this is the argument. And I see, I li- legitimately see both sides of it, because when this Parler ban thing came out-

   2. TGTulsi Gabbard8:14

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan8:14

      ... I was very concerned, but I was also concerned that Parler was allowing these people that were on there that were organizing violence. So if you- if there's no moderation at all and they're on and they're saying, "Hey, we're bringing pipe bombs," or I, I don't know what they were saying, but if they were saying something along those lines-

   4. TGTulsi Gabbard8:30

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan8:31

      ..."We're gonna attack the Capitol. We're gonna zip tie and kill every politician we have," like, aren't ... Y- you should probably do something about that.

   6. TGTulsi Gabbard8:39

      Yes.

   7. JRJoe Rogan8:39

      So where does the line get drawn as to what you censor and what you don't, what you report and what you don't?

   8. TGTulsi Gabbard8:45

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan8:45

      And the argument that Tim Cook laid out was that the things that were on Parler, the reason why they pulled it from the App Store, is that they need some moderation. That's what he was saying. And he was saying once they have that moderation, they'll, they'll be allowed back on the App Store, which seems fairly reasonable. The problem is it's kind of a slippery slope. Like, wh- okay, you, you take that out, threats of violence, you know, uh, plans of attacks on federal buildings, but then where does, where does that line get drawn?

   10. TGTulsi Gabbard9:16

       Mm-hmm.

   11. JRJoe Rogan9:16

       Like, when, when do you allow free speech to just reign? Is it, can you dock someone? 'Cause if, you know, can you ... Like, they don't, they don't censor anything at Parler, right?

   12. TGTulsi Gabbard9:27

       So I don't know the full extent of their rules, but I've listened to some of the interviews that the founder, uh, has done and the CEO has done over the last couple weeks, 'cause I shared the exact same concern that, um, deplatforming an app like Parler could very easily happen to any other entity that is trying to provide an alternative to the big, the, you know, the Facebooks-

   13. JRJoe Rogan9:52

       Yes.

   14. TGTulsi Gabbard9:52

       ... and the Twitters and the YouTubes and so on. What they have said is that they have, they had some jury system set up where they have like 100 people who sit on a virtual jury, where if a post is reported, this jury looks at it and makes that decision, is this protected speech under the First Amendment or not.

   15. JRJoe Rogan10:12

       Mm-hmm.

   16. TGTulsi Gabbard10:12

       And so what the founder of Parler said was basically that, um, if there were posts that were inciting imminent violence, they weren't up for longer than 24 hours and it was because they just got backlogged.

   17. JRJoe Rogan10:25

       Hmm.

   18. TGTulsi Gabbard10:25

       Like, there was more than they could handle, uh, in, in moderating it. This was what he said. I, I haven't, you know, verified all this or looked into it myself, but, um, that, that's the argument they're making. But, but the bigger argument is, whether it's Parler or this is happening on Facebook or Twitter or any other social platform, is the line is drawn on speech that is, uh, protected under the First Amendment. And as we're talking, uh, with this example, that is speech that, uh, is in- inciting imminent violence. That's, that's the precedence that's been set with the First Amendment and ruled by the Supreme Court as speech that is not protected under the First Amendment. Uh, and there are a few other, uh, uh, a few other examples on that. And I think that's, that's exactly what should happen, because under the law right now, this Section 230 that gives, um, these online companies legal immunity, the language specifically says that they have the power to remove, quote, "Objec- uh, otherwise objectionable content."

   19. JRJoe Rogan11:35

       What does that mean?

   20. TGTulsi Gabbard11:36

       Exactly. It can mean anything to anybody, whether it is protected under the First Amendment or not. And it's shocking. I don't know how that phrase was allowed to be passed into law, but it's there. So those two things are the things that can be changed very easily by law, amending that Section 230. Take away that provision that says that they can censor o- "objectionable" content.

   21. JRJoe Rogan12:05

       But God, so many-

   22. TGTulsi Gabbard12:06

       And take away-

   23. JRJoe Rogan12:07

       ... things are objectionable.

   24. TGTulsi Gabbard12:08

       R- r- but, you know, something objectionable to you may not be objectionable-

   25. JRJoe Rogan12:11

       Exactly.

   26. TGTulsi Gabbard12:11

       ... to me and vice versa.

   27. JRJoe Rogan12:12

       Exactly.

   28. TGTulsi Gabbard12:12

       That's the issue. And then change that line t- that, that basically says, uh ...If it is speech that is protected under the First Amendment, you don't touch it. If it's, if it's outside of the First Amendment, like the example that we're talking about, then you have the power to delete those posts. And, and there's, you know, decades of Supreme Court precedence that can be pointed to, uh, as the guideway for these tech companies to, to make those decisions of, "Okay, is this something that is a violation of the First Amendment or is not protected by the First Amendment or not?" That is, those are the reforms that I believe need to be made.

   29. JRJoe Rogan12:53

       Yeah, that is only reasonable.

   30. TGTulsi Gabbard12:55

       Right?
4. 13:05 – 17:58

   Foreign influence, bot campaigns, and the ‘Russian asset’ smear against Tulsi

   1. JRJoe Rogan13:05

      Another big fear of something like shutting down Parler, and now I'm gonna get, I'm gonna put on a tinfoil hat right now.

   2. TGTulsi Gabbard13:11

      (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan13:11

      Uh-huh. Is we know for a fact there are foreign actors, there are entities that specifically go onto social media with the purpose of stirring up controversy and causing disruption and, and, you know, having these fake conflicts. The Internet Research Agency in Russia is a, a fantastic example of this. It is only one of many, I'm sure, that exist in multiple different countries. Renee DiResta's work on this, and I know you've had an issue with her with something that they did, or her company had done about you previous to this, right?

   4. TGTulsi Gabbard13:51

      Yes. Uh, while I was campaigning for president, I believe they were cited as, um, a source essentially for stories saying that I was some kind of Russian asset. Essentially, that, that's really what the heart of it was.

   5. JRJoe Rogan14:05

      I know she had nothing to do with that, but this was before, I believe, she even became a part of that. What, how did they se- h- h- how do they set this story up? Like how does someone come up with a story that says that you are some sort of a Russian asset? Was this something that was posted on social media? Was this...

   6. TGTulsi Gabbard14:20

      Yeah, you know, it's, it's starts with people making, uh, unfounded accusations like that, people like Hillary Clinton, for example.

   7. JRJoe Rogan14:31

      Yeah.

   8. TGTulsi Gabbard14:31

      And having that accusation echoed in other parts of the media and by other so-called influential individuals. And, uh, I don't know, I think they're like, "Oh, well, we think that there are Russian bots that are helping Tulsi in her campaign." I have never seen any evidence or proof of that. Um, and, and that's, I think that, that really is, is what gets to the heart of it.

   9. JRJoe Rogan14:55

      Okay. But if there were Russian bots helping you, that doesn't mean that you had anything to do with that.

   10. TGTulsi Gabbard15:00

       Exactly.

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:00

       And I think there's probably Russian bots that are helping anyone who's contrary to something that they're opposed to. Like, like it, or someone, like if there, if, if there's a bunch of people that want Hillary Clinton to be president, I can guarantee you there's a bunch of people that don't. Now if there's a bunch of people that don't, they're gonna come up with a reason to support or enhance the, the profile of a person that's opposed to her.

   12. TGTulsi Gabbard15:29

       Mm-hmm.

   13. JRJoe Rogan15:29

       There's this weird manipulation that's going on with social media that was highlighted by Renee DiResta's work that is beyond, li- if you, if you think, oh, it's probably like a few, no, there's hundreds of thousands of posts they cited-

   14. TGTulsi Gabbard15:44

       Mm-hmm.

   15. JRJoe Rogan15:44

       ... that were done and there's millions of interactions. Like this, it has a significant effect of moving the needle, and it's memes and it's pages and they were doing this shit and they were manipulating people to try to cause conflict. And I'm sure there was some of that about every single candidate. And I don't think it's necessarily as much of supporting one individual candidate as another as it is causing conflict. And I think if they're lo- if Russia's playing this long game and China's playing this long game, which historically that's what, that's what they do, right? What they're wa- what they wanna do ultimately is get us at each other's necks. The best way to do that is to just raise up the conflict bar. Like is it at six now? Jack it up to nine. Let's, let's, let's get these fucking people to really hate each other. And that, if, if someone says, "Oh, Tulsi Gabbard's a, a Russian asset." Well, Jesus Christ, you served overseas twice, two separate occasions. You're a congresswoman for six years. Like this-

   16. TGTulsi Gabbard16:47

       Eight years.

   17. JRJoe Rogan16:47

       Excuse me, eight years.

   18. TGTulsi Gabbard16:48

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan16:48

       This is crazy. That's crazy talk. Like do, do you think she's an embedded spy that just like they, they planted it from the moment she was born in Hawaii? Like they said, "Oh, I got a plan. Let's take this little baby and groom her to be a Russian spy. And I got a good idea. Let's have her serve overseas and put her life in danger. Let's ha- let's have her help, uh, wo- wounded veterans when she's over there. Let's, let's have her exposed to the horrors of war so she comes out against these interventionist foreign policies that have led us into these countless endless wars." That's a good way to construct a Russian agent. Like that is, the every aspect of it-

   20. TGTulsi Gabbard17:24

       That is the tinfoil hat speaking.

   21. JRJoe Rogan17:25

       It's so fucking dumb.

   22. TGTulsi Gabbard17:27

       (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan17:27

       It is so, it's such a dumb thing to say. But they say it like it's nothing because it's one of those things, and I saw them say it on The View, like when Joy Behar's reading off her card. They say it like it's just a, it's a thing that you can say, like, like you're moving a chess piece. You know, like you're doing this and then I'll do that. Russian agent, how about that? You know, oh, you're a toady or you're a this or you're a that. And the, the lack of nuance in these conversations and the lack of understanding like what the, what is happening when you do things like this?

   24. TGTulsi Gabbard17:57

       Exactly. The consequences.

5. 17:58 – 24:25

   Free speech principles, government power, and the ‘double-edged sword’ of censorship

   1. JRJoe Rogan17:58

      The consequences are grave for, for all people because it, it's not, like this is what people have said about laws like and one of the things that people said about the Patriot Act is that, um, when Obama was, when they were talking about, uh, mass, mass surveillance and the, the things that Snowden revealed and some of the things that the NSA were doing.... if you got a guy in office that you love, like Obama, and you think it's gonna be fine because he's in office, understand-

   2. TGTulsi Gabbard18:27

      (thuds)

   3. JRJoe Rogan18:27

      ... that there's a guy that's probably gonna be there in four years or in eight years that is not gonna be your friend-

   4. TGTulsi Gabbard18:33

      Exactly.

   5. JRJoe Rogan18:34

      ... is not gonna be who you like, and he's gonna have access to those same laws. This is why it's so important that we not change these laws. This is why it's so important that we don't give the government massive ability to just look into your emails and listen to your voicemails.

   6. TGTulsi Gabbard18:47

      Yeah. And why it's so important for us, especially now, to stand up for freedom of speech-

   7. JRJoe Rogan18:52

      Yes.

   8. TGTulsi Gabbard18:53

      ... for freedom of the press, for that exact reason. And, and that's what's so, uh, disturbing about a lot of what we've seen (claps hands) starting to play out over the last week or two with an increasing call for people to say, "Well, you know, maybe we need to start shutting down certain, uh, new media entities that are promoting or saying things we don't like, or shutting down, uh, people's Twitter accounts because they're saying things that, that we don't like." Um, this is a double-edged sword, and you think that you're putting these things in place because, uh, y- you know, it, it's, it's a good thing, it's a good thing because you only wanna hear from people who you agree with. But as you said, those tables can very quickly, and will likely, turn-

   9. JRJoe Rogan19:38

      Very quickly.

   10. TGTulsi Gabbard19:38

       ... at some point.

   11. JRJoe Rogan19:39

       Very quickly.

   12. TGTulsi Gabbard19:40

       And if we don't take a stand for freedom of speech, freedom in this country, then, uh, the, the threats that we're experiencing, that some are experiencing, uh, this, this is a threat, this is a threat to us all. And that's something that I and, and, you know, friends of mine, I think all service members understand truly in our heart of hearts. We take that oath to support and defend the Constitution, um, so seriously that we are willing to give our lives to defend people's rights to free speech, whether we agree with that speech, uh, or not.

   13. JRJoe Rogan20:16

       And what I was getting into with this Parler thing is, we don't know where those threats emanated from, and, and they easily could be from foreign agents. Those things that people write, when you have an account and anyone can sign up for it-

   14. TGTulsi Gabbard20:29

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan20:29

       ... I guarantee you, some of the shit-stirring that led to the attack on the Capitol was coordinated by people that wanted to see chaos. Maybe d- uh, I mean, I'm sure a lot of it was people that really did believe that they were patriots, and there's a, there's a lot of simple-minded people. Like one of the things you're seeing about the people that were arrested, like the, the QAnon shaman who lives with his mom, who's posted an FBI pedophile theories on, on the internet. I mean, these, these people are out there, right? And they're easily duped and they're easily led, and they don't have a lot going on. And if somebody riles them up and then they have 30,000 or 300,000 of their fellow morons and they're all together, crazy shit can happen. So it's like, I don't know what the answer is. Because on one hand, like yeah, if there's an organizing place where these people are getting together and they're really planning to do something as horrific as what happened, w- well, you should probably stop that. But the problem is if you do shut that whole platform down because of these bad agents, you make it so that any platform can be shut down by any bad agents that come in and, and start doing something along those lines. So, if a new competitor to Facebook or a new competitor to Twitter comes along, the onl- the easy way to shut them down, you infiltrate them with scumbags. You, or real or created, you have these people that jump on board, whether it's Gab or Minds or any of these other alternative social media networks, and you can just flood the gates with hate, and then everyone's gonna be calling for them to be censored and shut down. And what you're essentially doing, you're reinforcing the monopoly that currently exists. It's a strange monopoly, like, like, like YouTube. YouTube has been great to me. I have no problems with YouTube. My issue is, it is very strange when there is one company that does something, like you can upload video to it, that becomes the predominant company on Earth.

   16. TGTulsi Gabbard22:30

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan22:30

       The one... And it's owned by Google?

   18. TGTulsi Gabbard22:32

       Mm-hmm.

   19. JRJoe Rogan22:32

       Like Jesus Christ, that is so crazy that one company has this thing that is, it's not simple in terms of technically, I'm sure it's very complicated, but as far as a concept of like, uh, you make a video, you upload it, this is a social network where anybody can upload their videos to. Why is there only one that's this big that has that kind of power?

   20. TGTulsi Gabbard22:51

       Well, you couple that with (laughs) the fact that it's owned by Google. So if I go online on Google and start searching for a video, who d- who's, who's video platform do you think is gonna pop up first?

   21. JRJoe Rogan23:04

       Yes.

   22. TGTulsi Gabbard23:05

       YouTube's.

   23. JRJoe Rogan23:05

       Exactly.

   24. TGTulsi Gabbard23:05

       And this is, this is Rumble's, rumble.com's big, uh, I think they're filing a lawsuit against Google right now for that reason, because rumble.com is, is maybe one of the, or I don't know how many alternatives to YouTube there are, but it is a alternative to YouTube, and they're alleging that Google is consistently, uh, ranking their own YouTube pages on videos much higher up in a Google search than they would rank a video that's hosted on, on rumble.com.

   25. JRJoe Rogan23:36

       (laughs)

   26. TGTulsi Gabbard23:36

       And, and that kind of power is, is why many (laughs) of us believe that these big tech companies need to be broken up, because you, you, you do have essentially a monopoly that is difficult, if not impossible, to break through.

   27. JRJoe Rogan23:49

       Yeah, that's crazy that they're so intertwined like that, and also crazy that I've never even heard of Rumble before.

   28. TGTulsi Gabbard23:54

       I didn't either, until like a week ago, and then I saw a headline that rumble.com is suing Google. And I, I clicked, I like, "Hmm, this is interesting." And I, I, uh, heard an interview with the, it's a, it's a Canadian company.

   29. JRJoe Rogan24:06

       Mm-hmm.

   30. TGTulsi Gabbard24:06

       And they do, it's essentially the same thing that Google does. They got something a little bit different that they deal with copyrights differently or something like that. But, um...... yeah. It, I, I, I sort of, "What is rumble.com?" Then I started looking up and, and figuring out who they are and what they do. But it's very telling that, uh, not a whole lot of people know who they are.

6. 24:25 – 28:32

   Search suppression, anonymity vs accountability, and online ‘keyboard warrior’ behavior

   1. JRJoe Rogan24:25

      Well, it's ... You know, I, I started using DuckDuckGo-

   2. TGTulsi Gabbard24:28

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan24:29

      And, uh, it's, uh, it's interesting when you look for something on Google and you cannot find it.

   4. TGTulsi Gabbard24:35

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan24:35

      And then you look for it on DuckDuckGo, and it's there right away.

   6. TGTulsi Gabbard24:38

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan24:39

      I was looking for the story of the doctor in Florida who took a COVID vaccine and died very quickly.

   8. TGTulsi Gabbard24:46

      Hmm.

   9. JRJoe Rogan24:46

      And, uh, a relatively healthy, 50-something-year-old doctor. And, you know, it's an anomaly, it's rare, but rare things happen when people take medications. It's just part of medicine. They were hiding it on Google. You could not find it.

   10. TGTulsi Gabbard25:02

       Wow.

   11. JRJoe Rogan25:02

       I was putting in all the keywords, the guy's name. Uh, I, I couldn't remember the guy's name. Uh, uh, the guy's age, Florida, doctor, vaccine, death. All these different things, couldn't find it.

   12. TGTulsi Gabbard25:13

       Hmm.

   13. JRJoe Rogan25:13

       DuckDuckGo (snaps fingers) , right away.

   14. TGTulsi Gabbard25:15

       You usually ... Yeah. Usually those would be enough indicators for you to, to get the right story-

   15. JRJoe Rogan25:18

       Yeah.

   16. TGTulsi Gabbard25:18

       ... or something close to it.

   17. JRJoe Rogan25:19

       No. I mean, I mean, these were like NBC News, a bunch of different, like, you know, local publications that were ... that highlighted the story-

   18. TGTulsi Gabbard25:28

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan25:28

       ... couldn't find it on Google.

   20. TGTulsi Gabbard25:29

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan25:29

       So they were trying to suppress any information that would lead people to not want to take the vaccine.

   22. TGTulsi Gabbard25:37

       Mm-hmm. Interesting.

   23. JRJoe Rogan25:38

       Which is, you know-

   24. TGTulsi Gabbard25:39

       Also dangerous.

   25. JRJoe Rogan25:40

       Yeah, it's ... Ah.

   26. TGTulsi Gabbard25:41

       Also dangerous. That, that even people who are merely asking questions-

   27. JRJoe Rogan25:45

       Yeah.

   28. TGTulsi Gabbard25:46

       ... just trying to get information.

   29. JRJoe Rogan25:47

       Or just a news story.

   30. TGTulsi Gabbard25:48

       Right.
7. 28:32 – 32:34

   Inside Congress: ‘high school’ culture, party discipline, and PAC-driven priorities

   1. JRJoe Rogan28:32

      Yeah. It's, um ... Was it disappointing, like being on Congr- in Congress and, and seeing that kind of behavior? Like, if you have this ideal of what a representative of our democracy-

   2. TGTulsi Gabbard28:46

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan28:46

      ... is supposed to be, and then seeing people that are petty and that are sneaky and doing little ... Wasn't-

   4. TGTulsi Gabbard28:54

      This was my first impression, getting elected. Uh, got elected 2012, got there and sworn in in January of 2013. And, uh, I remember, um, calling home. I think I was talking to my, my family, my parents or somebody, and I was like, "This place is like high school." Even on the House floor, that that's the only time we're all together, usually for votes. And you've got everybody, all 435 members there, and you see the little cliques gathering in their designated corners, like the cafeteria tables and, uh, you know, one clique is kind of, you know, giving the mean girl side-eye to the other clique, and like, "Oh, if you're with ... You're hanging out on that side of the room with those people? What's wrong with you?"

   5. JRJoe Rogan29:36

      Really?

   6. TGTulsi Gabbard29:37

      Yeah, man. It's-

   7. JRJoe Rogan29:39

      (laughs)

   8. TGTulsi Gabbard29:39

      ... it's ... I mean, it's, it's funny but it's so terrible when you understand that this is the power base for decision-making in our country. And you're like, "How is this even possible?" It's possible because so often people will vote for a candidate because, like, they have a really cool ad on TV or, like-

   9. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      Mm-hmm.

   10. TGTulsi Gabbard30:00

       ... "Yeah, that, that person, you know, is a good-looking guy or a good-looking girl" or, "They talk good, they talk nice. Sounds smart. Yeah, all right." Check. Rather than like, "All right. What are your capabilities? What are your qualifications?" Like, what kind of judgment will you exercise in making decisions that affect literally every single aspect of our lives as Americans in this country? And so it's terrible that we have-... um, this kind of makeup in our, in our government. But also, like, we as voters have to do a, a much ... The power is in our hands, ultimately, in how we're making decisions, uh, in choosing who gets to work for us. And not forgetting that. Not forgetting that those people who work in the United States capital, they work for us when it comes right down to it. And so we have the power to hire and fire.

   11. JRJoe Rogan30:56

       I think that people have developed such a sophisticated way of manipulating folks that r- the, the thing about running for office, uh, particularly running for president, it's, it's one of the weirdest things where the most important job ever-

   12. TGTulsi Gabbard31:15

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan31:16

       You don't have to be qualified, you just have to be chosen. So you don't have to have any experience in government. You don't even really have to know how government works. All you have to do is get enough people that are willing to give you a try, and you can have the nuclear football. Like, uh, not saying Trump, I'm not saying Biden, but s-

   14. TGTulsi Gabbard31:37

       Mm-hmm.

   15. JRJoe Rogan31:37

       ... if someone comes along, some ridiculously popular person that knows absolutely nothing about government, but they're like, "Justin Bieber? He wants to be president? I fucking love that guy."

   16. TGTulsi Gabbard31:49

       (laughs)

   17. JRJoe Rogan31:49

       Like, that is not outside of the realm of possibility.

   18. TGTulsi Gabbard31:54

       Ugh. No.

   19. JRJoe Rogan31:54

       All you ... If y- if, if you have some incredibly charismatic person and you, uh, you like them over Marco Rubio-

   20. TGTulsi Gabbard32:01

       Mm-hmm.

   21. JRJoe Rogan32:02

       ... or whoever the fuck it is, Ted Cruz. And you're like, "Ah, well that guy sucks. This guy can sing his ass off."

   22. TGTulsi Gabbard32:07

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan32:07

       "Let's go with him." Like, but you're literally giving someone the power to run the greatest army the world has ever known.

   24. TGTulsi Gabbard32:14

       Mm-hmm.

   25. JRJoe Rogan32:15

       The, the, the most insanely technologically advanced civilization on earth, and the one with the most weapons, you're gonna let a person who wins a popularity contest ... They can run this.

   26. TGTulsi Gabbard32:28

       Yeah, man.

   27. JRJoe Rogan32:29

       Right?

   28. TGTulsi Gabbard32:29

       I mean, and I, I lived through this.

   29. JRJoe Rogan32:30

       (laughs)

   30. TGTulsi Gabbard32:30

       I literally just lived through this.
8. 32:34 – 54:45

   Why her presidential run was attacked—and the Hawaii missile alert that motivated it

   1. TGTulsi Gabbard32:34

      (laughs) Well, people, first of all, need to kinda have the veil lifted-

   2. JRJoe Rogan32:39

      Yes.

   3. TGTulsi Gabbard32:39

      ... on, on, on what this is and how both political parties play into this and the media plays into this. You know, I saw from, from the very day that I announced my candidacy for president ... You know, I ran for president on, uh, out of concern of, of some very real issues that our country is facing, wanting to bring voice to those issues and actually do something about it. Uh, the, the, the rise of, of North Korea's nuclear capabilities, for example, and how we in Hawaii lived through the reality of that threat when we got that, that missile alert-

   4. JRJoe Rogan33:15

      Yeah.

   5. TGTulsi Gabbard33:15

      ... that came through, that caused, you know, families to, to go and, like-

   6. JRJoe Rogan33:19

      Tell people about that real quick if they forgot about it.

   7. TGTulsi Gabbard33:20

      So, so this was January 2019. Uh, early one Saturday morning, the civil defense alert system on our state sent out a text message to every cellphone in the state, blared warnings on the radios, uh, the, the sirens on television saying, uh, "Missile incoming to Hawaii. Uh, this is not a drill. Take shelter. This is not a drill." And so the response to that was like, "Holy shit, this could be the end." An incoming missile to Hawaii from North Korea would literally mean the destruction not only of Hawaii but the, the aftermath and everything else wou- would imp- have, have a much, much bigger impact. So that's how people responded, you know, grabbing their little kids and running in ... Like, where do you take shelter? Like, going into the bathtub and hunkering down? There was a, uh, a father ... It was a video of a father who got his, like, little eight-year-old daughter and lowered her down a manhole and was, was ... I, I think he said something in the video like, "If we survive this, try to come find me."

   8. JRJoe Rogan34:35

      Oof.

   9. TGTulsi Gabbard34:36

      And there, there are countless other stories of, of-

   10. JRJoe Rogan34:41

       God.

   11. TGTulsi Gabbard34:41

       Uh, I, I heard from, from a father who he had one child who was in Downtown Honolulu. The other was on the west side of Oahu, which is a good 45-minute drive, and he was physically in the middle. And, and in those moments, he was sitting there knowing he had minutes to live, trying to decide which child he was gonna go and drive to and spend those last minutes of life with. (sighs) The seriousness of this is something that has and continues to be lost on the leaders of our country, and this was one of the main reasons that I ran for president so that I could do something to make sure that no other American, no other family went through what we went through in Hawaii on that day. I announced my candidacy for president so that we can talk about these very serious issues, and on day one, immediately, literally that very day within minutes, mainstream media starts attacking. That's when the whole Russian asset thing began. The seeds were planted to say, "Oh, she's some kind of suspicious candidate, you better watch out." The smears started, the building of this caricature of, of me as something that has nothing to do with who I am, my experience, my background, my capabilities, what I'm advocating for. Nope, the media didn't wanna talk about that. The, the, the other candidates didn't wanna talk about it. Going on the debate stage, thinking, "Okay, I'm gonna ... This is a national stage to be able to raise these very serious issues about the, the, the nuclear threat that our country faces, this new Cold War, and what we need to do to walk back away from the brink of nuclear catastrophe."... nobody wants to talk about it. They wanna go towards the, the superficial attacks, they wanna go towards the he said versus she said, and ultimately the things that will cause ratings to go up and that will further this, this popularity contest that you're talking about, which ultimately all of this is the ultimate disservice to voters, because it takes away their ability to make this informed decision about who should hold the nuclear football and what experience they bring, what kind of judgment they would bring, what kind of foresight they bring to this most powerful and important job, uh, and responsibility.

   12. JRJoe Rogan37:14

       Now, having had the moment to step back away now that a- all is said and done and time has passed, what do you think was the catalyst? Like, why did they immediately attack you? Because I've talked to you about this before, I've talked openly about this before. If you want a woman president, you got one right there.

   13. TGTulsi Gabbard37:35

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan37:35

       I mean, you're, you're, you're talking about, again, a, a woman who's served twice overseas, congresswoman, all these great accolades, you're a- an attractive woman, you're very well-spoken. Like, wha- what's, what's missing? Th- y- I don't ... I didn't understand. I'm like, "What is it about you that they decided they were going to attack?" 'Cause as, as, as much as they could try, the biggest thing they had was this Russian asset shit.

   15. TGTulsi Gabbard38:02

       Mm-hmm.

   16. JRJoe Rogan38:03

       So it's like this mysterious f- like, uh, this, like, foggy thing, like maybe she's an asset to Russia. That was the best thing they could come up with, as much as they were trying to attack you. So what, what was it about you where ... What was it where they felt like you were a threat? What was it about you? Was it that you weren't willing to play games? Was it, was it that you weren't ... y- y- y- you weren't beholden to the party line? Like, what is it?

   17. TGTulsi Gabbard38:30

       So, so they plant, they plant those seeds of doubt to try to get people to be like, "Meh, I don't know about her. I don't know. I don't know if we can trust her."

   18. JRJoe Rogan38:39

       But why ... But why would they do that to you?

   19. TGTulsi Gabbard38:40

       Well, they refuse to e- engage on the substance, to argue against or agree with, with what I'm saying, um, first of all, and, and second of all, my track record throughout my time serving in Congress pointed to the fact that I'm not willing to play their game, I'm not willing to be anybody's puppet, um, that I will speak out for ending these costly destructive regime change wars, I will speak out for ending this, this new cold war and nuclear arms race that is literally threatening humanity, the American people, our country and humanity on, on this planet if it's allowed to continue down the road that we are on, that I'm not taking the money that's coming from all of these different corporate PACs, uh, and, and the political party leadership that, that they are all in bed with, that ultimately my goal and my, my motivation is to be a voice for and to serve the American people and actually speak the truth.

   20. JRJoe Rogan39:52

       Do you think that it's the unwillingness to take money from PACs?

   21. TGTulsi Gabbard39:57

       I think it's a combination of all, all of those things that, that lead to the r- to, to, um, the fact that I'm not going to dance their dance, I'm not gonna play their game. I, I will not be controlled by anybody else, whether it's the, the political leadership, the corporate leadership, or, or whoever it is that's coming in and, uh, often has words saying, "Ah, you know, I don't know. If, if you do that, you might ruin our chances to win in the next election. If you do that, then you might, uh, you might make it so that this big defense contractor isn't gonna write a big check to fund the convention," or, or whatever the case may be. And those are very real conversations that happen in Washington all the time.

   22. JRJoe Rogan40:39

       Have you had these conversations with people?

   23. TGTulsi Gabbard40:42

       I have been ... I, I have not directly been, um, threatened with that or had those conversations 'cause I don't take their money.

   24. JRJoe Rogan40:49

       D- d- but ... So they probably look at you like-

   25. TGTulsi Gabbard40:52

       But I've, I've been in the rooms where they have those conversations arou- yeah, I was vice chair of the DNC.

   26. JRJoe Rogan40:56

       Right.

   27. TGTulsi Gabbard40:57

       So when, when they're looking at, uh, "Okay, we gotta raise X amount of money for either this, this campaign, this race, or for the convention," that is a multimillion dollar kind of, um ... I mean, it, it kind of should be like NASCAR where they should have posters up all over the place saying, "Hey guys, these are the corporations that are paying for this thing that's supposed to be kind of one of the hallmarks of, of our, of our democracy so that voters can actually see what's behind it."

   28. JRJoe Rogan41:26

       Yeah, somebody had that in a comedy sketch, right? Where ... Or was it Robin Williams or someone? I forget who it was who had about their jackets should have some-

   29. TGTulsi Gabbard41:32

       Oh, totally.

   30. JRJoe Rogan41:33

       ... labels on them, just like a NASCAR car does.
9. 54:45 – 1:07:33

   Trump-era profit cycle, neglected crises, and a push to move beyond ‘Trump consciousness’

   1. JRJoe Rogan54:45

      I mean, cable news is where the meat is, right? That's where the, that's- that's where the real battle's going down and you- you have two entities. And one of the things that, uh, Taibbi outlines so well in his book is what went wrong with the Trump thing, is that initially Trump was this buffoon who was running for president, who was saying a bunch of crazy shit, and everybody thought he was not going to win. And so, they would highlight how ridiculous he was, thinking that what that would do was goi- it was gonna make people dismiss him as a- a- a real candidate.

   2. TGTulsi Gabbard55:18

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan55:18

      And even, you know, respectable newspapers and, uh, respectable television shows like CNN and The New York Times were saying, "Hillary Clinton's like 96% likely to win." So, they had put all of this emphasis on what an idiot Trump was, they had highlighted all the outrageous things he was saying, they went- they showed the videos from all of his rallies. And what they had done was they had inadvertently given him massive amounts of publicity, and they painted him as a buffoon. Then he wins. And then once he wins, they shifted gears. They go, "Okay, we have to change and now just attack him at every turn." And during that time, this is th- one of the things in the book where they're describing the record profits they were making, because it's extremely profitable to put something on television that everybody's watching. Right? If everybody's- if Trump is saying, "Mexicans are all rapists," everybody's like, "Holy shit, he said what?" And the ratings would go up. So, every time he would say something ridiculous like that, they would make money. And then the money went from that to the money got made in highlighting everything that's wrong with him.

   4. TGTulsi Gabbard56:30

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan56:30

      And then the- the money came from turning him into this, it wasn't that hard, but turning him to this mega villain, right? And then the money on Fox was highlighting the- the- the l- how bad the liberals were, highlighting how ridiculous they were being about, uh, all the different, how Trump derangement syndrome is ruining our democracy. And to watch those two things play out against each other simultaneously, it's a wild thing to see.

   6. TGTulsi Gabbard57:00

      A- and, I mean, the- the politicians were doing the same thing.

   7. JRJoe Rogan57:03

      Yes.

   8. TGTulsi Gabbard57:03

      You know, you- you just pointed out, you've got cable news that hates Trump, cable news that loves Trump. The same thing th- they're- they're doing all that they're doing, ultimately, for ratings.

   9. JRJoe Rogan57:12

      Yeah.

   10. TGTulsi Gabbard57:12

       More money. You have the same thing happening in Washington with one party that hates Trump, the other party that loves Trump. And using all of this fodder, um, you know, reporting like historic levels of fundraising for their party and one party or another, all of it centered around this, um, this Trump consciousness, this- this obsession with- with Trump every single day. And we've, you know, we've gone through this now for not only the last four years, you- you go back to the campaign, you could say the last five, six years that we as a country have lived through this, uh, profiting essentially off of Trumpism. And meanwhile, while this is happening, um, there are incredibly important issues that are not being talked about, not being reported on, not being acted on by Congress. Uh, you look to North Korea, for example. North Korea has, over this period, been increasing their nuclear capabilities to the point where now they have nuclear submarines. You have this- this, uh, uh, basically tearing up and- and destroying these, um, nuclear non-proliferate- nonproliferation treaties that are supposed to keep us and the world more safe from a potential nuclear war. Those- those are all gone, and there's a nuclear arms race that is ensuing now, and a new cold war between the US and Russia and China, these two other nuclear armed countries. You have, um, you know, our- our- our, uh, agriculture, our- our- our environment. You have, you know, bees and bugs and butterflies now being destroyed and posing a great threat to our ability to grow crops, not only here, but- but around the world. There are so many different issu- very, very real serious issues. Have you heard much about that at all over the last few years? No. Have you seen action by Congress to address these very real issues? No. Why? It's because they're all looking at, "Hey, how do we profit off of- off of Trump?" So, I think today is the perfect day (laughs) to leave this Trumpism, this Trump consciousness, this obsession behind, and focus on the future, focus on these real issues. Focus on these real challenges, and how we as a country need to come together, uh, to be able to solve them, and- and not contribute to, um, not contribute to the mess and the destruction and- and the- the nonsense that we've seen play out over- over these last several years.

   11. JRJoe Rogan59:47

       I don't see... I agree with you wholeheartedly.

   12. TGTulsi Gabbard59:49

       Because they're gonna try to play it out longer, 'cause I'll bet you anything people are sitting around in these cable newsrooms right now saying like, "Oh, shit, how are we gonna make money?" Like-

   13. JRJoe Rogan59:57

       Right.

   14. TGTulsi Gabbard59:58

       ... "What- what are we gonna focus on now? What are we gonna talk about now?" And, uh, yeah, I just, I think the more, the more of us who choose not to contribute, to be a part of that and contribute to that and lend our eyeballs or our mind or our time to that, uh, the more quickly we can try to force the conversation towards things that actually matter to us.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:00:18

       Yeah, I completely agree with you, but I don't see anybody else agreeing with you (laughs) .

   16. TGTulsi Gabbard1:00:23

       (laughs)

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:00:23

       This is what bothers me the most.

   18. TGTulsi Gabbard1:00:24

       There's more-

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:00:25

       You- this is not a-

   20. TGTulsi Gabbard1:00:25

       ... of us than them, though.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:00:26

       I think you're right.

   22. TGTulsi Gabbard1:00:26

       That- that's the thing (laughs) .

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:00:27

       But it's not a popular thing that gets distributed. It's not a popular-

   24. TGTulsi Gabbard1:00:30

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:00:30

       ... thing that gets th- th- that, it's not out there.

   26. TGTulsi Gabbard1:00:32

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:00:33

       This is not, you know-

   28. TGTulsi Gabbard1:00:33

       Well, you have a pretty, you- you got a lotta, you got a lotta eyeballs and ears on your platform, sir. So, I think we can spark something...

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:00:40

       I hope so.

   30. TGTulsi Gabbard1:00:40

       ... to make- make, really seriously, make some real change and point-... take the spotlight away from where it's been and focus it where it should be, which is on, on the people-
10. 1:07:33 – 1:18:07

    Election trust, narratives of fraud, and the case for paper-backed voting systems

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:07:33

       Yeah. I mean, w- it would be wonderful if we all got together united and said, "Let's wish him well. And let's, let's, uh, cheer him on and hope he does a fantastic job." And all of you Trump supporters who th- thought that he was a puppet of the institution, ha- wish him well. Like, what are, what-

    2. TGTulsi Gabbard1:07:53

       For our country's sake.

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:07:54

       ... be happy, be happy if he's, if he's right and you were wrong. My concern is that one of the things that Trump did that was really disturbing was this, this narrative that the elections were stolen and that he won by a landslide, and even using certain things as an example that were easily disproven. Like, one of the things that he uses an example, Kyle Kulinski actually discussed it on the show. We did an election day show and Kyle Kulinski was explaining Pennsylvania and he said, "The way Pennsylvania works is the first votes they count are the walk up votes, the people that actually go to the polls. Those votes are going to be m- they're gonna lean heavy in Trump's favor because he's put out this narrative, 'Go vote in person.' Whereas the Democrats have put out this narrative to mail in your vote. So the first votes that get counted are gonna be the, the votes of the people that walk up, it's gonna skew heavily towards Trump. But then once they count those and they start count- start counting the mail in votes, it's gonna lean much heavier towards Biden." And people are gonna call shenanigans, but this is why it's happening. So Kyle Kulinski lays this all out on the show day of the election.

    4. TGTulsi Gabbard1:09:08

       Right.

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:09:08

       It plays out exactly, exactly like he said. Trump was way ahead, then they start counting in the mail in votes, the mail in votes lean very heavily towards Biden, Biden ultimately w- winds up winning. But the way Trump describes it is if it's this grand scheme, "We go to bed and all of a sudden, you know, we go to bed way ahead and then all of a sudden they magically find all these votes and then it leans towards Biden." Like, no, no, no, no, no, this is how it was going to go. If you are a political pundit and you understand the system and how it works, this was how it's gonna go. So all the people that are the same people that, "Oh, I heard she's a Russian asset," the people that give a cursory examination of all these different things, that don't have the time to go on these deep dives...

    6. TGTulsi Gabbard1:09:50

       (laughs)

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:09:50

       They're all gonna hear that story and go, "Did you hear what they did in Pennsylvania? Those sons of bitches. In the middle of the night, they came in with trucks of fucking ballots and all went to Biden mysteriously." Or the thing that happened in Georgia when they were saying, "Oh, they were hiding ballots underneath the table and then when the, when the people that were observing left, then they pulled the ballots out." But no, you hear from the actual Georgia official and he goes, "That's not what happened at all." Here, you can see them bringing, here's the video of them bringing in those ballots, they store 'em under the table because you got a limited arou- uh, limited amount of room to move. They stored it under the table in clear view of these observers. They were told that they were going to go home and then they got a phone call saying, "No, you need to keep, keep counting." So after these people left, that's when they get the call and they say, "Okay, let's keep counting." So they pull those ballots out. But it gets talked about by Rudy Giuliani and all these other people like-

    8. TGTulsi Gabbard1:10:45

       Yeah.

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:10:45

       ... "Oh, this is this nefarious plot, they hid these ballots underneath the table." And if you're just looking at the video footage from a surveillance camera and you don't know exactly what happened, that scenario makes sense to you. So there's so many people that have this distorted perception of what went down and they really believe that this was all stolen. Now, here's another problem. The amount of voter fraud is not zero. It's never zero.

    10. TGTulsi Gabbard1:11:12

        That's true.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:11:13

        It's not zero. So if you ask somebody, "Is there any voter fraud?" They have to say yes, because it is, there's some voter fraud. There's probably voter fraud left and there's probably voter fraud right. And Nancy Pelosi was saying that the election was rigged in 2016, she was saying that it was a scam, she put it on her Twitter. This is the same exact thing that Republicans are doing today and they're calling for them to resign from Congress.

    12. TGTulsi Gabbard1:11:37

        So, um, you see how political parties use certain narratives to their advantage-

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:11:44

        Yes.

    14. TGTulsi Gabbard1:11:45

        ... depending on if it is. If, if it's, if it's, uh, if it's their name, their party, their candidate that's on the block, uh, or not. And, and again, this goes back to how dangerous this, uh, hyper-partisan divisiveness is when you've got people in positions of power and influence, um, manipulating the narrative according to serve their own interest. The hypocrisy of, of this is very evident, and the hypocrisy of these same leaders in talking up a big st- or making a big stink about these things when it serves their interest, but turning a blind eye when it doesn't-

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:12:26

        Yes.

    16. TGTulsi Gabbard1:12:27

        ... is also very real. And again, like, this is where we have the opportunity to hold people accountable. Um, there is a major issue that I brought up over a year before the 2020 election, um, about how there are certain states that don't have any paper backups to their electronic systems. So...... in theory, if any of these systems were hacked in any kind of way, where you could manipulate the outcome of, you know, manipulate people's votes to swing the election one way or the other, there would not be an auditable paper trail that, uh, you know, election officials could use to point to, "Okay, well, this is actually how many people voted for this candidate or that candidate, but this is where the electronic system was manipulated and got it wrong." So the bill that I introduced, um, was called the Securing America's Elections Act. It was a bipartisan bill that very, very simply still allowed s- uh, uh, supported states in their responsibility that they have to run elections. That's constitutionally provided. But it said, "If you have an electronic system, you have to provide ... Uh, you have to provide a voter-verified paper backup," meaning, like, in Hawaii, you have like ... I've, I've gone, and I used the machine there before, and you punch it in. And before you submit your ballot, it's got a printout that says, "Okay, these are all your candidates." If it's correct, you submit, and they keep that paper backup on hand, or you just use a paper ballot. Either way, you have an auditable paper trail, and it would have provided federal funding for states to be able to implement this and put it in action. Made the case to Republican and Democratic leaders, "Pass this bill. 2020's a big election coming up. We want to make sure that we reduce the amount of vulnerabilities, uh, that exist and maintain the integrity of our elections so that people aren't raising these concerns or ev- There's no ques- There should be any question in people's minds that these electronic systems have any vulnerability at all." Congress chose not to pass the bill.

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:14:26

        D- Was there arguments against it?

    18. TGTulsi Gabbard1:14:28

        Not that I heard.

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:14:30

        So what was the reason why they passed, uh, why they, why they went against it?

    20. TGTulsi Gabbard1:14:34

        I mean, it, it, it just wasn't done. There, there were no legitimate arguments against it. I heard, I heard some states saying like, "Oh, well, we don't know if we wanna change it," or whatever. But if the f- the, the federal government had the ability to go in and, and ... And that's what my bill did. It tied this change to federal funding to administer, uh, the elections, to provide that as an incentive. So the point is t- to have some foresight and have leaders with foresight in Congress to say, "You know what? 2020's gonna be a big election. Gonna be a lot of eyes on it. Critical outcome one way or the other. Let's take sh- action now in order to, uh, prevent people questioning the integrity of our election and therefore democracy." Many of those same people who are, um, complaining or raising concerns about this today are people who chose not to take action that could have prevented us, uh, in large part from being in this situation that we are in. So, holding these leaders accountable and calling them on their crap is essential if we want to actually start to see some change.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:15:43

        I don't understand what the incentive would be to not pass this. Is there a financial burden that's attached to this? Is it prohibitively expensive?

    22. TGTulsi Gabbard1:15:50

        I mean, it is not prohibitively expensive. I mean, some, some states just went and did it on their own because they recognize ... I believe Virginia was one of them. Uh, they hold off-year state elections in the odd years, and they recognized the threat of this because there's like a hacking convention in Vegas every couple of years or something, and they bring in, like, all of these even young, you know, teenagers. And they, they had this thing called Election Village, and they showed ... They used replica, um, electronic voting systems from different states. And some of these kids hacked into these systems within 10 minutes, 15 minutes.

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:16:27

        An 11-year-old-

    24. TGTulsi Gabbard1:16:28

        An 11-year-old.

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:16:28

        ... changed election-

    26. TGTulsi Gabbard1:16:29

        There you go.

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:16:29

        ... results on a replica Florida state website in under 10 minutes. Look at her.

    28. TGTulsi Gabbard1:16:34

        Yep.

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:16:34

        Wizard.

    30. TGTulsi Gabbard1:16:35

        Done.
11. 1:18:07 – 1:39:39

    Distraction politics: pronoun rules, cancel culture, and accusations as social weapons

    1. TGTulsi Gabbard1:18:07

       You, you look at, you look at the first thing, the first thing that this new Congress did, um, the 117th Congress. Right after being sworn in, uh, first week of January, instead of, say, passing a bill that would mandate that limited, um, resource of vaccines that we have go directly towards the most vulnerable seniors who are right now dying at the highest rates because of COVID ... Instead of doing something real and important that would actually save peoples' lives and reduce hospitalizations in this country, the thing that they passed was this administrative rules package that deleted, uh-... all mention of mother, father, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, uh, son, or daughter, and instead changed it to say in, in the House of Representatives, when you're referencing anyone who holds, I don't know what you'd call it, this title, this position, it's not mother or father, it's now parent. It is now, um, parent-in-law, not mother-in-law or father-in-law, it is now child-

    2. JRJoe Rogan1:19:17

       What do you do for aunt and uncle?

    3. TGTulsi Gabbard1:19:17

       ... or sibling. Uh, you say parent's brother, I think is what they said.

    4. JRJoe Rogan1:19:22

       (laughs)

    5. TGTulsi Gabbard1:19:22

       Or parent's sister.

    6. JRJoe Rogan1:19:23

       Which parent? (laughs)

    7. TGTulsi Gabbard1:19:25

       Exactly.

    8. JRJoe Rogan1:19:26

       (laughs)

    9. TGTulsi Gabbard1:19:26

       (laughs)

    10. JRJoe Rogan1:19:26

        Which one?

    11. TGTulsi Gabbard1:19:27

        I don't know.

    12. JRJoe Rogan1:19:27

        You could say parent's brother?

    13. TGTulsi Gabbard1:19:28

        Right.

    14. JRJoe Rogan1:19:28

        So that's gendered though.

    15. TGTulsi Gabbard1:19:30

        Right.

    16. JRJoe Rogan1:19:30

        What if, what if, uh, she chooses to now be a woman?

    17. TGTulsi Gabbard1:19:33

        Parent's sibling. It would be parent's sibling.

    18. JRJoe Rogan1:19:34

        Parent's sibling. Oh.

    19. TGTulsi Gabbard1:19:34

        That's what it would be.

    20. JRJoe Rogan1:19:35

        Well, this is all very important.

    21. TGTulsi Gabbard1:19:36

        But this is, this is what I'm talking about though. And this is-

    22. JRJoe Rogan1:19:38

        It's-

    23. TGTulsi Gabbard1:19:38

        ... where people just like-

    24. JRJoe Rogan1:19:40

        Yeah.

    25. TGTulsi Gabbard1:19:40

        ... "Give me a break."

    26. JRJoe Rogan1:19:41

        Yeah.

    27. TGTulsi Gabbard1:19:41

        "Give me a break." This is the most important thing that, that you feel is the, the highest priority to take action on in this new year, in this new Congress?

    28. JRJoe Rogan1:19:48

        Well, if you're on Twitter, that is the most important thing, or the least important thing.

    29. TGTulsi Gabbard1:19:52

        Right.

    30. JRJoe Rogan1:19:52

        Depending upon which, what Twitter feed you follow.

Episode duration: 3:04:13