362: Service and Spreading Aloha Worldwide w/ Tulsi Gabbard

Tulsi Gabbard (born April 12, 1981) is an American politician, United States Army Reserve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Reserve officer and political commentator who served as the U. S. representative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U. S._representative for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii%27s_2nd_congressional_district from 2013 to 2021. Gabbard was the first Hindu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu member of Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Congress and also the first Samoan-American https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoan-American voting member of Congress. She was a candidate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsi_Gabbard_2020_presidential_campaign for the Democratic nomination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries in the 2020 United States presidential election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election,[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsi_Gabbard#cite_note-CNN-rocky-2[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsi_Gabbard#cite_note-3 before leaving the party and becoming an independent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_politician in October 2022.[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsi_Gabbard#cite_note-indep-1 Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 362 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. So I was in Officer Candidate School, 1998. It's a form of military indoctrination. I was already in the military. I had already been indoctrinated in the military. So as I was going through it, I could kinda, I was a little bit more detached. You know, I could see a little bit more, had a little bit more experience. And there's all kinds of procedures and protocols that you have to follow when you're going to Officer Candidate School. You gotta, you gotta fold your underwear into a five inch by five inch square for a locker inspection. You've got a, they come and measure it with a steel ruler.

• 0:42Jocko Willink?

  The drill instructors, Marine Corps drill instructors, they have a, they have like their own personal, you know, somebody has a possession that you can see it kinda has a certain level of pride to it. They would have these steel rulers and slap it down on that thing. And they're gonna measure your handkerchief and your T-shirts and all this stuff. And it's about attention to detail, which is cool. About protocols, learning protocols and, and inspecting each other. So as a team, so you might check my locker and we're trying to help each other out. But one thing that always stuck with me on the protocol level was the belt buckle that you had. So you get issued this belt buckle and this belt buckle, when you get issued it, it's shiny gold. And it's, it's shiny gold.

• 1:25Jocko Willink?

  It's probably brass actually, but then there's a, a clear enamel coat on it. And what that means is you can buy this thing and it won't just tarnish because it's got this really strong, clear enamel coat on it. It's very thin, but that's what keeps it from tarnishing. But you can still get fingerprints on the enamel. So you could have a belt buckle that has like a fingerprint on it or a smudge on it. So you would wipe them off. You, you kinda like wipe down your, your belt buckle. Now here's the thing, at some point, this had evolved to where you would take your belt buckle that had this enamel on it and you would polish it until the enamel was gone.

• 2:10Jocko Willink?

  And so, and now it could tarnish. So you remove the protective layer so that it could tarnish. So something that started as a good idea, which is you buff the belt buckle. So there's no fingerprints on it, escalated over time to where you were polishing this thing.

• 2:27Jocko Willink?

  Until all the enamel was removed and now it would tarnish more easily and it's actually hard to take care of now.

• 2:35Jocko Willink?

  So this, this thing that started with good intent, oh, you're going to make sure there's no fingerprints on it turned into craziness.

• 2:43Jocko Willink?

  And people, no one knows where it started. Like, no one knows when it got stupid.

• 2:50Jocko Willink?

  And no one knows we ended up, when we ended up at officer candidate school, making people do something stupid, but we did it. And this can happen with anything. Now, there's a, there's a similar term in, or I shouldn't say, in a similar situation, there's a term in political discourse called the Overton window. The Overton window, which was, this is originated, this term was originated by a guy that was named Joseph Overton, who was a political scientist and a, like a libertarian type dude. And he actually died flying an ultralight at age 43. But this idea of the Overton window is that there's a, there's a window in the acceptance of ideas.

• 3:36Jocko Willink?

  So ideas go through a transition. So let's say there's an idea out there. It starts off, when the idea first comes to light, it's totally unthinkable. Totally unthinkable, meaning totally unacceptable. And then it actually, as people talk about it more and it becomes more familiar, it goes from being unthinkable or totally unacceptable to just radical.

• 4:02Jocko Willink?

  Like, so you're not saying, oh, that's unacceptable, you're just saying, oh, that's, that's pretty radical. And then eventually it moves to being like a fringe idea, but now it's moving into the acceptable category. Then eventually it becomes acceptable. And then it becomes sensible, and then it becomes popular, and then it eventually becomes policy.

• 4:22Jocko Willink?

  And there's a bunch of things that kind of we've watched go through this evolution. I mean tattoos, right? Tattoos, years ago, tattoos were kind of unacceptable in normal society. It was like bikers. Bikers had tattoos and, and convicts had tattoos. It wasn't normal. Now the tattoos are basically totally acceptable.

• 4:50Jocko Willink?

  Long hair for men.

• 4:53Jocko Willink?

  Which I don't support. But, but hey, but long hair for men in the 1940s, totally unacceptable. In the 1950s and 60s, it was, in the 50s, it was like radical. In the 60s, it was like kinda normal. Now it's just acceptable.

• 5:13Jocko Willink?

  So as people push the envelope with behavior, the Overton window expands and things become more acceptable and norms change over time.

• 5:24Jocko Willink?

  And it's also true that as one part of the Overton window opens, another part closes. So years ago, if you were firing someone because they had a tattoo, or you fired someone because they had long hair, now that would be unacceptable. The guy had long hair. You can't just fire someone because they have long hair. That would be unacceptable now.

• 5:44Jocko Willink?

  So what am I talking about? How do these two things relate? The belt buckle and the Overton window? Well,

• 5:51Jocko Willink?

  it certainly seems to me that as we look at the way society is evolving today, the Overton window of what's acceptable has expanded and moved so much that it, it might not make sense anymore. What some things that are now not only acceptable, but now sort of getting pushed, you wonder if they're, if they make sense and maybe they could actually even be harmful. And I think if we, if we as people aren't careful,

• 6:30Jocko Willink?

  we can kind of slowly drift around inside that Overton window from the positive of having an open mind to To an extreme to where there's no more guardrails, there's no more framework and there's no more baseline of what's acceptable and what's isn't.

• 6:52Jocko Willink?

  So a friend of mine, it seems to me, has been trying to maintain some kind of sanity, some kind of rationality to the expansion of the Overton window to apply some baseline to the world. And I think it's been a pretty good fight for her. I think she's just getting warmed up. She's a former congresswoman. She's a former presidential candidate. She's an army officer, Iraq war veteran, podcaster, surfer, martial artist, and Hawaiian. She's been on this podcast before, episode 272. Her name is Tulsi Gabbard, and it's an honor to have her back with us tonight. Tulsi Gabbard.

• 7:34Tulsi Gabbard?

  Aloha.

• 7:35Jocko Willink?

  How's it going?

• 7:38Jocko Willink?

  There's been a lot of, there's been a lot going on in your world.

• 7:41Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 7:42Jocko Willink?

  It's been crazy. It's been kind of crazy to watch. When you came on this podcast for the first time, you were a Democratic, I don't know if you were running for president, were you running for president at the time?

• 7:54Tulsi Gabbard?

  I think, if I'm not mistaken, this was in late 2020.

• 8:01Jocko Willink?

  I don't know, I should have checked the dates.

• 8:03Tulsi Gabbard?

  And so I think the, if I'm not mistaken, I think the presidential campaign was finished at that point in time. And we were talking about how it went.

• 8:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's, it's always interesting to me because I have, some of my friends are dope smoke, dope smoking hippies. Some of them are right wing, conservative, fundamentalist Christians and everything in between. And when you came on my podcast, you know, some of the, the first time you came on, the, some of my super conservative friends were like, yo, why are you giving her a platform? I was like, oh, because she's cool and I like her. And then some of my dope smoking hippie friends were like, hell yeah, that's what I'm talking about. So you, you know, you, you had sort of a, I think you had a reputation or an image, I think, and you, more than that, I think you just

• 8:55Jocko Willink?

  get categorized, right? You were a Democrat at the time, which I know you aren't anymore.

• 9:01Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yep.

• 9:01Jocko Willink?

  So what happened, man? What happened? Let's just talk about that. So you left the Democratic Party?

• 9:06Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah. Well, first of all, I'll just say,

• 9:10Tulsi Gabbard?

  For as long as I've been in politics, people who like to put other humans in categories have always had trouble putting me in a category. Just because I've always been a very independent minded person. So, you know, I first ran for office in 2002 in Hawaii. I was 21 years old, very passionate about environmental issues and protecting the beauty of our home in Hawaii, the water, oceans, and that was my motivation to run for state house. And, you know, prior to that point, I had no like familial political affiliation. There was no like, you know, my daddy and granddaddy were Democrat, so I have to be a Democrat.

• 9:50Tulsi Gabbard?

  My parents were very like, hey, you go make your own decisions, figure out, you know, what is your foundational principles? And so at that time, I really had to look because I had, you know, filed a piece of paper saying I'm running for office and there was a box to check like, okay, fine, what party are you going to run under? And so I started looking at kind of the origins of in Hawaii, the Democratic Party. Hawaii had been under the rule of a few very wealthy Republicans since it became a territory of the United States and then later through statehood. And the shift towards Democratic politics in Hawaii came about because of plantation

• 10:31Tulsi Gabbard?

  workers, people who were being treated like crap, like in in inhumane conditions, being paid pennies for working super long hours. It was it was basically like glorified slave labor. And so it was the Democratic Party in the ILWU that came in and was like, no, this is not okay. And and so it was the party that in our history in Hawaii was the big tent inclusive party. It was the party for the people. It was the party that stood up against those few very wealthy people in power and said, no, you can't just abuse people like this. It was the party that stood for civil liberties and individual freedom and choice. Like, hey, whatever your personal choice is, whether it's free speech or freedom of

• 11:15Tulsi Gabbard?

  religion or whatever it is, like. Live and let live. We can disagree without being disagreeable. And so I looked at the party in Hawaii and I looked at leaders like JFK and Dr. Martin Luther King and I was drawn to the Democratic Party for those reasons because again, and my, as I looked at Hawaii, it's like these super rich Republican dudes have been abusing their power to fill their pockets at the expense of the well-being of the people. And so, fast forward, I left the Democrat Party because all of those things that I just talked about are gone. The leaders of today's Democratic Party don't believe in really freedom, basically what it comes

• 11:57Tulsi Gabbard?

  down to. And you look at that freedom of choice, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and you know, there's a lot of other issues that I could get into, but ultimately, how do you have a political party that's in power that doesn't believe in freedom and is actively taking action to undermine our Constitution and Bill of Rights? And that was really what was at the crux of why I left the Democrat Party.

• 12:27Jocko Willink?

  Was there a straw that broke the camel's back?

• 12:30Tulsi Gabbard?

  There wasn't one single moment, but it was really over the last like few years, two, three years, seeing this increasing, like quickly escalating towards policies coming from our government that really frankly were becoming increasingly authoritarian. And so, you know, it caused me to kind of spend time reflecting and being introspective, like, wait, hold on a second. And people saying like, how can you still be, how can you call yourself a Democrat? And I was obviously, I've, like I said, I've always been an independent-minded person. I've been critical of people in power, whether they were Republicans or Democrats,

• 13:13Tulsi Gabbard?

  and also complimentary when I felt like they did things that were good for the country. But

• 13:21Tulsi Gabbard?

  You know, looking, looking at, at the dangerous combination of what we've seen over the last few years, especially of people in power who don't believe in the Constitution, who openly question things like the First Amendment and right to free speech, coupled with, oh, by the way, they control and are politicizing agencies like the Department of Justice and the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, sicking the domestic, newly-formed domestic terror unit of the Department of Homeland Security on parents, like protesting at Board of Education meetings because they're like, "Well, we don't agree with what you guys are trying to teach our young kids at school."

• 13:59Tulsi Gabbard?

  And, and to see that playing out before our eyes and this culture of fear, where if you speak out against this stuff and, and call it for what it is, you are immediately labeled anti-authority and also therefore, coming from our government, an extremist and a potential threat, a potential domestic threat. And so that's why you're talking about the, the Overton window and you, and you look at like, okay, well, you take people having open minds and like, okay, well, I can consider, you know, someone else's perspective, even if I don't agree with it, which is how things should be in general. And then you take it to that next level where you're saying, "Well, there are no guardrails anymore."

• 14:41Tulsi Gabbard?

  And this is what's so dangerous is, is when you have, again, people are entitled to their own opinions, but when you have people in positions of power in this country who deny the existence of objective truth as they are, then where, where is, like, where's the floor? Where's the guardrails? Where's the ceiling? How do you measure anything? Well, it's like, okay, well, whatever's true is whatever they say is true. But then what happens when, when they're gone and the next person or group of people come in or the next party and then what if they don't agree with what that group says is true or false? And so, and then you couple that with the fear factor and cancel culture and, and people

• 15:23Tulsi Gabbard?

  literally seeing what happens to people like me, where you, you just say like, hey, well, this is what's happening and it's crazy. It's insane. And then I get called all kinds of names and all kinds of stuff, all kinds of attacks. And so no wonder so many people are afraid to do the equivalent of like, uh, yeah, obviously the emperor has no clothes. Like, we can all see it. And there's a lot of concern about what's happening, but so few people feel like they have the ability to speak up without being worried about losing their job, or being shunned by friends or family members, or being like that crazy person. And so this is, this is kind of one thing that's been, that's been interesting and, and

• 16:05Tulsi Gabbard?

  hope inspiring is, is, you know, I put out this, this kind of long and in-depth statement, talking about some of these very specific examples of what's wrong with today's Democrat Party. And I've been hearing from a lot of people, people I know, a lot of people I don't know, in person, on social media, people just saying like, like in a really serious and heavy kind of way, thank you for bringing voice to the things that I've been feeling and frustrated with and but, you know, haven't been able to give voice to. And so my hope is that, you know, the more we speak up, the more people feel as though they can speak up. And, uh, yeah. How do we protect people? How do we protect our freedoms that are under

• 16:50Tulsi Gabbard?

  attack? By exercising them.

• 16:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was, you know, I always like to like, cover a book on this podcast. When you were coming on, I said, I was thinking about covering the book, Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky. This is a book, you know, this is a guy that, uh, this is a book that Hillary Clinton wrote her thesis on when she graduated from college. But there's some of those rules. One of the, one of the rules is hold them to their own rules, right? And that's what you're talking about when you say. Hey, this is America. We have an open mind. And so you go, okay, cool. Then you have to accept everything, right? That's like one of those things. You can't say anything negative about anybody anytime, or you're, you're not following your own rules of-

• 17:37Tulsi Gabbard?

  You're something phobic.

• 17:38Jocko Willink?

  Right, right.

• 17:39Tulsi Gabbard?

  Everything is something phobic. You just add whatever it is at the beginning of it. Yeah.

• 17:43Jocko Willink?

  And another one of the rules that he talks about is the power of ridicule. So when you just go on an obliterating attack on a person, it's overwhelming for him and it works and it's worked a lot to shut people down and shut them up. And that's a, you can see some of these, the way that these, these rules are implemented. And, and that's another thing, you know, as I talk about that, that belt buckle thing, and you don't know where it came from. And there's a bunch of things like that in the middle. There's a bunch of traditions. You go, why are we, this is stupid. Why are we doing this? And you, and people don't really know where it came from. And I think some of the things that are going on with society right now, if you start to pull the thread on where it actually initiated,

• 18:29Jocko Willink?

  a lot of it did initiate in like the radicals, the communists in the sixties that were trying to, trying to make their impact. And I honestly don't think a lot of people that are fully on that, on board with that program, know where it came from today. They're just doing what they kind of learned.

• 18:48Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 18:48Jocko Willink?

  Cause that was, you know, a big goal was to take over the universities, which obviously they did a pretty good job, pretty good job taking over the universities. What is it? The universities vote 99, something like 99% democratic in universities? That, that's obviously you're not going to get a very balanced education if that's what you're going through. And then the scary thing is, and this is another thing we've talked about a bit on this podcast. And it is the, just the, the complete-

• 19:18Jocko Willink?

  plasticity of people's brains and how people kid you get into an echo chamber or you get you start following and listening to certain things it's gonna take over your mind and that's really really scary and you know I I've been saying lately like everyone's getting brainwashed I'm getting brainwashed right now like that's what's happening if you're watching if you're listening if you're opening your mind and letting other things in there you're gaining brainwash to your and that's what's happening to everybody all the time that's what this I mean it's sort of like it's a combination of brainwashing and learning right if you're learning you're kind of getting brainwashed you're you're bringing in new ideas but then you see people that are

• 20:01Jocko Willink?

  learning ideas that aren't essentially they're not good they're not healthy and it's very very disturbing and especially nowadays where that brainwashing is in your pocket and at any moment you can pull it out and you can you can get brainwashed at any moment and it's really really scary and especially you know the the moldability of children

• 20:29Tulsi Gabbard?

  yeah

• 20:30Jocko Willink?

  fourteen year olds twelve year olds nineteen years old you know it's like when I joined the military you're gonna get brainwashed to some level I got in trouble when I went to bootcamp well actually I actually I didn't get in trouble because they didn't know who said it they we had to fill out a form like about how bootcamp was going but it was anonymous and they wrote something like you know what do you think of the program so far and I wrote the brainwashing has been very effective that's what I wrote

• 21:02Tulsi Gabbard?

  how old are you at the time

• 21:03Jocko Willink?

  nineteen eighteen or nineteen and

• 21:08Jocko Willink?

  You know, it's because I had a very rebellious mind, you know, because I was like, what was I brainwashed by? I was brainwashed before I joined the military by hardcore music and punk rock and like anti authoritarianism. And so for me, they were trying to hit me with that stuff. And I kind of had some good resistance to it. So I kind of like, oh, they're trying to brainwash me. And then I kind of made a joke about it. The brainwashing has been, you know, effective thus far, which that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to get you to like, change your brain a little bit and think in a different way. And, and, but at least I, I think, I think I always had that rebellious streak in me that always questions everything. And to this day, when I see something online, I'm like, oh, what's their angle? Yeah. What's the angle over there? Because everyone's got an angle.

• 21:52Tulsi Gabbard?

  Everyone does.

• 21:53Jocko Willink?

  Which is, which is disturbing. And, um, yeah. So this is what's happening now with kids and you can see it and it's sad. Yeah. It's so sad to see. I listened to a podcast that you did, uh, on your podcast, which is called the Tulsi Gabbard Show with, uh, was it, is it called detransitioning?

• 22:13Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah. With Chloe Cole.

• 22:15Jocko Willink?

  That was horrifying.

• 22:17Tulsi Gabbard?

  Exactly.

• 22:17Jocko Willink?

  It was absolutely horrifying. Um, give us a quick brief on her.

• 22:21Tulsi Gabbard?

  So Chloe Cole, um, and I'm glad you mentioned that because it's a perfect example of what you're talking about here. Uh, she grew up in here in California. She was a tomboy as a kid growing up, uh, loved playing video games, loved hanging out with her brothers. And at 11 years old, she got a smartphone, started an Instagram account. She was a tomboy, didn't have many female friends, didn't really fit in much at school. So was looking for some kind of companionship, uh, friendship, sense of belonging online. And the algorithms

• 23:00Tulsi Gabbard?

  on Instagram specifically she talks about immediately started feeding her, um, posts and, and accounts of, of young girls and women who had, who, who are identifying as boys or men who are trans or talking about how much happier they were by doing so and, and all of this. And then she had people around her who were telling her, well, like, if you're not happy as you are, then you're obviously a boy stuck in a girl's body.

• 23:32Tulsi Gabbard?

  I'm gonna just be-

• 23:33Jocko Willink?

  And just, she's-

• 23:35Tulsi Gabbard?

  She's 11, she's 11. 11 years old. Her name is Chloe. At 12 years old, she told her parents, she wrote them a long letter. And, and the gist of it was, "I am a boy, and I want you to call me Leo." I encourage you to listen to the story in her voice as she tells it, because it is heartbreaking and so powerful. Um, if you watch it on YouTube, you just look into her eyes. She's 18 now. And so, but, but the, the summary is, um, she starts taking puberty blockers when she's like 12, 13 years old.

• 24:18Tulsi Gabbard?

  And she was very certain about what she wanted to do. Uh, her parents were naturally pretty confused and not knowing what to do to best care for and love their daughter. And, uh, so they, they went out and started looking for health professionals to like, "Hey, just like educate us, talk, talk us through this." What, what are the, you know, potential medical and health ramifications of our daughter taking these puberty blockers? And, and with the exception of one endocrinologist who told them like, "Hey, this, we don't know what the negative consequences might be, both in the short term and the long term to this, because there's just, you know, it's not been studied very well. There's no

• 24:59Tulsi Gabbard?

  long history of cases that, that we can point to to say, "Well, here's what you can expect based on fact and science." And so, this endocrinologist is saying like, "I would encourage you to think very seriously before doing this, because it could end up badly, essentially."

• 25:16Tulsi Gabbard?

  I forget what the na- I think it was a gender specialist, is what they were called, who were helping guide her through this. Every other medical professional that she went to see basically urged her and encouraged her to move forward with this. And ultimately told her parents, who were expressing some concern and reservations, "You have a choice between having a live son or a dead daughter."

• 25:47Tulsi Gabbard?

  And Chloe says that up until that, like, at that point, she had never once had a suicidal thought enter her mind. So this, this warning and essentially this threat that these medical professionals are giving to this young girl's parents, a live son or a dead daughter, you decide, was based on nothing, according to Chloe's medical history. Fast forward, she ends up getting a double mastectomy when she's 15 years old to continue this transition. She talks about how they call it top surgery to try to, you know, soften

• 26:30Tulsi Gabbard?

  what it really is. And it was after she got that surgery that she had a realization, I think she was 16 at the time, that she would know, she would never be able to breastfeed her child, ever. She, that had been taken away from her because of this, this decision. And, you know, she talks about how she was asked at different points along this path from when she was 12 through 15, like, okay, well, here's all these medical disclosures and, you know, you might not be able to have kids, this could affect your fertility. And at 12 years old, she's like, man, I don't want kids. Like, how does a 12-year-old girl make that decision? And then again, at 15, before the surgery, like, okay, well, you

• 27:12Tulsi Gabbard?

  might not be able to do this, or have kids, or breastfeed, and, you know, again, children not being equipped to make these decisions. At 16, she experienced incredible regret and realized she'd make the biggest mistake of her life. And then began to walk down that path of quote unquote, detransitioning. And she talks about what that meant in practical terms, in her conversations with her parents and friends and family, being completely shunned by this group of, you know, people who are Pushing this, um, this trans and gender ideology now, now people who celebrated her one day and the very next day, once she was like, no, I've made the biggest mistake

• 27:54Tulsi Gabbard?

  of my life, completely shunning her, calling her names, giving her death threats online. Doctors who had cared for her one day, the next day, once she had made this decision, not returning phone calls or telling her like, you know, she's still having, um, serious medical issues based on the mastectomy she had, that she can't figure out what to do with. And the doctors are like, oh, just put some Vaseline on there. And, and ultimately, these doctors are not providing her with the kind of care that she needs or being responsive at all. So she, she's actually filed a lawsuit against these doctors and, um, Kaiser, um, that she dealt with along the way, uh, which is so brave of her to do. She's so incredibly

• 28:37Tulsi Gabbard?

  courageous to be doing what she's doing and speaking out and actively encouraging others to do the same so that people are able to be better informed. But that, that social contagion, uh, that she talks really clearly about of the algorithms having such a heavy influence on her as a young girl, uh, to ultimately bring her to make this decision along with other, other things as well. But, um, the, the lack of, I guess, I guess this phenomenon in our society right now where there's no open conversation about this that she could turn to, that her family could turn to, to say, to get a differing perspective or differing view to where doctors feel afraid to say

• 29:22Tulsi Gabbard?

  anything about it. I talked to a friend of mine who's an ER doc actually in California. And he said, Tulsi, I, I, you know, would say this off the record, but there are a lot of kids who are coming into the ER, uh, who are experiencing, you know, suicidal thoughts or deep depression or other medical issues because of this, uh, transition of, of people who are similarly like Chloe Cole, regretting these decisions that they've made as kids. And, but nobody's talking about it, you know, even from, from the very top of, of, you know, where he works. It was just like all of a sudden, okay, hey, guys, we're doing this now. And by the way, it's a very, um, Profitable venture, knowing that not only the initial treatments,

• 30:07Tulsi Gabbard?

  but you're basically, once, once somebody comes and tells you they want to do this, you're talking about years of follow-on care and drugs and all, and so on and so forth. But there was no conversation about this at all, because it's not allowed. If you even raise a question and say, hey, is this really the best thing? Like, are kids really equipped to make this decision when they're 11 or 12 years old? You're immediately labeled a transphobe, and how dare you not care for your kids? In that podcast episode that I put out, there are actual videos from Boston Children's Hospital as one example of, unfortunately, many, where they're literally saying, as soon as your child is capable of expressing themselves,

• 30:46Tulsi Gabbard?

  you'll see signs of them, you know, deciding what their gender identity is. Like, before they can even use words and speak any kind of language, that you look at like gestures, and you look at all these different things. And you just, you see how dangerous this is when critical thinking is like, it's discouraged. Asking questions is discouraged. Having differing points of view is discouraged. And I think even using the word discouraged is, is putting it lightly. People get banned on social media, get their accounts, you know, suspended indefinitely for asking questions, or saying, hey, this is not appropriate for kids. Again, then you add on the layer of government.

• 31:31Tulsi Gabbard?

  And this is where things get so dangerous, is that, you know, Khloe mentions that she knows people personally, who, parents who've had their kids taken away from them simply because they refuse to call them by a name or pronoun different than the one they were given at birth, by Child Protective Services, by the government. And this is, this is the very real consequence of...

• 32:03Tulsi Gabbard?

  People just being willing to go along. And maybe it's like, I don't know, this doesn't seem right, but at least it's not happening to me or my kids or my family. So I'm just gonna put my head in the, you know, in the sand and not pay attention. But there's, there's so many different factors. You start looking at it. I mentioned parents going and, and, you know, protesting like, no, you know what? I don't want my seven year old kid being given books to read at school about like, well, tell me what your sexuality is, or tell me what your gender identity is. I, I didn't, you know, I, I heard parents talk about this stuff and I thought, gosh, you know, this is really concerning. And then I met with, with a bunch of parents in Virginia who've been on the, um, group

• 32:48Tulsi Gabbard?

  called Parents Defending Education, have been kind of on the front lines of this fight nationally. And they brought a stack of books and showed me and, and there was one in particular that, um, it, it, it was a graphic novel for middle schoolers. And I, I had never seen such sexually graphic images ever in my life. And this is something that's being given to kids to help them, you know, figure out, you know, what their sexuality is. And it's, um, it's really disturbing that we live in a society today where this open marketplace of ideas is not allowed to occur. And it's not allowed to occur because

• 33:32Tulsi Gabbard?

  we have people in power who are using the levers of government, working with people in the media and in big tech to control speech and to influence our society.

• 33:53Jocko Willink?

  So when I was a kid. Let's say you are gonna get crazy and really rebel. You'd grow your hair out, right? And wear a jean jacket or whatever, you know what I mean? Like you're listening to Metallica and you're gonna go through your Metallica phase. And, and back then Metallica was not the same Metallica than it is now. I mean, back then Metallica was kind of fringe radical, right? And so you were gonna grow your hair out and, and you were making all kinds of dumb decisions. I mean, let's face it, when, when you're that young, you're, you're making just bad decisions left and right. And so thankfully, your decisions aren't permanent. When, when, when I was a kid, our decisions weren't permanent. Maybe, maybe you get some tattoos that you're gonna wanna wear, you know, a shirt or something.

• 34:38Jocko Willink?

  When you get older, you're, hopefully you didn't jump straight into the neck tattoos or face. Again, Overton window on face tattoos and neck tattoos. I mean, they're, they're becoming more and more mainstream right now. But back in the day, you weren't gonna be doing that kind of thing when you were certainly not 11, 12, 13. Yeah. And then you think about the. Nor would your parents let you. Yeah, well, there's another piece of this, like, at some point, saying shut up to people became bad, right? When I was a kid, you tell people, your parents would tell you to shut up. Your teacher would tell you to shut up. You would tell your friends to shut up when you were doing something, when you're saying something stupid. Somebody like, hey, shut up. And at some point that became like a bad word.

• 35:22Jocko Willink?

  Do your kids say shut up, Echo Charles?

• 35:24Speaker 02

  Not to me specifically, but yeah, they say that.

• 35:26Jocko Willink?

  Okay, but if they said it to you, be offensive. There'd be consequences. Which I agree with, I agree with, you know, you don't want, I don't want to expect a kid. But would you tell your kids to shut up?

• 35:36Speaker 02

  I can't remember, but I'm not against the word shut up at all.

• 35:40Jocko Willink?

  Okay, I probably don't say shut up enough. And I don't think America does right now. Because sometimes like, you know, when I was a kid, it's like I'd have some stupid idea. My dad would be like, shut up. I was like, okay, you gotta stop sometimes. When we realize how multiple these kids are and gullible they are. I mean, this is when, when you see like the interviews or read interviews. I got a book I haven't done on the podcast yet, but it's Nazis. Yeah. The young Nazi kids, they were a hundred percent. They didn't know anything else. They didn't know anything else, at least a lot of them. And same thing with the kamikaze pilots that are 19 years old. They didn't know anything else. And sure, there's, I shouldn't, I want to group them all together

• 36:23Jocko Willink?

  because some of them definitely were like, hey, wait a second, I'm not so sure about this. But then they got in those planes and drove them into our, our vessels, our ships. Because they were just totally brainwashed, totally brainwashed. And we, that's how moldable kids are. And so when you take a freaking 11 year old girl and you start down this path and that's all she's hearing and that's all the support she's getting. Because look, being a kid, you know, when I wrote my, when I wrote my first kids book,

• 36:56Jocko Willink?

  one of the things I had to put in perspective was that, you know, I was still in, when I was in the military, my kids were growing up.

• 37:04Jocko Willink?

  Part of my mind would be like, what are these kids talking about? Like, nothing matters. This, oh, you know, you know, Billy called me, uh, whatever, called me a jerk. And I'm like, so what? Right? I'm like, hey, I'm going to Iraq. What are you kidding me? We got, we, we, I got buddies that died face down in the mud so you could be called a jerk by your friend. It's freedom of speech. You know, I mean, like, that's how detached you get. You forget that when you're a kid, that's your whole world.

• 37:30Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 37:31Jocko Willink?

  School is your whole world. The, the bully is your whole world. And, and so what happens when these kids get a world put around them that only has one point of view and it's pushing in one direction, it's no surprise at all that they end up believing what they're hearing from everybody. And everyone's so supportive.

• 37:53Tulsi Gabbard?

  And that, that affirmation, uh, and, and the, the, I mean, it, it has, and I, there's no mistake for the radical increase in numbers of, of young kids who are now saying, well, you know, I'm trans or I'm, you know, anywhere on the spectrum of the LGBTQ stuff. It's not like been inching, like, it's like by hundreds of percent increasing to the point where, and I've talked with teachers who say like, yeah, of all the kids in my class, there's maybe two who don't consider themselves LGBTQ something. And so it's kind of become like, and Abigail Schreier writes about this in, in her books, about how kids are being influenced by this.

• 38:37Tulsi Gabbard?

  You know, it's peer pressure, it's what's like, are you cool? Are you boring? Or, or all this other stuff.

• 38:43Jocko Willink?

  I'm over here like, bring back Metallica.

• 38:46Jocko Willink?

  Let's bang heads and grow long hair. That seems like a lot safer of a thing. You know, the other piece that you mentioned that is really disturbing. So

• 38:55Jocko Willink?

  you can't ask questions about this. So I, you know, I obviously work with a lot of companies talking about leadership. And one of the things I talk about when it comes to leadership is I should, if you've got, if you're working, if Tulsi, if you're working for me and I come present a plan and you ask questions, I should be totally open to answering your questions. Your, your questions hopefully are challenging to me and they make me really think through my idea and they pressure test my idea. And I'm happy to answer them. And the minute I say, shut up Tulsi, I don't want to hear more questions. Just do what I say. I just lost the argument. I just lost leadership capital because it means I couldn't actually articulate why we're going to do something a certain way. And it also means that I couldn't open my mind enough to say Tulsi's got a good point.

• 39:41Jocko Willink?

  I should incorporate that into the plan or maybe adjust my plan or maybe abandon my plan because Tulsi has a really good thought process about this that I didn't think of. But the minute I say, you know what? Just be quiet. No more questions. You do what I say. Exactly. That means I, that means there's something wrong. It exposes your weakness. Right. So if you have a question for me and my answer is you're transphobic, that's not a great answer. No. That's not a great answer. And look, could it be true? Could I be a person that, oh, I'm scared of transphobic people? Sure. Well, let me think through it then. What am I scared of? Okay. Let's have a conversation about that. So, but instead just to be like, no, I don't want to hear any more of your questions.

• 40:23Jocko Willink?

  This is a problem and it doesn't lead, it doesn't lead to a, a situation where we make progress and where we can actually agree upon anything. That's right. So how's the, how's the leadership, the governmental leadership? When you talk about the governmental leadership, kind of helping push this type of agenda, what does that look like?

• 40:44Tulsi Gabbard?

  Well, it's exactly what you're talking about. The choice to ridicule, discredit, smear, and censor through, you know, partners in big tech, Google, Facebook, all of that, rather than actually have a conversation based on substance that's having this fear, you know, this self-censoring effect on people, where they're too afraid to even ask questions, they're too afraid to state their own views or opinions, or even their own experiences on this. Have you had Kristin Beck on your podcast?

• 41:23Jocko Willink?

  I have not.

• 41:24Tulsi Gabbard?

  I think I heard her talking on Rogan, but Kristin Beck has had similar experiences, even as a trans adult person, saying, "Well, I don't know, like, this is really dangerous for kids, like, these are, this is a decision, if people want to make this decision as adults, this is a free country, and you have the freedom to do that, and live with whatever the outcomes of that decision may be." But for this to be happening to kids, and Beck has received extremely negative consequences, both on social media and in society, because of stating that fact. The government is pushing this under the guise of something they call "gender-affirming

• 42:08Tulsi Gabbard?

  care," which sounds like something everyone should be for, right? We want to care for and respect each other just as people, but what they're doing is actually abuse of kids. Chloé Cole's story is not a rare case, there are many others, both documented, but also those that haven't been reported, of kids who have gone through or going through exactly what she's been through. She started an organization to be able to reach out to and help provide support to other kids who've gone through the path that she has walked down.

• 42:47Tulsi Gabbard?

  The government factor is they're saying that if you as parents don't provide gender-affirming care, then Child Protective Services may come in and intervene in order to ensure that your child receives that care elsewhere. They are using this gender-affirming care when it comes to federal funding. So for schools, for example, who the government says refuse to provide this quote-unquote "gender-affirming care," which may come in the form of like, okay, not allowing boys

• 43:28Tulsi Gabbard?

  to go into the girls' locker room, boys who say, "Well, you know, I identify as a girl." If a publicly-funded school does not allow that to happen, the federal government says, "Okay, we are not going to provide you with federal funding for what they call free and reduced lunch for kids who are at a certain low level in the poverty scale, get free and reduced lunch at schools." The government says, "If your school does not provide this gender-affirming care by allowing boys to go into the girls' locker room, boys who say they're a girl, then we're going to take that money away from you." Who hurts? Who's harmed in that scenario, which is actually happening?

• 44:12Tulsi Gabbard?

  It's kids who are hungry who can't afford to buy their own lunch at school. And so, I mean, there are so many examples of this where their hypocrisy is just playing out, literally, in real time. Their hypocrisy of saying, "Well, hey, this year, 2022, is the 50th anniversary of the enactment of Title IX." The law that was put in place, literally, out of a recognition of the biological difference between the male and female sex, and to make sure that there was a level playing field. Because...

• 44:44Tulsi Gabbard?

  Kids like your daughter, back in the day, they didn't have the opportunity to get on a girls wrestling team because they didn't exist in schools and with most, with most sports was like, okay, well, there's boys sports and there's girls cheerleading. That was kind of, you know, or like my mom, she had water ballet and my mom's pretty athletic, but her options were pretty limited as a kid growing up in, in East Grand Rapids in Michigan. So Title IX, 50 years later, has created huge opportunities for girls and women in sports, which then leads to opportunities in different professions and so on in their life.

• 45:19Tulsi Gabbard?

  On this anniversary, 50th anniversary of Title IX, now the government and this administration is, is trying to, or they are actually redefining Title IX in the law, not by passing an amendment through Congress, but instead backdooring it through a rule change to now include this gender identity, which basically says like, anybody who says they are a woman can be a woman at any given point in time. And therefore by doing so, erasing, doing two things, erasing women as a group in society, because now you could, if you, if you wake up tomorrow like, yeah, I'm a woman. All right. Well, the government says now you are, you are the

• 46:04Tulsi Gabbard?

  same protected class as a biological woman, as, as me. But, but the deeper kind of underlying danger goes back to where we started is this change is our government saying there is no such thing as objective truth. There is no such thing as biology. There is no such thing as this biological difference between a male and female. And if we, as a society, accept this premise, then where are the boundaries? There, there literally are no boundaries. And where does this lead? I mean, I've, I've talked about this before. You would think that kids are the one place where everyone in our society can agree, like we have to, kids are the most vulnerable. We have to protect our kids. Well, now they're, it has,

• 46:49Tulsi Gabbard?

  it is starting to become acceptable to use this term minor attracted person, which is a pedophile. It's a pedophile.

• 46:58Tulsi Gabbard?

  And yet you have teachers.

• 47:00Jocko Willink?

  That's the Overton window expanding.

• 47:02Tulsi Gabbard?

  Exactly, that's what I'm talking about. And so people are like, oh yeah, you know, we should just like let people be who they want to be and kids and this and that like. Okay, so if you deny the existence.

• 47:13Jocko Willink?

  Comes in, right? You should be like, hey, no, shut up.

• 47:15Tulsi Gabbard?

  I had a few extra words there.

• 47:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 47:18Tulsi Gabbard?

  Seriously, and then you have people who are teachers in a position to care for our kids. On social media, like, yeah, I'm a minor attractive person and this is how I feel when I'm standing in front of the classroom and using this very sexually explicit language. And, and parents are giving their children over to these people for, for more hours, waking hours of the day, probably than they spend time, they're able to spend time with their kids. And if you're, you, you become a bigot if you're like, uh, yeah, no, this is not okay. This normalization of pedophilia is exactly what's happening right now. How does it happen? Where does it start?

• 47:58Tulsi Gabbard?

  Going back to where you started, how like, well, you look at each, you know, how, how this Overton window is opening and, and pushing you not just to respect someone's different choices. But to openly accept and champion these things that are literally insane and are causing direct harm to our kids. And, and again, this is where the societal shift and change, this cancel culture, this, this fear mongering, pushing self censorship, coupled with the power of government, both directly and indirectly through big tech is, is, has put us in a very dangerous place in our society.

• 48:39Jocko Willink?

  How much did you see with big tech collusion with the government when you were in the government?

• 48:49Tulsi Gabbard?

  Quite a bit, especially when I ran for president. I, um.

• 48:56Tulsi Gabbard?

  You know, and I don't know, I could probably think of a number of reasons why it escalated so quickly there where, you know, it got to a point where even as I was, you know, being very outspoken on different issues beforehand, I think certain powers that be maybe didn't think that, oh, well, you know, she's just saying her piece, she's over here on the sidelines. But, you know, running for president provides a certain platform. And it was, I mean, the first kind of eye-opening experience to me was when we had the very first presidential debate in the Democratic primaries. It was in 2019. You know, most people in the country didn't know who I was, never heard of me before. And my hope was, all right,

• 49:41Tulsi Gabbard?

  cool, there'll be millions of people watching. And I think there were north of 20 million people who tuned into that first debate. Maybe a little off, but ballpark. And my hope is I'll be able to introduce myself, let people know why I'm offering to serve as president and commander in chief. And then, you know, they'll go online and say, okay, cool, I want to learn more. We set up all of our Google AdSense accounts in the hopes that they would do so and that I would be able to have my website there ahead of whatever stuff Google chose to push on people. I was the most searched candidate of the night after that debate, which we had hoped would be the case. And all of

• 50:22Tulsi Gabbard?

  a sudden, our Google Ad account was suspended with no explanation, no notice, no message, like literally nothing, just crickets. And so our team immediately obviously started to reach out like, hey, what's going on here? We set this up according to all the rules and da, da, da. We tested it beforehand. Everything was good. What happened? No response. And this went on for a period of time. And then all of a sudden, we still never got a response. Then all of a sudden, the account was, the suspension was taken off the account. And that was the first like glaring example directly that I felt.

• 50:58Jocko Willink?

  What part of your mind was like, oh dang, that's too bad. I can't believe this weird thing happened. What part of your mind was like, these bastards?

• 51:05Tulsi Gabbard?

  These bastards.

• 51:06Jocko Willink?

  We did it go straight to these bastards?

• 51:07Tulsi Gabbard?

  I went straight there because it was, it was.

• 51:11Jocko Willink?

  Were you suspect already going into it? Did you, or is that just like a total eye opener?

• 51:15Tulsi Gabbard?

  No, I mean, I, I had, you know, the, the influence and impact of these big tech companies and social media was already pretty clear. You know, how their algorithms were trying to push certain kinds of information to invoke a certain response from their, from their users. I think things were becoming more and more clear, just broadly at that point, uh, which is why when that happened, uh, it was way too much of a coincidence to just be a coincidence. Um, I, I ultimately filed a lawsuit against Google because of this, to, to make the point and to make the statement that they shouldn't be allowed to get away with this. People need to know how much power a monopoly like Google has

• 52:01Tulsi Gabbard?

  on directly influencing interfering in our elections. And that, that if they can do this to a sitting member of Congress, running for the highest office in the land, making it so that they are manipulating and, and dictating what information people see when they type in, who is Tulsi Gabbard? They can do it to anyone for any reason.

• 52:24Tulsi Gabbard?

  You know, whether you're running for mayor or dog catcher, or whatever it might be, that this private corporation gets to determine what we as voters know and see and hear uh, about a person. And that, that became increasingly clear throughout my entire campaign, how,

• 52:45Tulsi Gabbard?

  you know, the, the power elite, as I call them, or the permanent Washington, that these are made up of some of the most powerful people in politics, most powerful people in corporate media, and the most powerful people in big tech are interfering in our elections by dictating who voters are exposed to and what they are exposed to about certain people who are, are running for office. They decide what.

• 53:10Tulsi Gabbard?

  What the narrative, what the narrative is. And so to say, and this is, this is the thing, of course, they don't talk about when they talk about, you know, influence and interference in our democracy and our elections. But it is the biggest and most impactful thing that is influencing voters. And, and there've been recent cases that have come forward about Google, for example, like in, just in this past election, there was a report that was done showing that, you know, political emails from candidates going into Gmail accounts, which most people have, favored sending these, favored progressive or Democrat candidates

• 53:48Tulsi Gabbard?

  or Democrat messaging to, to funnel those emails into your inbox, whereas conservative or Republican political emails were more than 50% of the time end up in your spam box. So, you know, there, there are a lot of different examples of this, but it's a dangerous, dangerous thing that is now going unchecked. There's no check and balance on that. And then you look at, well, okay, well, so what are the political leanings of these big tech companies? And Facebook has, has obviously, they've been in the news a lot about this as well. You know, they, they lean, they have a, a specific political slant.

• 54:32Tulsi Gabbard?

  But to me, whether the political slant is to the left or to the right, or if it's Democrat versus Republican, if, if we don't, number one, if we're not informed about it, not calling it out and not pushing our lawmakers to say, hey, you know, this is, this, we have to call it for what it is. They're directly trying to influence, influence our elections. We have to be willing to do it, whoever is, you know, whatever their political slant is. The point is like, freedom of speech is freedom of speech. We have to be willing to protect that freedom of speech, no matter whether we like it or not, or whether we agree with that, that speech or not.

• 55:10Jocko Willink?

  I guess the live experiments going on right now.

• 55:14Tulsi Gabbard?

  It is.

• 55:14Jocko Willink?

  With Twitter.

• 55:15Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yes.

• 55:15Jocko Willink?

  Right? With Elon.

• 55:16Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yes.

• 55:16Jocko Willink?

  And what he's doing. And he's bringing back all these people that were banned, including Donald Trump. He just brought back Donald Trump. I don't think Donald Trump has gone on and gone back to Twitter yet. And apparently he has some kind of... Commitment to the other, to the truth, which is another social media platform. Truth Media, Truth, Truth, what is it called? Truth Social?

• 55:41Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 55:42Jocko Willink?

  So, but Elon's let everybody on, except for Alex Jones. Alex Jones, he did not let on what Echo, you're laughing at that. Finally got some reaction out of Echo Charles.

• 55:54Jocko Willink?

  Yay, nay? Alex Jones?

• 55:56Speaker 02

  Yes, that's funny to me, but I don't know.

• 55:58Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 55:59Tulsi Gabbard?

  He's going through a lot of legal, legal situations right now.

• 56:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, what he's, he's owes billions of dollars apparently, right? Billions of dollars to the, the parents of the Sandy Hook massacre. But, so other than Alex Jones, it looks like, it looks like Elon and Twitter is just going wide open.

• 56:19Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 56:19Jocko Willink?

  I think it's literally other than Alex Jones.

• 56:21Tulsi Gabbard?

  What's interesting to me about that is the people who are publicizing that they're leaving. Because now, you know, as Elon said, he's a free speech absolutist.

• 56:32Jocko Willink?

  Which, can you say that if you don't bring Alex Jones back on?

• 56:35Tulsi Gabbard?

  I don't know.

• 56:35Jocko Willink?

  Can you? Is that, is that an absolutist?

• 56:37Speaker 02

  Technically, that's not absolute.

• 56:38Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so he's almost an absolutist.

• 56:41Speaker 02

  Reasonably absolute.

• 56:43Tulsi Gabbard?

  I saw the other day that CBS News, what is it? They, they like, oh, we're leaving Twitter. And then I, was it like a day or two and then they came back?

• 56:52Jocko Willink?

  They came back. You know, Fox News left Twitter for a long time.

• 56:56Tulsi Gabbard?

  Is that right?

• 56:56Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. They left, they left Twitter for, for months and months and months. They left Twitter. And they stayed off. And I forget what brought them back on. But, but you, so you have this experiment kind of with Elon Musk right now, opening up Twitter. And I guess we'll see what happens. And, I mean, the whole thing, it's just such drama. And that's one thing that's interesting. You know, I always feel like all this stuff that we're talking about is like a separate world. That I'm actually not that. I don't get fully engaged in that world because I actually have a bunch of businesses and like things going on and I feel like that's more normal and if you're not careful you think that

• 57:37Jocko Willink?

  this world that we're talking about the world of social media, the world of Twitter, the world of Facebook, the world of Instagram, if you're not careful, you think that's real.

• 57:46Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 57:47Jocko Willink?

  And you have to remember that it's not real.

• 57:48Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 57:49Jocko Willink?

  And that it's just a, it's just a virtual world that's not real, but there's people that live and die in that world. And they, and that world drives them crazy, by the way. I got asked that, I thought, I got asked that on a, on a podcast interview a little while ago, you know, well, how do you feel when people make bad comments about you on Twitter or on, and I said, hey, I recommend you don't really get concerned about those things because it's a bot.

• 58:13Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 58:14Jocko Willink?

  It's a bot or it's a person that's just looking, it's a troll or a bot. That's pretty much what you, how many, what percentage of negative comments are coming from a person that is making a negative comment because their goal is to help influence you and move you in a better direction and see their perspective? The chances are very few. It's a bot or it's a troll. So why are you getting spun up about this stuff?

• 58:34Tulsi Gabbard?

  I was in Greensboro, North Carolina a few days ago, stopped in a little shop on the side of the road. And this guy comes up to me. And he's like, oh my God, are you Tulsi freaking Gabbard? It's like, yeah. It's like, what are you doing here? There's nothing in Greensboro. It's like, oh, you know, I'm here for this event I'll be speaking at later on. And he's like, you know what? If I was on Twitter right now, I would be putting out a tweet saying how much I don't like Tulsi Gabbard. But now you're standing right in front of him and I can't fricking say that. Like you're a real person. And you know, I ended up talking to him for about five minutes or so and he's like, I gotta take a picture. I was like, all right, if you post it on Twitter,

• 59:17Tulsi Gabbard?

  you better like be true to your word here, buddy, and not, not start talking shit about me. But it was just funny, the interaction, which is exactly that, like.

• 59:26Tulsi Gabbard?

  In real life, very rarely. I've, I've actually had it happen a couple of times where people will come up and say the kinds of harsh, you know, mean criticisms that they say on Twitter, maybe all the time, but by and large, most people, they wouldn't have that kind of interaction with someone in real life.

• 59:42Jocko Willink?

  What was the guy's beef with you? Or what do you suspect it would have been?

• 59:46Tulsi Gabbard?

  I don't know, you know, it was interesting because he was, because after he said that, he's like, all right, can I just ask you one question? I was like, yeah, like my ride's waiting outside. I don't have a lot of time, but he's like, you know, you, you say a lot of things that are pretty critical to the Democratic Party and I agree with a lot of those things, but why are you still a Democrat? I'm like, oh, I'm not. He's like, oh, you're not? It's like, no, go listen to episode one of my podcast and there's 29 minutes of me telling you exactly why I left the Democrat Party. But then that was it. And then he's like, oh my gosh, like, okay, I'm going to go and listen to that. But, and then he asked if he could take a picture. And then as I was walking out, there were people sitting next to me was like, is that Tulsi Gabbard? I was like, yeah. Anyways, it was just funny.

• 1:00:30Tulsi Gabbard?

  Because I don't know that he knew exactly what his beef was. But for whatever reason, he was not positively disposed towards me. But then after four minutes of a conversation, and just recognizing like, hey, yeah, I'm a real person. You're a real person. And maybe we don't agree on everything, probably don't. Disagree on some things, cool, that's fine. But, you know, let's treat each other with respect.

• 1:01:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And what's scary about that is someone that's just like, I don't, I don't like you and I have beef with you and files on Twitter, I'd be talking smack.

• 1:01:07Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:08Jocko Willink?

  And the main reason is because that you've been labeled as a Democrat and so they're not a Democrat, so therefore they must hate you.

• 1:01:13Tulsi Gabbard?

  Right.

• 1:01:14Jocko Willink?

  And, and that's the horrible thing, right? Because, you know, someone can be anything. And if you have an open mind and listen to what they have to say, you go, oh, well, they got some good points there. And that really doesn't make any sense to me right now, but let's hear what their perspective is. And that's a good way to, a good way to like, survive and live with other human beings in the world.

• 1:01:36Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:36Jocko Willink?

  Listen to what they have to say, maybe try and see their perspective a little bit, which it just seems like, is very limited, especially in the, in the world of social media.

• 1:01:47Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah. And this, this goes to, you know, one of the

• 1:01:52Tulsi Gabbard?

  This is something that I talked about in my statement about why I left the Democrat Party is how divided our country has become largely because of those, you know, well, if you are white, therefore you are this. If you are black, therefore you are that. And how the Democratic Party has completely gone against Dr. King's dream of this, you know, that his kids would one day grow up in a society where we're judged based on our character, not the color of our skin. Well, now, even in our schools, elementary schools, they want our kids to be taught that if you're white, you're privileged. If you are a person of color, then you are the oppressed, or you are the victim. And dividing

• 1:02:37Tulsi Gabbard?

  us based on the color of our skin and racializing everything in our society. If something happens, well, obviously, it's because of race. Obviously, it's because of the color of your skin. And you can go down that path of these broad categorizations, whether it's based on party politics, or race, ethnicity, religion, any of these boxes that they like to put us in, and use as wedges to drive us apart, rather than, again, focus like, alright, let's just go below the surface and recognize that, you know, all people from Hawaii are not

• 1:03:16Tulsi Gabbard?

  the same. Or, you know, whatever the fill in the blank is. We get into dangerous territory when we judge each other just based on, you know, the superficial, or the label that is attached to us. And I've been on the receiving end of this constantly, because I've never fit into any one of those specific boxes. And, you know, friends of mine say, well, that hurts you politically, because then you don't have like, that natural support base. But, you know, none of us as people are monolith. None of us are just walking around as like, oh, you know, this, these labels are attached to me, therefore I am that. And it, assuming that in our society, has the negative

• 1:04:01Tulsi Gabbard?

  A fact of of not encouraging that critical thinking, that independent thought, that healthy skepticism of like, all right, when I read this story or I hear this view, where are they coming from? What's the angle on it? What's what's what's their experience? Maybe that's informed that that may be different from my own? And what can I learn from it? You know, or what? Maybe I end up disagreeing with it and but I've thought through here are the reasons why not just because like, oh, that person is in this category or this group, therefore I must disagree, I must be opposed. And and that's a it has the opposite effect of,

• 1:04:41Tulsi Gabbard?

  I think, the foundation of this country, which is we are all Americans, out of many, there are one. And this kind of individual thought and freedom of expression was celebrated at one time in this country. And now, worse than not being celebrated, there are punitive effects and consequences to that freedom of expression to where it becomes freedom of express, you know, for those in power, freedom of expression is only celebrated if they agree with it.

• 1:05:11Jocko Willink?

  Imagine the being the adversary of America, like you're China right now. And you're just sitting there watching this unfold. And there's no better way to destroy your adversary than to have them destroy themselves. And so it's no, it's no surprise when, you know, the the Russian bot farms were setting up these these pro these counter protests and protests in the same neighborhoods and and and really just doing all they could to divide America. And that's why I always try and keep that top of mind for myself. When when I get put into a scenario where someone's trying to,

• 1:05:55Jocko Willink?

  you know, frame me up mentally.

• 1:05:58Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:58Jocko Willink?

  Frame me up mentally, I'm always thinking to myself, okay, well, hold on a second, don't get framed up mentally, listen to what someone else has to say, see what their perspective is and remember that they're American and I'm an American. Because if I'm an American and you're American, cool, we got all kinds of things in common, all kinds of things in common. I think I said this on this podcast before, unless you're an actual ISIS member.

• 1:06:22Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:24Jocko Willink?

  I, I, I, we, we're gonna find some common ground. Like, we're gonna both like UFC, or we're gonna both like guitar. Like, there's gonna be something there.

• 1:06:33Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:33Jocko Willink?

  We're gonna both like Led Zeppelin, or whatever. There's gonna be something there where we go, "Okay, cool. I'm, I'm, I'm down." You know, "Oh, you listen to Led Zeppelin. Cool. What's your favorite album?" Like, "Let's go." But it's really easy to just focus on, "Oh, you like this and I don't like that, therefore, you're my enemy and we should fight." Which is really, really freaking lame.

• 1:06:55Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:56Jocko Willink?

  It's really lame. And that's where we get framed up all day, day long. And social media is the amplifier of that, that we've never seen before.

• 1:07:04Tulsi Gabbard?

  Truly.

• 1:07:05Jocko Willink?

  Never seen before. I think it would clean up a lot on Twitter if you were only allowed to be you. You're only allowed to have your name.

• 1:07:10Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah. I agree with that.

• 1:07:12Jocko Willink?

  You can be you.

• 1:07:13Tulsi Gabbard?

  You can't hide behind.

• 1:07:13Jocko Willink?

  Isn't that kinda what Facebook does? Facebook does that, right? Can you be on Facebook and be like, you know, "Alpha 29474", and make a bunch of comments? Echo Charles, expert?

• 1:07:25Speaker 02

  That's not a yes or no question. Kinda can't. You could probably get away with it to a degree.

• 1:07:30Tulsi Gabbard?

  A false name, right?

• 1:07:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, a fake name. Or, yeah, yeah, cuz I, I see people with that.

• 1:07:34Jocko Willink?

  On Facebook?

• 1:07:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. With the, something other than their real name. Yes.

• 1:07:39Jocko Willink?

  So maybe if you're gonna make comments-

• 1:07:41Tulsi Gabbard?

  Which is like the catfishing, right? Like, they put up, they find like pictures of-

• 1:07:44Speaker 02

  Well, that depends. If they're trying to misrepresent their identity, yes.

• 1:07:48Tulsi Gabbard?

  That's true.

• 1:07:48Speaker 02

  But-

• 1:07:49Tulsi Gabbard?

  To take advantage of someone else, yeah.

• 1:07:50Speaker 02

  You know, there's, that's like an alias, nickname, you know, that kinda stuff. I see that, for sure.

• 1:07:55Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:56Speaker 02

  But I, I don't think Facebook is like openly permissive about it. I think it's like, they try to make you have your real name.

• 1:08:03Jocko Willink?

  It seems like, it seems to me when I look at Facebook comments, they're people.

• 1:08:08Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:08:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Twitter comments, maybe not so much. Twitter comments, YouTube totally not. YouTube fully not. Uh, and the divisiveness, people, this is another thing that I find interesting is, people talk about, "It's never been more divisive than it is now." And I get it, we wanna make headlines, but man, we had a literal civil war, where 650,000 people died. 650,000 people died, right? And even in the late 60s, early 70s, there was crazy, crazy civil unrest. And there was, you know, the 70s Liberation Army and the Black Liberation Army, and the Black Panthers, and the Weather Underground. And these were groups that were killing-

• 1:08:53Jocko Willink?

  Like there was like something like thirty five police officers that were assassinated. There was bombings bombings happened so much in those days.

• 1:09:01Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:02Jocko Willink?

  That it was it almost didn't even make the headline of the news. I mean, if there's a if someone puts a bomb off today in America, that's going to be in the front of every news story. There every news corporation there is back in the late sixties, early seventies, that stuff was just happening. They were just blowing stuff up. So it's not as bad. It's not the worst it's ever been, but it certainly seems that way when you go on social media and you start paying attention to that mayhem.

• 1:09:28Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah, it's true. And and you know, I don't know what the the recent numbers, but I feel like Twitter, you might know this echo, but Twitter, I think is like.

• 1:09:37Jocko Willink?

  Became a. I guess compared to me in Tulsa.

• 1:09:41Tulsi Gabbard?

  You're the tech guy. But it's something like like less than five percent of Americans are on Twitter. It's some it's it's a really I was just surprisingly low number. But you look at it is known as the place for people in politics and the media. And so when you look at the outsized influence, you know, like a tweet can make a news story.

• 1:10:07Tulsi Gabbard?

  It's not representative of, you know, the vast majority of Americans in this country. But it has an outsized effect.

• 1:10:15Jocko Willink?

  It does have an outside effect, and I think that is safe to say it's not the it's most people aren't spending. I had this conversation with Ben Shapiro. You know, he was talking about all this stuff, and I said, Hey, Ben, you're at ground zero for like political controversy and mayhem. And most people in America are just like working their job, going to their kids. Jiu Jitsu tournament, wrestling tournament, piano recital. That's what most people are doing. Now, if you want to open up that app and just get let it creep into your brain. It's going to get in there for sure.

• 1:10:45Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah. I had to take during when I was running for president, my husband like he doesn't like politics and he's not a guy, he's not a social media guy at all.

• 1:10:57Tulsi Gabbard?

  But he was starting to to look at Twitter a lot and it got to the point where it was like actually like first of all, he's like, who is this person? Where are they? Where do they live?

• 1:11:10Tulsi Gabbard?

  But but I remember like we were sitting in like an Olive Garden for dinner, probably in New Hampshire somewhere and he was it was he was glued to his phone and I could like almost palpably feel his blood pressure rising and you know, his is like stress and anxiety and anger and just all of these emotions. And there's a few times I literally had to physically pull his phone from his hand and then he ultimately just deleted the app because, you know, this is not a world that he lives in. I've been used to all kinds of attacks for a really long time. But it has.

• 1:11:44Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah, I mean, for for you can understand that for people who don't aren't accustomed to that sort of thing, it can have a really, really negative emotional impact.

• 1:11:55Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. We had one of my buddies, Mike Fink, who runs an awesome organization, helping vets, but he said something when he was on the podcast about like, you are giving the energy to the thing that's eating you. So like your husband just going, oh, you know what? I've had enough of this delete.

• 1:12:12Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:13Jocko Willink?

  That and one of our friends, Jack Daniel, Jack Daniel Hill, just went on like a retreat into the mountains. And I was like, oh, how was it? And you know, just talking to him. And the first thing he goes, it was four days, no phone, no watch, didn't even know what time it was. And he said, when he got back, he said, it was such a good like dopamine reset because you realize.

• 1:12:37Jocko Willink?

  What that phone does to you, like how it makes you feel. You know, it's like I talk about fasting from food and one of the best things you get from a food fast is it recalibrates your hunger, right? Like you think like it's been two hours, dude, I'm starving. You're starving, you're like, you're an idiot, right? And, and then you get done with like a fast, a three day fast and you're like, I'm not even close to hungry. I'm fine. And so the dopamine hit on the phone is the same thing. Like you take a break from that thing and you go, oh, this thing is running my brain.

• 1:13:10Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:11Jocko Willink?

  It's got, it's got ownership of my brain. You can't let that happen.

• 1:13:15Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah. And you don't even realize it. That, that documentary, Social Dilemma was very eye opening in how intentional, completely intentional, like they're looking for that exact effect. Oh, completely like the smallest, littlest things like opportunity for exploitation, left, right and center, and it's constant. And it's, uh, yeah, I, I used to wear an Apple watch and I don't anymore specifically because like I don't need that. Oh, constantly, constantly.

• 1:13:46Jocko Willink?

  You know what's other weird thing is like on Twitter, obviously, and, and look, I like Twitter and what I like about Twitter is it's fun. Because it's basically for my, for my, for lack of a better word, personality, you get to sit there and make one liners.

• 1:14:03Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:03Jocko Willink?

  It's basically just one liners and, and, and it's, it's easier than the one liners. If you and I are talking, cause if you and I are talking, I have to do a one liner on the spot. I have one second to think about, I gotta do it.

• 1:14:13Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:13Jocko Willink?

  With Twitter, I can take seven minutes to think of a really good one liner, right? So of course you're gonna win. Of course you're gonna sound, you're gonna sound funny or whatever. And it's a fun thing to do, but man, sometimes I'll like read someone that's putting something on Twitter. And you can see that they're putting some little fraction of their of their soul into it. Maybe that's a strong word, but they're putting at least some level of effort of like, hey, I want to make this point. People have to hear this. What I'm about to say is going to have impact. And I'm thinking, I'm sorry, man, but like, if you're looking to change the world, you shouldn't be trying to change the world on Twitter. You should be trying to change the world through some other things, start a business, grow a company, go out and talk to people and communicate with them in a broad, long-term format.

• 1:14:57Jocko Willink?

  But but to sit there and be like, all right, this is the thread. This is the thread that's really going to change things up. This is the one. So I think that's a little bit sketchy and you have to watch out for that. And and again, I also think that Twitter originally as a method of communication. When I originally got on it, Tim Ferriss, he says to me, oh, no, it's a really good way to like, talk to people and communicate with them. And you can get a bunch of information. I was like, oh, I guess that sounds cool. And at some point Twitter went from a way to communicate with a bunch of people and have them communicate back to you and people you don't know. And it's all good and we can all, it went from that sort of a positive communication. And I still think I feel, I still feel that way about it. Like I'll go on, have all kinds of positive, really good interactions with people.

• 1:15:39Jocko Willink?

  I'm probably the only person that's just on there trying to have a bunch of positive interaction. Even when people say negative stuff to me on Twitter, I always say, oh, that's a cool perspective. Thank you. Like, well, that makes sense. I never thought of it that way. And let me keep an open mind here, instead of just going on the attack. But yeah, people got to watch out for that one.

• 1:15:59Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah. So my approach is a little different than yours.

• 1:16:05Tulsi Gabbard?

  I am, and you know, you know, social media strategists may have have some some constructive feedback here, but I do try to be pretty intentional about things that I put out on social media at a large. But Twitter, limitation of space, I put, I put some thought into the statements that I'm making in the hope that it will have an impact, at least causing people to ask a question or maybe stop and think about whatever the topic is that I'm commenting on and using it as a platform to help inform and engage on on the issues, issues of the day. It's challenging because it's so short. But to me, all of these different platforms, yes, there's, there's positives and negatives to them.

• 1:16:48Tulsi Gabbard?

  So I want to try to, I do, I want to be very intentional about what I am putting out.

• 1:16:55Tulsi Gabbard?

  Responses, you know, cross, cross the spectrum, but to me, this is like, really the thing is like, people are like, oh, you know, I always laugh at the comments that are like, oh, I hate what you say, or you're so ignorant, or you're terrible, all of these different things, like, dude, unfollow. It's as simple as that. Or you should not be allowed to speak and da, da, da, da, da. Unfollow. And that's where, that's where like, you, you see how, again, people in government and people in positions of power, like, we need to ban hate speech. We need to ban misinformation and disinformation. Who gets to decide what that is? You know, your, you know, what Echo might think is hate speech may be different from what you might consider hate speech. What's offensive to him might be

• 1:17:40Tulsi Gabbard?

  different than what's offensive to you. You know, we saw this through the COVID pandemic, right? One day, Dr. Fauci says, oh, masks are useless. Don't go buy them. Then the next day is like, well, actually, everybody really has to wear a mask. Like, okay, so who gets to say what is misinformation and disinformation and what should be banned versus not banned?

• 1:18:00Jocko Willink?

  The, the postmortem on the COVID is very crazy to look at.

• 1:18:05Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah. It's a great case study for what we're talking about.

• 1:18:08Jocko Willink?

  The last time you were here, the last time you were here, you did do a podcast, but you were in town and Echo and I were here and you just were like, hey, I'm in town, swing by. And so you were here. Echo and I were like way beyond COVID. I guess we were just like not wearing masks, not doing anything. You were here, you were still, you were still in Congress. You were here, you had two masks on. We ended up having, I ended up having to send you the, the horrible text of like, hey, I'm really sorry, but both Echo and I have COVID after you left. But what you, when you look back, what do you think of that whole gig? That whole COVID thing? Like, it was mayhem.

• 1:18:49Tulsi Gabbard?

  It was, it was mayhem and a lot of it was caused by a lot of, I mean, look, I mean, Fauci was lying about masks because he didn't want people to go buy masks because he felt like there wasn't enough masks for healthcare professionals. And I think at different points, you know, you saw how

• 1:19:13Tulsi Gabbard?

  You're not allowed to go to church, not allowed to go to a funeral, not allowed to have a wedding, you're not allowed to gather with friends in your house, not allowed to have birthday parties, but.

• 1:19:24Jocko Willink?

  You can go to Home Depot, Walmart and McDonald's.

• 1:19:25Tulsi Gabbard?

  Home Depot, Walmart, McDonald's, or 50,000 people in a Black Lives Matter march, shoulder to shoulder, social distancing, six feet apart, like, ah, no. And, and just the, the direct statements that these so-called professional, healthcare professionals made during that time was like, oh, well, you know, the cause is worthy. So therefore it outweighs the risk of COVID, but your kids are not allowed to go to school. My, my whole, my whole perspective on this is, um, individual choice. And so for me, like, I travel a lot, I do a lot, I don't want to get sick. I was wearing masks on planes before COVID happened because I, I can't afford to have

• 1:20:05Tulsi Gabbard?

  days out where I can't do what I need to do, whether that was in Congress or, or, or now, you know, I have people in my family who have compromised immune system. So generally I am more careful than your average person because I don't want to, I don't, I can't, I can't afford to get sick. But it comes down to the, the idea of individual choice was thrown out the window. And we saw how people in power were claiming to act in the best interest of quote unquote public health, but it really got to a point where this was about compliance or face the consequences. It was, it became about power. And that's, that's the dangerous thing as we look back at what happened.

• 1:20:48Jocko Willink?

  How much did, how much did government trust decay because of COVID?

• 1:20:53Tulsi Gabbard?

  How much did government trust what?

• 1:20:54Jocko Willink?

  Decay?

• 1:20:55Tulsi Gabbard?

  What do you mean?

• 1:20:56Jocko Willink?

  I mean, people that maybe before COVID would be like, oh, you know, government's saying something, it's, you know.

• 1:21:01Tulsi Gabbard?

  Oh, government, yeah, decaying trust in the government. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, I, I think, I think that, that lack of trust went up dramatically. Um, because, you know, God, what was it? One of these mainstream media, I don't know if it's New York Times, New Yorker, one of these had an op ed recently published where they're just like, oh, people should just. Forgive people like Dr. Fauci for being wrong because hey, nobody really knew what was going on. And a lot of parents being like, hold on a second, you know, my kid was out of school for two years and you want us to just forgive and forget as my kid's trying to,

• 1:21:38Tulsi Gabbard?

  you know, play catch up or, or just whatever, you know, again, like I, I've families who could not go and, and see a loved one in the hospital before they died.

• 1:21:51Tulsi Gabbard?

  There, there's not a whole lot of forgive and forget, I think, going on by people who really, really were, you know, small business owners who were forced out of business. And then there's just so many different examples.

• 1:22:01Jocko Willink?

  You know, from a leadership perspective, you have to be honest with people about what you know and what you don't know. And what's like your best guess and what, and look, it never inspires confidence, right? If we're in combat and I say, hey, Tulsi, I guess you should move to that next building, right? Like it doesn't inspire the kind of confidence that people want to hear. But if you and I are working together and you know that, listen, all leadership decisions are a guess. They really are. You're not making any leadership decisions that I know 100 or very few. Let me rephrase that. Very few leadership decisions that you make as a human being in a leadership position. You know 100% what's going to happen. And if you did, then who cares, right?

• 1:22:44Jocko Willink?

  If I know 100%, oh, I know 100% if we make this investment, we will 100%. That's not even a decision, right? That's just a smart move that you're going to make. If I knew on the battlefield, 100%, if you take down this building, we're going to get the flank on the enemy and not lose anybody. Great. That's, that's not a, that's just a move, right? But when it comes to making decisions, you gotta, you gotta recognize number one, that hey, this is a guess that I'm making right now, based on the information that I have. And when more information comes out, I'm probably going to have to make adjustments to what I said 15 minutes ago, 15 days ago, 15 weeks ago, or whatever. And, and yet it seemed like people's egos were so fragile that they just dug in and just

• 1:23:25Tulsi Gabbard?

  Even when it made no sense.

• 1:23:26Jocko Willink?

  It made no sense anymore. Even when it made, after they had the freaking Super Bowl in Los Angeles with, how many people were there at Echo Charles? I don't know. 80,000 or something like this. And they're, they're all in there. And then in LA, at that time, I had gone to LA for something. It was full on. Like everyone's wearing a mask and then they had the Super Bowl and no one's wearing a mask. And then they go back and it's like, it didn't make sense. And no one said, hey, you know what? What we thought a month ago, two months ago, whatever. We've, we've, we've adjusted what we were thinking because we, we might've been wrong about that. And, and here's what we're thinking now. This is our best guess. This is how we're going to move forward. None of that happened. It was freaking ridiculous.

• 1:24:07Tulsi Gabbard?

  And the crazy thing is like, you know, as uh, someone who has, you know, especially in the military, but in politics, been exposed to good leaders and, and you know, bad leaders. What I would hope for, for, from uh, someone in a leadership position is just that honesty and transparency. Say, hey, here's the decision that we made based on the information that we had. We have new information and so here is, here's the guidance or here's, here's the direction uh, that we're headed. Like that would engender more trust and more respect by those, to those in, in positions of power and, and uh, and leadership rather than exactly what you're saying we, we saw where they were more concerned about

• 1:24:50Tulsi Gabbard?

  not admitting like, hey, we, we got that one a little wrong. We're going to adjust and kind of course correct. They're more concerned about that than they were about actually doing what was right and what was best. And not concerned for the consequences, more concerned for themselves and how people might perceive them.

• 1:25:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And that's what's weird. Everybody knows. Everybody knows. I asked hundreds of people this question when I, when I talk about leadership. Like if I go to you and I say, hey Tulsi, I'm not really sure how to conduct this mission. What do you think we should do?

• 1:25:20Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:21Jocko Willink?

  Everybody knows that that's a better attitude and better leadership than if I'm not really sure how to conduct an operation. I say, all right Tulsi, here's how we're doing it. And this is what we're going to do because I said so. Everybody knows that the first leader that asked for input and has an open mind. Everybody knows that leaders more respected. Everybody knows that. And yet when we're in the leadership position, we decide to think, you know what? Everyone's going to think I'm, I don't know what I'm doing if I ask Tulsi what her opinion is. It's freaking totally ridiculous and it's totally wrong. And yet it's our ego, our ego. Ego is so strong that it overpowers our actual knowledge of what good leadership is. We all know the better leader says, hey, you know, I've never conducted an operation like this before. Tulsi, I know you have. How do you think we should do it?

• 1:26:06Jocko Willink?

  Everybody knows that that's better leadership than Tulsi's got a bunch of experience in this type of operation. I've never done it before, but I don't want to look bad, so I'm going to dictate how we're doing it. Everybody knows that that's bad.

• 1:26:16Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:17Jocko Willink?

  And yet our ego pushes us to do that. It's ridiculous. That's how strong the ego is.

• 1:26:21Tulsi Gabbard?

  One of my favorite series of all times is Band of Brothers. And it was something that I first learned about as an E. I'd just gotten into the Army National Guard. We did our annual training at Fort Indian Town Gap in Pennsylvania. And I had happened to pick up the book Band of Brothers by Dick Winters. As we were out there, was reading it, was on the plane going back to Hawaii. When I finished it in the very back of the book, it says, you know, Dick Winters has now retired and is residing in Fort Indian Town Gap, Pennsylvania. I was like, oh, my God, I would have loved to go knock on that guy's door. That would have been incredible, but I've watched that series so many times in OCS. We actually had, we watched episode by episode and we had to write essays on each episode,

• 1:27:05Tulsi Gabbard?

  talking about leadership lessons. And for those who've seen it, the Captain Sobel character, who was Ross from Friends. He is that guy. He is that guy who was totally driven by ego, did not care about what was right or drawing from experience or anything else. He was right to a fault and his soldiers suffered and they lacked any respect for him. Like blatantly saluted the rank solely, but that was it. Like following him into combat terrified them. And they talked about this and raised this through their chain of command versus Dick Winters, the guy who really represented and embodied those, the characteristics of servant leadership and humility.

• 1:27:48Tulsi Gabbard?

  And, you know, drawing on the strengths of his NCOs and his men to be able to make sure that they were taking care of each other and accomplishing the mission.

• 1:27:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. At Echelon Front, we do that. We, we actually take chunks of Band of Brothers and talk about it. And again, everybody knows that Captain Sobel is hated.

• 1:28:07Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yep.

• 1:28:08Jocko Willink?

  And everybody knows that when you come, when you try and demand respect from people, it doesn't work. Everyone knows that. And yet people freaking do it. At Echelon Front, my leadership company wouldn't exist if this stuff, if people could just. Just kind of execute on what they know.

• 1:28:23Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:24Jocko Willink?

  But that ego is so strong that it just overpowers the ability to listen to what other people have to say. It overpowers the people, the ability to allow themselves to be influenced by what other people are saying. They think of that as weakness. If you say, hey, Jono, I think we should attack this target from the north instead of from the west. And in my mind, I think, wait a second, I'm going to look weak if I accept Tulsi's input right now. So, no.

• 1:28:49Tulsi Gabbard?

  Right.

• 1:28:49Jocko Willink?

  Our ego just drives us. And this is again, I think this is one of the major issues that we see in America. Is that a lot of times people think, I'm going to look weak if I do this. I'm going to look bad or I don't want to submit. I don't want to subordinate my ego. I don't want, I don't want Tulsi to be the one that had the good idea. So I'm not going to use her idea. I'd rather just fail. Isn't it crazy? It, it happens in business a lot where I, I come up with the idea. My idea is not working, but it was my idea. So I'm just going to lose. I'm not, I'm going to go bankrupt. And people think, no, no one would do that. Oh, yes, they will. And they do. And, and the extreme example is combat.

• 1:29:32Jocko Willink?

  There's plenty of historical examples where people have gotten their troops killed. And in some cases gotten themselves killed because they just didn't want to, they didn't want to say, you know what? I was wrong about this. We shouldn't attack. We shouldn't do a frontal assault right now. We should actually take a step back, maybe retreat a little bit and come and attack a different. There, there's plenty of examples in history where people die because their ego gets in the way. So it happens in business. And if it can happen in, in business and people can bankrupt the company and it can happen in battle and people can get people killed. It will certainly happen all day on Twitter where people say, I would rather just perish.

• 1:30:09Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:10Jocko Willink?

  Then, then admit that, oh, that's a good point. I didn't think through that.

• 1:30:13Tulsi Gabbard?

  And obviously it happens in politics every single day.

• 1:30:16Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:30:17Tulsi Gabbard?

  And I think the interesting thing about that is these are decisions that are made out of fear. Their motivation is fear ultimately is themselves looking stupid or silly or not getting the credit or whatever it is. And I, I could, examples day and night, I could tell you in politics. How people who are elected into these positions of leadership.

• 1:30:39Tulsi Gabbard?

  Are really followers who are looking to react to certain situations. What will put me in the best light? You know, how can I take advantage of this to further myself? Or make those decisions based on fear. Fear of like, hey, I don't want to stand out from the crowd. I don't want to get this criticism. I don't want to be ostracized by this group or that group. Or what if these people don't like me? Or what if, you know, I don't get the credit for this? And that was, you know, one of the first days that I had as a new member of Congress in Washington. You know, the message from Democratic Party leadership was like, hey, you, you need to make sure that, that we as a party get the credit for what you're doing.

• 1:31:22Tulsi Gabbard?

  So if there's a bill with a good idea that one of your Republican colleagues puts forward and they want you to join them on it, don't do it because you'll make them look good. Just take their idea and you introduce the bill so that you and therefore the Democrats get credit for it. And then, and only then will we advance that idea because if it's the other guys then now, you know, we'll just let that bill die silently in the night. And, and you know, Scum. If, if this were just, you know, um, I don't know, running for class president in high school, that'd be one thing. But then you take this example and you look at people who are making decisions based on our foreign policy and where and when our men and women are sent into combat.

• 1:32:06Tulsi Gabbard?

  And not being willing to say, hey, uh, we got that one wrong. Or hey, we need to relook at how we're thinking about this problem set and ask the question, how does this best serve the interests of the United States, our national security, the interest of the American people? Instead of like, I gotta look tough. I gotta be strong. I gotta pound my chest. And the, the unfortunate, and this is why I talk a lot about how the most important responsibility the president has is to serve as commander in chief. And the danger of having a weak minded person in that position who does not understand the seriousness of that job is they feel they have to prove their strength. And what better way to prove that strength than to say, hey, I'm going to go drop some bombs.

• 1:32:51Tulsi Gabbard?

  I'm going to go send in, you know, our, our meanest, baddest fighters to go into a certain situation or start a war, insert ourselves into a conflict without actually saying, hey, maybe. Exercising restraint in this situation is actually the, not only the right move, but it's the power move. It's the move that actually serves the interest of our country. And that's, that's the dangerous consequence of exactly what you're talking about of ego and, and leaders making decisions based on emotion and fear, rather than actual assessment of, all right, what are we looking at? What are the consequences of course of action, A, B, C, and D? And what exactly are we trying to accomplish?

• 1:33:32Jocko Willink?

  It's freaking depressing. Is there any, is there any freaking light at the end of the tunnel for our, our government?

• 1:33:41Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yes.

• 1:33:41Jocko Willink?

  What is it?

• 1:33:43Tulsi Gabbard?

  Us. The light, the light at the end of the tunnel is people who are frustrated by the status quo, people who are concerned for what kind of future that we want to leave behind for our kids, what kind of country we want them to grow up in.

• 1:34:02Tulsi Gabbard?

  Be, when I say be the change, it's, it's recognize the vision that our founders had for this country that, you know, literally escaping control and being governed by a monarchy where the people had no say to forming this country based on the foundation of a self-governed people. And what, what does that actually mean? What does that look like? It's we the people fulfilling our responsibility in selecting leaders who truly are a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. There's a lot of different ways that any one of us can get involved and, and be a part of that. But the basic, the bare minimum is

• 1:34:44Tulsi Gabbard?

  cast your vote and do a little bit of work, just a little bit, to make sure that the votes that you're casting are based on, you know, informed, you know, figure out, figure out what, what you, what you want. And this is not to say, and you know, you'll hear in politics like, oh, one side only wants to get their side out to vote in hopes everybody else stays home. The more we have this open marketplace of ideas, the more we exercise our rights and freedoms, and make sure that our voices are heard, then we have the kind of robust democracy that, that our founders envisioned.

• 1:35:20Jocko Willink?

  Again, back to the depressing viewpoint over from Jaco, is the game.

• 1:35:26Jocko Willink?

  That gets played as far as the whole political system, the game that's getting played is not conducive to people, hey, okay, this is what I'm thinking right now, and this is what my beliefs are, and I'm gonna go out and vote, and therefore, if a bunch of people are thinking like me, then we'll probably do okay. The game that's being played is like, it's all about how much money can you put into advertising? And how much, how many people can you get to vote? And what methodology is there for voting? I mean, some of the voting things are crazy, some of the things that happen with, with voting and the way voting takes place. So it seems like the game that the politicians are playing,

• 1:36:08Jocko Willink?

  there's, you know, that the people are just sort of pawns that are, yeah, here's what we're gonna do to get the pawns to vote this way, and here's what the, we'll get the, we'll get the result that we want.

• 1:36:23Tulsi Gabbard?

  All of that is absolutely true. And, and knowing that that is true and knowing that that's the case is so important for us to know as voters, what we're being subjected to and why. And it's exactly to try to manipulate us to vote in the way that one side or the other wants us to. And knowing that, then we can take a step back and again, encourage that critical thinking, encourage that as you're getting information, whether it's on a television ad, or a social media post, or a news article.

• 1:36:55Tulsi Gabbard?

  Exercise your own discernment and pause for a minute and think about, okay, well, what, what is their bias? What are they, what do they want me to think, or how do they want me to react to this? There are, there are some apps out there, I know there's, there's a bunch, there's one that I have on my phone called All Sides. And it's an app that will present kind of the news headlines of the day. And it'll say, well, this news source is left-leaning, this one is neutral, this one is right-leaning. And it's not foolproof by any means, but there, there's some quick ways to kind of look out there and get a little bit of an idea of what direction or angle or bias a certain media source has taken. So that you know, okay, well, if I read- This then, okay, well, that's that's kind of the outcome they want me to have.

• 1:37:40Tulsi Gabbard?

  But being aware of that, I think, is the first step. There are a lot of other policy changes that I think need to take place to address some of the problems that we're talking about. But that can only happen when we throw out leaders who are abusing their power and actually start to get real leaders into office who will take us in the right direction.

• 1:38:03Jocko Willink?

  When you say policy changes to address some of the things that have happened, like, what do you mean?

• 1:38:08Tulsi Gabbard?

  I mean, the big tech, I think, is a huge one. That as long as politicians are in the pockets and getting money from the Googles and Metas of the world, we're not going to see those kinds of changes take place. We hear a lot, I've heard a lot from both Democrats and Republicans about, oh, you know, big tech monopolies are such a big problem. It's like, yeah, okay, so what are you doing about it? And when you look at it, like, they're not, they're not doing anything about it, actually. There's a, you know, a healthy debate and conversation that needs to be had about how do you, you know, what role does government play in regulating these monopolies?

• 1:38:48Tulsi Gabbard?

  I think first, you know, there's Section 230 within the US Code provides big tech essentially with the legal immunity that a publisher like the New York Times does not have. Because originally, they thought, okay, well, big tech, you know, like, they, they're not going to be an arbiter and a curator of information. They're just going to be, you know, an online platform. Whereas the New York Times does curate, you know, what letters to the editor they choose to publish or the articles they choose to publish. But in reality, in an application, these big tech monopolies are exactly, they're curating very, very carefully every single thing that we see.

• 1:39:30Tulsi Gabbard?

  And yet, they are not being held legally liable in the same way that a publisher would. So that's, that's kind of basic number one of like, okay, how should they be treated? Some say, oh, they should be treated as a utility. Much like the phone company where, you know, the phone company doesn't control who calls who or the content of any conversation, they are just a platform for us to be able to communicate and talk to each other. So I think, I think this big tech obviously does not want to lose that legal immunity. If they are a free speech platform, then be a free speech platform. If they're a platform that says, well, we're only going to push

• 1:40:11Tulsi Gabbard?

  these certain viewpoints, then people know that and will know that going in. That's, that's, that's an important place to start to make it so that these monopolies. I have been a big fan of breaking up big tech, using existing provisions within the law that

• 1:40:32Jocko Willink?

  Like standard antitrust type stuff?

• 1:40:34Tulsi Gabbard?

  Exactly. To, to avoid exactly what we are seeing now, where you can say, oh, well, you know, you can use duck dot go instead of Google, but you're not going to get the same kind of effect and reach of being able to get as much information as you would because Google has a monopoly. And there are different approaches to this, but recognizing the problem and how they're directly interfering in our elections as one major example. We talked about Chloe Cole. There are other situations that-

• 1:41:07Jocko Willink?

  Well, like the Biden, the Hunter Biden laptop.

• 1:41:09Tulsi Gabbard?

  Exactly. That's a great example.

• 1:41:11Jocko Willink?

  Is that not crazy?

• 1:41:13Tulsi Gabbard?

  It's insane. It's insane. How, how, you know, for, for people who don't know, it was like just weeks before the general election in 2020, hugely consequential election. You have this discovery of a laptop that Hunter Biden left at a computer store. And then you have, I think it was at 50 or 51, either current or retired senior intelligence officials, like people who headed the CIA, coming out with a blanket statement saying that the contents of this laptop should not be released because it could be disinformation from Russia trying to influence the outcome of our election.

• 1:41:55Tulsi Gabbard?

  And then, uh, I don't know, was it the FBI who told Facebook not to?

• 1:42:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, FBI told Facebook to expect Russian propaganda in the, in the near future.

• 1:42:06Tulsi Gabbard?

  Right.

• 1:42:07Jocko Willink?

  And then that kind of got put in with it. And, uh, Mark Zuckerberg on Rogan's podcast said, he, he said he didn't do what Twitter did, was Twitter just, well, just deleted any of those tweets that were pointing people in that direction. Facebook just downplayed it or de-escalated its, its growth. So no one really saw it.

• 1:42:27Tulsi Gabbard?

  Right.

• 1:42:27Jocko Willink?

  Which.

• 1:42:28Tulsi Gabbard?

  Which is essentially the same thing.

• 1:42:30Jocko Willink?

  And that's like, you can't, that seems totally insane that that happened.

• 1:42:35Tulsi Gabbard?

  Well, you think about why? Why, why did they do this? It was because they were concerned.

• 1:42:42Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:42:42Tulsi Gabbard?

  That the information on the laptop would cause people to not vote for Joe Biden and instead vote for Donald Trump. Not a single one of those, uh, there, I forget what news it was, but they went back, um, once the, obviously the election was over and, and the, the information on the laptop had been released, had gone back to any of those senior intelligence or all of them, actually, they reached out to all of them to say, hey, now that you know what you know, do you regret making the statement that you made blaming Russia on this? Uh, and many of them didn't respond to the question. Those that did, not a single one of them said, I regret it, or I was wrong. Not a single one of them. Most of them saying, well, I stand

• 1:43:27Tulsi Gabbard?

  by my statement. This is, this is such an egregious, I mean, this has to, this has to be called out for, for what it is. This is people in, in major positions of power and influence, essentially stealing our democracy, stealing our right as voter, voters to have all the information available to us before making this hugely consequential, consequential decision on who our president should be. But yet, this is the problem, right? This is the game that you're talking about. This is the problem is like, no one's holding these people to account. No one's holding their feet to the fire. No one's demanding like, hey, You know, you, you have completely discredited yourself if you're not willing to say, hey, I was wrong.

• 1:44:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that's like one of the Saul Alinsky, again, one of the rules, and he's got a whole section that's not just one of his rules. He's got a whole section on the rules of the means to an end. And it's basically, if you're gonna, you do whatever it takes. You do whatever it takes to get to what you want. And that's why people, you know, in that, in that situation, they go, no, I don't, I don't, I don't regret my statement. Cause it's a means to an end. And they got what they wanted, which was to get a bunch of people not to see information that may affect the way that they vote.

• 1:44:41Tulsi Gabbard?

  And that is such a dangerous, dangerous mindset. Dangerous mindset where, again, it's, it's so short sighted because you know that that's true. And I've, I've talked to people personally who have said like, you know, there's, they, they will do anything and everything to pretend, to prevent Donald Trump from getting elected president.

• 1:44:59Jocko Willink?

  He is, he is, he's very hated by, by a bunch of people.

• 1:45:04Tulsi Gabbard?

  Hated is lightly used.

• 1:45:06Jocko Willink?

  There's a level of hatred that's just.

• 1:45:08Tulsi Gabbard?

  It's blinding.

• 1:45:09Jocko Willink?

  It's blinding, right?

• 1:45:10Tulsi Gabbard?

  It's blinding. And that's how short sighted that mentality is. So, you know, means to an end. Use whatever means available and necessary to prevent that specific outcome. Turn the tables around. What about when you're on the other end of that stick? And you have the opposing side saying, hey, now it's your side that we believe is the most dangerous thing for America. We're willing to do whatever it takes to stop you or whoever you're advocating or whatever, whatever the case may be. That is such a dangerous mentality to have. And there are examples throughout history of authoritarian dictators who themselves believe like, I am the righteous one. I am the savior.

• 1:45:56Tulsi Gabbard?

  And I'm willing to do whatever it takes because only I know what's best for the people.

• 1:46:02Jocko Willink?

  Are you tracking the FTX meltdown at all?

• 1:46:06Tulsi Gabbard?

  Marginally, I've read, I've read kind of the top lines on it.

• 1:46:09Jocko Willink?

  But yeah, but I look, it's, I don't even know what today is. I think it's the 22nd of November, but and so this, this case is unwinding as we speak. But right now it looks bad.

• 1:46:21Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:21Jocko Willink?

  Because these people were, they set up a big Ponzi scheme for all practical purposes. And with money from that Ponzi scheme, the, they, they were the number two donor to the Democratic Party.

• 1:46:35Tulsi Gabbard?

  Right.

• 1:46:36Jocko Willink?

  Second only to George Soros. So, and, and this guy, the, the guy that was running it, Sam, whatever. He's, he's, he's this big donor. And then they were setting him up. He was the one that was going to advise the government on how they should structure regulatory environment around digital currency. I mean, this is, this is going to get ugly, but that's the kind of situation where you're, you know, on the outside, you, if you're a normal person in America and you're working on your farm or you're working in your factory or you're doing construction or whatever it is you're doing, you're, you're not thinking

• 1:47:18Jocko Willink?

  that there's just straight Dr. Evil shit going on.

• 1:47:22Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:22Jocko Willink?

  Where this dude's paying to have all these people elected. I mean, you don't think that a hundred million dollars has an impact on, on the way an election turns out? I mean, that's having a huge impact, a huge impact. And so here's this guy and now he's getting, uh, oh yeah, you, you donated money. So we're going to let you set up the regulations around cryptocurrency, which is the business that you're in, which is what, and again, I'm not following the case too close and it's really early and not a lot of it's come out. But one of the other crypto dudes, CZ. Some guy named CZ, he was like, oh, you're, he, uh, Sam was trying to set the gig up for himself.

• 1:48:04Tulsi Gabbard?

  Of course. It wasn't out of like this altruism of like blockchain technology and cryptocurrency and you know, all of, you know, for people who are, are big advocates of that and the opportunity they see for that in the world of technology. That was not his, it did not appear to be his motivation.

• 1:48:20Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And this dude CZ was like, oh, I see what you're trying to do. And he is the one that kind of caused this whole thing to far, fall apart. Which now, of course you think, well, thankfully it fell apart when it did, because it was a big house of cards anyways.

• 1:48:32Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:33Jocko Willink?

  But as you look at this, like I said, as a normal human that lives in America and you, you don't think that there's doctor evil shit going down where people are buying elections. You're thinking that things are like, hey, this is America. And the fact of the matter is, there is this kind of thing going on. There is this massive amount of influence. The big tech really is doing this kind of thing. The, the politicians really are bought. And by the way, that company gave money to Republicans as well. They were hedging their bets. They, they should have hedged their bets better with their freaking Bitcoin, by the way, because it ended up costing, but they hedged their bets Republican and Democrat. More, much more to the Democrats, probably because they thought, oh, well, Democrats are going to be in power, so we better support them right now.

• 1:49:18Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:18Jocko Willink?

  And, and so I think that's what's really disturbing. This game is being played. The surface of it, you know, we all think it's on the up and up. And as soon as you look below the surface, it's dirty.

• 1:49:31Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:31Jocko Willink?

  And it's corrupt and it's disgusting.

• 1:49:34Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah. That pay to play, I mean, it's, it's a perfect example of the whole pay to play mentality that, that is so relevant in Washington. I think last time we, I was on your show, we talked a little bit about Big Pharma. Same thing. You look at, how is it possible that, that still Big Pharma has so much power and so much influence in Washington? They get sweet deals so that they can make more profits, even when you're looking at government purchases of, of government, uh, of, of healthcare, buying, buying prescription drugs.

• 1:50:06Tulsi Gabbard?

  Most people in society recognize that this kind of outsized influence is wrong. And it's counter to the the public interest. And yet, many members of Congress are bought off by Big Pharma and they won't take those votes. They won't take those votes that hurt the people who give them their campaign donations and give them their campaign checks. Big Pharma spends more money on political contributions and lobbying than they do on those crazy television ads that we see all the time. Of like, you know, the the happy family frolicking in the meadow promoting whatever the drug may be.

• 1:50:43Jocko Willink?

  Side effects might be suicidally, hypnosis, massive diarrhea.

• 1:50:48Tulsi Gabbard?

  Right? And I don't think you can turn on, I don't think you can watch like one commercial like segment without seeing at least one prescription drug ad. And you think about the the fact that how like TV ads are expensive, very expensive. And then you think about, well, gosh, they're spending multiple times that amount to influence, to buy influence in our government, to protect themselves.

• 1:51:10Jocko Willink?

  How does a politician put money in their own pocket from a Big Pharma?

• 1:51:17Tulsi Gabbard?

  Uh, I think there there's a spectrum there. You know, those who are actually following all the laws make it so that those kinds of contributions make it so that they are getting the vast majority of the money in their political campaign, which gives them security against any potential challenger. Uh, are coming from these big corporations and lobbyists rather than from voters. Uh, so that's kind of the first thing. If you look at like, hey, if you're following the letter of the law, even then, you're protecting your own self-interest rather than what's the interest of the people in your constituency who are actually the ones who are hiring you. You look at the most, one of the most egregious examples is where politicians will take money in their campaign and

• 1:52:06Tulsi Gabbard?

  Either live in the gray space of like, oh, well, you know, and there are examples of this, like, I'm gonna use campaign money to pay for my spouse's salary because my spouse is helping out on the campaign. Or I'm gonna use, you know, a hundred thousand dollars to pay for childcare because by paying for childcare, then I can go out and work on my campaign. Um, there, there was somebody that I worked with in Congress who used, I mean, he, he actually got convicted, uh, because he was breaking the law, but used hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay his rent, to pay for, uh, dental bills for his family, to pay for all kinds of personal

• 1:52:47Tulsi Gabbard?

  uh, expenses. And, and, you know, still to this day, he's just like, oh, this is a witch hunt. This is, you know, they're coming after me because they don't like what I'm saying. Like, no, dude, you broke the law, you know? But there's, there's a whole spectrum there. I think all of which end up in a place where, you know, these are self-serving interests rather than actually being accountable to, to your voters.

• 1:53:10Jocko Willink?

  How do you, uh, cause I get asked this, how do you square up the distrust of the government with, I'm gonna serve in the armed forces? A question I get asked a lot.

• 1:53:24Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:25Jocko Willink?

  And, and I answer it, but how, how do you answer that? You're, you're not active duty, but you're a current reservist.

• 1:53:32Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:32Jocko Willink?

  You go on active duty on a pretty regular basis. And yet you know the, you know what, how the sausage is made in Washington DC. How do you square those two opposing things that are going on?

• 1:53:47Tulsi Gabbard?

  I'm proud to wear the uniform of this country and the American flag. I'm proud to do my part in upholding that oath that we take when we enlist in the service. I'm honored to serve with great Americans who share that same mission and those ideals. I have, because I'm in the reserves and not active duty, I'm in the unique position of also being able to try to effect change in the political sense, recognizing we have a civilian-led military, uh, in trying to lead our country in

• 1:54:28Tulsi Gabbard?

  The right direction to where we are honoring that vision that our founders had for us, that we are honoring the service and sacrifice being made by our brothers and sisters in uniform and their families, and that we are making the best decisions that serve our own national security interests and the freedom and prosperity of the American people. When we have people in politics who are so compromised by the military industrial complex, or one interest or another that is not the interests of the country and the American people, obviously those in the military are the ones who suffer the consequences when they make self-serving decisions.

• 1:55:12Tulsi Gabbard?

  Even as somebody who served in Iraq like you, whether we agree or disagree with those decisions that are made by those civilians in leadership, it does not undermine the promise that we make to each other and to the Constitution as we continue to fulfill that, to fulfill that promise.

• 1:55:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, obviously for me, besides the, the just freaking awesome job that it is being in the military, which I loved being in the military, but when you're in the military, you can, you have an opportunity to sort of mitigate the bad decisions that get made, and you also get the opportunity to shape the military itself. So when you're in the military, you can do a much better job of, of taking people and like getting people the right mindset that's going to be beneficial for the country and for whatever country we're going into.

• 1:56:11Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:12Jocko Willink?

  As opposed to if you're not in the military and you're sitting on the outside saying, "Well, it should be like this." Oh, if you're in the military, you can actually make some of those things happen.

• 1:56:19Tulsi Gabbard?

  Exactly.

• 1:56:19Jocko Willink?

  And you can do it within the, within the guidelines that are set forth by the military, but you can do it in a positive way. So I guess that's how I always tried to square myself.

• 1:56:29Tulsi Gabbard?

  It's so true. It's so true. And, and right now, I, I'm grateful to, I often have the opportunity to go and provide in the Army they call LPD, it's like Leadership Professional Development sessions with either soldiers who are going through training pipelines or those who are out in the force for exactly that purpose to to have hopefully have an impact in helping make sure that we have discerning leaders in the military, not just robots who, you know, aren't actually thinking through the kind of responsibility that they have regardless of their rank as they're carrying out their task and their mission.

• 1:57:08Jocko Willink?

  The other cool thing for you is you being able to explain to leaders in the military, hey, this is what it looks like from the governmental side. You should probably go brief every military, you know, with what's going on with that. Because I mean, even when I was in, I would kind of get try and grasp that and try and explain to people, hey, this is what it looks like from a political, political perspective. But for you, that's, that's you have the real experience to say, hey, this is why we're getting asked to do this. This is what it looks like. Here's what it took to get this decision made. Here's why we need to execute it. Here's what happens if we don't. So that's, that's pretty powerful.

• 1:57:42Tulsi Gabbard?

  It is. And, and, you know, I've, I've had the opportunity to work a lot within the special operations community, particularly because they are looking for this kinds of insight. And one thing I've really appreciated, especially in the special operations community versus the conventional military, which not where it's not really encouraged so much, but really that problem solving mindset, a little bit of that challenging mindset where, you know, being a robot is discouraged. You are actually encouraged and incentivized to be somebody who's like, hey, how can we do this better? Or why is this actually the best way? Or how was this decision made? Whether you're an NCO or an officer, and I just having that encouraging that critical thinking and recognizing again, the impact that you have on people is is so important.

• 1:58:27Tulsi Gabbard?

  And I wish it was something that was more encouraged across the military as a whole.

• 1:58:32Jocko Willink?

  What are you right now, a lieutenant colonel?

• 1:58:34Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:37Jocko Willink?

  All right. When do you up for Colonel, full bird Colonel?

• 1:58:41Tulsi Gabbard?

  Ah, I think the window opens maybe in about a year or two.

• 1:58:47Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah, I'm not exactly sure, but uh, we'll see that the results of the command board are supposed to come out any day now. If I have, if I have, uh, I'll find out if I have the, the privilege of being selected to be a battalion commander for a, a civil affairs reserves battalion.

• 1:59:04Jocko Willink?

  What are your chances? Is it like, how, how hard is it to get selected for that?

• 1:59:08Tulsi Gabbard?

  Um, it all depends on in the reserves. It's a little bit different than, than the active duty where, um, obviously you've got to be able to balance your time with whatever your civilian job or profession might be with, with, um, uh, the responsibilities of being battalion commander. Um, so it, it kind of depends on how many people are opting in or out on any given year. But there's a lot more, it is competitive. It is competitive.

• 1:59:33Jocko Willink?

  If you get picked up as a reservist battalion commander, do you, how much time do you have to spend like active as a battalion commander? Do you have to do more?

• 1:59:42Tulsi Gabbard?

  On paper, you have the same minimum requirement of, you know, the, the one weekend a month, two weeks a year. But a friend of mine, uh, was selected last year. He's a little bit ahead of me. Um, and there's, there's a lot of love time. As we say, there's a lot of love time. Uh, cause in a reserve unit, you rely a lot on your full-time staff, the full-time, uh, reservists who are running the staff shops, you know, the personnel shop, the operations shop and supply and everything else. And, uh, uh, he, he's going to give me his best practices. Cause he's just like, yeah, he's, he runs his own business. It's kind of, uh, and his business is doing very well. Uh, he has different projects around the world and, and he's also a reserve battalion commander.

• 2:00:24Tulsi Gabbard?

  And he's just like, yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot, but it's, it's fricking awesome. Yeah.

• 2:00:30Jocko Willink?

  And so other than that, yeah, how, what else you got going on right now?

• 2:00:37Tulsi Gabbard?

  Um, what else are we doing?

• 2:00:40Jocko Willink?

  You got the Tulsi Gabbard show.

• 2:00:42Tulsi Gabbard?

  Tulsi Gabbard show.

• 2:00:42Jocko Willink?

  Which you finally launched.

• 2:00:44Tulsi Gabbard?

  I know, it took forever.

• 2:00:45Jocko Willink?

  You came, you came and talked to Echo and I about that. I think that's why you stopped by. You came by, you came by to like, uh, suck our brains on what, you know, how to do a podcast.

• 2:00:53Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:53Jocko Willink?

  And Echo decided to give you all of his advice.

• 2:00:56Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah. Yep, I took notes. We, we took, we took, uh, we took all of the advice. Uh, after that, I ended up getting deployed to East Africa and was gone for a while and then came back and just, you know, lot, a lot of things happened, uh, but yeah, finally, finally pushed it out. And it's just, you know, I mean, it's, it's such a great opportunity and platform to be able to, to dive into, you know, different issues, different topics, have, have great conversations. And so, you know, where people like, you know, like the guy in, in the, you know, the coffee shop in Greensboro. He's like, oh my God, why don't you leave a different kind of, oh, okay, go listen. This episode one will tell you exactly the answer to what you're looking for.

• 2:01:38Jocko Willink?

  How often are you doing the podcasts? Come out once a week?

• 2:01:40Tulsi Gabbard?

  Uh, once a week, every Tuesday. Push out a new episode every Tuesday.

• 2:01:44Jocko Willink?

  And where are you recording them? Wherever?

• 2:01:46Tulsi Gabbard?

  I, uh, for the most part, recording at home in Hawaii. We got rid of a living room. We lived in a tiny two bedroom place and, uh, decided that having a studio was more practical than having a living room.

• 2:01:59Jocko Willink?

  Hell yeah.

• 2:01:59Tulsi Gabbard?

  Literally, we were like, if we're just sitting around on the couch, we're not, we're not using our time very well. So we got rid of the couch and, um, my husband's a cinematographer, so he put together a studio. And so I'm sure there will be on the road ones at different points, but, uh, so far, doing them from home.

• 2:02:16Jocko Willink?

  And then what, do you have a Substack? Did I see that?

• 2:02:19Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah. So just recognize, you know, like my whole approach is there's so many different platforms that people get information from. And some people like to listen to podcasts, other people don't like podcasts and they, they would rather watch cable news. And other people don't like any of that and would rather read. And so for each of the episodes, um, at a minimum for each of the, the podcasts that I'm putting out, that I'm talking about a different issue, uh, I jot down my notes and put them out on Substack for people who just want to get a little bit of a summary, um, of where I stand on certain things or my thoughts or views on, on a, something that might be happening in the news or something like that.

• 2:02:59Jocko Willink?

  And then YouTube, you're on YouTube.

• 2:03:00Tulsi Gabbard?

  We're on YouTube, on Rumble.

• 2:03:03Jocko Willink?

  And, and you're, oh yeah, no, you're on Rumble. Rumble, Echo Charles, what's up?

• 2:03:08Speaker 02

  Oh, I think we're on Rumble, yeah.

• 2:03:11Jocko Willink?

  Wait, you think we're on Rumble? Cause I know I talked to you about getting us on Rumble.

• 2:03:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it's a matter of how many episodes are on Rumble.

• 2:03:18Jocko Willink?

  Okay, so we're kinda on Rumble?

• 2:03:20Speaker 02

  Let me double check that before I get back to you.

• 2:03:22Jocko Willink?

  Okay, right on. Appreciate that one.

• 2:03:23Tulsi Gabbard?

  He'll circle back.

• 2:03:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, circle back.

• 2:03:27Jocko Willink?

  And then you're doing some spots on Fox News. You sat in for Tucker Carlson the other night.

• 2:03:32Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah, second time he or his team asked for me to guest host for him when he was off. And that, that, man, that's a new experience. I've never done that before anywhere else. And hosting an hour forty-four minutes, when you count in, you know, commercials of live television is definitely a new experience. A different level of like, there ain't no room for mistakes.

• 2:04:02Jocko Willink?

  It's a thing. It's a thing that, it's a thing that people have. Some people are good at it. Like when you, when you go and you see what the, what the news, what are they called? Newscasters? Broadcasters? What are they called? Hosts? What are they called?

• 2:04:16Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah, I mean, if, he would be a host because, you know, he's more on the opinion side of things than like your Brett Baer on Fox. He's a little bit more of like a news, kind of more of a straight news guy.

• 2:04:27Jocko Willink?

  When you see what, that job, I would not like that job.

• 2:04:31Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:32Jocko Willink?

  Do you like it?

• 2:04:33Tulsi Gabbard?

  I had a lot more fun than I expected to have, to be honest. It was, it was certainly a lot of, cause you know,

• 2:04:40Tulsi Gabbard?

  his show is on every night and obviously Tucker's been doing this forever and he's, you know, good at it. I'd say, I mean, he has, he has the top rated show on Fox News. And so, you know, for me going in, I, sometimes they have guest hosts who literally just show up and then they get given the, whatever's gonna be on the teleprompter. I'm not, I don't, I wouldn't do that for anybody. If I'm reading words on a teleprompter, they're gonna be words that I wrote. And so, working with this team to write and structure the show, you know, all within the span of like a six hour timeframe. It's a lot. It's a lot.

• 2:05:22Tulsi Gabbard?

  And, but it's, look, I mean, I actually did end up having, having fun, just, just taking advantage of the opportunity to be able to share my own views on what's happening and have conversations with people. It is challenging and like, okay, you get four minutes to talk to somebody and you got somebody in your ear. Like literally, like I asked the first question, the producer's like, okay, you have 90 seconds. Like, okay, rap, rap, rap. And I'm like, oh my God, like, I would love to either challenge what they're saying or ask another follow-up or whatever and.

• 2:05:54Jocko Willink?

  It is the weirdest meeting. My buddy Leif, who I wrote books with, and when his wife worked at Fox News and Jenna Lee. And so I would, when I would go to New York, you know, a lot of times I would just stay with them. And so I would kind of see her schedule and life and I was like, oh my God.

• 2:06:14Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:14Jocko Willink?

  It's.

• 2:06:15Tulsi Gabbard?

  Grueling.

• 2:06:15Jocko Willink?

  It's grueling. I didn't want anything to do with that. So even the one hour session, one, now I guess you're gonna get good, a person would get better at it, you know? And you could see that Jenna, she was totally comfortable with it. I mean, it's just the way it is.

• 2:06:29Tulsi Gabbard?

  It's just like anything.

• 2:06:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, just like anything else, you're gonna get used to it. But that's a,

• 2:06:32Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:33Jocko Willink?

  You know, have you ever been on Maria's show, Maria Bartolomna?

• 2:06:36Tulsi Gabbard?

  I have, yeah.

• 2:06:37Jocko Willink?

  That, that, I was so impressed with that woman when I've gone on her show, gone on her show a number of times. And she's just, she's gotta be so smart.

• 2:06:46Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:47Jocko Willink?

  I would say though, because you know, you're watching her beforehand, you're watching her in between. Cause like you said, in between they're like, hey, we got this, and here's these numbers, and then like boom, the camera goes back on, the red light comes on and she's all just squared away with everything she's saying.

• 2:06:59Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:00Jocko Willink?

  It's pretty, it's a different kind of human.

• 2:07:02Tulsi Gabbard?

  You can tell.

• 2:07:03Jocko Willink?

  Skill. I guess there's a certain, you know, like Michael Jordan's gonna be good at basketball. There's a certain type of human being that's gonna be good at that job.

• 2:07:10Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah. You, you've gotta be. I mean, obviously, you've got to be very focused and you've got to be able to discern kind of the of all of the the activity and voice in your ears and everything else that's going around. You got to be able to separate kind of the noise from the task at hand and not allow yourself to be shaken or distracted by whatever is going on around you. And that's that's part of it.

• 2:07:36Jocko Willink?

  So are you going to do it more?

• 2:07:39Tulsi Gabbard?

  Uh, we'll see. They they say they they've been pretty happy with it. And so they're saying like, okay, well, we look forward to having you do it more often.

• 2:07:48Jocko Willink?

  We used to catch a lot of crap for going on Fox News. Like, it was I even I have because I've go I go on Fox News. I still go on Fox News. You know how many times CNN has asked me to be on CNN?

• 2:08:02Tulsi Gabbard?

  Zero.

• 2:08:03Jocko Willink?

  Zero.

• 2:08:04Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:04Jocko Willink?

  Zero.

• 2:08:05Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:07Jocko Willink?

  Same thing with any other Fox News.

• 2:08:08Tulsi Gabbard?

  MSNBC.

• 2:08:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, MSNBC. They don't ask me to come on and talk to them.

• 2:08:13Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:13Jocko Willink?

  That's but you, I mean, I guess.

• 2:08:16Tulsi Gabbard?

  The same thing.

• 2:08:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:17Tulsi Gabbard?

  It's the same thing, you know, it it towards the end of my well, first of all, like throughout the entire time that I was in Congress, you know, I was asked on all all three of the different networks. Over the years, the invitations have shifted and changed based on whatever I was advocating for. If like CNN wasn't really going after it, then like, oh, I wonder why I don't hear from this show or that show.

• 2:08:43Jocko Willink?

  That literally happened to you.

• 2:08:45Tulsi Gabbard?

  Literally.

• 2:08:45Jocko Willink?

  When you first showed up. When you first showed up as a Congresswoman, and you were kind of like, a little bit of a kind of a rising star, right?

• 2:08:54Tulsi Gabbard?

  So they say.

• 2:08:54Jocko Willink?

  So you were a rising star. Were you just were they calling you all the time?

• 2:08:58Tulsi Gabbard?

  All the time. And I just like, I was just, you know, over the years, people are like, oh, you know, who's your publicist? Who's doing all this? I was like, my phone's just ringing. I don't have a publicist. I have somebody who used to be like a communications intern who's answering the phone calls. But it was very, very unexpected. And I was just like, okay, like, I'll take advantage. Like, if it makes sense, then I'll take advantage of this platform to be able to say what I want to say. But it was a palpable shift over the years as, you know, I would I would speak out on a certain issue or.

• 2:09:36Tulsi Gabbard?

  You know, I didn't support Hillary Clinton in 2016 and that was like, oh, okay. Well, it was literally considered blasphemy in politics. And then again, in, in 2020, when I ran for president, it was, you know, I, I saw this shift just throughout that campaign where there was already a negative bias towards me from the day that I announced my candidacy because I had a track record of being somebody who called it straight and was very outspoken against the foreign policy establishment in Washington and their decisions. And that, that progressed throughout the campaign where it got to a point where instead

• 2:10:18Tulsi Gabbard?

  of even covering me or instead of mentioning, hey, this person is the candidate for president, they just stopped including my name in articles about Democrats running for president completely as though I didn't exist. It was a media blackout at a certain point. Throughout the time, Fox News consistently has been a platform where I've been invited on consistently.

• 2:10:39Jocko Willink?

  Did they invite you to talk about issues that you were in disagreement with them?

• 2:10:43Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah, yeah, over the years.

• 2:10:45Jocko Willink?

  They just didn't care.

• 2:10:46Tulsi Gabbard?

  And they didn't care. And one thing that, that I've heard from different hosts of different shows and even some of the, you know, like the executives at Fox is like, Tulsi, we really like having you on because we never know what you're going to say. Literally, you're, you are unpredictable and, and that's why our audience likes you because you're, you're, you're interesting person. You have something interesting to say that's not just like one party's talking points or, you know, whatever the popular thing is of the day. And I think that, that says something about media as a whole, but the fact that they, they just say, come on and say your piece. I go on and say my piece, whether the host agrees or disagrees, maybe that's part of the conversation, but it's not, it's not the deciding factor of, of whether they have me on or not.

• 2:11:29Jocko Willink?

  But the other news networks, it was a deciding factor.

• 2:11:31Tulsi Gabbard?

  Oh, absolutely. I mean, I, and that's what people on social media are like, oh, how come you're always on Fox News? You know, you're letting them take advantage of you and all this other stuff. It's like, no, I'm taking advantage of the platform. Number one, because they reach millions of people, more than any other cable news network. And number two, CNN and MSNBC, they don't, they, they haven't asked me on their air for years on any issue like Eve. I reached out once on veterans issues, toxic burn pits, things, things that I've worked on in Congress and still really passionate about and trying to advance. No interest whatsoever.

• 2:12:03Jocko Willink?

  That's like, kinda crazy, isn't it?

• 2:12:07Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah, it's very revealing, very revealing.

• 2:12:10Jocko Willink?

  So you would reach out to CNN and say, hey, I would like to talk to you about the veterans that have been around these toxic burn pits and now they've got diseases. Would you like to do this? And they'd be like, no.

• 2:12:21Tulsi Gabbard?

  The response I got back, and this was, that was the last time I reached out, the response I got back was like, oh, interesting. Let me check with the producers. And then radio silence. Like, they didn't have the balls to come back and say like, yeah, no thanks, not interested. It was just like, no response.

• 2:12:38Jocko Willink?

  Well, you have your own platform now, right? You got the, the podcast, the YouTube channel, um, the, the Substack thing going on, tulsi gabbert.com, you're on there.

• 2:12:51Tulsi Gabbard?

  Tulsi gabbert.com. Um, I'm working on a book right now as well. Um, two books actually, focused on why I left the Democratic Party, and the other book focused on the cost of war.

• 2:13:05Jocko Willink?

  Or do you already have a publisher for these?

• 2:13:07Tulsi Gabbard?

  I do.

• 2:13:08Jocko Willink?

  Sweet. And so when are these things coming out?

• 2:13:11Tulsi Gabbard?

  Uh, working on the sequencing, uh, but I hope to have, uh, one of the books out by, I don't know, early next year, spring.

• 2:13:20Jocko Willink?

  What about politics? In your future?

• 2:13:24Tulsi Gabbard?

  I don't know. I don't know is the honest answer. It's, um, I want to be in a position where I can best make a positive impact and where I feel I can best serve. I am terribly concerned for all of the reasons that we've talked about today, about the failure, it's not even a lack of leadership, it's, it's, it's, it's a sincere failure of leadership in this country. And, um,

• 2:13:59Tulsi Gabbard?

  If there is a way for me to actually directly impact that leadership, then I will pursue that, whether that means I'm running for office or trying to impact those who are in office. We'll see. The vehicle is less important than the impact to me.

• 2:14:25Jocko Willink?

  But you may go back into politics?

• 2:14:28Tulsi Gabbard?

  Sure.

• 2:14:31Jocko Willink?

  All right, what is it? Echo?

• 2:14:34Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:14:35Jocko Willink?

  What do you got? Anything else?

• 2:14:36Speaker 02

  No, I was gonna ask that. You be running for anything or, you know, thinking about it or what? But, you know, we got that answer. We're still surfing, obviously.

• 2:14:44Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yes, not as often as I'd like, but no.

• 2:14:46Jocko Willink?

  How much you travel on now?

• 2:14:47Tulsi Gabbard?

  Waterwoman is alive as well. A lot lately, a lot. I've been on the road in the last two months. I've probably been home, I don't know, two weeks out of that period of time.

• 2:14:59Jocko Willink?

  You spend a lot of time campaigning for people, too.

• 2:15:01Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yes, which was, you know, after I announced that I was leaving the Democratic Party, becoming an independent, my phone started ringing off the hook from people in what, you know, what they call the swing states, the states that can either go Democrat or Republican. A lot of close races and people invited me to come out and help campaign for them, recognizing that there are a lot of undecided people, whether they're independents or Democrats or Republicans, who are frustrated with the current state of affairs and current leadership. And so, yeah, I took the opportunity.

• 2:15:38Jocko Willink?

  Who reached out to you mostly? Democrats or Republicans?

• 2:15:40Tulsi Gabbard?

  Republicans.

• 2:15:41Jocko Willink?

  Did any Democrats reach out to you?

• 2:15:42Tulsi Gabbard?

  No. If they had, if there were, if there were a Democrat running for Congress, who was openly calling out the insanity of the Democrat leadership of today, and taking a strong stand on the things we're talking about, on just basic fundamentals of freedom, I would have happily gone and campaigned for them. Not a single one reached out, and I've been looking. I've been looking for, for those courageous voices to actually step out, and unfortunately...

• 2:16:14Tulsi Gabbard?

  That hasn't been there. And I've, I've heard from some people privately, just and then, and really over, over the last few years, who are saying, hey, thank you so much for speaking out on these things. I appreciate what you're doing, but also don't tell anyone. And so it's, it's sad. It's unfortunate, but part of like the, the last thing I said in my announcement of leaving the Democratic Party is I invite, I invite other Democrats to join me.

• 2:16:44Jocko Willink?

  Has anyone?

• 2:16:46Tulsi Gabbard?

  Not yet.

• 2:16:48Tulsi Gabbard?

  Not yet.

• 2:16:50Jocko Willink?

  All right. So,

• 2:16:55Jocko Willink?

  I guess we should real quick, talk about supporting this podcast. Of course you're going to support TOS's podcast, but if you want to support this podcast, you want to support America and you want to support yourself. You can, you can do it. We've got a bunch of different ways for you to do it. How has your, uh, energy drink been?

• 2:17:10Tulsi Gabbard?

  Love it.

• 2:17:12Jocko Willink?

  So you immediately went for a mango flavor, which is the, I mean, is it safe to say this is more of a Hawaiian vibe?

• 2:17:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, especially with the lily queen there, AKA passion fruit.

• 2:17:22Jocko Willink?

  Okay. So we got a little bit of that going on. Um, you can get this stuff from jockofuel.com. You can get it at Wawa. You can get it at Vitamin Shoppe. You can get it. We're in all military commissaries.

• 2:17:33Tulsi Gabbard?

  I've noticed that. I was in the commissary at Coney Island Marine Corps Base.

• 2:17:38Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 2:17:39Tulsi Gabbard?

  A week and a half ago, and I almost took a picture. I was like, hey,

• 2:17:44Jocko Willink?

  We're about to be in the exchanges too, which is cool. Cause if you're in the military, you know, the commissaries, basically families go to commissaries. Like the young enlisted guys, they're not going to the commissary. It takes too much time or whatever, but they go to the exchange, exchange, you know, they sell gas and whatever, beer.

• 2:18:02Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:02Jocko Willink?

  So now you can get some jocko fuel. You will be able to in the very near future, but um,

• 2:18:06Speaker 02

  How do you, like, is there a like red taped process to get into like a store?

• 2:18:13Jocko Willink?

  There is.

• 2:18:14Speaker 02

  So like, like I was at the, I was at a shop, a Dun shop the other, I don't know, week ago, whatever. And they're like, hey, bring those energy drinks. We want to sell them or whatever. I can't just be like, oh, I got something at home and bring them, right? Or can?

• 2:18:27Jocko Willink?

  Wait, which store was it? Like a local?

• 2:18:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. San Diego Discount Gun Mart.

• 2:18:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we just, we dig, we dig go wholesale. So if anybody wants to do wholesale, this is like if you got a store, you got a gym, you got a Jiu Jitsu Academy, you can go to J F Sales at Jaco Fuel dot com and email that and you get a wholesale account set up and, and that, then you can do it.

• 2:18:50Speaker 02

  Okay, so the red tape is more for the, the store, really, right?

• 2:18:54Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the, yeah, a little bit, but not really. I mean, when somebody wants to bring something into their store, they can just get a wholesale account and set up. Now, if they have a big chain store, that's where it run, that's where you run into, and at some point, I gotta do some kind of a podcast about what goes on. That'd be interesting. Because, for instance, we're, so, it's kind of cool, it's kind of complimentary, when you start making a dent. All of a sudden, the big, the big giant billion dollar corporations realize that you're making a dent and they come after you. So, for instance,

• 2:19:29Jocko Willink?

  I don't know how much I can say about this, but I'll say a little bit. Uh, in one particular store that we're in, one of the big companies came in and paid millions of dollars, millions of dollars for our slots in, in this particular store. And Like slots, meaning room on the shelf? Room on the shelf. Interesting. They said, we really don't want Jaco Fuel to be out there. We don't, we see what they're doing, we see their growth, we don't like it, we have to go on the offense. And so they paid millions and millions of dollars to take our shelf space from us. And, and, and I can't even be mad at the store, because the store is trying to make profit and they're trying to do what they're doing.

• 2:20:08Jocko Willink?

  And they also have to keep a relationship with the big giant companies, otherwise, they won't be able to supply things that those big giant companies put out there. So, that's what happens. That's the fight we're in right now. It's kind of cool, because it means you're, you're, you're, you're growing to a point where, and people, the weird thing is, people kind of, all these big companies, and when I say big companies, I'm not mincing any, I'm talking about the biggest companies there are. They know what we're doing. They're, they're now taking active countermeasures to try and shut us down because they know that kind of on a, on a product, we, they can't beat us because we held the line. We're making it good for you.

• 2:20:52Jocko Willink?

  We're doing all these things that they're not going to do. They would rather sacrifice millions of dollars to buy that shelf space than pay.

• 2:21:00Tulsi Gabbard?

  Create a better product.

• 2:21:01Jocko Willink?

  Create a better product. So.

• 2:21:02Tulsi Gabbard?

  That says a lot about competition.

• 2:21:04Jocko Willink?

  That's what we're up against. And cool. Like this is it. This is what we're doing. And we're going to have some setbacks like that, but the cool thing is the product is better. We know it's better. They know it's better. Otherwise they would just go toe to toe, right?

• 2:21:20Tulsi Gabbard?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:21:20Jocko Willink?

  Just be like, cool, let's do this. But they don't want to do that.

• 2:21:23Tulsi Gabbard?

  Man, there, there are some interesting parallels to what we were talking about, about substance versus trying to silence or push out anybody who has a counter narrative. Same, I mean, you're, you're seeing it play out.

• 2:21:36Jocko Willink?

  Seen it play out. And, but it is crazy. And that's why big corporations with billion, be, be, with a B, billions of dollars. They do their best to destroy the smaller companies that are growing. And that's the way it is. And we'll see how it plays out. I can tell you how it's playing out right now. It's playing out good. Because we're going to continue to make the best product. We're going to continue to grow. And, and the cool thing is the demand signal. The demand signal, that's what, like in this particular store that I'm talking about, and it's a, it's a whole group of stores, but they, they took some slots. The big billion dollar corporation took some slots, but the store wouldn't give up all of them.

• 2:22:19Jocko Willink?

  They took some, but they said, hey, man, people are here every day for that Jocko Fuel. We're not giving this up. We're not taking this away from our customers. We can't just screw over our customers. We can screw them over a little bit, but we can't screw them all the way over. So they kept a bunch of, a bunch of our product in the store, but not as much as we wanted, but it's fine. It's fine. So if you want to support America.

• 2:22:43Jocko Willink?

  And you want to support the growing companies, you want to support people that are growing things in America, then JacoFuel.com. It's the same thing with OriginUSA, OriginUSA.com. And by the way, next time you're in North Carolina, you gotta go to our factory.

• 2:22:54Tulsi Gabbard?

  I know, I've been talking to Pete.

• 2:22:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:56Tulsi Gabbard?

  And I think we, we may have something planned in December. We'll see.

• 2:22:59Jocko Willink?

  Good. Origin, I was supposed to go down there, I was supposed to go to the North Carolina factory for Veterans Day, instead I went to the main factory because there was a freaking hurricane hitting North Carolina, so I couldn't go down there. But yeah, next time you're down there, it's the same thing.

• 2:23:11Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:12Jocko Willink?

  The billion dollar corporations see what we're doing. The weird thing is, they, they're, they saw what we were doing and like before we were even doing very much, they were threatened.

• 2:23:27Jocko Willink?

  And I think it's, I think it's because the truth is so threatening.

• 2:23:31Tulsi Gabbard?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:23:31Jocko Willink?

  And when you have someone that's like, no, actually you can build this stuff in America, and when for years they're saying you can't do it, you can't do it, you can't, they're, they're, they're lying. And so now there's someone saying, oh yeah, look at this over here. Look what we're actually doing right now, 100% in America. Look. And they, they are scared. And so since day one, they've been on to us. The, the, the food companies, they're kind of taking notice in the last six months where they're like, oh shit. The, the clothing companies, they've been on us because they're scared.

• 2:24:03Tulsi Gabbard?

  Hmm.

• 2:24:03Jocko Willink?

  Because we're doing everything right and they're doing everything wrong. And that's just all there is to it.

• 2:24:08Tulsi Gabbard?

  I think they recognize too, kind of the difference between the, you know, the fast fashion, just buying like the cheap stuff, use it a few times, then throw it away versus the conscious choice that I think a lot of people are starting to make is like, okay, I might pay a few more dollars, but I will take pride in knowing that in Origin's case, from the cotton that's grown to the final hands that are putting those jeans in a bag, these were American hands that, and hard work and sweat that went into creating this. And I will wear this with pride.

• 2:24:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and by the way, that hard work, these are people that have mortgages that are learning, like we got kids, I shouldn't call them kids, but you know, people that are 23 years old, 22 years old, that now have a skill, that they have a career now, whether it's running a loom, whether it's running a, a, a press, whatever skill they're getting, they're getting a skill that they can now have, they have a real job, they have a career, they have a life. So that's what you're supporting. Also environmentally, this is America. Exactly. We treat the environment well. Those factories that you're buying from overseas, especially from these companies that claim to be environmental companies and they're producing their stuff, why are they producing their stuff overseas? Because overseas, they don't have the

• 2:25:27Jocko Willink?

  regulations, they don't have the environmental regulations that we have to abide by, which we do gladly because we care about the environment. We care about the water, right? Exactly. We care about the nature, we care about animals, that's what we do. And, and so, these big companies, they know that we're right. And they are so horrified that the words getting out, the words getting out that we're here, we're doing it, they're horrified. If you want to help that out, originusa.com, get something that you're gonna wear for the next 18 years. Exactly. You're gonna wear a pair of jeans for 14 years. You're gonna wear a pair of these boots forever. They might be forever. I mean, how long are you gonna live? Maybe you'll live to be 100,

• 2:26:07Jocko Willink?

  right? But you're gonna use a jujitsu gi? Get, get one gi, get two gi's, you can use them forever. Yeah. And by the way, our jujitsu gi, you can wash it in a normal washing machine, it doesn't take nine hours to dry out. Like, we're in a totally different world. Yeah. Plus, it's Christmas coming up. Christmas is coming up. Christmas coming up and the economy, we all know the economy needs help. Yeah. Well, how do you help the economy? When you buy something from Origin, you're helping the economy here in America. There's a worker that's getting paid, that's earning their career, that's paying their rent, paying their mortgage because of that. And then what do they do? They take that paycheck and they put it back into America. It's like, that's what we're doing. So, originusa.com.

• 2:26:48Speaker 02

  Yep, speaking of, uh, speaking of Christmas, sometimes you wanna get a shirt or something new. People representing, I'm telling you, you want a Discipline Equals Freedom shirt, or hat, or hoodie, whatever. Go to choco store.com.

• 2:27:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, speaking of which, my youngest daughter is wrestling at this time, you know, it's wrestling season. We need some rash guards for her, you know, just, you do kinda make that happen.

• 2:27:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, we got a few rash guards on there.

• 2:27:14Jocko Willink?

  She wants to represent.

• 2:27:15Speaker 02

  There you go. On the path, I'll get you a shirt too.

• 2:27:18Tulsi Gabbard?

  Alright.

• 2:27:18Speaker 02

  You don't have one already, get you a tank top, something like, also Shirt Locker. It's a subscription scenario where you get a shirt every month, some good stuff coming out. No free dopamine, it's gonna be a good one.

• 2:27:30Jocko Willink?

  That one kinda, kinda gets some traction on that, huh?

• 2:27:32Tulsi Gabbard?

  I like that.

• 2:27:33Jocko Willink?

  No free dopamine.

• 2:27:34Speaker 02

  There's some good ones on there, good thing too, if you sign up, no matter when you sign up, you have access to all the past shirts. Like if you think, oh, you missed out or something like that, you got access to that when you sign up, so whatever you need. Choco store.com.

• 2:27:45Jocko Willink?

  You know, again, like back in the day when I was a kid, if you had some kinda crazy sort of movement in your life that you wanted to make a statement about, just get a t-shirt, bruh.

• 2:27:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:27:54Jocko Willink?

  You don't need to get any kinda surgery, man, get a t-shirt. Put your, put your statement on the t-shirt, wear a Discipline Equals Freedom t-shirt.

• 2:28:00Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 2:28:01Jocko Willink?

  And, and if, and in, in eight years, if you decide, you know what, I'm not really all about that discipline anymore. Cool, you get a different t-shirt, let's just get some donuts, right? Let's stick with that.

• 2:28:11Speaker 02

  There's an anti-donut shirt coming out too, by the way, Shirt Locker.

• 2:28:14Tulsi Gabbard?

  Wow, that's controversial, man.

• 2:28:17Jocko Willink?

  That's highly controversial.

• 2:28:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, that, that one was kinda hard to, to pull off, you know, cause like, how do you, well, then again, there's a lot of ways to do it, but I think we got it.

• 2:28:26Jocko Willink?

  Donuts, look, again, for me, and I get it, I get that there's two sides to every controversial thing in the world, but I, I just can't support donuts, I can't do it.

• 2:28:37Tulsi Gabbard?

  Ever, like, never, ever?

• 2:28:38Jocko Willink?

  I can't do it, I can't do it.

• 2:28:40Tulsi Gabbard?

  So, so let me ask you this, like, so, like, every once in a great while, every once in a great while, like, when I finished, uh, day zero of aerosol at school in Hawaii, I was like, heck, I'm gonna get me some donuts, I earned this shit. Once in a great while.

• 2:28:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I, I get it.

• 2:29:01Tulsi Gabbard?

  What, what, what's, what's your once in a great while?

• 2:29:04Jocko Willink?

  Uh, I mean, chocolate chip ice cream.

• 2:29:06Tulsi Gabbard?

  Okay.

• 2:29:06Jocko Willink?

  And, and, and straight, just chocolate chip cookies.

• 2:29:09Tulsi Gabbard?

  All right.

• 2:29:10Jocko Willink?

  And, you know, by the way, if you're out there and you're gonna send chocolate chip cookies to, or cookies to someone, just send them chocolate chip cookies. Don't send them peanut butter cookies. Definitely don't send them oatmeal raisin cookies. No, no, that's a guy like. Because oatmeal raisin cookies, look, at first glance, I got chocolate chip.

• 2:29:29Jocko Willink?

  What is the point? What is the point? So.

• 2:29:33Tulsi Gabbard?

  You might as well eat oatmeal, right?

• 2:29:34Jocko Willink?

  You might as well eat oatmeal, come on. Come on.

• 2:29:37Tulsi Gabbard?

  There, there are two kinds, there's two foods that I, I, I don't like. Oatmeal and cooked carrots. Just, I don't know. Just, those are just two things. I'm, I'm not really picky otherwise, but oatmeal and cooked carrots, I'm not happening.

• 2:29:51Jocko Willink?

  So Ryan, Joe, Task Unit Bruiser, God, God bless him.

• 2:29:57Jocko Willink?

  He, he was killed. Or he's wounded, Iraq died of wounds. He had, he hated cottage cheese. And so the smell of cottage cheese, he would start gagging.

• 2:30:13Jocko Willink?

  And there was a time he was getting, uh, let's say some, some counseling from his platoon. And he was under a kangaroo court, right? And they're like, you know, Biggles, his nickname was Biggles. Biggles, you know, if you really love, I forget what it was, but it was something like, you know, if you really love the teams, you're gonna eat this cottage cheese and like, they're, they're spooning it to his mouth. And as he's go, as it's going to his mouth, he's like, and he's just choking it down and throwing up. It was freaking hysterical. So, yeah.

• 2:30:43Tulsi Gabbard?

  Counseling.

• 2:30:44Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he's getting, receiving some character building. You gotta watch out back, but there's certain foods that do that to some people.

• 2:30:50Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:51Jocko Willink?

  And apparently it's cooked carrots.

• 2:30:53Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah, I just don't like them. The thing that I, um, that has that effect, like that physical effect is actually, um, just bananas. Like I will throw frozen bananas in my smoothies. Banana bread, great, but I think it was because in basic training, like.

• 2:31:12Tulsi Gabbard?

  I I mean, it was you. You will eat one banana with every meal. Um, because of whatever just prevent cramping. Like, I don't know, whatever it was. And it just, it literally got to a point where I would just like, like the gag reflex was. So I, to this day, I don't, I won't eat.

• 2:31:29Speaker 02

  That's crazy, huh? Because the, the banana in the milkshake is, that's the Tulsi jam. Oh, no, the frozen, frozen.

• 2:31:36Tulsi Gabbard?

  Totally fine. Yeah, I, I won't.

• 2:31:37Jocko Willink?

  We actually owe you money on that.

• 2:31:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:31:41Jocko Willink?

  We've been propping up the Tulsi frozen banana.

• 2:31:44Tulsi Gabbard?

  It adds just that little bit of cream and I love it. I love it. But it's just like that, the fresh.

• 2:31:50Jocko Willink?

  There was, I was on deployment. I was on a ship on deployment. This, no war going on. We're just trying to get jacked. And there was this, this protein shake that was vanilla. And I was drinking it like breakfast, lunch and dinner, trying to put on the.

• 2:32:08Jocko Willink?

  And it was by the time, probably, probably two months into a six month deployment, I, I, I had to hold my nose and drink it like it was just shot of tequila. Just like, oh, it made me want, made me throw up. And that kind of, that kind of gave me like the kind of PTSD, banana PTSD you're talking about.

• 2:32:27Tulsi Gabbard?

  It's more the association.

• 2:32:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, even to this day, vanilla is not one of my favorites, just because of that one six month period of choking down. You know, when you go on deployment and you have like a, like a palate and it's just filled with one flavor, you know, you're screwed.

• 2:32:43Tulsi Gabbard?

  Totally.

• 2:32:44Jocko Willink?

  Especially because on a ship, like the food kind of sucks. If you're not getting good, you got to get your protein from somewhere. So there you go.

• 2:32:50Speaker 02

  But he, well, he can't technically, back to the donuts thing. He can't advocate even for moderation.

• 2:32:56Jocko Willink?

  I painted myself into a corner with donuts. I painted myself into a corner with donuts. Probably the one of the few things in the world, other than if you're ISIS, we're not going to get along. The other one is like, I can't really decide, hey, maybe donuts are okay on this occasion. Even when people have like protein donuts, you know what I'm talking about?

• 2:33:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, hell yeah.

• 2:33:13Jocko Willink?

  Like Nutrition Solutions, they make protein donuts. I'm sure they're good to go. And I'm sure they're, they're, they're like in compliance with the path. But I, I just can't do it because it's a moral victory for the donut.

• 2:33:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, you declared anti donut early on too. Yeah, yeah. So you cannot, just like, like how you. And also

• 2:33:34Jocko Willink?

  Is it my ego though?

• 2:33:36Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:33:36Jocko Willink?

  Just my ego?

• 2:33:37Speaker 02

  It's part of the gig for sure.

• 2:33:38Jocko Willink?

  Or is it just, hey, I'm gonna just maintain the path here?

• 2:33:40Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, that's a good point. I don't know. It's like, but there's that other part too, though, just like the alcohol. You know how you're like, hey, I can't advocate for alcohol at all? Well, even though we all know that, hey, most people in moderation, then they're not gonna have problems. But you start advocating for donuts, alcohol, whatever. Some people are like, oh, Jaco said it's okay.

• 2:33:59Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:00Speaker 02

  So they they start freaking pounding donuts every week, you know? Can't do that kind of stuff.

• 2:34:04Tulsi Gabbard?

  Cause moderation can be subjective.

• 2:34:06Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly.

• 2:34:07Tulsi Gabbard?

  I'll only eat five a week instead of ten.

• 2:34:10Speaker 02

  I ate less today than I did yesterday, so whatever, you know?

• 2:34:12Jocko Willink?

  Wait, you're vegan, right?

• 2:34:14Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:14Jocko Willink?

  Now, are donuts vegan?

• 2:34:16Tulsi Gabbard?

  Some are. And there is a pop up in Hawaii that only opens up for four hours on the weekends. And it's first come, first serve, and they usually sell out in the first hour.

• 2:34:28Jocko Willink?

  Vegan donuts.

• 2:34:29Tulsi Gabbard?

  And they are, I will show you pictures afterward. They are the most

• 2:34:35Jocko Willink?

  Heavenly?

• 2:34:36Tulsi Gabbard?

  luxuriously like, oh, my gosh, you you just look at it and it's like a whole meal in one donut. It's like, yeah, it's it's a totally different.

• 2:34:47Jocko Willink?

  Where do you get your protein from?

• 2:34:50Tulsi Gabbard?

  I take, I I drink protein shakes every day, and it's primarily coming from a pea protein source. I used to do whey protein, but I'm

• 2:35:00Jocko Willink?

  How long have you been a vegan for?

• 2:35:02Tulsi Gabbard?

  Probably the last, I don't know, four, five years vegetarian my whole life and then

• 2:35:07Jocko Willink?

  Ethical reasons, environmental reasons, spiritual reasons?

• 2:35:12Tulsi Gabbard?

  All of the above.

• 2:35:13Jocko Willink?

  Have you had a steak before?

• 2:35:14Tulsi Gabbard?

  No. No.

• 2:35:18Jocko Willink?

  I feel like I want to take you to dinner.

• 2:35:19Tulsi Gabbard?

  That response is a response that I've gotten most often, especially in the military. But it's like, it's not, it's not something I've ever had. So it's like you saying that, I have no desire whatsoever. Rogan, I I met Rogan for lunch or dinner or whatever one day with with some of his friends and they went to, what's the, what's the Brazilian?

• 2:35:43Jocko Willink?

  Fogo de chão.

• 2:35:45Tulsi Gabbard?

  And it was, he didn't really comment it on the time, but he mentioned recently in a podcast, he's like, We went there and all she ate was salad. How is that even possible? But it's just, it's not some, you know, there's no, there's no craving, I guess.

• 2:36:03Speaker 02

  That's interesting. You guys just discuss, cause you know, diet, how to raise kids. I think exercise might be another one. Religion and politics. Those are the, the hot button subjects.

• 2:36:12Jocko Willink?

  So we're covering all of them today?

• 2:36:14Speaker 02

  But this is the one you guys are opposed though. That's the thing.

• 2:36:17Tulsi Gabbard?

  But I think, I think this is, this is like a good example though, because it's one thing to say, you know, like, hey, this is my choice for my life and my lifestyle. I'm not trying to go around saying every single person in the world has to follow my exact life choices in all of those examples that you just mentioned.

• 2:36:37Jocko Willink?

  If we hung out more, like if, if I moved back to Hawaii and, uh, and we were hanging out more, would you kind of start to be like, hey, you know, man, why are you eating all that steak? Do you think you would to try and help me?

• 2:36:51Tulsi Gabbard?

  Uh, not unless you were saying, hey, Tulsi, I feel like shit and my body's not functioning. What would you advise or what's working for you? But otherwise, no.

• 2:37:01Jocko Willink?

  That's kind of good because then that's what I was thinking too. As you were saying, I was thinking if you said to me like, hey, I don't feel that good. I feel lethargic. I'd be like, hey, we're going out for steak.

• 2:37:13Jocko Willink?

  Uh, all right. Um, what else? Echo Charles. So that's the shirt lockers.

• 2:37:18Speaker 02

  Yep. Shop the store. Yep. Subscribe.

• 2:37:21Jocko Willink?

  Jaco Underground.com.

• 2:37:24Jocko Willink?

  This is a platform that we made in case we get kicked off of other platforms straight up. That's what's going on.

• 2:37:30Tulsi Gabbard?

  That's the reality of what we face.

• 2:37:33Jocko Willink?

  And so if you go to Jaco Underground.com, you can get on that platform. It costs $8.18 a month.

• 2:37:38Tulsi Gabbard?

  How'd you choose that number, by the way? I've always been curious.

• 2:37:44Tulsi Gabbard?

  Is it an area code thing?

• 2:37:46Speaker 02

  No, well, actually, put it this way, there was the first reason, the primary reason, and then there's like a secondary reason that shuffled like right in there as well. The secondary reason is from the Bible, it's like current sufferings don't outweigh future glory, something like this. And then, but the primary reason was hardcore recondos.

• 2:38:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's HR, it's eighth letter in the eighteenth, which we've, which we've never divulged until this moment.

• 2:38:12Tulsi Gabbard?

  Wow.

• 2:38:12Jocko Willink?

  So that's what it is, the hardcore recondos out there.

• 2:38:15Tulsi Gabbard?

  Both of those are pretty powerful meanings.

• 2:38:19Jocko Willink?

  And look, if you can't afford that, which I get, it's tight times and they're gonna get tighter, there's a recession. Am I allowed to say there's a recession coming?

• 2:38:26Tulsi Gabbard?

  I think there are a lot of economists who would agree with you.

• 2:38:30Jocko Willink?

  If times get too tight and you can't afford it, just email, email [email protected]. We'll get you hooked up there. You, and check out Tulsi's Substack.

• 2:38:41Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yep.

• 2:38:41Jocko Willink?

  Where they just Google Substack.

• 2:38:43Tulsi Gabbard?

  Tulsi, if you go on Substack and you just put in Tulsi or Tulsi Gabbard.

• 2:38:46Jocko Willink?

  How much does it cost?

• 2:38:47Tulsi Gabbard?

  It'll pop up there. Almost everything I put up is not behind a paywall. If you wanna kind of get in on the conversation, I think it's like six bucks a month or something like that.

• 2:38:57Jocko Willink?

  How'd you come up with that number, six bucks a month?

• 2:38:59Tulsi Gabbard?

  Uh, it's just the average of what's out there. I don't have a Bible verse to back it up.

• 2:39:05Tulsi Gabbard?

  Clearly a missed opportunity.

• 2:39:08Jocko Willink?

  You know, I just gave you that opportunity, then YouTube, we got the Jocko Podcast YouTube channel.

• 2:39:13Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:39:13Jocko Willink?

  And Origin USA YouTube channel. And then The Tulsi Gabbard Show, I think is your YouTube channel.

• 2:39:21Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yep.

• 2:39:22Jocko Willink?

  And subscribe to that.

• 2:39:23Tulsi Gabbard?

  Everywhere you get your podcasts, these platforms are growing, they're new. And so for people, if you watch or you listen and you like it, subscribe, leave a rating and share it with others.

• 2:39:36Jocko Willink?

  That's the plan. Psychological warfare is out there. You need that.

• 2:39:40Speaker 02

  Need that Jaco influence.

• 2:39:42Jocko Willink?

  Maybe I need some Jaco discipline to make a new one of those. It's been a while. You need to ask me some of those questions.

• 2:39:49Speaker 02

  What's good for the goose is good for the other guy.

• 2:39:53Jocko Willink?

  Flipsidecanvas.com Dakota Myers Company, bunch of books, a bunch of, I've written a bunch of books. Only Cry For The Living, um, by Holiday Day.

• 2:40:02Tulsi Gabbard?

  Again, great, great Christmas gifts.

• 2:40:05Jocko Willink?

  Oh, there you go.

• 2:40:05Tulsi Gabbard?

  I think people are looking, I mean, you know, it's just like, I, you know, when I think of gifts that I want to give people, they should be gifts of meaning and substance ideally, rather than just something that is cheap and can be easily thrown away and become part of a landfill somewhere.

• 2:40:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:23Tulsi Gabbard?

  That's what I think, you know.

• 2:40:24Jocko Willink?

  Books are good.

• 2:40:25Tulsi Gabbard?

  These books are fantastic. Some of the things you were talking about earlier because for me, I, I actually, you know, you, you can get audiobooks and, you know, ebooks and all that, but I'm one of those people who like, if I'm taking notes and getting ready for a TV interview, I'll look at what's on the computer and then I actually sit there and actually write it down. There's something about reading words on the page that, um, you can keep going back to, you can highlight, you can kind of bend the, the corner of the page over and know that that's something that you can use and keep going back to.

• 2:40:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I am a huge physical books guy and, um,

• 2:41:01Jocko Willink?

  there's definitely some sort of rote memorization that happens or absorption that happens when you write stuff down, you highlight it and all that stuff. So, yeah, you can get all these books for Christmas for somebody and they can really help. I'll tell you what, honestly, just get to get the kids you know, get the kids, you know, the Warrior Kid books.

• 2:41:19Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yep.

• 2:41:19Jocko Willink?

  Just to help them with life. It'll help them in so many different ways. And there's so much, look, we spent the first, I don't know, 40 minutes today talking about all the negative influence that there is out there on kids and social media. Don't let them be exposed to that. Or if they do get exposed to it, let them have some kind of a grounding and a foundation to think through what's going on and get on the right path as a human being. Way the Warrior Kid, one, two, three, four, five is coming by the way.

• 2:41:45Tulsi Gabbard?

  Oh damn.

• 2:41:45Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. It's called Letters From Uncle Jake. So there you go. Echelon Front Leadership Consultancy. Go to echelonfront.com for details. If you need help inside your organization, whatever organization that is. Let us know, we can help you. We have some live events, Orlando, April 3rd through the 5th, and Dallas, October 18th through the 20th. We've sold out every one of these that we've ever done. So if you want to go, get in early. Um, we have an online training, extremeownership.com. It's an online platform, training in leadership. Leadership is not something you learn in the day. You can't just go to Tulsi's Army Course on Leadership and like, oh, now you're good to go. It's not gonna happen. No offense to Tulsi, but it takes more than that. Yeah.

• 2:42:30Jocko Willink?

  You're gonna have, it's gonna take time. So if you, it's like going to the gym. If you want to go to the gym for leadership, you want to go to the gym for life, go to extremeownership.com. If you want to help service members, active and retire, active and retired, you want to help their families, Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. And also heroesandhorses.org, where Micah Fink is taking, taking people up into the wilderness. So they can find themselves on horseback, getting into the wilderness. So, check that out as well. If you want to connect with Tulsi on the interwebs, tulsi gabbert.com.

• 2:43:14Jocko Willink?

  On social media, on Twitter, on Instagram, on Facebook, she's at Tulsi Gabbard on YouTube, at Tulsi Gabbard Show. And she's got her podcast and she's got her Substack that we talked about. So, check all that as well. And as far as Echo and I are concerned, Echo's at Echo Charles, I am at Jaco Link. But listen, the algorithm, just watch out for the algorithm. Yeah. Cause it is definitely looking to grab you. And they're looking to brainwash you.

• 2:43:42Jocko Willink?

  And if you go into it knowing that they're looking to brainwash you, that's a good step in the right direction. Huge. But if you go into it thinking that you're getting smarter because of this, that's a bad situation that you're getting yourself into. So just please be careful. Be careful with the social media. Use it. Use it for something positive though. And only use it for a limited amount of time. All right, please. There you go. Tulsi, any closing thoughts for us?

• 2:44:12Tulsi Gabbard?

  Um, God, we covered a lot. It's great to see you guys. Great to be back.

• 2:44:19Tulsi Gabbard?

  Yeah, I just to add on to what you just said, you know, don't underestimate the power of your own voice. Understand the responsibility that each of us has on the impact that we make in the world and know that the choices we make every day can lead to having a positive or negative impact. So be an independent thinker, be discerning, and be intentional with the choices that you make both for yourself and for those around you.

• 2:44:51Jocko Willink?

  Sounds like a plan. Thanks for joining us again. I'm sure we'll see you again. Thanks for your service in the Army. Thanks for your service in Congress. Thanks for your service in America. And now I guess thank you for your service to the world as you try and help people by spreading aloha worldwide.

• 2:45:09Tulsi Gabbard?

  Always.

• 2:45:11Jocko Willink?

  And thanks to all of our service members around the world in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. Thank you for protecting our freedoms. Same goes here at home to our police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, all first responders. Thanks for what you do on a daily basis to keep us safe here at home. And everyone else out there, the world is a crazy place right now, and it will drive you crazy if you let it. My recommendation is that you remain sane,

• 2:45:51Jocko Willink?

  that you stay balanced, that you don't let bots, or provocateurs, or trolls get into your head. Instead, listen but question what you hear. Try and understand what's going on, and then go do some jiu-jitsu.

• 2:46:11Jocko Willink?

  And then, like Tulsi, go spread some of that aloha spirit. And until next time, this is Tulsi and Echo and Jaco. Out.