Tulsi Gabbard on Receiving Backlash Over Calling Out Kamala Harris | Joe Rogan

Because both of you are veterans and both of you, I'm sure, have things you agree on and disagree on. But you're in a really unique position here, you know? And since you've been on the podcast, a lot of things have happened. The big one is when you rightly called out Kamala Harris on her past and what she's done. And then it seemed like everybody's attacking you. It's like that opened up the floodgates and then there's all these hit pieces on it. Me as an observer watching from the outside, I was like, wow, look at the machine work. Look at the attack dogs go. Look at this. It's very transparent. Ah, so if you're paying attention. If you're paying attention. The thing is, if you're on the outside and you watch it all happen, then you go, oh, I see what's going on. But if you just happened upon one of those articles, you go, oh, she's an Assad supporter. Oh, she's a terrible person. Oh, she's a this and a that. It was amazing. It was amazing to watch. Like, I've never met anybody like you that's run for president. Like I knew you when people didn't know you that well. And then all of a sudden people know you way more and now you're kind of a household name. So to watch this process and to watch all the machinery sort of move in your direction and pam pam pam pam, it's very interesting. Yeah. What's it been like to you? Yeah. I mean, that literally is our challenge here is we are up against the most powerful, over all political machine. When you when you look at this, this machine that's revved up their engines to try to, you know, define me as something that casts suspicion or doubts or whatever in people's minds, you know, pushing information that isn't true or all of these different things. And I think there's a few reasons for it. Our challenge is like we are battling the political establishment in Washington. And it's because I'm telling the truth. It's because I'm challenging the status quo that they represent and that they've profited off for for a very long time. So, you know, my campaign, we don't take any contributions from PACs or lobbyists fueled completely by contributions from individual people. And they are outspending us by many, many multiples where we need help to challenge their narrative with the truth, telling me, hey, this is who I am. This is why I'm running for president. This is the experience in the background that I bring to this job. We've got to be able to bypass that mainstream corporate media and just go directly to voters. And what does the experience of being attacked feel like? God, I feel like I'm used to it. So it's, I mean, it's just like, it's nothing that I've ever really taken personally because I understand the situation. You know, I understand that, you know, whatever the smears are, however radical they are, it shows me that they feel threatened and they are concerned about both the unifying message that I'm bringing because we have Democrats, Republicans, libertarians, independents who are joining this coalition that is fueling our campaign. And it's a campaign of by and for the people and one that's actually speaking the truth. That's calling for an end to these regime change wars, calling for a de-escalation of tensions between the United States and other nuclear armed countries and end to this new cold war, nuclear arms race. Actually, hey, let's focus our limited taxpayer dollars on actually serving the needs of our people. That's really the message that we're bringing and it scares the hell out of them. What's interesting is for me, again, as an outsider, it's a clear, clear recognition that what they want versus what they say they want are two very different things. Exactly. The party's always been like, we want a woman. Okay, gotcha woman. How about a woman that's a veteran? Check. How about a woman that's a congressman? How about that? Congresswoman, veteran. Minority. Minority from Hawaii. All these positives, they're trying to dig up dirt on you. They don't have anything. They should be behind you. They should have wind in your sails. And the other thing they're saying is that, you know, in order for Democrat to beat Donald Trump in 2020, you're going to have to be able to take Trump voters away from him. You're going to have to win over those independents who stayed home in 2016 or even some of those Democrats who voted for Trump because they feel like our party has left them behind. Guess what? Check, check, check, check. We're doing all those things. And instead of saying, hey, this is really something that maybe we should get behind, instead they're saying, oh my gosh, there's something very suspicious and weird about her because she's actually stealing voters from Trump. Yeah, that's the big one, right? Has there ever been someone in your position that's gotten caught in such a crossfire? Like to be taking this much heat from the party that you're trying to represent is, it seems, I don't remember this happening. Well, they thought Harris had a real shot and she sunk Harris's ship. That's exactly what happened. I mean, if you look at there, there's a direct correlation between where Harris was standing and where she's at now in that debate. It just, you put holes in her boat. I was raising some very important issues related to criminal justice reform, ending the federal marijuana prohibition and essentially pointing to leadership because we're all asking to lead this country and bring the experience that each of us has that's very distinct and different. And her whole campaign was based on the premise of being a prosecutor for the people, being the attorney general here in California. And I, okay, you've said you're proud of your record. This is what you have done when you were in a position to make a positive change for the people. Instead, you chose to do otherwise. And I think that speaks louder than words. When you had more bullets in the chamber too, because there was other things you didn't even touch. Yeah. Like you didn't really touch upon her saying to single mothers that she was going to prosecute them and lock them up if they didn't get their kids in school. And laughing as she did so. Yeah. I've seen her talk about that as if it's a good idea that this was a good solution. Yeah. To scare single moms into, with a fear of jail if their kid didn't go to school. Yeah. That's the challenge of this debate format that's so frustrating is you've got 60 to 75 seconds to get your point across, to be able to talk about, hey, here's my position. Here's what I would do with North Korea. Here's how I would deal with immigration reform in 60 seconds or less.