SIO214: Ok WTF is with Tulsi Gabbard?

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:30 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 214. I'm Thomas. That's Jamie. How you doing, Jamie?

0:00:36 Jamie: How are? I'm doing pretty good. Thomas, how are you?

0:00:38 Thomas: I am doing well, but I just have, my notes for this are just entitled "Tulsi Gabbard WTF," because I don't, I'm just confused, I guess. So I'm currently, I've done an immense amount of reading and research, and I'm, I don't if I'm less confused than when I started about Tulsi. How about you?

0:00:59 Jamie: Yeah. Interestingly, my notes are also titled WTF. I just this whole this whole thing is so bonkers to me.

0:01:04 Thomas: It Really Is, I, uh, I had said to you earlier in the week, or I don't remember when it come up, it came up, that I just, I would love, because I'm so confused about Tulsi to begin with, and this news erupted over the Hillary Clinton interview on David Plouffe's podcast, and it was just like a good time to be like, let's just do a deep dive. I figured, okay, I'll finally get to the bottom of this, maybe I'll know what's going on, what makes her do certain things. And, uh, it's very, very confusing. There's a, there's a lot of weird stuff about Tulsi and, uh, I, you and I may totally disagree on this, but like, I am actually kind of confused as to whether or not maybe she is somewhat, uh, I'll be very careful, uh, she seems to be sympathetic to Russia in ways that are weird, and, and I don't know what to make of it, but we'll go into it.

0:01:58 Thomas: Uh. I thought though, here's what I wanted to say. First off, I just wonder, show of hands, everybody listening. I want to know how many people who have like consumed this controversy and commented on it. I just want to know how much people actually listened to what Hillary Clinton said, because I feel like if there's one thing we should all be sure of, like even people who hate Hillary, people who like Hillary, like me, I still pretty much like her, although I have criticisms of her, like I do many many people. But anyway, one thing is for sure. It's very easy for people. And it's she has a history of people skewing her words, because in my opinion, I think that the initial headlines were off. They said that she claimed that Russia was grooming Tulsi for a third party run.

0:02:45 Thomas: When I went and listened to it, it's very clear that she's responding to Plouffe's question about Republican strategy. And when she says that they are grooming her, she's she's referring to Republicans. Now, she also says that Tulsi is a favorite of the Russians. So that's absolutely true. But it's a slight difference. I want to just play it. I think we should play it so everybody's on the same page. We're not, you know, quibbling about it. I think it might take a couple of minutes, but I'm just going to press play on this selection of the interview.

0:03:12 Clip: This last time, which was very effective, and the Russians played a big role in. And they'll double down on this.

0:03:14 Thomas: Oops, I'm Sorry. I had it set to the high speed. I'll edit that and restart. I always Go through the stuff at like super when I'm just trying to go uh, one yet. This is gonna blow your mind. I I love this because you're not a podcast person, so you probably don't even know that people listen to us on like 1.8 speed, probably, or maybe 2, 2x speed. Did you know that? I don't know I don't know how they do that. Okay, maybe I'll leave this all in just for fun. Okay, now I'll hit play when the speed is adjusted to 1x. Okay.

0:03:19 Jamie: Oh my god. Are you actually capable of like consumer can you actually like consume stuff at that speed. Uh, Know I didn't know I

0:03:48 Clip: No, and, you know, Trump had those advantages, but he was not an incumbent. So as we know, whether it's Ronald Reagan, your husband, Barack Obama, those first 18 months of the election cycle were as important as the last six months. I think that should give us pause. So, one, it's connected to the discussion we just had, and actually about social media earlier in our discussion. You know, Donald Trump, as you know better than anyone in the world, only got 46.1% of the vote nationally. Internationally, you know, he got 47.2 in Wisconsin, 47.7 in Michigan. If you had said those before the election, you would have said he's going to lose in a landslide. But one of the reasons he was able to win is the third-party vote. And what's clear to me, you mentioned, you know, he's going to just lie. I mean, you forgot he's going to say whoever our nominee is will ban hamburgers and steaks and you can't fly and infanticide.

0:04:35 Clip: And people believe this. So how concerned are you about that? For me, so much of this does come down to the win number. If he has to get 49 or even 49.5 in a bunch of these, I don't think he can. So he's going to try and drive at people, not to vote for him, but just to say, you know, you can't vote for them either. And that seems to be, I think, to the extent that I can divine a strategy, their key strategy right now. Well, I think there's going to be two parts, and I think it's going to be the same as 2016. Don't vote for the other guy. You don't like me? Don't vote for the other guy because the other guy is going to do X, Y, and Z, or the other guy did such terrible things. I'm going to show you in these, you know, flashing videos that appear and then disappear and they're on the dark web and nobody can find them. But you're going to see them and you're going to see that person doing these horrible things. They're also going to do third party again.

0:05:21 Clip: And I'm not making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on somebody who's currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She's the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far. And that's assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because she's also a Russian asset. Yeah, she's Russian asset. I mean, totally. And so they know they can't win without a third-party candidate. And so I don't know who it's going to be, but I will guarantee you they'll have a vigorous third-party challenge in the key states that they most need it.

0:06:01 Thomas: So that's the thing in its entirety. All right, I have so much, but, uh, I, I don't know if you want to give your initial thoughts on that.

0:06:10 Jamie: A couple of things that I object to. Yes, they're clearly talking about what the Republican strategy is, but there's an element of red-baiting in this that just strikes me as really disingenuous. You could say a lot of legitimate criticisms about Jill Stein, but to describe her as a Russian asset fundamentally misconstrues Russia's particular brand of propaganda. And I really am uncomfortable with the way that third-party voters are used as this sort of boogeyman, that they're, you know, undermining the democratic process and not, you know, a legitimate part of it in a healthy functioning democracy, because it sort of takes for granted that in the absence of a third party, that those voters would have gone to Clinton, and that's just false.

They could have just as easily gone to Trump, or in a democracy like ours, where 40 percent of the the population sits out a presidential election, they could have just not voted at all. And so when we sort of dismiss 2016 as simply being the result of third-party candidates, and particularly third-party candidates that are Russian assets, it seems to me to be this sort of cognitive dissonance that's motivated to not have to meaningfully take stock at, you know, maybe part, part of the reason 2016 was so unsuccessful is that the Hillary Clinton campaign never even stepped foot

0:07:43 Jamie: In Michigan. And that seems to me to be important. Okay.

0:07:49 Thomas: Uh, I disagree with a lot of that. I don't know that it'll be a good use of our time to relitigate 2016, because I want to talk about Tulsi Gabbard. But, um, I, S I think that, I think your view, uh, there's, there's a lot I agree in. I think it's very valid. I think it's right to say that, um, it's, it's no guarantee that third party candidates, you know, would would vote for Hillary. Otherwise, you're right on. I think that's good criticism.

I also think that, in my opinion, as much as I, I really do see where Hillary is coming from here, because Jill Stein, is if we're talking, if we're doing a Tulsi Gabbard WTF episode, we could very easily do a Jill Stein WTF, because there was a lot of weirdness that we covered on Opening Arguments in terms of the Russians and Jill Stein. Jill Stein was very much a part of the Russian effort to undermine the election, in the bot networks and in the ads they bought, she was part of it, and they specifically tried to appeal to black voters with ads saying, "Hey, Jill Stein is a good, you know, it's good message, vote," and all this stuff. So that's where she's coming from, but I agree that Hillary went too far.

Uh, I think, she, I would, what I, the main thing I would like to hear from Hillary, and I know, get that nobody is like me and they care about Hillary, I actually really enjoyed listening to this podcast episode because I think she has a lot of knowledge, and I think she's right on about a lot of stuff.

She talked about Trump dismantling the State Department, and she can, she has a lot of insight into things that I personally I think is good, but I get that nobody agrees, everybody else would prefer for her to go away forever, but what I would have liked clarification on is when she says someone is a Russian asset, does

0:09:28 Thomas: She just mean that their presence is an asset to Russia, which I think is can be true of people regard, just as, just in the same way that, um, that so many weird right-wing people who I wanted to get to have, have, um, endorsed Tulsi. Like, it's, it's, you could say that Tulsi Gabbard is a favorite of Richard Spencer, she's a favoriteof Mike Cernovich, it doesn't, I, I get, but I get that it's perhaps a little too insulting to say that without clarifying whether or not the relationship goes the other way. So I would like to know whether Hillary actually thinks that the relationship is a two-way relationship, or when she says someone is a Russian asset, does she mean the fact that somebody is undermining confidence in the DNC, which Tulsi is, or is running on third party, you know, campaigning against Hillary as Jill Stein did, all that stuff, whether that's merely an asset to Russia because of their efforts to get Trump elected.

0:10:36 Jamie: Right. And so I think a lot of that is correct. And I want to get to Tulsi as well. So I don't want to take up too much time on this. I think there's nuance in here that's really important and that I've, you know, I had to wager one of my limbs, I would put it on Hillary Clinton accurately having an understanding of that. But I think she uses this in a way that is most charitably lazy and less charitibly disingenuous. Because while Hillary Clinton and you and I may have a sense that there's more nuance to what it means to be a Russian asset, she's certainly using this in a way that's sort of euphemistic and almost dog whistly, and trying to suggest or imply something more nefarious to more casual consumers of news, um, than I think is warranted. Uh,

0:11:33 Thomas: Maybe, but I also, okay, I also think she might maybe be right. Maybe the other part of this. We should get into Tulsi Gabbard because I wasn't really expecting to see as much Russia weirdness as I found when I dug into this. And again, I don't know. Like, I genuinely don't know the explanation. I also want to say that one thing that bugs me a bit, and I did read the Matt Taibbi article, I can't stand him. I tweeted out a quote. I think he's kind of an a-hole. But anyway, because his quote is Hillary Clinton is nuts. She's also not far from the Democratic Party mainstream, which has been pushing the same line for years. So there's people like Tabby who they, they love to say that the whole Russia thing is an effort to like make an excuse for 2016.

0:12:22 Thomas: And I just like, maybe that's true for some people, but I, you know, I've read Hillary's book. It's not like it's, it's accurate to talk about the Russian efforts and the fact that Trump has been disagreeing with the intelligence consensus on this and all that. But if anything, if I were to, you know, like if you were to run the numbers in terms of pages of what she talked about, she talked a lot more about Comey. And so if you wanted to say that Hillary's excuse for losing, you know, it shouldn't be Russia, it's not really Russia, it's probably more Comey, and she kind of has a point, because Comey did some really messed up stuff and probably swung the election. But it's not as though she or most Democrats or any many Democrats that I know are in denial that, regardless of all the other stuff, regardless of Russia, regardless of whatever, the shenanigans with voter suppression, there's still a large number of people who voted for Trump and were probably happy to do it.

0:13:22 Thomas: You know, like these, that doesn't mean that because Russia meddled, therefore none of those voters existed. Nobody thinks that. I feel like that's kind of a straw man of her position. And that kind of bugs me the the other way.

0:13:33 Jamie: Yeah, so I'm not sure that I agree with that, because when we talk about Russia meddling, it doesn't seem to me for the most part that people are very clear about what that means. You know, Russia didn't hack our voting booths. You know, they didn't alter the election. They didn't, you know, put in place some sort of Manchurian candidate. It, what they did was sow discord. They bought ads.

And, you know, they interfered with our elections in the sense that they influenced what came up in news. They influenced what people were reading about other people. And so, like, that's real. You know, my criticism to that is, you know, it's kind of laughable for the United States to be complaining about foreign governments doing this, given that we've sort of created the framework and a literal school for how to interfere in other countries' elections. And it also misses the fact that what they brought to the surface were things that were true. Russia wasn't necessarily, you know, I mean, there was the Pizzagate thing, which was like bonkers, right? But I mean the worst that they did was reveal the internal workings of the DNC and the collusion with the Hillary campaign. And that's what sort of influenced a lot of people and a lot people's understanding of the DNC and the Democratic Party more broadly.

0:15:02 Thomas: So what you're saying is the worst that they did was hack one of our party's emails, spread them to the public.

0:15:06 Jamie: And parties... And I'm not saying that that's a good... ...to them

0:15:09 Thomas: That's, that's quite a lot.

0:15:09 Jamie: Public. Right, but again... It's a lot.

0:15:11 Thomas: That'S quite a LOT to do.

0:15:11 Jamie: Yeah, it is, but it was damaging not because they were hacked, but because of what the hack revealed. Revealed and I think that's something that hasn't meaningfully been paid attention to and particularly from Hillary Clinton it's it sort of for me at least falls on deaf ears because one of the things that came out of those hacks is Hillary Clinton sending messages to major news networks saying please elevate Trump as a as a Pied Piper candidate and Hillary Clinton herself herself was more than happy to create this moral hazard of Trump to run against for the purposes of bolstering her own electoral strategy. And so, you know, what Russia did is bad. And I'm like, in no way do I mean to minimize that. We should take seriously other countries interfering in our elections in this way.

0:16:02 Jamie: But we also have to be honest with ourselves about precisely how they did that, and that they were able to do that because they revealed and made apparent the sort of malfeasance that was taking place. And that doesn't go away because it's uncomfortable. I

0:16:20 Thomas: I, you know, I don't fully agree, but I see the point you're making. I think, I think there are some good ones, but I also think, you Know, we can't leave out Trump in the equation when you talk about Russian Russian efforts, you know, it's not like that's not part of it. I mean, part of the Russian efforts is they have influence over Donald Trump and

0:16:40 Jamie: So the one thing that really stood out to me after reading the book Fire and Fury, in breaking down the 2016 election, what really stood out to me the most is the way that Donald Trump was financially compromised, because of his relationships to Russia. That is clearly where he has been able to sort of launder and manifest his wealth. And it's clear that that makes him particularly vulnerable and something that as a country we should be concerned about because he is compromised. He is exploitable. He has an invested financial interest in Russia, and that is clearly a place where they're able to apply leverage. And that's real. And I think there's a way that Trump can be understood as a Russian asset because of that in a waythat it doesn't necessarily make sense to say is true of Tulsi Gabbard. That said, there'sa lot of legitimate criticism to be had about Tulsi And it's totally plausible that both the Republicans and the Russians see it as in their interest to help bolster her candidacy, given their own perspectives and their own goals.

0:16:54 Thomas: Yeah.

0:17:56 Thomas: Right. And, And, you know, OK, so we should get to Tulsi. And I think it's just a testament to how, gosh, the feelings are still so raw on Hillary. You know, it's still just inspires so much like we could go on for hours about this, I'm sure. And it's like it's there's just so much there. So sorry about that. We will get to to Tulasi, but it's hard because the context, you know, just keeps going back and back. But, you know, just some preliminary stuff that that is interesting about this. But for one, I do want to point out, I played that in part because because, you know, she didn't even name Tulsi Gabbard. Now I get that, that I get, it was pretty clear probably from context that it was Tulsi Gabbard, but I think it's also interesting to note that it Was like a Russian asset says what, Hey, I'm not a Russian ass.

0:18:42 Thomas: You know, it's kind of funny. Uh, and then Tulsi's response, which, you know, even, even taking your, maybe your view, which is more Hillary critical, if I were to agree with that view, I still think Tulsi response was pretty out there. If anybody didn't see it, I can go ahead and read it real quick. She said, "Great. Thank you, Hillary Clinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know. It was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies in the corporate media, war and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose. It's now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don't cowardly hide behind your proxies, join the race directly." So in Tulsi's mind, the race is between someone pulling at 1% and someone who isn't in the race. That's a, that's a, that's quite a statement, I gotta say. Okay.

0:19:53 Jamie: Yeah, so I have to say, as someone who is generally, I think, more critical of Hillary Clinton than you are, that even from that perspective, this response is absolutely bonkers to me.

0:20:05 Thomas: Okay, I'm glad we can agree

0:20:06 Jamie: I'm glad on that. Yeah, this is absolutely, unequivocally bonkers. I don't know how you could take seriously the claim that this race is between you and anybody, let alone someone who isn't even running, when you're polling at 1% to 2%, that you're polling, and your fundraising wasn't even high enough to meet the standards for the September Democratic debate. Debate, like this is like

0:20:23 Thomas: On that. Yeah, this would be like Marianne Williamson being like the race is between me and Michelle Obama. Everybody like what? I

0:20:39 Jamie: Right what? Right, no, totally, it's totally it, totally bonkers, um, and it just, to me, seems to to undermine every other thing that she says. You, I don't know how YOU could take seriously that, like, someone else is undermining your reputation when you're out there pulling at 1%, insisting this is a two-person race between you and somebody not running. What's ruining your reputation is that you don't have a meaningful grip on reality.

0:21:08 Thomas: Right. And so, pairing with that, you remember, I think think referenced it last week, or we, we, you and I probably talked about a little bit, but Tulsi was also going to boycott the debate. And I was like, genuinely confused. Her reasoning was like DNC corruption. And I was like, I don't even understand what she could be referring to in this election cycle. Like, and it, I don't, you know, and so I looked into it because, again, I wanted to do this deep dive.

And I think it's consistent with how bonkers these tweet responses were. She, um, she threatened the boycott because she argued that the polls that were selected by the the the DNC aren't the most accurate, and if you selected like a different set of polls, then it would I died. Then I what, does she go from one percent to one point five percent? I really don't know what it could be. And also, I thought it was so funny that Marianne Williamson backed her up on that, like, yeah, of course the two people who are barely even in these things because they have 1% or so of the support would, would, you know, be together on this. But like, look, yeah, you can quibble about polls, but they show a pretty clear three-way race right now.

There's no, there's no set of reputable polls that you can put together that puts Tulsi Gabbard anywhere near the top seven candidates, you know, so that is bonkers. And then I also wanted to say about the, okay, what did you reference, oh, if you look at this tweet response, and I get, I, you know, I can agree with criticism of, you know, what Hillary said, to a certain extent, but also note what Hillary actually said about Tulsi. Hillary said the

0:22:49 Thomas: Republicans will want her for a third party run, and she said that she's a favorite of the Russians, which is actually been documented by the bot networks, and I get, and taking on board that that's a that could be like a red scary thing, I take that point, but also it's a little bit of a stretch to go from Hillary saying that about her to "this is a coordinated smear campaign against her reputation," like, what that seems a little far-fetched to me, personally. Yeah,

0:23:19 Jamie: Me, personally. So, yes and no. I think the biggest reason it's far-fetched is because she just doesn't actually constitute a big enough threat to the establishment Democrats, insofar as that's a thing, to warrant any sort of coordinated smear campaign. Um, you know, if there is, you know, going to be a coordinated smear campaign at the behest of, you know, quote-unquote establishment Democrats, they're going to put all their firepower on Bernie Sanders, because he is consistently

0:23:50 Thomas: I was going to make that point too. I agree, I

0:23:51 Jamie: Yeah. He's consistently polling in a way that's actually competitive, and given the number of candidate, could legitimately secure a path to the nomination. That's what they're going to be focused on. They are not going to move their firepower away from someone who poses a legitimate threat to direct those resources to someone who does not. Say what you will about the Democratic Party and their missteps, but they're not that dumb.

0:24:20 Thomas: Yeah. And I think one who is a Hillary Clinton fan might note that Hillary hasn't done that. Like, in this interview, there wasn't a bunch of talk about, like, oh, can you believe Bernie Sanders, the blah, I'm all for by that wasn't part of the podcast. But anyway, I don't want to dwell on Hillary Clinton. Uh, I do want to go back to Tulsi. So, um, did you happen to catch a lot of her? I mentioned them already, but in some of articles I read, I am just blown away by the endorsements that she has. Now, I want to again emphasize that she disavows certain of these, and I don't mean to, you know, imply that she supports any of these people. It is just a little weird, though, at the same time, when, here's all the names, Steve Bannon said he was like really impressed with her. Richard Spencer says he could vote for her.

0:25:06 Thomas: Ron Paul praises her libertarian instincts. Franklin Graham finds her refreshing. Well, let's see here. Far far-right conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich sees a certain amount of MAGA in her. He said she's got a good energy and a good vibe. You feel like she's just a serious person. She seems very Trumpian, he said. She was endorsed by David Duke. I want to emphasize again, she disavows that endorsement. I'm not at all trying to say that she's a fan of David Duke, I'm Not. It goes one way, Not two ways on that. But also Joe Rogan and Jack Dorsey. And it's just like, what? Like at the same time is I'm not saying she supports these people. I'm not. But what is it about her that has driven? There's no other candidate that you could say even half of this about on the Democratic side. Isn't that weird? Weird?

0:25:57 Jamie: So, yeah, and so, you know, I generally don't think the horseshoe theory of politics is correct, um, but, like, Tulsi Gabbard is definitely the example you need to contend with as to why it isn't, um, because she she really does sort of unite these weird fringe elements, and I think it has a lot to do both with, you know, historically her positions on lightning rod social issues like abortion and gay marriage tends to overlap with the conservative worldview, and she's got a very, like, sort of Biden-esque approach to these issues now, where, you know, she's personally against abortion, and she personally finds gay marriage immoral, but she just doesn't think that's the realm of the government to legislate, which is probably why Rand Paul, you know, admires her libertarian bent. And even her, like, anti-war rhetoric isn't grounded in this idea that, like, America shouldn't be imperialistic, or America should care about the suffering of brown people. It's this sort of nationalistic kind of mindset where what really matters is the harm we've done to our own

0:26:05 Thomas: Yeah, me neither.

0:26:31 Thomas: Yep.

0:27:18 Jamie: Soldiers. And to be clear, like, we should take seriously the the harm and the damage that our soldiers have suffered in our, you know, 20 almost years of war in the Middle East, but that's not the only reason to be anti-war, and that seems to be the only one that she's articulating, and I think that that sort of feeds into the right's sort of militaristic patriotism and hero worship of our veterans. And so there's this weird overlap.

0:27:47 Thomas: Well put. I had a lot of those same notes. I want to go a little more in depth on a couple of those points because I totally agree. And I just was blown away by some of this stuff. Yeah.

So this had come out a while back, maybe, I don't know, I can't remember now because time in the Trump era is weird, but I want say, I'm around a year ago, some old quotes about her and LBGT rights, uh, LGBT rights, came up, and, uh, you know, there, so at the time I believe my reaction was like, well, people can change their minds, and I think a lot of people feel that way, and I genuinely believe that, like, if we're talking about something from when someone was a kid or younger and they've changed their minds, I, for one, have to say that, you know, you have the room to do that, because I was that person, you know, like, I had a lot of terrible views, uh, when I was young, because I was raised in a Fox News household, um, so that's my feeling. But first off, here's one of the quotes that I just, like, it's one thing to be like, oh, in the in the 90s I thought, you know, maybe there should be civil unions instead of gay marriage, that's okay, that was wrong, but that's one thing.

It's another if you were saying things like, uh, this publication that was criticizing her is acting as a conduit for the Honolulu Weekly and other homosexual extremist supporters of the politician she was referencing. And then another one, as Democrats, we should be representing the views of the people, not a small number of homosexual extremists. So that goes a little further than I like, for example, like Barack Obama was not in favor of gay marriage for a long time.

0:29:23 Thomas: But I don't, I think you'd be hard pressed to find any quotes of him accusing people of being homosexual extremists. I could be wrong, but that, that seems like a different level. And one other thing I saw that I'm guessing we probably had the same source on this, but this Jacobin article that I think is really good. I don't know how to pronounce that, but it's probably wrong. But anyway, the LGBT caucus backed her opponent in 2016, and people asked them why. They're like, why, you know, because they used to back her. But so they said that she had some really bad answers to a questionnaire they sent her. And there's also, you Know, when you talk about these views being in the past, this was in 2016. And there was a 2015 article where she said her personal views on gay marriage and abortion hadn't changed, to your point, it's just her view on whether or not the government should try to enforce that. So that, I think, makes this a little different. Like, those views are things that, for my mind, that would be like the best case Republican view.

0:30:29 Thomas: Like if a Republican says, oh, well, I hate gay marriage, but I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to advocate that the government control what people do. That would be Like, okay, you're a Republican that I can at at least die, it'd be in dialogue with. Cause like you rec, you, you recognize that like your morality shouldn't be in government, but it's not like a good thing. I'm still not, you know, I'm not a big fan of you. So I found that, uh, I guess it was a little worse than I remembered when this, uh. Controversy kind of was brought up a year or so ago.

0:30:59 Jamie: Or so ago. Yeah, so, I, I totally agree, it's it's the sort of thing that, like, if Mitt Romney said it, I'd be like, oh, okay, well, Like, that's like, I guess that's like good for a Republican, but, like, right. And so this idea that like she's this progressive Democrat to me just seems hollow, because the only place where she comes anywhere near being progressive, I guess she does support Medicare for all. So there's that.

0:31:05 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. Right.

0:31:25 Jamie: Um, but the only other place is that is, is her war policy. But even that is not some principled, committed stand to, you know, non-intervention, as she likes to frame it. Um, because she was very happy, um, to support sanctions on Iran. She was a vocal opponent of the Iran deal, um, and referred to it, you know, on a par with, you know, the Munich Agreement of 1938, with same.

0:31:46 Thomas: Yeah. I had that same note. I was like, what? That is so weird because, So, yes, I agree. Sorry, I just wanted to chime in on that point specifically because, like, what does that mean? If she opposed the Iran deal on the grounds, well, or that she thinks rather than doing a deal with Iran, we should be invading them like in World War II with the Nazis? Like, what? You know, like either way, I don't get it because her whole thing is quote unquote non-interventional or sorry, quote unquote being against regime change wars. Wars, but then she's anti-Iran deal because it's like too soft. She, she is, and I'm sure you saw this same thing when it comes to Islam and like, you know, terrorism and that kind of thing. She is basically Sam Harris word for word. Like it's, it's remarkable. And

0:32:02 Jamie: What it means is she has no sense of history. Well,

0:32:40 Thomas: That could be a reason for a lot of those endorsements, by the way.

0:32:40 Jamie: I was I could way. Yeah, so I was actually going to make the same comparison to Sam Harriss. Um, it's funny that you said that, um, because she definitely trades in these sort of Islamophobic tropes, and she's gone after even Barack Obama for not saying the magic words of, you know, Islamic extremism or radical Islam.

0:33:01 Thomas: Right. Radical Islamic terror.

0:33:04 Jamie: Right, as though, like, that's the magic right, and that's the full understanding every

0:33:07 Thomas: That magic word makes everything you don't Every time you don't say radical Islamic terror, a terrorist grows their wings, is that how it goes? They grow a bomb.

0:33:16 Jamie: Yeah. And again, it's Just, she

0:33:18 Thomas: I don't know.

0:33:19 Jamie: You know, her understanding of the world to me seems to be very myopic, um, and and very black and white in a way that misses some really important nuance. And for me, this is incompatible with being president of the United States generally, but particularly following Trump. We have cases before the Supreme Court now where the Supreme Court is being tasked with listening to arguments about whether or not transgender people have the right to exist basically as who they are, if it's okay to fire people for being gay. And this may be something that will need, you know, action from Congress that the President of the United States will have to sign, depending on how these decisions come down.

0:34:10 Jamie: And I don't want somebody like Tulsi Gabbard, who has shown herself to be homophobic, and I would guess transphobic, and racist in charge of these sorts of decisions and the sort sort of moral leader of our Democratic Party in the aftermath of the Trump years.

0:34:27 Thomas: Absolutely. I m going to hit a few more points here. Feel free to, you know, jump in any time you want, but I just, I had some more notes, I just have to get in here. In painting a picture of Tulsi, I do want to say this, I want to do, try to, you now, point out the good things, because, you know, people are, people are complicated, and I don't mean in any way for this to be like everything she does is wrong. You point out one, she was in support of restoring Glass-Steagall, you know, for a while now. She's opposed to cuts in Medicare and Social Security, and she kind of, you know, fought against that when Republicans were trying to do it. She is pro-universal health care, and she personally protested the Dakota Access Pipeline. So, you know, she's got a number of issues that are very progressive, you know, commendable, things I agree with her for, and I think she's done a good job on.

0:35:13 Thomas: But going back, by the way, I also have to put this in there because in addition to the tweets that we read that were pretty unhinged, she also did a video in which she said, like, I had to get a quote of this because I thought it was just so Bizarre. In addition to going on Fox News every other day, she has gone on Fox News so much, which I think is just not an appropriate thing to do. In my opinion, she's gone on there a lot. She's gone there and fueled their anti-democratic stuff and all that. But anyway, she also made a video in which it's another attack on Hillary, and she says, "You need to step down from your throne." And, like, I got to point out, Hillary went on a podcast.

Like, come on. She is not allowed to go on a podcast and talk about her, like, fine, people don't have to listen to it, you know, like, if people are done with Hillary, they don't have to download the podcast, the David Plouffe campaign HQ or whatever, you know, it just seems like a bit of an overreaction, and, uh, the idea that Hillary is not even allowed to, like, comment on what she believes, and that's akin to being on a throne? Own I I don't get it, I just, it seems, some

0:36:28 Thomas: Weird stuff going on there.

0:36:28 Jamie: Weird stuff going on. And I'm going to agree with you as, you know, someone more critical of Hillary. I think this is bonkers. I wouldn't personally count myself a fan of Hillary Clinton. But that said, she's been a United States Senator. She's been Secretary of State. She came within striking distance of being the first woman president of the United States. For fuck's sake, the woman deserves to have her opinion heard.

0:36:32 Thomas: Yeah.

0:36:58 Thomas: She deserves a podcast.

0:36:59 Jamie: She deserves a I personally don't agree with her. I personally don't want to listen to her, I agree with her substantively about a number of issues, but she certainly earned a place in the conversation, um, and to insist that she just needs to be, you know, put out to pasture, like, taken out back, it's just totally inappropriate.

0:36:59 Thomas: Interview. Yeah. It's Weird. Yeah.

0:37:24 Jamie: It's, yeah, it's totally inappropriate, and it just really strikes me how personal Tulsi takes the nature of these disagreements, um, and, you know, from the commentary particularly

0:37:31 Thomas: Particularly with Hillary, I think there's something weird going on there.

0:37:39 Jamie: On, yeah. There, I think that's right, and I think, you know, I don't know, I suspect a lot of it has to do with, you know, bad feelings left over from 2016, but again, if you want to be president of the United States, you are responsible for taking care of the entire country, country. You have to be able to see past yourself. You have to tend to the wounds of others and not bleed out all over them because you yourself are wounded. She doesn't seem to have that perspective or that capacity. The 2016 election was bloody and messy, and there was real damage that was done from the Democratic infighting. What we really need now as somebody who can move us past that and not relitigate those fights. We're never going to, to be better than where we are, we're not going to get past Trump, let alone Trumpism, if we continue to rehash these 2016 fights as though they're personal. And that's true broadly, and that is true all the more so because Tulsi Gabbard wasn't the primary person involved in that fight.

0:38:49 Thomas: And you already mentioned this, you mentioned the radical Islamic terror, but I just have to, uh, and I always joke because when Trump says that, it sounds like he's saying radical Islamic Tara, like the, like a name. And I just, makes me laugh every time. Like, there's one person, it's radical Islamic Tara. I don't know what she's doing. Anyway, um, but she, again, it's one thing, I guess, to have that position that, you know, you want to be tougher on Islam. It's another, again, guess where she's going and doing this in 2014. She goes regularly on Fox News to criticize the Obama administration for avoiding the magical phrase, radical Islamic Islamic terror. And in one interview, here's a quote, quote, "The vast majority of terrorist attacks conducted around the world over the last decade have been conducted by groups who are fueled by this radical Islamic ideology," end quote. A statement that, and this is from the, oh, this is form the Jacobin article, so I think part of that quote is in here.

0:38:59 Jamie: Like a name,

0:39:44 Thomas: A statement that may technically be true due to violence and instability plaguing Middle Eastern countries, but is wildly misleading considering that non-Muslims make up the vast, vast majority of terrorist perpetrators in both Europe and the United States. So that's from that jack of an article, but yeah, like, think about that. In 2014, on to now, going on to Fox News peddling that particular view, like, it, not a Democratic Party leader, for me, that's not even close. Like, that's, that's pretty disqualifying in my mind. I

0:40:14 Jamie: No, it's, it's dangerous. Um, and it's irresponsible. Um, because, and again, it's just inconsistent. And that at the end of the day, that is my biggest takeaway on Tulsi Gabbard, that there's no meaningful intellectual consistency between any of her positions. She strikes me as someone who just sort of like threw spaghetti at the wall. And some of that spaghetti hit good targets like Medicare for All, supporting Social Security, reinstating Glass-Steagall, but not because of any principled commitments, but just because that's where the spaghetti lands. Because you can't at the same time insist that the United States has to wind down its war machine and then and fuel the very rhetoric that's used as a justification to keep it going.

0:41:04 Jamie: And it just completely ignores the reality of why terrorists from the Middle East are Islamic. And it's because that happens to be the religion of people in the area of the world that United States foreign policy has destabilized.

0:41:22 Thomas: Interpretation, I think it's plausible, your spaghetti theory. That's one idea. My theory is, and I don't know if this is my theory, but I believe you could build a coherent theory that in addition to the fact that she was just clearly raised pretty right-wing. When you're raised with views that there's a homosexual extremist agenda, that's not something you casually stumble into. That's like you're pretty hardcore right-wings. So there's that. But there's also a through line of maybe kind of Russia-friendly stuff here. I'm going to make this case. You can see what you think. But it is a little weird.

It's weirder than I thought it was, is what I'll say. She, um, has a history of visiting with, uh, with dictators and The excuse has been, you know, I'm against these regime change wars kind of thing, but she took a trip to Egypt with Dana Rohrabacher, who, uh, if anybody's not familiar, was a 15-term Republican in my state, my fine state of California, 30 years he spent in the, uh, in the House, who was the most pro-Russia Republican of anybody. He literally, this guy was a big piece of crap. Um, how familiar, uh, Jamie, are you with the Magnitsky Act and that, that whole stuff?

0:42:40 Jamie: I'm not, I'm not at all actually. Well,

0:42:42 Thomas: Well, the Magnitsky Act, um, and I'm going to be a little, you know, rusty on it, but, but uh, Magnitsky was a guy who he was like, I believe he was an accountant. I want to say, somebody who kind of stumbled onto some corruption in, uh, Russia and Putin corruption and like, wouldn't kind of play ball with it. And they just like killed him. Like they left him, they imprisoned him. Putin imprisoned him, he had some health condition that would have been very, you know, very curable. Uh, it could have been a kidney thing. I can't remember something that was very treatable if he weren't in a jail cell. Uh and they just let him die. They gave him no treatment and he died horribly.

0:43:24 Thomas: It's, and the Magnitsky Act was passed because, I think it's Bill Browder's guy, I want to say, who was friends and was working with Magnitsky to try to, you know, figure out like his story and what this corruption was and all that. Because, you know, Putin has gotten rich on, it's an oligarchy. He's gotten rich on letting certain people benefit from the government, you know, monopoly on stuff in Russia, but then in return, he get they pay him bazillions of dollars and that kind of thing. And so the Magnitsky Act was, and again, sorry, this wasn't going to be the intention of the show. So I don't have like 1000% of the details, but it's, it's sanctioning certain people in Russia who were maybe responsible for that and are corrupt and that kind of thing.

0:44:09 Thomas: So Rohrabacher is against the Magnitsky Act, and he even was able, there's some sort of international part of this, so there's an American law but there also was an international effort, he got like Magnitsky's name taken off of it somehow and he also, so he and Tulsi went to Egypt and visited with Sisi right after Sisi had massacred 800 protesters, and there's no regime change war happening in Egypt. So that, that, the excuse of like, well, you know, I've met with Assad cause I disagree with these regime change, blah, blah. Which isn't even right. There isn't that excuse. And this, this, and this Rohrabacher is awful. I'm so glad he finally lost. I believe in '18, it might've been '16. I have now I'm blanking, but one or the other.

0:44:55 Thomas: And so some of these votes are very, very curious. She opposed, she didn't vote, sorry, in the Magnitsky Act. So, let me read this quote from an article, and this was, I'll put the link in the show notes, but this was a Daily Kos or whatever, K-O-S, I don't know how they say that, and I found this one very alarming. So here's some ties that she had. So she has used the logic of opposing regime change wars to support Assad, but, and she's also condemned U.S.-Syria policy and supported Russia's bombing of the Assad opposition groups in Syria. And okay, this is the worst part. She did a campaign ad because, you know, her whole thing has been opposing these regime change wars.

0:45:43 Thomas: She's made a big thing about that. And that's allegedly her reasoning for this stuff. But in a campaign ads she made that was like these endless regime change wars, that kind of thing. She used footage of Assad's barrel bombs that he had bombed his own people with and use that as like the visual for I'm against regime change wars, which is like the exact opposite of what it should be.

And the reason that I tie this to Russia is even the anti-Islam stuff, I think, might plausibly be linked to the fact that the reasoning that Russia and Assad use for the fact that they're killing literally hundreds of thousands of Syrian citizens is, well, we're fighting these ISIS and these, this other group that's, they're terrorists and we got to root them out, which is like half true because the Syrian civil conflict, you know, the people who are against Assad, yes, there's a lot of citizens who, you know, they, they want a new, president, I don't know, he's dictator, but they want new leadership and they've also, you allied with people who are probably Islamic terrorists. So like, there is a shred of truth to it. But anyway, here's another thing. I thought that ad that she did with the with the visual of Assad's barrel bombs was particularly nuts.

But also she has this is going to this is gonna get like tin hat tinfoil Hattie a little bit. But here's a quote. We find out that Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya or whatever used Chris Cooper, the CEO of Potomac Square Group, to smear Bill Browder in his campaign to bring about the Magnitsky Act. Second, a little digging reveals that Chris Cooper has also been retained by Gabbard as a consultant.

0:47:27 Thomas: Third, Gabbards legislative voting record on anti-Putin actions in the U.S. House has been negative or absent. So here's some votes. 2016 Magnitsky Act voted no, stating that she didn't want to arm terrorists in Syria. In the House vote to call for justice in the unsolved killing of Putin's political opponent, Boris Nemtsov, didn't vote. In the vote to prevent U.S. recognition of Putin's annexation of Crimea, didn't vote. Really weird. There's that. And then there's the 2017 visit with Assad, which is also incredibly curious. She went on this Assad-led tour of Syria and then came back and claimed like, oh, every Syrian I talked to loves Assad. So it doesn't make any sense that we should do a regime change war.

0:48:14 Thomas: It's like, yeah, what about the 500,000 that he's killed or if you're going to do a tour led by the dictator, my guess is you're going to see a lot of people who are friendly to the dictator. And there's also a minor thing where she might not have even cleared it with the House Ethics Committee. Pelosi said she had no advance warning of this meeting. It's just, it's so weird. So I that's the weird Russia stuff. I know it's a, it's lot information and the Rohrabacher thing is bizarre. Like why would that be an ally of hers or somebody that she would at least want want to take trips with and be friendly with. I don't get it. What do you make of all that?

0:48:48 Jamie: Make of all that? So, you know, it's just all so weird. And I don't really know how to connect any of those dots together. Um, they definitely suggest a pattern that's worth paying attention to and worth investigating, I think. Um, she, ultimately, though, she strikes me as someone who is just trying to leverage different opportunities for her own benefit, which, you know, like is just generally true of politicians. But it's just doing it in a really irresponsible way. And I suspect that she sort of interprets her position in the House of Representatives and as a politician more broadly, through a prism of, you know, personal aggrievement, and she seems to strike me as someone who has a persecution complex.

And so she's aligning herself with people under the guise of, you know, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and she's just not very good at making sense of like what it means to be, you know, an enemy versus a political opponent. And because she's personalized a lot of these conflicts, you know, she's she's found herself allied with some some questionable people. I'm like, I don't mean that to make excuses. This is weird. Um, and this is something

0:50:12 Jamie: Like this is weird, and I'm not trying to like hand wave it away or excuse it away by just saying like, oh, well, you know, he's got some like unaddressed maybe mental health issues. Um, it's definitely suggestive of something weird. No, I think this like further strengthens my spaghetti theory.

0:50:12 Thomas: Yeah, Maybe, uh, you know, again, that's one interpretation. I, here's my, I don't know. I want to emphasize that I, I agree with you in that. I don't, I don't know. I don't know that we can know right now what's going on, but if I were to like hypothetically question what could be a possibility, it, okay, remember that, um, I believe it was like a secret recording or whatever that came out where, um, it was like Kevin McCarthy or Paul Ryan or one or both of them were like, oh, yeah, there are definitely people being given Russian money, Republicans being given Russian money, remember That.

0:51:03 Jamie: Yeah. One.

0:51:03 Thomas: One of them was Trump, the other was this Roerbacher guy. He and and like now they claim once the audio came out, uh, Kevin McCarthy claimed he was joking, which I don't, I don't really believe frankly. Like it seems kind of weird that you were just having to be joking that the Russians were specifically paying Trump and Rohrabacher, somebody that like, why is that even a joke? Anyway, um, I, is it impossible to imagine that in one way or another she's either passively welcoming the support she gets from bot networks and maybe, maybe even financial support from Russians or actively wants it? That would be something that I think is not out of the range of possibility. I don't know, but it seems really weird to be a huge fan of Assad and all this other stuff and to be against the Magnitsky Act and to feel like it's very weird.

0:51:56 Thomas: It's exactly the same stuff that makes us wonder about Trump. It's a lot of the same policy decisions where you're like, what is going on? The only explanation. Now, there's a Lot more when it comes to Trump. So I think there's absolutely a bigger case, in my opinion, a more solid case that Trump, in some way, has some allegiance or reason to do things that Putin would want, is what I'll say. The weakest form of that. I'm not saying he's a Manchurian candidate. I'm nicht sagen das. But there's either financial or some other reason because it just doesn't make sense any other way. It doesn't make sense for Trump to oppose the Open Skies Treaty and all this stuff that's just like out of nowhere. No Republican cares about this. Like, in fact, that was a Republican, originally a Republican policy from H.W.

0:52:44 Thomas: Bush. Like, there's all these things where it's like, what is going on here? And I think Tulsi has a few of those things. And I'm not saying anything for sure, but it wouldn't surprise me if someday we find out there's some funding somewhere or there's som weird reason why she's doing this. I don't know. Could

0:53:00 Jamie: Don't. Yeah, no, it definitely doesn't sound implausible, right? And the open question is whether she's a useful idiot, or, you know, an active accomplice.

0:53:10 Thomas: Be, yeah, yeah.

0:53:11 Jamie: And so, you know, that's what's less clear. Um, you know, I think in the beginning, like as it relates to Trump, at least, you know, from my takeaway from reading Fire and Fury, is I think Trump began as a sort of useful idiot. I think he was financially compromised. I think he's been able to, um, grossly inflate his wealth because of his involvement with the Russian oligarchy. Um, and I don't, I honestly swear to God, don't believe he actually ever thought he'd be president.

0:53:16 Thomas: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

0:53:44 Thomas: I agree with that. He thought he was gonna lose for sure. So.

0:53:47 Jamie: I, I think that's right. And you know, I don't, he sort of like, sort of stumbled into To.

0:53:53 Thomas: What. They. Did.

0:53:54 Jamie: This. They. Did was.

0:53:54 Thomas: Was they. Made a, they started working a lot of deals thinking we're gonna leverage the fact, you know, this this campaign into money in Russia and other places, by the way, not just Russia. Um, and so yeah, I totally agree. Like he, they didn't have a victory speech written for no idea.

0:54:09 Jamie: Right. And so I, you know, I definitely think, you know, Trump's alliance with Russia had less to do with his desire to win political office so much as the the fact that he had been financially compromised and it served, it served Russia's geopolitical interests for there to be kind of unrest and discord in the United States. Um,

0:54:29 Thomas: Was, and it's also true that another layer of this is that because Trump was so awful, and especially after the, uh, the, uh, the date, uh, what's, what's name of show, the tape came out? What is this stupid show, NBC, whatever tape. Um, once that came out, so few people wanted to even work with him that what was left over was a bunch of people who were like weirdly in bed with Russians, and you know, it was a punch of compromised actors that, like, uh, you know, it's, it's Manafort going to work for him for free, you, because so that's another component of another layer of why Trump, I believe, is, was compromised is that no one else would work with him except these really horrendous people like who wanted to go work for Trump, especially after the, uh, the tape.

0:55:17 Thomas: So that's another layer of it. But when it comes to Tulsi, was there anything else that you had? I think I actually somehow got through just about all my notes on Tulsi. What do you think? Got other stuff on her?

0:55:27 Jamie: Yeah, no, I think I did, too. Yeah, I mean, we had quite a bit of overlap. Yeah, so I got through everything.

0:55:37 Thomas: So weird. Very weird. I'm still confused. I'm definitely not a fan of Tulsi's. It doesn't mean she's wrong about everything she ever says. But my personal view, just to give my opinion at the end of all this, is she has very questionable views and is, especially when you're not condemning Assad and when you are meeting with him when he's, you know, using chemical weapons on his own people.

For me, and I think it's fitting that you bring up kind of the inspiration behind some of her foreign policy when she pretends she's against regime change wars because that's a good, easy applause line in the wake of the Iraq war and for good reason, reason but like when you're using that to then say we can't even be trying to like help potential rebels in Syria when you know like against us, I don't know, to me that it's not so clear-cut. Like Syria foreign policy to me is the one area where I thought Buttigieg actually had a good point in that last debate was on that question, and he kind of went against what Tulsi said. So So it just seems inappropriate. It seems weird. And I especially don't like her views on abortion and gay marriage and LGBT rights and all that stuff. So that's my view. And my far off, like, galaxy brain conspiracy brain view is it's possible she's very cool with the fact that she is a favorite of Russia. Hillary was not wrong that currently she is favorite of Russian. When it comes to the Democratic candidates.

0:57:10 Jamie: Yeah, I think that's all fair. I mean, just from what I knew of her before preparing to do this podcast, and especially afterward. And this, you know, this pains me to say, I actually like her less than Joe Biden.

0:57:26 Thomas: That's so funny. I was going to say the same thing. I was gonna do it, going to ask you, so what do you think the vote comes down between her and Joe, Joe Biden, what do you, do and it sounds like we found somebody finally uh me

0:57:35 Jamie: Yeah, sounds like yeah and I'm really pissed yeah I'm really pissed um that there's... there's somebody that, like, I would, I like, I would, I would choose Joe Biden over her, and that's, that's how distasteful I find her after all of this, that like it makes Joe Biden palatable to me, I had the

0:57:47 Thomas: Too, that is so funny I had the exact same point. That's hilarious because I was, and for a lot of this time I was reading, I was like, no, I'd still, I'd so prefer her over Joe By, and then I, after I uncovered enough stuff, I was, was like, holy shit, I would vote Joe Biden over Tulsi Gabbard. And I was sad about it as well.

0:58:10 Jamie: Yeah, yeah, that's how I feel. I mean, to be fair, if it comes down to Joe Biden or Tulsi Gabbard, I may just burn the whole thing down. But I think we're a long way from there.

0:58:18 Thomas: Yeah. I mean, that, that's not happening. Yeah. Fortunately, it's just going to be Joe Biden. We'll see. It could be, that might be, we'll see, I don't know. Anyway.

0:58:24 Jamie: Oh, God. We'll don't. Dear God, no. Dear God. No.

0:58:34 Thomas: Well, that is our Tulsi Gabbard deep dive. I'm very curious to hear what the listeners think. Um, you know, I'll put as many, send me any links you had Jamie to put in the show notes. I will put as many links as I can, which is quite a few in the shownotes. That's one of those 8,000, uh, Google Chrome tab episodes. But, uh. But yeah, I mean, I'm, I am open to other interpretations, uh, certainly, but this stuff is pretty weird, to be honest. So, thanks for listening. Uh, any, any more final words other than we, I can't believe we found somebody Jamie would vote for over by or vote for Biden over.

0:59:12 Jamie: But yeah no I think that really sums it up that really really nails in the coffin all

0:59:14 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, all right. Thanks for listening, everyone. Keep that feedback coming. Maybe we can do a feedback episode again soon. And we will see you next time.

0:59:25 Jamie: Bye guys

0:59:34 Clip: Thank you so much for listening to Serious Inquiries Only. If you like the show, the absolute best thing you can do is support us at patreon.com slash SeriousPod. The second best thing you can do is please share it on social media or by word of mouth. Speaking of social media, if you'd like to follow Jamie on Twitter, she's at Euthyphro. And follow me at SeriousPod. If you'd like to be Facebook friends, send me a request at facebook.com slash ThomasPodcast. If you're not up for that level of intimacy, that's fine. Maybe you want to join the discussion at facebook.com/groups/SIO members. Thank you again for listening. We'll see you next time.