Adam Carolla Show: w/ Tulsi Gabbard (Transcript)

These are issues like freedom, like racism, identity politics, issues of war and peace, issues related to family, issues related to objective truth and how that’s something that is in and of itself being destroyed.

All of these things are things that, especially in an election year as important as this one, I hope that people who read this book really reflect on and understand that if you are concerned about the direction the country’s headed, if you are concerned about the fact that your daughter who is wrestling in school — you can’t have the comfort of knowing she’s going to be able to wrestle against girls.

ADAM CAROLLA: Well, she’s going to wrestle up against someone who’s wrestling with their sexuality.

TULSI GABBARD: Exactly.

ADAM CAROLLA: And get pinned.

TULSI GABBARD: Exactly.

A Shared Political Trajectory

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah, I think my trajectory and yours is probably pretty similar. And I do think that people should be able to wrap their head around it a little more easily than they are. My family was Democrats and I grew up in a sort of atheist, semi-hippie kind of — I grew up in LA. So we weren’t in the sticks and we were, you know, pot should be decriminalized and gays should be able to get married and these workers are being exploited in the pineapple fields of Maui, need to unionize and all.

And Jim Crow and two drinking fountains. No, no, no, no, no. A separate entrance, and the Blacks have to sit at the counter and the whites can sit in a booth at the diner. And I was like, no to all that, and I agree with all that, and so I like the party that is for that. And then we just sort of went on our way, and we got guys like Bill Clinton, and we kind of went like, yeah, okay, that guy sounds — he’s making sense, talking about the border, whatever economic or whatever it is.

TULSI GABBARD: Secure the border. Right. Those basic things.

ADAM CAROLLA: And then at some point, the unions — okay, so now we have teachers unions, and now we don’t have school choice or vouchers, and now the unions are in charge of getting the governor elected, and the school teachers unions don’t want the schools to reopen during COVID and they’re telling the governor, they’re calling the shots for the governor. And then I go, okay, that’s too far. They kept going.

And then you get into Black Lives Matter and they go, well, I was talking about everyone being treated equally. I wasn’t talking about having guys or girls hired in front of me or my kid because of the color of skin. I was just talking about an even playing field. And then you go to the border — I was talking about a path to citizenship, not bolt cutters and a wide open border.

And then so they go, “Well, what happened to you?” And it’s like, nothing happened to me. These are all things — the problem is they couldn’t stop. They kept going. And then we got into some believe all women and Black Lives Matter and trans rights. And I’m like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, I don’t want biological males wrestling with females or beating them in a pool. And then it’s like, “Oh, so what happened to you?” It’s like, nothing happened to me. You guys didn’t stop. And if you were to stop, then I’d still be with you. And when you didn’t stop, you alienated a lot of sort of pragmatic people.

The Demand for Conformity

TULSI GABBARD: Yes. And in that process, there was a demand for conformity and a demand that you either go along with this or you are not allowed to speak. If you speak, you will be shunned. We will attempt to silence you either directly or through our friends in big tech.

There was all of a sudden the party that used to be the big tent open party that would encourage fierce debates on issues — now there was no debate. You were not allowed to even ask the question, well, how is it possible that just a few years ago we all celebrated the existence of Title IX and the opportunities it gave to women, and not only in sports, but as they went on in their lives.

And now all of a sudden — anybody — this is so comical to me if the consequences weren’t so real — when a Democrat congressman from California was asked in a congressional hearing if Mike Tyson declared suddenly that he was trans and now identified as a woman, should he be allowed to box competitively against other women? And this member of Congress said without hesitation, yes.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right. And all right, so now that’s insane.

TULSI GABBARD: Correct.

ADAM CAROLLA: And that’s why you’ve lost us.

TULSI GABBARD: Yes.

Can They Pump the Brakes?

ADAM CAROLLA: And the question is, can they pump the brakes? Recently Bill Maher, more and more, at the end of the show, just sort of lectures Democrats, like, knock it off, you’re going insane, you’re losing sane people, you’re hemorrhaging sane people. Why can’t they stop is the question. And then what is the endgame, which is the scary part.

I keep thinking — I have this analogy about Gavin Newsom, our governor. It’s like if you hired a guy in your warehouse to drive a forklift, and every time he went back there, he knocked over more shelves and punched holes into walls, and you’d be sitting in your office and you’d see the forklift prongs just punched through, and he’d go, “Sorry, boss, thought I was in reverse.” And at some point you go, is he an incompetent forklift driver or is he trying to destroy this factory?

And then people rush to his defense and go, “No, he just doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s not bad.” And it’s like, but every time I go back there, he’s knocked something else over. So is this what he wants? And then you go, “Well, he can’t want this. He worked at this factory.” Yeah, but he’s horrible. And then they go, “Yeah, but he means well. He just doesn’t know how to drive a forklift.” And I go, I don’t know, I keep seeing stuff knocked over. I’m starting to wonder now. And I don’t know what the endgame is. That’s my new question.

The Danger of Ideological Arrogance

TULSI GABBARD: Yeah, I mean, I think that there are different people who see this, what’s happening in the country, even people who are pushing for these policies that are actually insane for any clear-headed, open-minded, common sense person. I think some of them just don’t care. And instead of using their head and their own common sense to see, well, this course of action we’ve taken is leading to a pretty bad place, perhaps we should shift. They’re just not doing that because they essentially don’t care. And they’re playing to the very vocal minority of their voting base who are pushing for a lot of these policies.

I think there are a group of people who literally, and some of them say it out loud, that they really hate America. And they look at our country with disdain and they find different examples and different reasons why we live in such a terrible country. And their policies are their way of bringing about some form of their own twisted utopia they’ve created in their own minds.

And what’s so dangerous about this is, they have this mindset that a lot of dictators in the world and throughout history have, which is they believe that they know what’s best for the people and that they will manipulate and maneuver and dictate to us what we can and can’t do, what we must accept and what we must not accept, the information we see and what we’re allowed to say. In order to create this new society of an America that they believe they can be proud of or that they can enjoy living in.

And then there’s others who it really is just about power and who are they playing to. The bottom line is this, they are terrified of a free society and people who think for themselves and who have the freedom to express themselves because in their wisdom, this was the system of governance that our founders set up for us, that the power lies within the hands of the people, specifically to serve as a check on the abuse of power by those who are increasingly becoming or creating a tyrannical government.

They’re terrified that we will call them out and expose their nonsense for exactly what it is and expose their ignorance and expose them. They’re very arrogant. Not a single one of them has come out and said, “You know what? Yeah, I realize now that I was very wrong about this whole, any man at any time can become a woman and vice versa just by declaring it to be so. And I recognize now that there are a lot of women and girls who are being harmed by this policy and this attitude, and we’re going to fix it.”

Not a single person has said that. And I don’t believe that every one of them has got their head in the sand, they’re not paying attention. They find different excuses like, oh, well, don’t worry about it, this isn’t happening to very many people, it’s such a small fraction of a percent of society that’s being impacted by this, just dismissing this and pretending like it’s not a thing. Their arrogance and their attachment to this identity that they have that is connected to the title that’s on their door is one of the things that makes them so dangerous.

Questions About Biden’s Leadership

ADAM CAROLLA: What is your take? I was talking to Dr. Drew earlier and I was looking at this Joe Biden thing where he was doing this sort of campaign with Obama on one side and Pelosi on his other side. And he was talking about Trump telling people to inject bleach and he said it was a good thing and stuff like that. And I said to Dr. Drew, what is he doing? Like, what is he doing? And then Drew goes, he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s just doing what people tell him to do. And then you go, are we there? Is there something— it’s kind of a— it’s not a good place to be in where I have to question everything all the time. Every time something happens, you know what I mean?

Did that guy commit suicide, or did someone kill that guy, or Epstein or whoever? But I really don’t understand exactly who Biden is, and I don’t know if he knows who he is, and I don’t know where he stands on anything because he was saying the exact opposite 15 years ago. And by the way, what I tell people all the time, he was saying the opposite when he was 60.

I mean, when you’re 19 and you’re rebellious and you’re a Mormon and now you’re away at college at Berkeley or something, maybe you come up with some bad ideas, but when you’re 60, those are pretty much your ideas. What you feel about what we should do at the border, what we should do with criminals, or what we should do with people who have cocaine or rock cocaine on them. Whatever that is he said when he was 57 and a half, I believe that’s who he was. What is he? And how does this work?

TULSI GABBARD: I mean, even if you look at things that he has said during this administration, during his presidency, he, on more than a few occasions, has been corrected by his staff who have to come in and, he’ll say, “Well, hey, here’s what we’re going to do,” and his staff will come in after the fact and say, “Well, no, he didn’t actually mean that.” “Well, here’s actually what he meant to say,” which is not just a little step to the right or to the left, but actually the opposite of what he said. So I don’t know is the answer to your question. And I don’t know that anyone outside the White House can honestly answer that.

ADAM CAROLLA: Well, when he says things like, “I’m going to get in trouble if I take questions,” that’s just a bizarre—

TULSI GABBARD: It is a bizarre thing to say, even as a joke. I mean, really, even as a joke. And if you try to give him the benefit of the doubt and you’re just like, “Oh, he’s cracking a joke.” Like, “Oh, they’re going to get mad at me ’cause I did this or I did that.” You’re the president of the United States. Is this really how you want to present yourself in that way?

ADAM CAROLLA: Completely concur. And if it is a joke, by the way, you go, they’re going to get mad at me if I take some questions, but let’s take some questions. You don’t go, they’re going to get mad at me if I take some questions and then ciao. That’s what he does. Anyone else, if it is a joke, you’d go, “Oh, my wife hates it when I tell this story.” So I’m not going to tell it. No, you tell the story. Right, so he would, if he didn’t have his marching orders.

Biden as a Vessel for Policy

TULSI GABBARD: Yeah. And here, this is one of the reasons why there’s all this thing like, is it going to be Biden? Is he actually going to be the one who runs in the general election? Is it going to be someone else? First of all, it doesn’t matter really, because when you look at any of the other names that are being put forward on the Democratic side, the policies are the same.

Nothing actually will change other than the face and the name. But the second thing is, if it continues to be Joe Biden, the Democrat elite are not attached to Joe Biden and love him and adore him because they think he is the guy. He’s the guy who has been useful to them to get into power. And I’m sure they’re assessing whether or not he will continue to be the guy that will help them stay in power, because there’s so many people both in the White House, outside of the White House, who benefit from having someone that they can use, frankly.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes, they don’t need somebody with strong policy. They need somebody who can be a vessel for their policy. And he’s proven to be really effective at being a vessel for their policies. Because none of his policies mirror any of his policies. So he’s kind of just there as almost, almost like in a horror movie when they reanimate a corpse so you can, so somebody can speak through them or something. That’s almost like we’re just going to use him as a ventriloquist dummy for our policies.

And the other thing I would always— so there’s a couple things that always scare me. When I see like head of the CDC, Rochelle Walensky, get up there and say, “Kids should go back to school,” and then the next day going, “I wasn’t speaking as the head of the CDC, I was just speaking as a mom, but anyway, I’m going to walk that one back.” It’s like, so you just declare the head of an agency, allegedly because they have expertise in this thing, and then you just tell them what to say from the teachers unions. I don’t want to live in that place. I want her to have autonomy. I want her to go, hey, she believes we should reopen the schools, then we should reopen the schools.

The Power of Teachers Unions

TULSI GABBARD: She should be free to say, based on her expertise, based on some kind of clinical analysis of data that came from scientists who have fact-based evidence that they’re putting forward with the public’s health interests in mind. That’s exactly what that person should be doing.

And you said it, the pressure and power of the teachers unions in this country is, I don’t think it can be overstated. And it’s so horrible because ultimately it’s clear that the wellbeing of teachers who they’re paid to represent and the wellbeing and education of our kids isn’t anywhere near the top of their priority list.

And yet someone asked me yesterday, well, okay, fine, how do they wield their power over politicians? Yes, they help to fund campaigns and fund ads and all sorts of things, actually directly getting involved in an election to advance the candidate they’re choosing or destroy the candidate that they don’t like. But they also use teachers and deploy teachers against or for certain politicians, which I have nothing but admiration and respect for teachers who choose that profession because they don’t get paid very much money and they have a huge amount of work that they’ve got to do after hours. I’ve got teachers in my family, they’re grading papers and stuff all through the weekend and at nights. And yet they’re the ones who get trotted out to go after politicians that the teachers unions decide are unacceptable. And it’s ultimately our kids who suffer as a result.

COVID, Media Narratives, and Political Conformity

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah, the things that I sort of notice — I notice patterns and trends and stuff like that. COVID was a great window for me to see where everyone’s head was at. My saying with COVID is I learned nothing about infectious diseases, but I learned a lot about people. And I’m scared because I didn’t know how fast they could all be turned out and given their marching orders and weaponized and so on and so forth.

But what you should be looking for is a variety of opinions. So when you turn it over to CNN, everyone was magically on the same page with everything COVID all the time. And they’d go, “We’re going to bring another doctor in to talk about ivermectin. Oh, this is horse paste.” And I’d go, nobody is debating saying maybe we should open schools, or I don’t think my 13-year-old needs to get vaccinated because he’s a perfectly healthy skinny male, or well, if you want to take hydroxychloroquine, that’s up to you and your doctor. I don’t see why there’s an issue with it. We shouldn’t be getting involved with people.

I didn’t hear one voice that had anything to do with any alternative anything. And once you hear that, you have to start getting suspicious — are we getting the news and are we getting their opinion? And how did they all get on exactly the same page and they’re all singing from the same church chorus?

And I did talk to Tucker Carlson about this once. I told him, “You’re going to break off and do your own network and get together conservative-leaning people and whatever.” And he just goes, “They’re too hard to wrangle because they all got a different opinion on everything.” And I went, “What?” And he goes, “Yeah, you want to do something Democratic, progressive, whatever, that’s easy. They’re all on the same page. You start getting conservatives together and you got one guy saying, ‘Don’t get the vax.’ You got the other guy saying, ‘Get the vax.’ You got one guy saying, ‘Get the hell out of Ukraine.’ You got the other guy saying, ‘We need more support for Ukraine.'” And the list just keeps going on and on about stuff they don’t agree on. The never-Trumper Republicans, and it just keeps going. And I’m like, well, at least you know they’re being honest, because they’re having an argument.

TULSI GABBARD: And they’re allowed to.

ADAM CAROLLA: And they’re allowed to have an argument, right?

TULSI GABBARD: And that’s the thing. People complain about like, oh, the Republicans can’t get their act together. I was like, the Democrats — that used to be the Democrats. But now, the example that you gave with CNN or MSNBC and the uniform talking points, it’s not only that they all got, if not a script, then they’re like, well, here’s what the company line is. And of course, we’re not supposed to notice how many ads they ran for Pfizer and all the big pharma providers of the COVID vaccines at the time.

But if anyone were to bring on a guest, for example, who said, “Well, no, ivermectin has been proven to be effective,” making the opposing argument or bringing a different view or angle, that host may be at risk of losing their job. And the choir of conformist voices would say, “How dare you as a host platform such a dangerous person spreading misinformation? You have made a decision to harm people’s health.” All of the words that they use in order to silence any question, challenge, or dissent against whatever that mainstream narrative is.

That’s not limited to the media. It’s not by accident that what they’re saying on CNN is the same thing that’s coming out of the White House press room on a daily basis. And it’s also the same line that’s coming out from the so-called health professionals or the quote-unquote pharma industry. The similarities there — just around this COVID example, just one example of the many ways when I talk about permanent Washington or the elite — this is who we’re talking about.

Big Pharma, the FBI, and the Hunter Biden Letter

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah, agreed. And so how much — as we talked about, former Democrats — we didn’t even get into so much into pharma. My mom’s a Democrat hippie, or she was. She hated the FBI, didn’t trust the FBI, CIA, would never go, “Well, just listen to that politician,” or, “This guy said, take this injection, do it.” They hated Big Pharma and all that kind of stuff.

TULSI GABBARD: They just wanted to live free, like, go live your life, do what you want to do, right?

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah, my mom’s take would’ve been that there’s some sort of herbal remedy for COVID, and that if you ate enough jicama and drank enough Postum — washed down enough jicama with enough Postum — that you would be fine. But it certainly wouldn’t be listening to Big Pharma. And CIA getting involved, FBI, all the signatures with the 51 former experts, security experts, saying that it had all the earmarks of Russia collusion and stuff like that. That stuff would have been very fishy to her.

TULSI GABBARD: Which is just funny. I think your listeners and viewers probably know already, but beyond what they did in creating this narrative that had no basis in any reality or fact — or even like, “Oh hey, we just got this lead and we haven’t pursued it yet, but here’s our concern” — it was manufactured out of nowhere. And they lied to the American people because Joe Biden’s campaign operatives called their friends in the national security state and said, “Hey, Trump is attacking Joe Biden on Hunter’s foreign exploits and saying basically he’s exploiting his relationships, corruption, all this other stuff going on.” And President Biden needs something that he can point to in the next debate that’s coming up — it was like 10 days or 2 weeks. And so—

ADAM CAROLLA: Oh no, it was literally days.

TULSI GABBARD: Days, right? And so they had to come up with—

ADAM CAROLLA: The timeline was like over the weekend and the thing was Monday.

TULSI GABBARD: Exactly.

ADAM CAROLLA: This would be like—

TULSI GABBARD: This is election interference. You want to talk about election interference? That is election interference.

ADAM CAROLLA: Of course it is.

TULSI GABBARD: And no accountability at all.

ADAM CAROLLA: It’d be like me saying, “Oh s*, my wife found my burner phone. Now, Dr. Drew, I need you to get me 51 clinical psychologists to write down that I would never cheat on anyone. Now make that thing.” She doesn’t know I know she’s got the burner phone, but I know she found it in my nightstand. She hasn’t said anything yet, but I need this document. And then when she confronts me in the kitchen on Monday for cheating, I’ll pull this document out. And then I’ll give it to some of my friends over at CNN and MSNBC, and Twitter at the time, and New York Times, and they can publish this document that says I would never cheat on my wife, and then we’re good.

TULSI GABBARD: That’s it. You’ve covered all your bases.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes. This is election interference. People got so mired in ballot harvesting, and hanging chads, and all the electronics. No, this is election interference. Straight away with these former CIA, FBI guys who are still welcome on CNN any day of the week to sit and bloviate about whatever the latest thing is.

TULSI GABBARD: A lot of them get paid to do it.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right. And they actually said that, I don’t know, 15, 18% or something would have changed their vote had they whatevered. And I don’t think most Americans are as off-put as they should be, or aware as they should be.

Public Awareness and the Cost of Ignorance

TULSI GABBARD: I don’t think most people — look, most people in the country are worried about inflation and how much more their grocery bill is now than it was maybe a year ago or 3 years ago. People are paying attention to what’s going on in schools and the fact that, okay, well, I can actually go and talk to my principal about what’s going on with my kid if it has to do with something like gender confusion or dysphoria. There is an uptick of crime on our streets and people are getting carjacked left and right. People are busy and trying to survive and trying to keep their family well and healthy. And so I think that most people are not aware because in my experience, the more people become aware, the more frustrated and angry they are that we are being treated this way.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah. I think unfortunately it runs a little deeper than that. Obviously I agree with you — people worried about their grocery bills and how much gas costs, real-world things that affect them. Who blew up the pipeline? The Nord Stream pipeline or something. It’s a little esoteric for them, because there were the kitchen table problems.

But I also think there’s something deeper, which is a large group of people voted for Biden and don’t want to hear it when you go, “But you did know that—” No, not interested in that. Because what it is, they do the same thing they did with COVID — which is I’m now here to point out to you all the stuff you got wrong about COVID, and the number one answer I get is, “Oh, drop it already.” And I’m like, “Drop it already? Well, that’s interesting. So it’s 3 years of you trying to get me fired and yelling at me, and now we’re just going to turn the page because you were wrong.”

I don’t think people want to go back and revisit their batting average. And it calls into question their future. Like, what else are you wrong about now? I want to sit down and tell you everything you’re wrong about with COVID — which was everything. And when we move forward and another issue comes up, perhaps you can shut the f* up because of your shitty batting average. They do not want to sit down and look at the scorecard.

So definitely there’s a percentage of people that are just worried about meat and eggs and gas. And there’s another that just goes, “Bleh.” They don’t want to know.

TULSI GABBARD: Yeah. Which is concerning for not just their future, but our collective future as a country. Because if people aren’t willing to recognize the fact that we are increasingly becoming a much less free society, that the abuse of power and overreach of our government is eroding those fundamental principles and freedoms enshrined in the Constitution — and what that means on a very practical level. This whole thing about the central bank digital currency and efforts, the groundwork being laid so that the government will essentially be able to control our money.

ADAM CAROLLA: Well, we’re going to become Canada. And I just tell everyone, California’s about 5 years behind Canada. That’s the plan, and I don’t like that plan.

TULSI GABBARD: No.

The Deeper Psychological Dynamic

ADAM CAROLLA: But for some reason — and I really think there’s something deeper, a deeper psychological dynamic afoot here — which is, “This is our guy. These are our guys. They would never do something that was bad.” I mean, I live in California. I gotta deal with idiots who keep voting for Gavin Newsom, and they’re just like, “Because we’re good. He’s good.” And it’s like, have you seen what he’s doing and what he wants to do and what he did do?

They were welding rebar over basketball hoops at a park during COVID so kids couldn’t go outdoors and get a little vitamin D and burn a few calories. And you look at that and you go, this is borderline evil. And they go, “Yeah, but that’s who we voted for, that’s who we would have voted for, that’s who we’re going to vote for, and our guys would never do anything bad that way.”

And that’s the part — people like you, people like many other voices you may read on Substack or whatever, and guys like Bill Maher and myself or Dr. Drew, we go, you know what, I don’t like the way this is trending. I’m looking around. I don’t want to keep going in this direction. What I’m saying is, I’m worried about the saturation level now. I don’t want to keep going with the civil liberties. I don’t want to keep going.

TULSI GABBARD: No, we can’t afford to keep going in this direction.

ADAM CAROLLA: This direction.

TULSI GABBARD: Because it’ll be impossible to come back from it.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right. And then the others in California go, “Well, who’s pushing this?” You go, “It’s a Democrat.” They go, “Okay, well, I’m voting for him.” That’s how they roll. I mean, I know it because that’s what my mom would’ve done. And that’s the part — can enough people sort of break off and veer this, turn this battleship around?

California’s Decline and the Need for Change

TULSI GABBARD: Yes.

ADAM CAROLLA: I should say aircraft carrier, because it would take longer.

TULSI GABBARD: It would take longer. I was with Steve Hilton the other day. Have you met him before?

ADAM CAROLLA: Mm-hmm.

TULSI GABBARD: He cited a statistic, I guess, from a recent poll here in California. He was making the point that we shouldn’t limit ourselves to looking down party lines, how many Democrats, how many Republicans are there. The statistic he pointed to where he sees hope to bring about change specifically in California, which I think is a good data point for other parallel statistics across the country. His point was that I think it was 57 or 58% of Californians are not happy with the direction that California specifically is headed in. And now that number far exceeds the numbers of registered Republicans or likely Republican voters for sure, which I think he said was around 40%. But that’s where there is opportunity. As someone who doesn’t live here, I would say, gosh, it’s only 57%, right? Because when I come through here, I see it when I drive down the street. But that number is still, to me, an indication of people who at a minimum have gotten to the point where they’re recognizing, this is getting worse, not better, and whatever they’re selling to us clearly isn’t working, and perhaps maybe open-minded to a better way.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah, it’d be nice. My famous saying—

TULSI GABBARD: You don’t share his optimism, it sounds like.

ADAM CAROLLA: No, I do. I don’t want to go along for the ride. The metaphor that I use all the time, because every time I talk to someone, they go, “Well, we haven’t hit rock bottom. We gotta hit rock bottom.” And I go, if I walked in my son’s room and saw syringes hanging around with heroin in them and a couple of Coke spoons, I would intervene. And then someone would go, “Well, he hasn’t flatlined yet, has he?” And I’d go, no, but I don’t want to keep going there. I want to get some help here. And they go, “Well, wait till he flatlines. Wait till you show up in the room, there’s foam coming out of his mouth and you gotta call the paramedics.” I get it, I don’t want to go on that journey with him.

California used to be a livable place, it was a happy place, it was a nice place, it was a clean place. And then we started on this journey and it was a sort of a decay essentially — you could call it a million things, but really it’s just decay. More garbage, more homeless, more taxes, more regulations, more of all the stuff. And it’s like, “Well, but we still haven’t completely bottomed out yet, right?” I’m like, well, no, I guess we could go another decade in this direction, but I got a wild notion. How about we change direction now before we get to the bottom?

TULSI GABBARD: Yes.

ADAM CAROLLA: On our way to the bottom. How about we pull back on that yoke a little before we hit the volcano? And it’s like, “Well, we haven’t hit the volcano yet.” And I’m like, okay, but I don’t want to go on the ride to the volcano. I want to switch it, which is what you’re starting to see.

TULSI GABBARD: Yes.

ADAM CAROLLA: It’s just people have an almost endless level of saturation. Like a guy who hasn’t been to the dentist in 31 years. “Ah, my tooth hurts when I eat corn on the cob, but I’ll make it.” We have pretty endless capacity to take this.

TULSI GABBARD: Endure pain, yeah.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right.

Sounding the Alarm on Freedom and Liberty

TULSI GABBARD: Yeah. That is the message of my book. It is about sounding the alarm. Exactly what you’re talking about, for people who are going about their daily lives and don’t have time, or people who are just in a state of true denial and not willing to accept the reality that is surrounding all of us.

I don’t care what party you’re a part of or who you voted for or didn’t vote for. This is affecting in a fundamental way all of our ability to live in a free society, period. And you can say, “Okay, well, I don’t see it. I don’t see it in my life. I’m good. I already know that the government’s watching everything we all do on our phones anyway. There’s no such thing as privacy anyway.” But this is where I go in and give very specific examples in each of these different areas in my book about how we are directly being impacted by this abuse of power, in ways that should concern every one of us, whether it be from an economic standpoint, from a privacy standpoint, or just from the point of, “Hey, if I want to go and listen to a podcast, or if I want to go and post something on any platform at all,” it is not outside the realm of today’s reality that that information will be limited, whether what you’re putting out or what you’re trying to gain.

And you may be like, “Well, it doesn’t affect me.” Well, it doesn’t affect you today, but it is affecting everyone. And it’s not even people named Adam Carolla or Tulsi Gabbard. This is affecting people whose names will never be in a newspaper article or in a media story. It is affecting us in ways that even a few years ago, I could not have predicted or imagined.

And if we allow this to continue, if we allow the Democrat elite to remain in power, I have no doubt that what happens after these elections, if they are reelected, they will run around the country saying, even if it’s by one vote, “The American people have given us a mandate to continue doing what we’re doing.” And we will see this radical escalation of attack on our freedom and liberty, and escalation towards war, not on one front, but on multiple fronts, with the highest risk of nuclear catastrophe now than ever before. We will see all of this that’s gone on over the last 3.5 years pumped up on steroids if they are allowed to remain in power, because there will no longer be this check on their ability. And they will say, “Hey, this is what the people want, and so we’re going to keep doing it.” And that is what is at risk in this election.

Comparing Political Voices: Tulsi vs. AOC

ADAM CAROLLA: The book is called For Love of Country: Leave the Democrat Party Behind. What I’m interested in, on a sort of intellectual and psychological basis — what I’m having trouble with, and there’s a lot of stuff I’m having trouble with, but I’ll just paint this tale. I didn’t know who you were, let’s say, 5 years ago. And pardon me if I was a little late to the party, but I’m out here thinking about old race cars and watching UFC fights, and I didn’t think about you. And I would say you and AOC landed in my brain about the same time.

TULSI GABBARD: Interesting.

ADAM CAROLLA: AOC’s been on the scene for about 5 years. I may have seen you on stuff or something, but I wasn’t like, I want her opinions, I want to know what she’s about. So both of you got in my head about the same time. And then you both have similarities. You’re attractive women, and you’re both popping up on shows, and you’re speaking, and you’re giving your opinions on different subjects. So I’m just starting from a kind of neutral position — all right, these are attractive female politicians who are on shows, and they’re talking, and I’m going to sit and I’m going to listen.

And fairly quickly, I was like, “Well, AOC has a ten-cent head. She doesn’t make sense when she talks. And then Tulsi does. She seems brighter, more concise.”

TULSI GABBARD: I’m so glad you said that. I was really worried you were going to be like, “Oh yeah, I saw you guys both and you sounded exactly alike.” No, no, no, no.

ADAM CAROLLA: There are politicians out there that people can take umbrage with. Like, you can hate Jim Jordan, but that guy puts his thoughts together and then lays them out.

TULSI GABBARD: Yes.

ADAM CAROLLA: And you can feel that way about Rand Paul, but he puts his thoughts together and then he lays them out. And then there’s a lot of other people that seem sort of bordering on a little hysterical, a little emotional. Stuff they’re saying isn’t making sense. When AOC was questioning Bobulinski the other week, it just didn’t seem that put together. If that was a trial, she would’ve lost the case.

I hang out with Mark Geragos and Dr. Drew and Jimmy Kimmel and many people, and they put their thoughts together pretty clearly. And then there’s a lot of people, mostly on the left, who are just sort of blaming Toyota for getting catalytic converters stolen, getting a little emotional about arguments that they don’t know anything about. And I think, why can’t most people have the clarity to see what you’re dealing with here? Can’t you tell the difference between her and her? Because it became very clear to me very early without a dog in the fight. I was just sitting there going, “I don’t know who these people are. They’re not from my childhood, but they’re on TV. So let’s hear what they have to say.” Why aren’t more people discerning, I guess would be the word?

The Appeal of Affirmation Over Critical Thinking

TULSI GABBARD: I think it’s a good and important question. The first thing that comes to mind is there are people who are drawn to those who will affirm whatever their view of the world is, and they’re not really interested in hearing anyone who is a critical thinker and may say something that causes you to have to question yourself and your own positions on different issues. And frankly, that exists largely within the extremes of both ends of the political spectrum.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes, mm-hmm.

The Problem with Groupthink and Cancel Culture

TULSI GABBARD: This lack of open-mindedness, this lack of willingness to actually engage in a real dialogue or be challenged on your position and therefore have a substantive debate. The people that you mentioned, Rand Paul — he’s, again, you can agree or disagree, but you can see him engaging in debate with Dr. Fauci in a Senate hearing, and there is substance there. It’s not just like, “Well, you’re a this and you’re a that.” That was Fauci’s response to the issues that Rand Paul was bringing up. He didn’t want to actually address the substantive issues of grave concern that Rand was bringing up, and so instead he started calling names to this US Senator from Kentucky.

So I think that that is part of it, but you’re pointing to a deeper problem and challenge we have as a country — how, because of probably a whole bunch of different contributing reasons, there are fewer and fewer people who are critical thinkers, who take the time to go and actually listen to people who have different views, who will listen to a podcast from the New York Times and then another podcast from whatever the opposite of the New York Times would be.

I met a guy a few months ago, was introduced by a mutual friend, who was talking about Joe Rogan. He says, “Yeah, you know, I just—” And this is an otherwise reasonable, very successful person, seemed to be open-minded. He’s like, “Yeah, I just, I don’t like him.” I said, “Oh, really, why? Have you ever met him?” He said, “No, I haven’t met him.” “Have you ever listened to his podcast?” “No, I haven’t listened to his podcast, but I just don’t like him. He seems like he’s way out there.” I was like, “Well, he’s not, and he’s a good person. He is a good friend, and before you cast judgment on someone, why don’t you just go and listen to what they have to say first?”

And to this guy’s credit, he’s like, “You’re right. This is my bad on me. I jumped to a conclusion because of what other people said about this person rather than actually going and listening and coming to my own conclusion myself.”

And unfortunately, this is becoming more of a norm in the world of soundbites and tweets and headlines. And also, I think it’s a consequence of the cancel culture smearing, shunning. You belong with this tribe and it’s more comfortable to stay within your tribe rather than actually publicly show that you are a critical thinker and you’re not just a follower, because there are very real consequences that come with that.

Joe Rogan, Ivermectin, and Finishing the Story

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah, well, see, what I always do with all this stuff is when they go — you take Joe Rogan — they go, “Oh, he was taking horse paste and he was taking ivermectin and he was taking hydroxychloroquine. He was taking zinc and he was doing it.” And I go, and what happened to him? He’s fine.

TULSI GABBARD: Have you seen the guy? He’s in good shape.

ADAM CAROLLA: My whole point is, you bring — they bring up all this sh and I’m like, now finish the story. He ate horse paste trying to cure COVID and he’s buried where? Or did he get cremated? And they’re like, no, he’s fine.

TULSI GABBARD: Or did he get violently ill even and recover? Like, no.

ADAM CAROLLA: This is what — so CNN goes down to Tampa because they’re celebrating the Super Bowl win, and they put the reporter in the middle of the celebration, and they go, “What are all these people doing here? This is a mass spreading event.” Or they go down to the beach at Daytona and they go, “DeSantis opened the beaches, look at all these people. Nobody’s separate. Nobody’s 6 feet apart. What’s going on here?”

And they do it, and then I go, okay, CNN, now 2 weeks from now, you come back on the air and you explain the MASH casualty — there’s a casualty event that happened because of the Super Bowl celebrations. But we never hear that part of the story. There’s just, “Here’s what’s going to happen,” and then we never hear the second part.

And my thing is, if you don’t give me the second part, then I don’t believe you. Because you said this is what was going to happen, and you kept doing the “here’s what’s going to happen,” but you never do the second part — which is “this did happen” — unless you’re Rolling Stone and then you make up stuff about ivermectin. But I don’t know why more people don’t understand that simple equation.

Power, Control, and COVID Mandates

TULSI GABBARD: I think our society does not reward that thinking in this day and age — having just that continuity and that accountability. It’s not encouraged when you look, and I think intentionally so, when you look at the people who are driving these narratives, whether it be in the mainstream propaganda media or in big tech or those who are in government, in the executive branch or in Congress. There’s a very clear through line connecting all of these people and how they don’t want us to think for ourselves and they don’t want us to hold them accountable for their inconsistencies, for their lies, for the things that they make up.

And again, COVID is such an important example for us to remember. Because as you said, this could in a heartbeat happen again. What’s the next national emergency going to be? And how quickly — you saw it here in Cali, it was worse here than in Hawaii. Hawaii was pretty bad too, but you know, we all saw the videos of the guy who was on the standup paddleboard out in the ocean by himself being chased by multiple law enforcement jet skis and boats and all this other stuff.

In Hawaii, they didn’t shut down the oceans. I think they would have had a very serious riot if they had tried. But it was this silly thing where you could walk across the sand to get in the water to go surf or swim or whatever you were doing, but you couldn’t stop and sit on the sand. You couldn’t be stationary during that period. It was about power though, that’s my point.

ADAM CAROLLA: Listen, I completely agree. If I’m a stepdad and I say to my 17-year-old daughter, “Look, I lease you the car you’re driving. I just walked past it, it’s a goddamn mess. This Saturday you need to take the hose and the bucket and you need to clean that car up.” That’s not me exercising my power or being unreasonable or doing whatever. That’s just society. And that’s fine.

Power is me saying to my stepdaughter, “When you walk to school, every time you pass a telephone pole, you walk around it 3 times.” And she’d go, “But why? That doesn’t make sense.” And I’d go, “Because I’m in charge, bitch.” And that’s how you know I’m in charge.

Telling you to sort of pay your taxes and don’t drive 100 miles an hour on the freeway — those are just rules. That’s not stuff. It’s the stuff that doesn’t make sense. That’s where they really get to stretch their legs in the power department.

And it scared me because I got a window into guys like Gavin Newsom and many other Democratic governors and mayors and everyone else. You go, “Well, you’re telling people to wear a mask and I can see through it? Are you having people at band practice play a clarinet through a hole in a mask?” And they’re like, “Yes, I am, bitch, because I’m in charge.” And the less it makes sense, the more you’re in charge.

So you go, “You’re shutting down beaches?” “Yeah, but that’s where people get exercise and vitamin D and sunshine and be outside.” “That’s right. And here are the rules. You can walk to the ocean.” But you can’t stop along the way. It’s like, but that doesn’t make sense. That’s exactly right. Now we know who’s in charge, don’t we? Because when it makes sense, you’re just governing.

Vitamin D, Healthy Living, and What the White House Wouldn’t Say

TULSI GABBARD: Yeah, right. As you’re talking through this, I remember that talking about things like vitamin D and how most Americans are deficient in vitamin D, which affects your immune system and so forth, was something that also we were not really allowed to talk about.

ADAM CAROLLA: Fauci could have addressed this many times. So many times. Or Rochelle Walensky, any of them, or Biden or whoever — the White House.

TULSI GABBARD: The thing that, again, I feel like I shouldn’t be surprised at this point, but when Jen Psaki, who was the spokesperson for the White House at the time, was asked by a reporter that evidence shows that if you try to live a healthy, nutritious life and strengthen your immune system, you are less likely to either contract COVID or, if you get it, that the symptoms will be less extreme than someone who is overweight and not healthy and not concerned about their health or their physical fitness — “Are you going to include this in the guidance that’s coming out of the White House?” And she wouldn’t say it. She said, “We will be putting out the evidence-based guidance that comes from whatever the ‘authority’ was at the time.”

How is it possible that something as simple as, “Hey, try to eat healthy food, get out and go for a walk, get some exercise, think about how you can be a healthy human being” — as the very first step that you should take to prevent yourself from getting sick, in that case obviously from COVID — they couldn’t even get themselves to say that and promote that coming from the Office of the Presidency.

Incompetence vs. Nefarious Intent

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah, I think what you and I are responding to is — I’m all right with you being wrong or incorrect or not having the right data. I don’t like it. I would hope that the head of the CDC or WHO, like anyone who’s got to the head of a very lofty position — you know, if you get to be the head of Ford, I hope you know something about cars. I would hope.

It’s the part where you tried to attack everybody who disagreed with you. That’s, for me, that’s the tell. Like, it would be fine if you said, “All right, well, I believe this,” and I went, “Well, I think diet and exercise would be helpful, so we’re going to go different paths here.” No, you needed me stopped. And that’s the part where I start wondering what you were really up to, because if it was just you being incorrect, or not being able to read the data or whatever that is, then you would just be incompetent. You’re back to Gavin Newsom driving a forklift and punching holes in walls, you know what I mean? But this is beyond incompetent. This is nefarious. And that’s what I saw, and I think that’s what we’re reacting to.

TULSI GABBARD: That’s exactly what we’re reacting to. And that gets back to the point of what is at risk — them believing that they are the authority on what is true and what is not, what is acceptable information, what is not, what we can see, what we’re not allowed to see. All of these paths lead to an erosion of freedom, where in that example, yes, I can eat a bunch of junk food and never exercise, and I have the right to do that. I also have the right to be able to try to live a healthy lifestyle because I know it’s good for me, and so on and so forth.

The fact that in so many ways in our everyday lives those freedoms are being eroded — in the COVID example that we’ve already given, of not being able to just say what we know to be true or what’s obvious, even if we may be wrong. And that’s where things get dangerous, is when people who are in these positions of power, as you’ve defined it, believe that they know what’s best for us, and they don’t want to allow us the option to make the quote unquote wrong choice.

The Taser Analogy: Power for Its Own Sake

ADAM CAROLLA: I don’t know that they even believe that they know what’s best for us. I think some of it is this. I mean, I have a lot of theories, but if you give a guy a taser and you go, “Here’s your taser, and it’s just for protection in case you’re assaulted at night,” at some point he’s going to put that behind his brother’s neck when his brother’s brushing his teeth and give him a little shock. You know what I mean? I know this. When I was at the Man Show, Cousin Sal came in with a taser, and we all ended up getting tased.

And when I see people like Lori Lightfoot and those kinds of people, I’m like, “I’m in charge, and I’m going to start saying stuff. And if you don’t comply, I’m going to be angry, and I’m coming at ya.” And I’m really coming at ya not because I know what’s better for you about safety — I’m coming at ya because you defied me. And a lot of this turned into a weird defiance thing. Like, you’re going to defy this mayor, this governor, whatever. And it’s like, I’m not trying to defy you, I would just like to go to the beach. That’s not — you’re looking at defying you.

And you could tell by their reaction, it wasn’t somebody went to the beach and then got COVID and spread it to their family to see what happens. It was, “You just defied me, bitch, and now I’m coming after you.” And it became sort of vindictive.

The Danger of Safety as a Political Tool

TULSI GABBARD: This is very true. I think right alongside that, another driving factor that we are seeing play out right now in the context of kind of this dictator mindset of being justified in what they’re doing because they believe it’s the right path to take, or they’re trying to save us from ourselves, is what we’re seeing in this election where I think all the tools of power in our government through the Department of Justice and through law enforcement, the tools that exist within big tech and social media, these are all, have all and continue to be used to try to dictate to us as voters who we’re allowed to vote for.

Efforts in over 32 states to try to remove Donald Trump from the ballot. Yes. The court, the Supreme Court ruling on this was so critical that it was unanimous to say, no, voters actually get to decide who they want to vote for. You don’t get to predetermine who’s allowed to be on the ballot arbitrarily.

And the response from people like David Axelrod and many other powerful and influential people in the Democrat elite was something along the lines of, well, the courts have failed us as a country. Now we have to — we were forced to leave it up to the American people to save our democracy. Democracy. Yeah, I know.

And this just points to the fact that they are taking away our freedoms in the name of saving democracy. You have people like Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers saying, “No, school choice is bad because it undermines democracy.” Ah, she’s the worst. They take away freedom in the name of saving democracy and national security. Those are the two most often used excuses in their power grab.

And I believe some of it is what you were saying. It is literally just about power. And others are so twisted in their mindset, they really believe that they have to save us from ourselves.

ADAM CAROLLA: There’s another auspices they use, which is safety. Once they go safety, we’re taking it away. Like, we got a guy out here in Sacramento, is like, I want cars to have an automatic shutoff so they can’t go faster than 10 miles an hour over the posted speed limit. You go, why? Safety.

Believe every single bad piece of policy that eroded your rights as an American during COVID and overall all starts with safety. It’s all, here’s what you have to do all the time because of safety. And most people go, whoo, okay, that makes sense. I guess we should put an ordinance together that kids need to wear helmets when they ride skateboards, safety. Safety, and they never stop, and they just keep going.

So there’s a national defense version of this. There’s a more localized sort of safety. Oh, how come we can’t have the kids go back to school? Safety, we’ve got a safety issue. Many live with elderly grandparents who — I don’t know any of those families, but okay. So they’ll put something up. Safety is a great umbrella. It just covers everything, and then you could go, who’s not for safety? Right. And then you go, I’m for safety. Aren’t you for safety?

Well, all right, now listen to me. Listen, everything that has to do with building a home is all just building and safety, building safety. So here’s another code. Here’s another regulation called Building and Safety. And that’s another useless regulation. With very real consequences.

TULSI GABBARD: We just had a study done in Hawaii that was done by an objective third party that showed our cost of living or cost to buy a home in Hawaii and therefore rental costs are so out of control largely because not the increased cost of materials, but because of overregulation by the government.

ADAM CAROLLA: That’s, you know, we’re going to do it, you know, we’re going to raise the minimum wage to $20 so we can get these high schoolers rich. No, no, they’re not getting hired anymore. There’s a robot that’ll flip the burgers now and everyone’s going to use a kiosk. You have no idea the downstream effects of all the safety and the regulation and everything else. As we get toward the end —

TULSI GABBARD: Now that we’re thoroughly angry about all these things.

Hillary Clinton, Russia, and the Warmonger Agenda

ADAM CAROLLA: I know. Well, get prepared to burst a vein in your forehead because I was just thinking the other night when I was thinking about you and I was thinking about Hillary Clinton. And I know there’s a situation where she was alluding to you and talking about, you know, Russian catspaw and, you know, Putin’s puppet and all this kind of stuff.

And so I have a few thoughts. I have no idea who Hillary Clinton is. Is she — she’s clearly bright. Is she evil? Like, what is her plan? And then the other thing that I find insane about her or Adam Schiff or whoever, you guys are going back to Russia. You go back to the Russia toolbox every single time somebody disagrees with you. You go right into Russia collusion, Russia, like, like, you know, Putin. Like you’d be doing his bidding.

First off, why do they — I guess it’s that or racism or something. They have to go back to Russia or racism. Yes. But who is she? Like, I don’t know. I can’t wrap my mind around her.

TULSI GABBARD: I’ve met her a couple of times in passing. So my assessment of her is based on her record, and it is a dangerous one. I endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2016, resigned from the vice chair of the DNC to endorse Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton around one issue, and it was the fact that I knew that she would be very dangerous for our country if she were allowed to be commander-in-chief.

And I speak from firsthand experience as a soldier who served in multiple deployments to war zones in the Middle East and in other parts of the country. And just as an American who’s deeply disturbed by her record and how time after time after time as Secretary of State, as US Senator, she has proven her position as the queen of warmongers that exists with people from both political parties who are beholden to the military-industrial complex and who see solutions to foreign policy problems really only within the vein of warfare, whether it be economic warfare or kinetic warfare.

Whereas Bernie Sanders, he was, you know, he didn’t have a ton of foreign policy experience, but in his gut, it felt like he was more of a non-interventionist. And the fact that Xi and Mitt Romney and others, you mentioned Adam Schiff, continuously resort to the Russia, Russia, Russia accusation for anyone who stands against any of the wars that they’re advocating for should be the red flag number one, because they are not willing to have a conversation or a debate about why they are advocating for these things.

And I think even worse than that, they are not telling the American people the truth about the consequences of their tactics. So, you know, maybe someone could laugh off this whole Russia smear line that’s used against me. People like Rand Paul and others who have the audacity to say, hey, war is not the best answer in this scenario, or hey, maybe we should stop and think about this and assess what the both intended and unintended consequences of this are. Have we defined what winning looks like? What’s the objective? Are we holding these taxpayer dollars accountable that are being sent to Ukraine by the hundreds of billions? Just simple questions that we should expect and demand our lawmakers to answer as they’re making these consequential decisions.

And this is a lot of what I talked about when I ran for president in 2020 that no reporter was interested in talking about, no debate moderator, and certainly no other candidate for president wanted to talk about. Which is if you continue down this path of yelling Russia, Russia, Russia, you are escalating, you are starting and escalating what is essentially a new Cold War that if it continues down this path, we will find ourselves in some form of a kinetic war against a country that has more nuclear warheads than we do and has the policies in place to use those warheads if they feel any kind of existential threat.

I was talking about this and warning against this in 2020. Nobody was interested in even having the dialogue or conversation about it. And what happened? This Russia, Russia, Russia thing that started first with Trump before he even became president in 2016, continued throughout his presidency, has continued now to this day. And the doomsday clock is now set closer to midnight than ever before. We are in that place.

The Biden administration has carried on the Hillary Clinton agenda and have made it clear through this proxy war via Ukraine that their goal is regime change, essentially weakening and regime change in Russia. And like many other regime changes before, have no plan or no idea. Okay, well, let’s just take that line and see where it leads.

ADAM CAROLLA: It’s like pulling out of Afghanistan. We’re just going to pull it out.

TULSI GABBARD: Okay. Who is going to take over? What’s going to happen?

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah, it seems like scary, irresponsible, and a sort of lack of a fiduciary duty. Like, come on now, you do have some responsibility.

TULSI GABBARD: Putting it in the nicest possible way.

No Limits to What They’ll Do to Hold Power

ADAM CAROLLA: To not get us blown up. And it’s always so funny if you go back and look at that Trump Biden debate, they’re up there arguing. Trump’s bringing up China, he’s bringing up Hunter Biden and China and family ties to China. And the moderator, I should say, the moderator sitting there going, please, can we get back to race? Can we get back to talking about racism? He keeps going, we’re here to talk about race.

I was like, I don’t — yeah, I don’t care what these two old guys have to say about race. She’s like literally screaming, we need to talk about race. You guys are talking about China, you’re talking about Hunter Biden, you’re talking about taking money, corruption, pay for play, and she’s just yelling, race, we gotta get back to race. And it’s like the craziest. Yeah, but it’s very telling. It is.

So with all that in mind, I now do not feel like there’s anything off the table as it pertains to the Democratic Party, Biden, the Clintons, and the next election.

TULSI GABBARD: I do not share your assessment.

ADAM CAROLLA: They took this pandemic, weaponized it, rode it into the ground. I see they could have said, ah, reopen schools, but then that would have made us think it was safe and we had an election to win. So they took this and turned it into something. Where — what’s going to happen next? Because it’s going to be something. It’s not going to be like, well, the American people are going to vote and we’re going to have a new president, or we’ll have one with a second term. I don’t think they’re leaving it up to that, especially with the polling.

TULSI GABBARD: I agree and share your grave concern that there are no left and right limits to what they are willing to do to try to hold on to power, period. And that is the reason why we all must sound the alarm in whatever way we can, you know, whether you have a podcast or it’s about talking to people at work or talking to your family.

We have to recognize that what’s at stake here is bigger than whether you like Democrats or you like Republicans, because if they’re allowed to continue to do this and to continue to weaponize and politicize their position and the tools that they have at their disposal, which are the most powerful in the world, through the Department of Justice and law enforcement to try to get their way and stay in power, it sets the precedent. It sets the most dangerous precedent that now every president who’s elected after this be like, “Hey, this is what we do now in this country.” And we become more like the banana republics and dictatorships that we see in other parts of the world. That our country in the past, frankly, has gone and toppled those dictators for being anti-democracy.

This, this, it’s, this is where we have to come together as Americans. We have to be able to put aside some of our differences, even strongly held differences on very important issues that we are facing, because we need to recognize that if we stay down this path, we won’t even have the freedom to debate on those issues and we won’t even have the freedom to exercise our basic civic duty and right to vote for the candidate of our choosing. The future and identity of our country as a free society and a democratic society, where we the people are the ones with the power, it will be gone and be unrecognizable.

ADAM CAROLLA: I agree. And whether it’s this or the aforementioned COVID, people are going to have to wake up. Yes. Because it’s not going to work for you just to sit around and watch the talking heads on MSNBC. Yeah. You’re going to get duped again.

A Warning From Within

TULSI GABBARD: You know, there was a speech that Abraham Lincoln gave in Illinois to the Young Men’s Lyceum where he talks about how the only way, and I’m paraphrasing here, but he talks about how the only way that our country will be destroyed will be from within. And he used the word suicide, that if we are to be destroyed, it will be because of our suicide.

And I don’t say this lightly at all. I hear politicians every election year say, “This is the most important election of our time.” And they say this over and over again. It doesn’t mean anything. I’ve never felt that way before. And I’ve never said it before until now, because we are at that place where — and I have had close friends of mine who have taken their own lives — and the first thought and the first feeling is like, my gosh, I wish they would have called me, or I wish I would have called them, or I wish I had seen some signs so I could have been there, held their hand, and walked them out of this darkness where they felt they had no other option.

You wish that there had been a warning. We are in that place of the warning, this alarm being sounded right now. And unless we heed that warning, my very serious concern is we will find ourselves in a place looking back saying, “Man, if we had only done something to stop this craziness and to save our country and our freedom, we would be in a much better place.”

Ringing the Bell

ADAM CAROLLA: Well, even if the shit goes down, you’ll be remembered.

TULSI GABBARD: I don’t care about being remembered.

ADAM CAROLLA: Well, then I’ll be remembered as one of the people who rang the bell and said, “Everybody, we’re going the wrong way. Stop it.” And then everyone turned at me and called me every name in the book.

TULSI GABBARD: Which is a price I am — I am happy to bear. It doesn’t even mean —

ADAM CAROLLA: It doesn’t feel like anything anymore, does it?

TULSI GABBARD: No, I don’t pay attention to it. And frankly, when you look at where the attacks are coming from, somebody sent me a note yesterday with an article, some other hit smear piece. They’re like, “Oh, looks like the media elite don’t have much love for you.” I was like, “Yeah, that’s kind of a good thing. I’d be concerned if they did.”

ADAM CAROLLA: If Rolling Stone writes a good review about me, yeah, I’m doing something wrong.

Book Plug and a Message of Hope

ADAM CAROLLA: All right, well, let me give you a plug. “For Love of Country: Leave the Democrat Party Behind.” Tulsi, and by the way, it’s available April 30th, wherever you find finer books. Well, let’s do it again soon. I feel like —

TULSI GABBARD: I look forward to it. This was a fun conversation. I want to end on a hopeful message because there is hope. We do have hope. It’s not just a bleak and hopeless picture. We have to exercise our freedom in order to save it. We have to get out and vote. You can’t throw your hands up and just stay home and think someone else is going to come and save our country. The power in our hands is more powerful than the darkness that exists of those in power today.

Critical Thinking in the Face of Competing Narratives

ADAM CAROLLA: Well, I hate to throw a little shade at your life, but — and I know we’re trying to be respectful of your time. But the problem is, the other side is saying, “If we don’t lock up Trump, democracy will be destroyed.”

TULSI GABBARD: They are saying that. This is where the critical thinking comes into play.

ADAM CAROLLA: This is where the critical thinking comes.

TULSI GABBARD: This is where I’m not dictating to you — you should vote for this party or this or that or whatever. Be informed. Be discerning with the information that you are gathering. And come —

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