Tulsi Gabbard: War, Politics, and the Military Industrial Complex | Lex Fridman Podcast  

Here are the timestamps. Please check out our sponsors to support this podcast. Transcript: lexfridman.com/tulsi-gabbard-transcript 0:00 - Introduction & sponsor mentions: - Riverside: creators.riverside.fm/LEX and use code LEX to get 30% off - ExpressVPN: expressvpn.com/lexpod to get 3 months free - NetSuite: netsuite.com/lex to get free product tour - Notion: notion.com/lex 1:07 - War in Iraq 8:53 - Battle injuries and PTSD 16:03 - War on terrorism 24:44 - War in Gaza 28:45 - War in Ukraine 32:31 - Syria 40:13 - Warmongers 49:33 - Nuclear war 1:05:01 - TikTok ban 1:17:06 - Bernie Sanders 1:22:01 - Politics 1:40:52 - Personal attacks 1:43:01 - God

We need to transition back to where running for office is a public service not a career path

We need to be surveilling the Politicians, the way they want to surveil us. WE are not the threat. THEY are.

People don't understand the real economics, profits and profit makers of war. Much respect for Tulsi for relating her experiences.

A 56 year old Brit here. Who's NEVER had enough confidence in those presented in front of me to vote for. But this lady and Vivek would get my vote in a heartbeat if they were here in the UK.

As a marine I love her war stance… no war is good

I've worked for KBR, DynCorp, Raytheon, Fluor, ITT and Vectrus in Bagram, Kandahar, Djibouti, Kirkuk, Al Asad...... She is 1000% on target with these contractors. They are shady as shit.

When I was growing up presidents were usually ex military. She sounds so refreshing to listen to .

Great conversation!! Thank you for your amazing work, Lex!! Please keep up with your great work!! Today's world needs people and programs like you!!

Lex, I appreciate the way you allow your guest to fully express their ideas and perspectives. This is sorely lacking in the MSM.

Lex really shined in this one. He communicated so gently yet confidently with Tulsi. They communicate well together.

My served with her as one of her officers. He talked about what a great leader she was and how much he enjoyed working for her. Wish she was running for President again.

Great interview! I love how you stay on point and how you let your guests answer the questions.

Usual, people running for office or politics in general, give off a weird vibe. Tulsi just keeps it real and clear. Thats respectable and admirable.

Here is the person who should be US President. Makes fools of Biden and Trump.. Intelligent, measured.. In fact the world needs Tulsi Gabbard

Eye opening interview. Thank you.

She is one of the few (very few) politicians who actually deserves to be in leadership. And the fact she was done so dirty is indicative of the rot our country suffers from.

Thank you Lex for another of your thoughtful and intelligent interviews, where you allow your guest to speak at length and in depth! Great work, and vitally needed!

Lex, another very useful and informational interview! She is a very smart and well studied lady that disserves to be in supporting roles through sensible processes! Nice job to both of you!

Best podcaster I've run across in a long time. And Gabbard's performance here is quite impressive. Thank you!

How does one declare war on terrorism? Terrorism is a tactic..not a country or even a movement.

Good to see Tulsi on Lex's show

I always love, it when you use spoken language to express your thoughts or feelings, at the end of the podcast.

People who have seen war dont think we should keep doing it for shallow reasons. Politicians in the main are too far away from reality and too keen to use it as the first option. Often because they financially gain from it and do not face the consequences or fight in it.

Never served, but have friends that do. My heart breaks for them, to think about how much betrayal these warriors go through when they come back home. The land they fight for throws them to the side for sacrificing everything. We need to rediscover our humanity in this chaos of political division.

We keep hearing about the military industrial complex. How about having a leader from one of the big military contractors on to speak about their perspective. How they view the world and themselves in it, their experiences, and if they see the landscape of war changing for the better of humanity?

There was a time when citizens were free to move between Gaza and West Bank, It was kind of self selection. In 1972, general exit orders were issued allowing residents of those territories to move freely between the West Bank, Israel, and the Gaza Strip. Following the First Intifada by 1991, the general exit orders were revoked, and personal exit permits were required.

Damn good interview! Thank you both!

My best friend/ Brother was killed in 2003 over there. I hugged him in January 2003, he left, 5 months later I come home from work and my roommates and friends told me that they saw his name announced on the TV. I miss him every day of my life

I was attached to your Unit during OIF3 I was in 3ID 1BCT CMED. LSA Anaconda. I have your little DCU rainbow in a Gorilla tote to this day.

She is an amazing person. Thank you Lex for giving her the opportunity to share what I believe is the single biggest problem with this country (entrenched politicians clinging to power without regard for We The People). She is elegant and articulate and spot on. Amazing interview!

Beautiful sharing of ideas, thank you both for such an u=interesting and honest discussion 🙏

TG says, "The way to defeat bad speech is with better speech and more speech." I agree with this, but the algorithms are designed to push the bad speech front and center and make it more influential than it would be in the old public square.

I love the fact that I don't know if Lex is more right or left leaning...I go back and forth not really knowing. All these conversations are amazing to listen to and I love the hearing from all sides, all points of views, various topics and then think about what it is that I think. Thanks Lex for all these great conversations!

We need to have a way for people to monitor, audit, and vote on lobbying for what is acceptable for the American people.

Enlightening. Thank you for doing this interview Lex.

Lex, I watch many podcasts and a journalist myself. You are killin it and after today, officially my favorite to watch/listen whenever I can. This interview was off the charts, thank you for your service Tulsi, your interview solidified why you should be leading the country. Lex, just keep on keepin on.... Don't change a thing!

Breaks my heart that she wasn’t RFK’s choice for VP.

This is the leader that your people need.

When I was in the AF I was a part of a team of bomber mechanics who would be bused out to a secrete base to service returning bombers during a nuclear war as the main base would be gone. During an exercise, I over heard two lieutenants with side arms, part of security command, talking about how they where going to be stacking security guards on the runway like cord wood, now the mechanics, we'll keep them alive as long as we can letting them out at timed intervals to work on the returning bombers to minimize radiation poisoning until they are over come. The message was clear, refuse and it will be bullet to the head. One of them looked up at me and smirked. Nuclear war is all out and forever. How people today cannot understand this I don't understand.

The only dumb question is the one you don’t ask. Thank you Tulsi💯 thank you Lex.

Imagine if we had a president like Tulsi with her composure, rational, grace and intellect

In this instant, Lex your guest has not once acknowledged that perhaps the military forces and the government who has sent her have used tactics of divisiveness, splitting communities; playing one set of people against an other and creating differences and fomenting hatred. The USA has so much potential for doing amazing things and yet the administrations seem to have succumbed to greed and control in any way necessary. I don't think anyone who genuinely believes that one day they would have to answer to their Creator would promote sleaze, cronyism and use war to make money for the companies donating funds to them.

They used to call it “thinking outside of the box”. And it should be admired.

I seen the same things, Tulsi described in Iraq that I did too. The KBR, the dining facility with all the Bangladeshi workers and what not. I think Tulsi may have been at BIAP the same time I was, but there are so many soldiers there, that I would likely not have recognized her anyway.

My father worked for Haliburton.. ended up shooting himself in chest with a shotgun

Enlightening as to why things were so expensive. I was drafted into the Army (also a medic) at the close of Vietnam, starting pay $67/month and was always puzzled how Iraq could have been so expensive, even with large pay increases as the Army became all-volunteer, and even with the cost of equipment. It just never added up to me whenever the cost was stated to be in the trillion$. My family members who served in Iraq did have very highly negative views of KBR. I was surprised that when they came back, they frequently would say something like “it’s all about the money.”

I really enjoy learning about tulsi and listening to her. The last 5 minutes were the best and most thought provoking for me.

I am from the UK but I think she would be a great leader ,hope DT picks her as VP

She is partially why I left the Democratic Party to become independent - we need more politicians to grow a backbone and walk away.

Thank you, Lex, for a great show with an AWESOME guest! Tulsi is the first person who has been in both a war of weapons and a war of political power who has the guts to share what she has seen and knows!

For people who miss the 10- second forward and back button, RU-vid has replaced it with a double tap on the screen. It is good to have that 10-second back and forward option again.

There’s no oversight. When your signature signs off on spending money that isn’t yours then why bother check the line item. Thank you Lex for allowing these conversations. 🍋 could learn how a discussion is conducted. Really enjoyed learning her history and her policies.

Lex is killing it. Great guests

1:49:41 such an intelligent conversation. Bravo to the both of you.

Wonderful interview

That first 24 minutes about Tulsi's perspective on war is some of the best commentary on the subject I've ever heard.

Thanks, you two. Such an important convo to have and I respect and value both opinions greatly.

Excellent interview great perspective from this woman. Congrats !!!

Great interview!! Thank you!

Go Tulsi! Love your energy, and the fact that you always speak your truth from a place of integrity. U are a great rolemodel ❤❤❤

I always thought Tulsi was paranoid about the threat of nuclear war but that was rather ignorant of me. Hawaii of all places was directly affected by the EMP of a test. I imagine that’s still pretty fresh in the psyche. Good stuff guys ✌

That closing statement was beautiful. Thank You Tulsi, thank you Lex 🙏

Thank you Mr Lex for having Ms Tulsi on your show, I have to agree with every word Ms Tulsi spoke, I loved Ms Tulsi even before I seen this show but I never knew Ms Tulsi you served Our Country, I have a huge place in my heart for all Our Fallen heroes, all Our veterans, and all those who still serve today it is men and women like you Ms Tulsi who served that makes me proud to be an American it is your sacrifices that I can hold my head high and say without shame I'm an American. For me there is no greater feeling than that. My father served, he did 4 tours in Vietnam and growing up looking at his medals I knew I wanted to follow in his footsteps, as a child 5-6 years old looking at my father's medals I was proud cause my Dad was a Marine and he served Our Country, but I honored my mother's wish she begged me not to join the military she wasn't afraid of me being killed in action nor was I, she was afraid I wouldn't come back home the same person I left, she was afraid I'd come home and pull a Rambo it was funny then but now I know exactly what she meant, I'm disgusted to see what Biden and his administration has done to Our Country and I feel Biden is making all the sacrifices Our Fallen heroes all Our veterans and all those who serve have been done in vain and I want nothing more to see Biden and all those behind him kicked the hell out of Our House! And I say that politely out of respect for Ms Tulsi❣️ Ms Tulsi I wanna thank you for serving Our country I loved you before I knew you served now knowing u served Our Country I wanna marry you🌹❣️🤭😅 Thank you and Our Fallen, Our Veterans and those who still serve I now know why all of you did what you did!? Cause this Country is worth fighting for, as I wrote this the tears kept falling that's how much I love what all Our veterans did for this great country Thank you❤

She is awesome, powerful and very articulate, by far the best person to fill the VP position. America would be a better place with Tulsi ultimately becoming President one day.

Haliburton charges $35 for a banana to our troops LOL talk about the enemy within!

The most difficult thing, if you want to talk about peace, is finding a position from which it is possible to speak without being immediately closed down by those vested interests by being labelled as someone who can be ignored (peacnik, doesn't live in the real world, lives a comfortable life behind the line held by others, etc, etc). It's really hard to get to that place and here a woman who is firmly in that place and cannot even be attacked for being "unwomanly" because it was a caring role. Solid. This is such an unbelievably difficult set of things to bring together that it really should be valued very highly...these experiences, though painful, are solid gold for pursuing peace...and the comments (and the resistance she faces) bear that out. This experience is why she's *still* allowed to speak and hasn't already been closed down. I wonder if she is making more impact than she feels she is. One might consider whether the reason why these wars seem to inevitably expand into regime change is because regime change - that is the destruction and recreation of a state - is profitable. It is disaster capitalism. Every emergency that "must" be addressed just ends up being disaster capitalism - wars, covid, whatever the next thing is. The worse it gets, the more money they make and the money they have protects them from the consequences. Truth and reality. The problem with asking those on the left to stand up against the military industrial complex is that almost no-one will be able to occupy the same ground as Tulsi can. Those who grow up and pursue peace activities tend not to join the military, so the number who can find stable ground to challenge from is naturally going to be smaller. Maybe that's a pipeline that should be created and ex-military voices should be amplified...but again, that's more likely to be something the is generated from the right, not the left. It's just....we don't expect fish to climb trees.

Thank you for standing up for Truth. You have succinctly described the candidates in November. May God guide you! 🙏🏿

I think RFK made a mistake not picking her as his running mate.

I am a hard core right wing conservative who spent a career in the military. Massive respect for Ms Gabbard. Bravo Zulu

I appreciate her calmness and care for us Americans!

HALLIBURTON- I retired with Halliburton 2015 (35 years with them). It upsets me tremendously when Halliburton’s name is included with Brown & Root. WE understood B&R was a company we used to build board roads etc when drilling for oil wells. I NEVER heard/knew they had anything to do with the war (besides Cheney leaving our company to run for VP). I would love to know ow more than that.

I MIGHT be stoned, BUT I watch a lot of Lex’s interviews.. and for some reason this one feels more important than any of the others .. this one right here.. has impacted me ..

That was a great interview. I love to hear Tusli's views on our political system and the situation we're all in. Thank you Lex, for your thoughtful questions and respectful style of communicating. All the very best to both of you.

Lex, this was a really good listen. Thank you for bringing her on your show. I was a fan of Tulsi, now I’m more of one.

Probably one of the most Sane voices in the United States

My favorite part of getting to know Tulsi better was hearing her speak about her spiritual life.

I wrote in a vote for Tulsi Gabbard in our Wisconsin primary today. The one person I trust with my country.

God blessed this world with people like Tulsi.. Tucker yes.. and many others now... SHE SPEAKS SUCH GOOD SENSE, TULSI IS SO INTELLIGENT AND HEARTFELT... TULSI AND TUCKER FOR PREZ AND VP it would turn heads that's for sure....

I’d love to see Tulsi in a cabinet position for the next administration where she can have authority to audit the military-industrial complex.

Fantastic stuff as usual from Tulsi. The first 10 minutes clearly illustrate how evil the military industrial complex is and always have been.

Peace should always be the best option. But it should never be the only option.

Great interview, Lex!

A very interesting conversation!

War Is Hell for Everyone!!!

Would like to see her a position of leadership in our country. Clear head

This is a good interview

One question i wish you'd asked as a follow up when TG was talking about the six minutes a President has to decide to launch it not: Don't you think that even the military industrial complex is ultimately against nuclear war? Nuclear war would mean the end of their profiteering as much as world peace would.

Mahalo for this conversation!

I’ve always been fascinated by her as an Independent; thanks for hosting a conversation so I could clearly hear her points and philosophy!

Lex, interesting that you say the Obama was a uniter. Just this morning I was listening to Victor Davis Hansen say the exact opposite. Would love to see you have him on your podcast

Great piece of work.👍

Lex, you are killing it dude!!!

Tulsi is truly admirable for her courage and integrity!

Great show. Amazing guest!

She endorsed Bernie and Biden, and conservatives think she'd be good for the cause. Blows my mind.

The Rogue hair looks great on her.

Lex is such a great interviewer, and seems to be such an all-around good person. This interview was every bit as enlightening as it was disheartening and terrifying. We need more people like Tulsi back in office. History will remember her kindly, unlike many of those who have experienced “power” within her lifetime.

I gotta say, Ms. Tulsi Gabard, I don't know you. However, to me, you're a superstar. Thank the universe for people with the courage and discernment of your character.

Lex, I’m surprised when you got to presidential candidate selections it did not include RFK as an option for discussion on the interview 😢 we must continue to fight for a third option on the ballot