I recently sat down with
presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard.
This is the full interview.
If you have a short attention span like
I do you can check out the six-minute version
we posted on JohnStossel.com.
But the entire interview is interesting, so here it is.
We started on an area where we agree:
endless wars.
She often says she knows the cost of war.
So I asked her, what do you mean?
I am a soldier.
I've been serving the Army National Guard
now for over 16 years,
and deployed twice to the Middle East.
Served in Congress now for nearly seven years
on the Foreign Affairs Committee,
the Armed Services Committee, and the
Homeland Security Committee.
And so, from both perspectives,
understand the importance of our national security.
And as a soldier,
I served in a field medical unit in Iraq in 2005,
during the height of the war.
Our camp was about 40 miles north of Baghdad.
And I mean, it was something every day
that we all experienced firsthand,
the terribly high human cost of war.
Of our fellow soldiers,
friends of ours who were killed in combat
and the cost and the toll that continues now,
with veterans coming home with visible and
invisible wounds, dealing with post traumatic stress-
You've said the best way to honor our troops
is to make combat the last option.
We don't?
We have to honor our service men and women
by only sending them on missions that are
worthy of their sacrifice.
Now like so many Americans,
after Al-Qaeda attacked us on 9/11
I made the decision to join our military.
To enlist to be able to go after and defeat
those who attacked us on that day.
To defeat that great evil that visited us.
But unfortunately, since that time, our leaders failed us.
Where instead of focusing, one,
pointedly on defeating Al-Qaeda,
they've instead use that attack on 9/11
to begin to wage a whole series of
counterproductive regime change wars,
over throwing authoritarian dictators in other countries,
wars that have proven to be very costly
to our service members.
Like Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi ...
Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, and the ongoing regime
change war that's still happening in Syria today.
So in Afghanistan you would've gotten out when?
Go in, defeat Al-Qaeda get out.
That's what should have happened.
Instead, what we're seeing now is a very long,
protracted, ambiguous mission where no really
knows what quote unquote winning looks like.
The ensuing nation building that's followed
in these different wars
that's taken so much of our resources,
our taxpayer dollars out of where they should have been
dedicated in nation building and serving the
needs of our people right here at home.
If we just pulled out,
there would be more slaughter probably.
If we stay focused on our mission
and what our mission and objective should be,
which is the safety and security of the American people,
then we end up saving a whole lot of lives.
We end up saving a whole lot of tax payer dollars.
The conflict and the complexities and the challenges,
for example, in Afghanistan that
we're seeing continuing over the years
and through today are things that only
the Afghan people can resolve.
What we've got to stay focused on is how we
ensure the safety and security of the American people.
There seldom is a discussion
that I've heard about what is our mission.
Exactly.
That's exactly the problem is before sending
our men and women into harm's way
we're not hearing about,
what is the problem that we're trying to solve
and what is the clear, achievable goal that we need to
accomplish that we're sending them to do?
Without that, we end up with a result that we
have where we have troops who are deployed in
these other countries without a real understanding
of what they're there to accomplish and at what point
they then accomplish that and then can come home.
Let me get your response to this op-ed in the
New York Times from some years back about Syria.
Five reasons to intervene in Syria now,
it would diminish Iran's influence in the Arab world.
Let's look at what's happened in Syria because
of the regime change war that we've waged there.
Because of the regime change war that
we waged in Iraq.
Iran has far more influence in both of those
countries than they did prior to our going in.
This is exactly one of the problems where we see how
our regime change wars,
and intervention has been counterproductive
to our own interests.
The argument was,
"This could keep the conflict from spreading
to Lebanon and Iraq."
Yeah.
Once again, we look at the cost and the consequence
that both the Syrian people have paid as a
price and the impact that it's
had on the region as a whole.
We can see how these decisions in Iraq,
Libya, and Syria have been counter to our national
security interests and something that these
articles often fail to recognize or announce,
which is that Al-Qaeda has been strengthened.
Terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda and offshoots
like ISIS have been strengthened as a result
of these policies and these wars to the point where now,
we just observed the 18th anniversary
of the attack on 9/11 and Al-Qaeda is stronger today
than they were in 2001 when they launched that attack.
Stronger because when you kill their cousins
and brothers, more people hate us?
Stronger because our leaders failed us
by not staying focused one pointedly on defeating
Al-Qaeda and instead,
went and spent American lives and resources
in waging these regime change wars
and seeing how terrorist groups like ISIS
were born because of those wars.
In Syria, right now, Al-Qaeda and other
terrorist organizations that are offshoots
and affiliates are in control of this entire
city of Idlib in the northern part of Syria.
And other countries are,
Syria and Russia in particular,
talking about attacking Al-Qaeda,
getting rid of Al-Qaeda in that city.
And it is President Trump and his administration
that are the ones saying don't go after Al-Qaeda in that
city, and if you do will retaliate against you for doing so.
This is a total betrayal.
It's a betrayal of every single one of us
as service members, every single family member
of those who were lost on 9/11,
to the first responders who ran into that rubble
and that fire to save lives that day rather
than running away.
It's a betrayal to us as the American people.
But there is a human rights crisis there and
our hearts go out to them and we want to help.
We want to help.
What we have been doing has been
making the problem worse.
This is what is so often the case when these
with these regime change wars are waged in
the guise of humanitarianism saying exactly that.
That there are people suffering under a brutal dictator,
authoritarian regime.
We have to go in and help them
by removing that dictator.
But if you look at these examples throughout
our country's history, our going in toppling
that brutal dictator has not made their lives any better.
They have resulted in more death, more destruction,
more pain and suffering, more refugees.
This is why we've got to stop being the world's
police and recognize that if we want to be
a force for good in the world, let's
actually make sure that what we are doing
effects in a good outcome.
You met with the dictator, with Assad.
Yes.
And the liberal media give you grief for that.
I would think that they would say,
"We should talk to everybody."
Better talk than wage war.
I agree.
You would think that's what they would say.
Chris Cuomo, "You need to acknowledge that
Assad is a murderous despot."
Are you surprised?
And then what?
I think this is the problem is, you know,
we look back to examples like Roosevelt meeting
with Stalin, another murderous leader.
You look at JFK meeting with Khrushchev,
Nixon meeting with Mao.
They're examples throughout our country's
history of leader ... Reagan meeting with Gorbachev.
Leaders who recognize that,
in the interest of peace and security,
you have to be willing to meet with leaders of other
countries whether they be adversaries,
friends, dictators, or otherwise.
Recognizing what you just said,
that the only alternative to that is war.
So what's going on with your party?
Democrats used to be the anti war party.
Unfortunately this is something
that crosses both parties.
I call out leaders in my own party
and leaders in the Republican party as well,
who are heavily influenced by the
military industrial complex that profits heavily off of us
continuing to wage these counterproductive wars.
They're heavily influenced by a foreign policy
establishment in Washington,
whose whole power base is built around
continuing this status quo.
So much so to the point where,
when I'm calling for an end to these wasteful wars,
they're saying,
"Gosh, Tulsi, why are you such an isolationist?"
As though the only way that we can relate
with other countries in the world is by bombing them
or putting crippling economic sanctions in place.
Which is a really sad conclusion
when you actually ... that sad state of mind,
rather than seeing, hey, we're
the United States of America,
we have the opportunity to be a force for good.
To reach out to other countries,
to work with them, to show respect,
to find those areas of common interest
where we can work together for the wellbeing of
our people and the planet and be able to work out
those differences that we have
rather than resorting to war.
Seeing that war is only a last resort
to keep our people safe.
If you were president a few years back,
what would the alternative have been with Syria?
How would we have worked with them?
Well, first of all, making sure that we don't
launch a regime change war.
That war began ... A lot of people don't realize
in 2011, all the way back in 2011 and it began
with a covert mission working
through the CIA,
to both arm and equip and provide support
to a terrorist groups in that country like
Al-Qaeda, to overthrow the Syrian government.
This is something that has now been published
out in the open that this is what happened
and it continued to further escalate both
through covert and overt means
using the department of defense.
So if you were president you would come in
and say, "This has poisoned our relationship.
We're going to stop this and here's what
we are going to do."
What we do is respect the rights of the Syrian
people to determine their own governance and
their future.
This was one thing that I-
But they didn't elect their dictator.
They hold elections in Syria.
Some people question the validity of those elections.
So one thing that I think the international
community can do is come together to provide
global oversight over those elections,
to make sure the people's voices are actually
being heard.
Now we have the conflict with Iran.
Yes
They just apparently were responsible for
the attacks on Saudi Arabia.
What would you do?
If I were president today,
I would end this cycle of retaliation,
this tit for tat that we're seeing.
What happened in Saudi Arabia was an act of
retaliation to the sanctions and the blockade
against Iran and basically stopping them
from being able to sell any of their oil on the market.
Remove the sanctions.
I would get Iran and the United States
to reenter the Iran nuclear agreement,
to make sure that Iran is not continuing to move forward
and building a nuclear weapon.
Get those inspectors back in there and I would
remove those crippling sanctions.
I'm going to quote Lindsey Graham,
"A weak response invites more aggression."
This is the problem with people like
Lindsey Graham is, they advocate for things like punish,
"We've got to punish Iran for this."
Punishment is not a goal or objective.
The question is how does that
help us accomplish our objective?
"Because," says the Wall Street Journal,
"they sense weakness. If we are strong, they'll behave."
So if we are strong and we do what Lindsey
Graham says, and we come in with a strong
response and a counter attack to Iran,
a retaliatory attack, how does then Iran respond?
These are the questions that these policy makers
in the media too often don't ask.
Well, what does Iran then do?
They would say, "Iran knows we mean business
and they'll behave better."
And when has that happened?
If Iran is given no-
World War II.
So Iran has given no signs of surrender.
They have stated very clearly their military
is ready to go to war and that they will withstand
any counter attacks that we have.
This is, not a joke.
I mean Iran is a much larger country than Iraq
Three times as many people.
Their military is much stronger.
Many more people and they,
they use both conventional and unconventional
warfare tactics.
So if we follow down the Lindsey Graham approach,
what we end up with is a continuation and
escalation of this tit for tat retaliation,
attack, counter attack, counter attack.
What it'll result in is an all out inferno,
not only in Iran, but across the entire region.
It's unimaginable to think about how many
American lives, how many service men and women
would lose their lives in such a war.
How many people in the region would be killed,
refugees forced to flee, and how many more
trillions of our tax payer dollars would be taken
out of our pockets, out of our communities
to go and pay for a war that is completely unnecessary
and that actually undermines our national security.
Let's move to a domestic area where you agree
with us libertarians.
America locks up an unusual number of people,
two million at the moment.
More than Russia, China.
Our criminal justice system is so broken and
it's perpetuating the problems that have caused
this kind of mass incarceration that we've seen.
I have the only bipartisan bill in Congress,
that would end the federal marijuana prohibition.
This is one easy first step that we can take
to begin to end this failed war on drugs that
has unnecessarily filled our prisons and that has
really been a drain on our resources,
both from the law enforcement perspective
as well as within our criminal justice system.
People say it's a gateway drug and the country has to
send a message to children that it's
not okay here.
Going to let it be legal everywhere?
We should.
This is a free country.
I've never smoked marijuana, I never will.
I've never drank alcohol,
I've chosen not to in my life.
This is about free choice,
and if somebody wants to do that,
our country should not be
making a criminal out of them for doing so.
I think this is the whole hypocrisy of this
argument that we've heard throughout our lives
since this war on drugs has begun which is,
"We really care about you.
We really care about your kids.
So if you are caught using this drug or
smoking marijuana, we care so much about you that
we're going to arrest you.
We're going to give you a criminal record
because we care about you and we don't want
you to hurt yourself."
A record that will follow this person for the
rest of their lives and impact their ability
to get a job or maybe get a college scholarship,
something like that.
So once we're an adult,
we own our own bodies and we ought to be
able to poison them if we want?
Yes.
But you haven't proposed legalizing heroin
or cocaine or meth.
that's the direction that we need to take is
decriminalizing an individual's choice
to use whatever substances that are there,
while still criminalizing those who are traffickers
and dealers of these drugs.
But I'm confused by that because if you say,
and I agree that it's my body, let people
do what they want.
But you call the sellers traffickers.
It's sold.
They're only traffickers because it's illegal.
Isn't that hypocritical?
You can use it, but nobody can sell it to you?
No, it's not at all.
I think there's a difference here
where you have those who are profiting off of selling
substances that are harmful to others,
as opposed to those who are making those choices
on their own to do what they wish with their bodies.
There are some models of this in other countries
who've taken this approach and what we've
seen in- Portugal.
Yes, in Portugal.
What we've seen in Portugal is how they are
not treating a drug use as a criminal action,
but instead as a healthcare one.
That for those who are dealing with substance abuse
and addiction that rather than throwing
them in prison and giving them a criminal record,
we're actually providing them with
help and the healthcare treatment that will get
them and their lives back on track.
And that's been good in Portugal.
It's been well.
There are even fewer people using the drugs for some reason.
That's right.
That's exactly right.
Talking about this at the debate,
you changed Kamala Harris's life.
Want to talk about that moment?
Look, I was raising I think very valid questions
about a record that Kamala Harris herself
has said she's very proud of as
California's attorney general.
And around an issue that I think is central
and important to all of us for the reasons
that we just talked about.
It speaks to the broader issue of leadership,
which I think is really what's at question
here for all the voters who we're asking to
earn their trust and their vote so that we
can serve them as presidents.
What kind of leader would you be and asking
those questions of Senator Harris about the
kind of leadership that she provided when
she was in a position of power to actually
help fix our criminal justice system.
Instead, she used that position to further
perpetuate a system that was causing disproportionate
harm to people of California.
Her job was prosecutor,
so she's supposed to prosecute.
That's true.
But as a prosecutor and as a presidential candidate,
she's talking about fixing this
broken system.
She was in a position of power to do that,
to make sure that those she was prosecuting
were people who were deserving of that prosecution,
deserving of that prison time.
But instead of enacting those reforms,
that would've actually helped people,
she chose to do the opposite.
And I think that just again,
points to leadership and the failure of it.
And she was leading in the betting
for democratic nominee.
Immediately, she fell seven points 10 days later,
another seven points from 26% to 12%.
You killed her off.
I'm for the people, man.
I was speaking the truth and
speaking for a lot of people, a lot of people who were
asking these questions, who were calling for
accountability and we're seeing none, seeing
none in the mainstream media, seeing none
of the debate moderators asking these questions
as they should of every candidate saying,
"Hey, here's your record.
How do you account for that?"
That hadn't happened prior to that moment,
which I think is a disservice to voters.
So now the clear leader is Elizabeth Warren.
Are you happy with that?
Obviously you would rather it be you.
Yeah, no, I'm focused on our campaign and
how we can connect, continue to connect with
voters in early States and all across the
country and sharing with them the kind of
leadership that I would bring, the experience
that I bring to serving as president and fulfilling
that most important responsibility the president
has, is as commander-in-chief.
And your campaign pitch has been, instead
of all this military spending focus on rebuilding
communities at home.
That's right.
Meaning?
Meaning there are so many needs that we have,
that our families have, that the American
people have.
And for so long, and I've served at the city
council in Hawaii, served as a state representative
and obviously in Congress now for seven years.
And for so long people are told, "Well, there's
just not enough money to make sure that your
kids have the most up to date textbooks
in your classrooms."
"There's just not enough money to upgrade
our water infrastructure to make sure that
the water coming out of your tap is clean
and is not poisoning or harming your kids
or your families."
"There's just not enough money to make sure
that our roads and bridges are safe for people
to use, that are not dangerous and posing a threat
to your families."
Every single time the American taxpayers are told,
"Sorry, there's just not enough money."
But they're told this by some of the very
same people who don't think twice, who don't
ask, "Well, how do you pay for this?"
When they make the decision to go and launch
again these wars of choice, they are unnecessary.
They are counterproductive, and they are regime
change wars that work against our interest.
What to speak of the fact that now we are
in a new cold war, we have escalating tensions
between the United States, nuclear armed countries
like Russia and China, a new arms race.
Trump tore up that INF treaty that Reagan and
Gorbachev negotiated sparking off billions
more dollars to build these missiles that were
banned under that treaty.
All of this amounts to an incredible cost
that whether they realize it or not, every
single one of us as taxpayers are paying,
where those dollars should either be used
to decrease the deficit that we have or to
serve the needs of our people.
And what do you mean when you say focus on
rebuilding our communities at home?
That implies that they were doing okay and then
now they need to be rebuilt, did something
happened that made them worse?
The city council district that I represented
in Hawaii was one of the first communities that
was developed when people started moving
to Hawaii and the population started growing,
which means the infrastructure in that district
was the oldest on the whole island that constantly
needed upgrading and for so long it's just,
we'll put a bandaid on this, we'll put a patch on that.
But really that doesn't solve the problem
of the fact that we would have water mains
that are underground constantly breaking,
exploding, and basically creating a sinkhole
in the main roads that people go to school and
go to work in every single day.
It's these kinds of challenges that our folks
in Hawaii are experiencing, but challenges
that people are experiencing in many communities
across the country.
So how did that work, Hawaii, when Hawaii
was significantly poorer, was able to build
all this infrastructure, but now the government
spends much more money, it's going bad?
This supports my argument that government
usually makes things worse.
The government is taking our taxpayer dollars
and this is why I've made this a central point
of my campaign because we all pay taxes.
Where are those tax payer dollars going?
The majority of those dollars are not going
towards serving those very real needs that
we have.
Instead, they're going to wage these wasteful
wars that have nothing to do with the national
security interests of our country, the interest of
our troops, the interests of our people,
which is a central issue.
And I'm often asked by reporters in Washington,
"Well, Gosh, okay, fine.
You're talking about foreign policy.
What about all the other issues that the American
people are really concerned about?"
But unless we deal with this central issue of
where our tax payer dollars are going and
the cost of war, we can't begin to address
how we find the resources where we come up
with the money to be able to pay for these other things.
But you would still have a military,
you wouldn't totally cut it.
Yes.
How much would it be cut?
How much would be left?
I don't think it's an arbitrary number.
I think once again, focus on what is our objective.
Our objective must be to have a strong and ready
capable military able to fulfill their
mission of protecting and defending our country
and the American people.
We've got troops who are deployed
in so many countries
around the world but the questions that-
Something like 80 countries.
That aren't really asked, even in the armed
services committee where I serve or answered
is well, "How many of those bases, how many
of those countries actually require a prolonged
US presence to serve our interests?"
So what happens in the committee?
You say, "Hey, how?"
Ask that question.
Here's the issue is when we talk about this
fearful word called BRAC base realignment
and closing, people actually vote against
that commission from doing their job, which
is to look at these bases around the world
and here at home and say, "Hey, do we still need them?
Are they still performing a necessary function
for our national security?
And if not, let's repurpose them or shut them down."
We should explain this to viewers who
don't know what BRAC is.
It was created because the military wanted
to close some bases, but the local congressperson's,
"Oh, not my base."
So they then said,
"We'll create this committee and we'll-"
Exactly.
Create a commission who will be the neutral arbiters-
You won't take the heat.
The member of Congress won't take the heat
they'll say, "well, Hey, this commission is
the one that decided this, but still the member
of Congress fights against what that commission
has recommended."
Rather, once again, than looking at this from
an objective perspective of being responsible
caretakers for the taxpayer dollar and looking
at what is actually necessary for our military
to be able to do the job of protecting and
defending our country.
So I think there's a huge opportunity to reduce
defense spending in that area.
There's a huge opportunity to reduce defense
spending in this arms race that I'm talking
about, this arms race that is making our country
in the world less safe and deescalating these
tensions with nuclear armed countries so that
we are moving closer to that future that both
JFK and President Reagan were looking towards,
where our people the people who live on this
planet don't have to live in fear of nuclear
catastrophe coming at any moment.
You would reduce the military spending, spend it
domestically, but let's fight about that.
You want Medicare for all?
I want to see Medicare choice.
So right now we, as people, we're spending
far more on healthcare than any other developed
country in the world.
Because we invent the best new stuff.
Well, I would argue that our big insurance
companies and big pharmaceutical companies
get far greater profits from us
than they do in other countries. We pay far more
Our people pay far more for insulin, for example,
here in this country than they do across the
border in Canada or even in Mexico.
Same product, same safety qualifications,
but we pay way more.
I met a mother the other day whose daughter
was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes and they
can't afford health insurance.
They can't afford it.
It would be thousands of dollars every month
for their family and they can't afford the
$300 per vial of insulin that her daughter
needs here.
So they go to Mexico and they buy a whole lot
of insulin for 30 bucks a vial just across the border.
That's just one example of many how the crony
capitalist culture that we have is making
these profits for big insurance and big pharma
rather than saying, "Hey, how can we as a
country ensure that the American people are
getting quality healthcare?"
And by having this Medicare choice plan where
you've got every single person, they're able
to get that quality health care
Medicare choice, meaning you no longer would
abolish the private insurance.
I've never advocated for that.
But you signed onto the bill and that's
what the bill said.
The bill doesn't expressly eliminate private insurance.
I agree with the concept of Medicare for all,
what I would call Medicare choice because
it provides for that lower cost, quality healthcare
for every American, regardless of how little
you may have in your pocket.
But also allowing for those who, if you want to keep
your employer sponsored healthcare
plan or if you've got a union that's negotiated
a great healthcare plan, or if you just as
a private citizen, you would rather pay into
a private complimentary plan or otherwise
you should have the freedom to do so.
And we can afford this?
And Bernie Sanders who promotes it admits
it will cost $3 trillion.
We are already paying more.
And I think that's the point that's often missed.
We are already paying more.
So if we are able to cut out that middle man's
profits of the big insurance companies and
the profits they're already taking,
then we're able to pay less.
We as taxpayers are able to pay less.
If we pass the law that I've been advocating
for a long time now to allow Medicare, allow
our government to negotiate lower prescription
drug prices for the American people, we bring
down those costs.
We don't allow them to continue to price gouge people.
We reform our patent laws that make it so
these prescription drug companies can't exploit
the system as they are where they'll get the
patent for a certain number of years.
They then tweak it and try to block the generic
companies from being able to sell that drug
at lower prices.
We make these necessary reforms to bring down
the cost overall for everyone while ensuring
that they're still able to get that quality healthcare.
But one upside of those patent laws which
do make the drugs cost more is that the cool
new drugs that we all want are invented here.
That insulin you talked about is probably
invented here because the government makes
you pay about a billion dollars to get through the FDA.
You have to make huge profit to bring us better things.
Here's the thing with the insulin example,
and I think this is emblematic of the problems
that we're seeing with what the prescription
drug companies by and large are doing, is
that the scientists who created insulin,
they sold that patent for a dollar.
For $1.
And we look at how much insulin is costing
families whose loved ones, whether it's their
children or their parents who depend on that
insulin to stay alive and how they are struggling
just to be able to afford it and the price
gouging that's taking place.
This is what I'm talking about with the crony
capitalism that I think needs to change.
We've got to focus on how we can best serve
and support the American people, how we can
best empower small businesses, how we can
strengthen our economy.
We don't do this by continuing to enable whether
it's subsidies or this kind of exploitation
to occur.
And by cutting unnecessary military spending,
we can afford this?
By bringing down our defense spending,
by ending these wasteful wars, the
new cold war and arms race, we're bringing
back a lot of resources that would otherwise
continue to be spent there.
With healthcare, we're reducing the cost and this is
the key component of this.
We're already paying for this one way or the other
except right now, I get a certain chunk
of money taken out of my paycheck every month
that goes to Blue Cross Blue Shield for the
insurance for my family.
Instead of that amount of money going to Blue
Cross Blue Shield, that amount of money would
instead be going to a Medicare choice plan
except it would be less.
But much as I would like to cut the military,
I don't see how you can get the money because
the military entire budget is 700 billion
and that's a long way from 3 trillion.
It's actually more.
It's actually more, I mean 700 billion is
the direct amount of the annual, oh it's around
700 billion every year that goes to the department
of defense, but that does not include the
hundreds of millions of dollars that go towards
the slush fund, the OCO fund, the overseas
contingency operations fund, which has no
constraints on how the department of defense
is spending those dollars.
Those are not accounted for within that budget.
All right, well let's add $100 billion or $200 billion.
It comes nowhere close to what you and your
fellow Democrats want to spend.
Free college.
Medicare for all.
We can't afford this stuff.
It's just silly.
The money that we are going to save by ending
these wasteful wars, you're right, it won't
cover every other thing that we need to accomplish.
We've got to look at every goal that we have,
every objective that we have, every need that
the American people have to see here's the
resources that we have.
How can we best use them to serve the interests
of the American people.
Yeah, sure.
I think there will need to be some reforms
to the tax code to make it so that it's more
fair, to make it so that companies
like Amazon are not walking away
Scott-free paying zero taxes, and also getting
over a hundred million dollars in a tax credit
while small business owners are struggling
just to be able to pay their taxes and take
care of their employees and earn a living
in the process.
This is a bigger issue that we have to look at
across every sector of our economy and
in every way that the American people need to
see these services improved for them.
Free college.
Don't you think colleges already waste
a lot of money?
They do. Absolutely
and that's why I think,
I think those who are talking about free college and
I think that we do need to make sure that
our students, our young people are getting
opportunity, whether it's for vocational training,
apprenticeships, college, community college,
there's a lot of opportunities there for people
to get the skills that they need, but in order
to do this, we have to address the overarching
issue, which is why is it costing more and
more and more every single year?
Well, look how much more it'll cost when it's free.
This is the problem is just throwing more
money at it isn't going to solve it, so we
have to deal with the systemic problem here
the root cause of the problem.
One of which is, look, I spoke with a college
professor recently about this issue and he
said, you you want to see why it's costing
more and more.
Once you look at how much administrators
a lot of these colleges are being paid or
overpaid, let's actually see where these dollars
are going.
Let's look at the fact that these universities,
many of them don't have any kind of accountability
or transparency to say, Hey look, you know,
our students graduate, you know, 90% of them
are able to go and get a good paying job in
the field of their choosing or the field of
their training versus another that might have
it be like 10% or 20%.
You don't have this kind of accountability in place.
So how will you have it if you make it free?
If the student had some skin in the game,
his own money, he might care about how many
administrators there are.
What we're working on it, and we'll be releasing
this in detail in the course of our campaign,
is taking a comprehensive approach to this
in how we're looking at education beyond high school.
Both looking at this overall costs, having
accountability and transparency there by looking
at how we leverage technology to bring down
the cost of education and how we can best
provide these opportunities
to those who are seeking skills.
I'll use myself as an example.
I started my bachelor's degree later on in life.
I was working full time and I actually continued
it while I was deployed on both of my deployments.
You know, we had a an education tent in our
camp in Iraq and I went and I did classes
in that tent online, you know, mortar attacks
were coming in.
I'd have to run out and go into the bunker,
but I was able to fulfill those credits there
while doing that.
But also I was able to take tests.
I tested out of probably somewhere between
40 and 60 credits because I took the test.
I already had the knowledge,
didn't have to take the class.
It's cheaper.
A lot cheaper.
So there are a lot of things that are available
to bring down the cost of education that really
aren't ever talked about or discussed.
And I think that's at the heart of how we
tackle what is a difficult challenge of my
generation, which is this heavy student debt burden.
One last thing to fight about.
The $15 minimum wage.
How does that not destroy opportunity for
a 17 year old in his first job who isn't worth
$15 an hour?
We've got to look at how inflation has raised
the cost of living.
It's raised it.
It's tough to live on minimum wage, no question.
It is.
And our federal minimum wage has not increased
along with inflation.
I think that's what we're trying to balance out here.
How a living wage, which is different.
You know here in New York City
and in a state like Hawaii and San Francisco
or Los Angeles,
cost of living is much higher and no one can live...
But the Democrats want one minimum wage for
the country.
I think it's a starting point.
And I think that in other places a $15 is
higher than what a living wage in that place
would be required.
So I think we're looking at this as an investment
in people, the labor, the people who are really
the fuel in the engine that make our economy grow.
Why is it the government's business?
You have an employer and a worker
and they make their own deal.
It's pretty good now for the workers because
they have a lot of choice.
Unemployment's low.
And every situation is different.
Why have any minimum wage?
Because we've seen unfortunately through different
examples in our country's past how workers
have been exploited.
And even though unemployment numbers are low
now, if you just look at those surface numbers,
what those numbers don't reflect is that very
often you have people who are working two
full time jobs just to be able to keep a roof
over their heads because one full time, just
one full time job doesn't cut it.
I think this is what we're seeking...
But the poor are richer now than they were.
So if they're working two full time jobs,
it's because they wanted more stuff.
The cost of living.
Adjusted for the cost of living.
I disagree.
Even the poor.
If you look at the numbers of how many people
in this country are living paycheck to paycheck,
who are struggling...
People have always lived paycheck to paycheck.
Who are struggling, and with that one emergency,
whether it's a child's visit to the emergency
room or an unexpected expense that they have
to cover, they don't know if they're going
to be able to make the next month's rent.
It's terrible.
But to say you can't have any job because
McDonald's is going to automate rather than
pay 15 to...
That's whole new challenge
I think businesses are looking...
Do you want to stop them?
No, I think businesses are looking at automation,
not because we're trying to pass a $15 minimum
wage, but because they're trying to look at how
they can make their businesses run more efficiently.
Right?
Are they incentivized by your higher wage to...
No.
I think the automation revolution was coming
regardless of that.
And that's a different, bigger challenge that we
need to recognize both with the challenges
it presents, but also the opportunities that,
you know, if you're going into Taco Bell and
you're going and punching in your order on
a computer rather than standing at the cash
register, then perhaps you're freeing up that
labor to do other jobs that only a person can do.
So I think there's challenge and opportunity here.
I think there is a potential, but I'm looking more
into a universal basic income option
to be able to help deal both
with this automation revolution.
And the challenges that people are facing.
That would be giving every person regardless
a certain amount of money.
There are different models.
And this is, I'm looking at different models
of how this could work, where it has worked
and, and importantly, how do you pay for it?
You've never run a business.
You've never had to deal with hiring workers
and having to pay minimum wage.
You've always been in politics.
So many of you politicians
have never run a business.
Your father was a politician.
Let me stop you right there.
Because I grew up in,
my parents are teachers by trade and training.
That's not running a business.
And we grew up in our family's small business.
My parents started a restaurant.
I apologize.
All five of us kids, you know, took turns
sweeping floors, wiping tables and serving
food and experienced the challenges and the
hardships and also the rewards of a family
run business.
I appreciate that our small businesses are
the backbone of our economy.
They are the number one employer
of people in this country.
And I think that's one of the things that we
need to correct within our federal policies
is how currently, whether you're looking at tax
code, trade policy, our overall economic
policy, they overarchingly benefit the biggest
corporations who can afford to pay for those
lobbyists to come and say, Hey, you know,
you've got to change the language in this
bill or that bill to benefit this massive
corporation whereas small business owners,
they can't afford lobbyists.
They don't have time to think about, well,
who's advocating for us in Washington?
As a result, they don't have a voice.
And they can't afford the compliance officers
to understand all these lawyer laws.
Exactly.
Another major issue and this is something that
I will correct as President.
Given the background that my family comes
from, the experience that we've had going
through that together and recognizing how
important it is that we are empowering these
amazing people who are working hard every day
to create these jobs for our economy.
Well I apologize for not knowing you had the
family restaurant.
That's all right.
I'm glad we can have a civil argument about
some of these areas where we disagree.
Few politicians want to do that anymore
and I must say...
It's unfortunate, isn't it?
Of all the people polling over a percent,
you're the only one who so far has come and
sat down to talk.
This is a problem that we're seeing
in our political culture today is where people
are increasingly unwilling.
Our leaders are increasingly unwilling to
sit down with those who may be quote unquote
on the other team.
Even for those who are asking to lead our country,
and I think this is how we move forward together.
This is the kind of campaign that we're building,
the kind of leadership that I bring.
We're already, we're seeing Democrats, Republicans,
independents, libertarians showing support
coming out to our tent house, joining our
campaign saying, look, I love my country.
You love our country.
Let's come together as Americans with appreciation
for our Constitution, our freedoms, civil
liberties and rights and have this civil discourse
and dialogue about how we can
move forward together.
That would be good.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.