Tulsi Gabbard: ‘Permanent Washington Is Overrun with Liars and Opportunists Who Have No Problem Whatsoever Deceiving the American People’

Thursday, fill-in host Tulsi Gabbard opened FNC’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on the heels of her interview with Rep.-elect George Santos (R-NY) with a criticism of so-called “permanent Washington.”

Santos, who is embroiled in controversy for alleged misleading statements, was just one example of “liars and opportunists” that plagued Washington politics, according to Gabbard.

Partial transcript as follows:

GABBARD: Now, after that interview, we heard from a lot of people on all ends of the political spectrum. There were some conservatives who were suggesting that Santos’ lies paled in comparison to the lies told by top Democrats about their own personal lives. They also suggest that even if Santos is a liar, it’s better for the country if Republicans hold on to as many seats as possible in the House.

Now on the liberal side, this show received praise from outlets and people that are normally attacking us. Many are welcoming the Federal and local investigations into George Santos that have begun, even though it’s not quite yet clear what crime he may have committed.

Now, some of the architects of the Russia collusion hoax, like disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok were especially thrilled. In fact, Strzok is now on social media implying without any evidence, no surprise, that Santos may be a pawn of Russian intelligence.

Now, if you’re like most Americans, you care about the truth more than partisan politics. But unfortunately, there are too many politicians in cable news shows who only care about raw partisan political calculations, and that’s why they are not willing to call out anyone from their own team.

As a result, permanent Washington is overrun with liars and opportunists who have no problem whatsoever deceiving the American people, just to further their own interests.

Now, in our interview, George Santos invoked lies by Democrats as an excuse for his own lies. It’s not, it’s inexcusable. But at the same time, it is also true that many of the same Democrats who are gleeful about Santos being actually held accountable publicly for his lies are definitely silent about Joe Biden and his deceptions, about his own biography.

There’s too many to count, but here is just one.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, THEN CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I had the great honor of being arrested with our UN Ambassador on the streets of Soweto trying to get to see him and Robben Island.

One of the most saintly guys I ever knew because I was arrested trying to see him when I went down to South Africa, Nelson Mandela.

I came back from South Africa trying to see Nelson Mandela and getting arrested for trying to see him on Robben Island, he was in prison.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GABBARD: Now, Joe Biden didn’t just lie about being arrested as a Civil Rights activist, he also lied about having three undergraduate degrees, about finishing in the top half of his Law School class. He lied about his family’s history in the coal mines.

He has plagiarized speeches, and falsely claimed to have visited Afghanistan to see a “heroic naval officer.”

But he’s not alone. We can’t forget the time Hillary Clinton claimed to have landed in Iraq under heavy sniper fire in 2008.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER US SECRETARY OF STATE: I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GABBARD: When pictures emerged showing Hillary Clinton’s landing in Iraq, and there was no sniper fire, Hillary Clinton changed her story just to say she misspoke. Sounds familiar. This is just one of the many lies that she has told.

But the point here is, lying politicians are nothing new.

But George Santos’ lies are inexcusable, but let’s be real, he is a small fish in a sea of sharks in Washington who have been deceiving us for a very long time and at great cost and consequence to the American people, our security, and our freedom.

Every one of our elected leaders in Washington has taken an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. There is no greater form of disrespect of democracy and the Constitution and the American people than lying and attempting to deceive us. Yet we have far too many people leading our nation’s institutions in Congress, in the executive branch, in the National Security state, in the mainstream media, and in these Big Tech companies who actually believe that it’s acceptable to deceive us.

They often justify these deceptions by saying, as George Santos did on Tuesday, that the American people just can’t handle the truth, or that they know what’s best for us better than we do.

But when leaders use deception to manipulate us and to get what they want, then we the people can’t make informed decisions. That’s not a functioning democracy. That’s a dictatorship.

And remember the deception from the media, senior Intelligence officials, and Big Tech regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop just days before the 2020 election. Now they knew, this was a calculated decision, they knew that if voters actually saw what was on that laptop, then we might not vote for Joe Biden.

And a recent poll was just done actually confirmed that this concern was true, so they lied. They misled us. They said this is likely Russian misinformation and then they took it a step further and censored anyone who tried to share it.

This blatant deception directly undermined our election and our democracy. Now consider the lies that we were told by both Democrat and Republican administrations and leaders in The Pentagon, who for two decades told us we are winning the war in Afghanistan, send more troops, send more money.

These lies led to the deaths of 2,456 of my brothers and sisters in uniform, and sent thousands more home injured, spending more than $2 trillion of our taxpayer dollars to enrich the military industrial complex.

Now, President Bush and his administration, they lied to us all about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction as an excuse to start a costly war that resulted in more than 4,431 American lives lost and the rise of ISIS.

Of course, the big lies aren’t just used to justify foreign intervention and regime change wars. The FDA and the CDC, they lied to us and they told us you’ve got to take the vaccine in order to prevent us from getting or spreading COVID. Not true.

Tony Fauci, he lied to us about the efficacy of cloth masks and surgical masks, and he also lied under oath about his role in funding dangerous gain-of-function research in Wuhan.

There are more examples: James Clapper, he lied under oath about collecting data on US citizens. John Brennan lied to Congress about illegally tapping US Senators’ phones. The FBI, the Department of Justice, they lied and pretended the Steele dossier was credible kickstarting the Russia collusion hoax.

The FBI went on to use that very same dossier, as well as other falsified information to obtain secret surveillance warrants to illegally spy on American citizens.

These people have created a culture where lies and deceit are normalized, they’re acceptable, even justified in their own minds. And all of these examples that I’ve cited, they’ve expressed no remorse, and there has been no accountability. The

survival of our democracy depends on our ability, we, the people’s ability to trust that those who lead these institutions in our society, like I said, in Congress, the executive branch, the security state, as well as in the mainstream media, and Big Tech, they must be led by people of integrity, who are committed to protecting our democracy and our freedom, and serving the best interests of the American people, and our country.

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