Taken from JRE #2032 w/Tulsi Gabbard & BJ Penn:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4YISdEZnBsUL0y2VwodK5b?si=b01852400dbd47c0

They know what they're doing out there, right?

Well, I mean, Tulsa can speak to that better than anybody.

I may have met him in passing, But this has been 1 of the big failures around the aftermath of the wildfire on Maui is this total vacuum of information from government officials to the people.

And in that vacuum, Obviously, people have all kinds of ideas or theories or this or that, but people were left without any kind of communication from anyone in a position of authority to provide help for days and weeks.

And so, you know, the immediate line of response needed to come from the county and from the mayor and from their emergency response director and unfortunately they did not communicate.

There's still a huge lack of transparency and therefore an increasing level of distrust in any of the levels of government that should be bending over backward to answer questions and to say, hey, here's what's going on every single day.

Here's what we're having a hard time doing.

Whatever the case may be, it has just, it's been a major problem from the beginning.

Do you think that this is a complete lack, because of a complete lack of preparedness, that this is an unprecedented type of disaster, never happened before, It happens and they just weren't prepared.

And there's, you know, in hindsight, there are things going back as, you know, Maui has experienced drought year after year after year.

Brush fires are a common occurrence, especially on the west side of Maui where Lahaina is, the side of the island that was most impacted by this.

You know, it is, you know, being prepared for wildfires on Maui is something that if you look at their, you know, emergency assessment documents, it's mentioned almost as, as a bit of an afterthought.

Maui fire has been vastly undermanned and under-resourced for quite some time.

So there's all these different things you can look at from a preparedness level that should have been addressed long before, but from, you know, the, you know, the county officials, yes, they were completely overwhelmed and unprepared for this unprecedented wildfire.

It's the worst wildfire our country has seen in over a hundred years.

But the problem is once you get to that point like, oh shit, this is really, really, really bad.

Not only in in the hundreds of lives lost in that fire, but the surrounding communities of people who survived, but who went without power, who went without any cell phone signal, any ability to communicate with people, who didn't have, you know, all of the gas stations in their neighborhood, they were empty.

The water supply systems were contaminated.

I mean, all of their, there was disaster upon disaster that came in the aftermath of the fire that went unaddressed.

And my biggest, I went there a few days after the fire happened.

Maui was my district for 8 years when I served in Congress and had a lot of friends there and went out to those affected communities.

And what I heard over and over again was, no 1 from the county, the state, or the federal government has shown their face in our community.

It is neighbors helping neighbors, families helping families, people on the island of Molokai, which you know, they don't have much on their island.

They're loading up whatever they have in their general store on these little boats and running them over to West Maui on a private boat dock because that was the only place that they wouldn't be blocked from bringing food and water and medical supplies.

I keep hearing that about people being blocked.

Is it because they haven't gotten an accurate death count?

Is it because they have to make an assessment of how much was damaged and it's so massive, it's so vast that they haven't been able to do that yet.

Things are, things are being opened up now.

I think people are able to get in and out of the West Maui area.

I understand that the historic town of Lahaina is still being blocked off and they're working on reopening it as we speak, but in the couple of weeks after the fire, I don't have a good answer why they continue to block the roads, again, to those surrounding communities, why they had, why they blocked people like Kai Lenny and others from using their jet skis and boats to try to bring supplies in through the water.

You could say, well, we were trying to secure the area, but you're blocking, you're blocking friends and family from coming in and bringing necessary supplies, literally doing supply runs.

So, you know, I jumped on a plane that was doing supply runs from Kahului, the main airport on Maui, out to this tiny little airport that serves that community, and that was for a lot of days the only way that they could get supplies brought in.

But again, this goes back to why aren't you communicating to people what's going on and why you're doing what you're doing?

The result of their decisions left people and families and communities stranded in their most dire time of need.

And the mayor didn't go out and show his face until almost 2 weeks after the fire happened.

And then says he wants to take the land for the state.

Now this is 1 of the reasons we want to talk about this.

Like how is that possible that these people could lose their home and then lose their land?

the number 1 concern of people there in Lahaina is that a few days after this happened, I haven't spoken to the governor, but he said in a press conference, he said, we're talking to the attorney general.

He said, I'm talking to my attorney general to explore options for the state to take over that land and use it to build workforce housing or build a memorial for the people who lost their lives, but the fears that the people in Lahaina have, some of whom like Archie Kalepa, famous surfer, community leader, Native Hawaiian leaders, family has lived in Lahaina for 9 generations, now being told, well, the state, the governor, is looking at taking that land, taking ownership of that land, that it is unconscionable.

And there's, oh, you know, we'll, you know, for those who've been displaced, we'll see about doing a land swap and we'll send you to the big island to live in Puna.

It's taking away the sovereignty of people's rights to have a say over their home, in many cases their generational lands, is, it is such an abuse of power.

And so this is, and I'm glad that there are leaders in the community who are leaning into this fight to make sure that they are fighting this fight before anybody tries to do that rather than looking in the rearview mirror and saying gosh I wish we had done something.

But just imagine a governor going on television after a massive tragedy where you have, we don't even know the number of people dead yet.

You have this massive area that's been burned to the ground.

And then he starts talking about taking it over for them for the state That's an insane position to take it is post-tragedy when people are suffering at their most they can't even believe it happened Yeah, and then all of a sudden he's saying we're gonna take it for the state and make a Memorial how about give the fucking people their homes back?

1 of the things we went over yesterday Which is a crazy number we were looking at the amount of money that was Accidentally sent to Ukraine like they they they over sent 6000000000 And then I said well how much would it cost to rebuild every house in the Maui fire?

The way, the way, and it has, it's happened 2 or 3 times now where the Pentagon has said, oh, we miscalculated how much money we had set aside for Ukraine.

So we have an extra 4000000000 to send now that we didn't know we had.

Secretary of State Tony Blinken went to Kiev yesterday promising, hey, we're going to give you another billion now.

And this is the thing, when I was out there in Maui, person after person was like, Tulsi, tell me what would happen if we started to call ourselves Ukraine, you think they would give us some money then to take care of our families, to fix our roofs, you know, that have been torn up by the hurricane winds that came through to make sure we have clean water to drink?

You think they might pay attention to us then?

And then FEMA comes out, the FEMA director comes out and does this press conference, I think it was at the White House.

And she says, someone said, well, what are you doing for Maui?

She's like, oh, we're giving a one-time $700 payment to everybody who's been impacted by the wildfire, a one-time $700 payment.

Hawaii has the highest cost of living in the entire country, the entire country.

And how freaking insulting is it to have the reprise, the lead disaster response administrator from the Biden administration stand there and proudly say, hey we're giving everybody 1 $700 payment.

It's insane and it's insane especially because of how much money we're sending to Ukraine.

Because there's there can be no doubt that these things are financially motivated now.


Speaker 0: The Joe Rogan experience. They know what they're doing out there, right? The people in office, you know? Well, I mean, Tulsa can speak to that better than anybody.

Speaker 1: I don't know Mayor Biss. I may have met him in passing, But this has been 1 of the big failures around the aftermath of the wildfire on Maui is this total vacuum of information from government officials to the people. And in that vacuum, Obviously, people have all kinds of ideas or theories or this or that, but people were left without any kind of communication from anyone in a position of authority to provide help for days and weeks. And it created massive problems. And so, you know, the immediate line of response needed to come from the county and from the mayor and from their emergency response director and unfortunately they did not communicate.

They're still not communicating. There's still a huge lack of transparency and therefore an increasing level of distrust in any of the levels of government that should be bending over backward to answer questions and to say, hey, here's what's going on every single day. Here's what we're doing. Here's what we're trying to do. Here's what we're having a hard time doing.

Whatever the case may be, it has just, it's been a major problem from the beginning.

Speaker 0: Do you think that this is a complete lack, because of a complete lack of preparedness, that this is an unprecedented type of disaster, never happened before, It happens and they just weren't prepared. They don't know what to do. And they just, it's incompetence.

Speaker 1: I think that is very true. And there's, you know, in hindsight, there are things going back as, you know, Maui has experienced drought year after year after year. Brush fires are a common occurrence, especially on the west side of Maui where Lahaina is, the side of the island that was most impacted by this. You know, it is, you know, being prepared for wildfires on Maui is something that if you look at their, you know, emergency assessment documents, it's mentioned almost as, as a bit of an afterthought. Maui fire has been vastly undermanned and under-resourced for quite some time.

So there's all these different things you can look at from a preparedness level that should have been addressed long before, but from, you know, the, you know, the county officials, yes, they were completely overwhelmed and unprepared for this unprecedented wildfire. It's the worst wildfire our country has seen in over a hundred years. But the problem is once you get to that point like, oh shit, this is really, really, really bad. Not only in in the hundreds of lives lost in that fire, but the surrounding communities of people who survived, but who went without power, who went without any cell phone signal, any ability to communicate with people, who didn't have, you know, all of the gas stations in their neighborhood, they were empty. There was no way to get gas.

They couldn't get food. They couldn't get clean water. The water supply systems were contaminated. I mean, all of their, there was disaster upon disaster that came in the aftermath of the fire that went unaddressed. And my biggest, I went there a few days after the fire happened.

Maui was my district for 8 years when I served in Congress and had a lot of friends there and went out to those affected communities. And what I heard over and over again was, no 1 from the county, the state, or the federal government has shown their face in our community. It is neighbors helping neighbors, families helping families, people on the island of Molokai, which you know, they don't have much on their island. Everything comes in by barge. They're loading up whatever they have in their general store on these little boats and running them over to West Maui on a private boat dock because that was the only place that they wouldn't be blocked from bringing food and water and medical supplies.

Speaker 0: Now why are people being blocked? I keep hearing that about people being blocked. Is it because they haven't gotten an accurate death count? Is it because they have to make an assessment of how much was damaged and it's so massive, it's so vast that they haven't been able to do that yet. Like why is it being

Speaker 1: blocked? Things are, things are being opened up now. I think people are able to get in and out of the West Maui area. I understand that the historic town of Lahaina is still being blocked off and they're working on reopening it as we speak, but in the couple of weeks after the fire, I don't have a good answer why they continue to block the roads, again, to those surrounding communities, why they had, why they blocked people like Kai Lenny and others from using their jet skis and boats to try to bring supplies in through the water. You could say, well, we were trying to secure the area, but you're blocking, you're blocking friends and family from coming in and bringing necessary supplies, literally doing supply runs.

So, you know, I jumped on a plane that was doing supply runs from Kahului, the main airport on Maui, out to this tiny little airport that serves that community, and that was for a lot of days the only way that they could get supplies brought in. I don't know. I really don't know. But again, this goes back to why aren't you communicating to people what's going on and why you're doing what you're doing? The result of their decisions left people and families and communities stranded in their most dire time of need.

And the mayor didn't go out and show his face until almost 2 weeks after the fire happened.

Speaker 0: That's insane.

Speaker 1: It's crazy.

Speaker 0: And then says he wants to take the land for the state. That's his first. Now this is 1 of the reasons we want to talk about this. Like how is that possible that these people could lose their home and then lose their land? How is that possible?

It is

Speaker 1: the number 1 concern of people there in Lahaina is that a few days after this happened, I haven't spoken to the governor, but he said in a press conference, he said, we're talking to the attorney general. He said, I'm talking to my attorney general to explore options for the state to take over that land and use it to build workforce housing or build a memorial for the people who lost their lives, but the fears that the people in Lahaina have, some of whom like Archie Kalepa, famous surfer, community leader, Native Hawaiian leaders, family has lived in Lahaina for 9 generations, now being told, well, the state, the governor, is looking at taking that land, taking ownership of that land, that it is unconscionable. And there's, oh, you know, we'll, you know, for those who've been displaced, we'll see about doing a land swap and we'll send you to the big island to live in Puna. Jesus. It's taking away the sovereignty of people's rights to have a say over their home, in many cases their generational lands, is, it is such an abuse of power.

And so this is, and I'm glad that there are leaders in the community who are leaning into this fight to make sure that they are fighting this fight before anybody tries to do that rather than looking in the rearview mirror and saying gosh I wish we had done something.

Speaker 0: But just imagine a governor going on television after a massive tragedy where you have, we don't even know the number of people dead yet. You have this massive area that's been burned to the ground. And then he starts talking about taking it over for them for the state That's an insane position to take it is post-tragedy when people are suffering at their most they can't even believe it happened Yeah, and then all of a sudden he's saying we're gonna take it for the state and make a Memorial how about give the fucking people their homes back? 1 of the things we went over yesterday Which is a crazy number we were looking at the amount of money that was Accidentally sent to Ukraine like they they they over sent 6000000000 And then I said well how much would it cost to rebuild every house in the Maui fire? And it's 5 billion, 5 billion something.

Like that's just like accidental money. But there's no talk of doing that. There's no talk of doing that. Is that interesting?

Speaker 1: The way, the way, and it has, it's happened 2 or 3 times now where the Pentagon has said, oh, we miscalculated how much money we had set aside for Ukraine. So we have an extra 4000000000 to send now that we didn't know we had. And this has happened a few times. Secretary of State Tony Blinken went to Kiev yesterday promising, hey, we're going to give you another billion now. And this is the thing, when I was out there in Maui, person after person was like, Tulsi, tell me what would happen if we started to call ourselves Ukraine, you think they would give us some money then to take care of our families, to fix our roofs, you know, that have been torn up by the hurricane winds that came through to make sure we have clean water to drink?

You think they might pay attention to us then? And then FEMA comes out, the FEMA director comes out and does this press conference, I think it was at the White House. And she says, someone said, well, what are you doing for Maui? She's like, oh, we're giving a one-time $700 payment to everybody who's been impacted by the wildfire, a one-time $700 payment.

Speaker 0: It's insane.

Speaker 1: Hawaii has the highest cost of living in the entire country, the entire country. And how freaking insulting is it to have the reprise, the lead disaster response administrator from the Biden administration stand there and proudly say, hey we're giving everybody 1 $700 payment.

Speaker 0: It's insane and it's insane especially because of how much money we're sending to Ukraine. Yeah. Because there's there can be no doubt that these things are financially motivated now.

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Tulsi Gabbard on the Response to the Maui Wildfires