Dr Phil Confronts Me About Becoming A Republican

People have been critical of Trump now and others that I think practice diplomacy by having a relationship with dictators around the world. Do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing to have a rapport with somebody like Putin? It's a good thing. As our Commander-in-Chief, I would want that person to go and have a good rapport, to be able to pick up the phone and call Putin, call Kim Jong-un, call any leader in the world to advocate for our interests, for the interests of our country and our security. If you don't have that open line of communication, it's going to be very hard to deconflict those tensions and to have straight conversations about what's at stake and how to work through those things. President Obama refused to engage with Kim Jong-un, refused. The reason his administration gave was we don't want to reward Kim Jong-un with a meeting with President Obama. It always boggled my mind because it's not a reward. It's about our president advocating for our best interest to try to de-escalate those tensions and at that time to work towards denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. Was that attitude that Obama displayed then, was that a cornerstone of your disillusionment with the Democratic Party? I don't know that I would say it's a cornerstone, but it was one of the many reasons over time that kind of resulted in the conclusion of today's Democrat Party leadership cares more about their own self-interest and their own power than they do the interests of the American people. How so? Well, I'll give you the first example that I was confronted with as a freshman member of Congress. I was barely in office for, I don't know, six or seven months in 2013 and I was a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. It was August recess, so all the members were back home and working in their district. President Obama said that he was going to come to Congress to ask for authorization to go and launch an attack in Syria, the beginning of what would be another regime change war. I immediately went back to Washington. I did my due diligence and my research and I came to the conclusion that unfortunately they had no plan for what would happen next. They had no plan for what would any kind of retaliatory act look like, either against us or our friends in the region. It was astounding to me that after so many years of Iraq and Afghanistan that they were saying, hey, we want to go drop some bombs in another country and we don't think they'll respond. And I came out publicly against President Obama's course of action. I got a call within 24 hours and their response was not, hey, we know you've been deployed to the Middle East a couple of times. We know you have this experience. What are your concerns? They were not interested in substance at all. They admonished me for having the audacity to go against my president, the president of my party. And that was all they cared about was loyalty to President Obama and the party rather than actually what's in the best interest of the people and why I came out with the position. Also, I saw how they were doing their best to try to limit my ability to have impact, which is why ultimately I decided not to run for reelection to Congress. I felt that when I would introduce legislation, they would not allow it to see the light of day and that I could have more of an impact outside of the House of Representatives at that time than I could within a party that was not interested in the fundamentals of what it to be an active and thriving democracy. And how did that happen? What was the change agent? What pushed it off of what it was when you were enthralled with it? When you said, this is my home, what pushed it off of that? The biggest point where I saw and felt a major shift was when President Trump ran for office in 2016. I think it was already kind of starting to move in that direction. Like I said, with President Obama, it was 2013 at that time. They weren't interested in having Democrats who disagreed with the president, which was problematic in and of itself. And we saw the same under Republicans under President Bush, that they wouldn't go against their president even if they knew that his policy was wrong. We don't want blind followers of any political party. But the shift in President Trump's election was very significant, where all of a sudden, if any member disagreed with the Democrat party, you were told, well, if you don't go along with us, then you're supporting Trump. You're supporting this dictator, they said, this fascist, and all of the names that they threw out there. They threw out the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. There were all of these different tactics that they were using to try to force this total compliance, really through fear mongering. And this Russia, Russia, Russia thing, that splashed up on you. Yes, it did. Where did that come from? It came from this, I was going to say it came from Hillary Clinton. She was certainly the most high profile person to push it. But really, when you look now over time, it's something that comes from their tried and true playbook, where anyone, because it's Donald Trump, it's Bobby Kennedy, it's me, it's even Elon Musk, they're trotting it out right now in this election. They did it with the Hunter Biden laptop. It is the excuse that they use to try to discredit a person or information that they don't want voters to hear from or to see or be exposed to. So when you left the Democrat Party, you became independent. Are you now declaring yourself Republican? I am. And that's as of when? About a week ago. This is really recent. Yes. Okay. Why? Why go independent to Republican? The direction of the Republican Party has changed significantly. It started with President Trump's first term in office and has continued here in the last year and a half or so into being what we now see, which is really the big open tent party. The way that he welcomed Bobby Kennedy and me and Elon Musk and Danica Patrick, she's never voted in her life. And now she's coming out and she's supporting Donald Trump, really bringing people together, not because we all have passed some kind of arbitrary litmus test, but because we are committed to and very passionate about the most important issues to the American people that are rooted in our Constitution and our Bill of Rights. I've spoken about Donald Trump and did last night. And I said, I'm not here to stand up for Donald Trump. In fact, I don't agree with a lot of what he says or does, but nobody agrees with everything or likes everything somebody else says or does. But you don't have to love everything about someone in order to love them. I'm here to stand up for all the people getting bullied and ostracized and canceled and attacked because they stand up and say they're going to vote for one side or the other. And I wondered how everybody would respond to that because it was a very different speech, I think, than anybody else gave. It was. And I wondered how that crowd would respond to that. And I said, if your neighbor says they're going to vote for the other side, you should say, hey, that's OK. I still love you. Vote how you want to. Vote your conscience. It's OK. I still love you. We're all Americans. And you got a big applause to that line. I did. If you were an American on 9-12, stand up right now. If you were an American on 9-12, stand up right now. That's who we were. That's who we are. That sold out crowd at Madison Square Garden. Yeah. And I saw Melania and President Trump after that, and they both said, you know, that was great. You're calling for unity here. And we love that. It was a powerful message that you delivered. And you're right. It stood out and was very unique and different from many of the other speakers. And such an important one. I think it's so important. That's why I referenced 9-12. Yes. Not 9-11, 9-12, because the morning of 9-12, there weren't any Democrat or Republicans. We were all Americans. Everybody was an American. Somebody had attacked us, all of us. And when I was in Carolina a couple of weeks ago, helping with the hurricane recovery, there were neighbors helping neighbors. I mean, I was in a basement shoveling out mud and there were like 10 people doing a line of buckets going up the stairs. Nobody asked the person they were handing the bucket to, what's your affiliation? What are your pronouns? Who are you voting for? They just asked, just, hey, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And they all wore themselves out and sat under a tree together and talked. They were just all Americans helping a neighbor. It was America at its best. And I just hope we don't have to have some seismic event to remind us again that we're all in this together. It's okay to have differences. I would hate if we were all of one mind. How boring would that be? And you've got to have flint and steel to spark ideas. The same is true in just like your own personal relationships. Oh my God, I've been married 48 years. I would hate to be married to me. I want to be married to somebody who's different. A robot that just says, yes. Yes, dear. Yes, honey. That's again, where the things in our everyday lives that are real, where none of us agree on everything, but you love someone and you respect them. Even if you end up disagreeing and saying, you know what? Got it. You're coming from a different place. That's your right. But in the party that I left, that was the way it used to be. And that is no longer, that's no longer the case.