Episode 1295: Tulsi Gabbard | The Brogan Report

Why This Episode Is Problematic

Tulsi Gabbard, then a U.S. Representative from Hawaii and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, used this platform to defend her 2017 meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and to amplify skepticism about confirmed chemical weapons attacks attributed to the Assad regime. Joe Rogan offered little pushback.

TL;DR: Gabbard cast doubt on UN- and OPCW-verified chemical weapons attacks by the Assad regime, and Rogan platformed the chemical-attack skepticism without meaningful challenge.

Key Problematic Claims

1. Skepticism About Assad’s Chemical Weapons Attacks

Gabbard suggested that the 2017 Khan Sheikhoun and 2018 Douma chemical attacks “may have been staged by opposition forces.”

What the evidence says:

OPCW Fact-Finding Mission (2017): Confirmed sarin was used in Khan Shaykhun on April 4, 2017. OPCW
OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism: Attributed responsibility to the Syrian government; sarin markers matched the Syrian state stockpile. Wikipedia summary of JIM findings
UN Commission of Inquiry (2017): Concluded the Syrian Air Force dropped sarin on Khan Sheikhoun, killing dozens, mostly women and children. Human Rights Watch
Bellingcat analysis (2019): Found Gabbard’s reports on the chemical attacks to be “a self-contradictory, error-filled mess.” Bellingcat

Why it matters: Casting doubt on documented war crimes provides cover for an authoritarian regime responsible for hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths.

2. Defense of Meeting With Assad

Gabbard told Rogan she accepted an invitation to meet Assad because leaders must “have the courage to meet with friends or adversaries.”

Context:

The 2017 trip was privately funded and arranged in part by a U.S.-based group with documented ties to the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. Washington Post
Gabbard has repeatedly declined to call Assad a war criminal. Axios
By 2019, Assad’s regime was documented by the UN as responsible for mass civilian deaths, barrel bombings, and the systematic use of torture.

Why it matters: Framing a fact-finding meeting with a dictator as principled diplomacy normalizes engagement with documented human rights abusers without consequence.

3. Attacks on Critics as “Smears”

Gabbard dismissed the “Assad apologist” label as “the usual tactic of trying to smear or vilify me.”

The label is based on documented behavior, not rhetoric:

She voted “present” rather than condemn Assad’s documented war crimes.
She voted against legislation supporting Syrian refugees.
She publicly amplified pro-regime narratives about the chemical attacks.
See: Al Jazeera

Joe Rogan’s Role

Rogan’s interview style here is a textbook example of his platform problem.

He framed Gabbard sympathetically as an anti-war truth-teller without seriously engaging the chemical weapons evidence.
He did not push back on her suggestion that documented sarin attacks may have been staged.
He did not ask about OPCW or UN findings, or about why Gabbard would dispute the consensus of international investigators.
He treated her Assad meeting as a brave diplomatic gesture rather than asking the hard questions about who arranged it and why.

This pattern — adopting the guest’s framing wholesale on foreign policy — gave Gabbard a multi-hour platform to launder chemical-attack skepticism to millions of listeners.

Real-World Harm

Chemical-weapons-attack denialism, amplified across major platforms, has been used by the Assad regime and its Russian backers to deflect accountability. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Survivors and families of victims of Khan Sheikhoun and Douma have explicitly objected to the public spread of conspiracy framing around the attacks.
The Rogan platform helped normalize Gabbard’s Syria positions during her 2020 presidential run and beyond.

Bottom Line

This is not an anti-war conversation being suppressed by the establishment. It is a sitting member of Congress using a massive platform to cast doubt on documented war crimes, with a host who declined to push back. That earns this episode a problematic classification.