Tulsi Gabbard on the Joe Rogan Experience #1880, fact-checked

What the evidence shows: Rogan claims typical student loan borrowers owe $150,000-$200,000 and that some have Social Security benefits garnished in their 60s over unpaid loans. The garnishment claim is accurate: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has documented that the government can withhold up to 15% of Social Security retirement or disability benefits from borrowers in default on federal student loans, and found the number of older borrowers subject to this offset grew substantially over the 2000s and 2010s. However, the debt-amount figure is a significant exaggeration for a typical case: Federal Reserve survey data show the median outstanding balance among borrowers with education debt was $20,000-$24,999 in 2024, with 28% owing less than $10,000. Debts in the $150,000-$200,000 range exist but are concentrated among a small share of borrowers, largely those with graduate or professional degrees, not the typical borrower Rogan describes. Overall, the garnishment mechanism is real and well-documented, but the dollar figures cited are far above what most affected borrowers, and most borrowers generally, actually owe.

What the evidence shows: Mostly supported. Our World in Data (ourworldindata.org, on-allowlist, drawing on FAS data) confirms the core of Gabbard's claim: nine countries have nuclear weapons but "over 80% of warheads are held by just two: Russia and the United States," and both hold "thousands" while others hold "dozens or a few hundred." OWID tracks two metrics that reconcile Gabbard's specific figures. On a total-inventory basis (which includes retired warheads awaiting dismantlement) the mid-2022 counts were roughly Russia ~5,977 and US ~5,428, matching her "over 6,000" (a slight round-up, actual figure was just under 6,000) and "over 5,000," and the two together are ~90% of the world's ~12,700-warhead inventory. On a stockpile basis (excluding retired warheads) OWID's data insight lists Russia 4,299 and US 3,700, and headlines the combined share as "over 80%," not 90%. So Gabbard's numbers are internally consistent with the total-inventory measure: the ~6,000 / ~5,000 counts and the 90% share both hold for total inventory. The imprecision is that she blends the inventory magnitudes with a share that is 90% for inventory but closer to 80-86% for the deployable stockpile, and "over 6,000" slightly overstates Russia's ~5,977. The magnitudes and the "vast majority held by two countries" thrust are sound.

What the evidence shows: Gabbard stated that the 2022 U.S. defense budget was $1.7 trillion. Official Department of Defense budget documents show the FY2022 DoD budget request was $715 billion, and the total national defense request (including Department of Energy nuclear programs) was $753 billion. The National Defense Authorization Act signed into law in December 2021 authorized $768.2 billion in national defense spending, including $740 billion for DoD programs; the companion appropriations bill later enacted roughly $777-782 billion in actual defense spending for the fiscal year. None of these figures approach $1.7 trillion; the actual FY2022 defense budget was less than half the amount Gabbard cited. There is no standard accounting of U.S. defense or military spending for FY2022, even including veterans' benefits and homeland security, that reaches $1.7 trillion in a single year.

What the evidence shows: The claim has two parts. The assertion that the United States and New Zealand are the only two countries permitting direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising of prescription drugs is well-supported: comparative research on DTC regulation consistently identifies the U.S. and New Zealand as the sole jurisdictions that allow product-claim DTC advertising, while most other countries, including Switzerland and the rest of the OECD, prohibit or tightly restrict it. The 75% figure for pharmaceutical companies' share of all television advertising is not supported by industry ad-spend data. Ad-monitoring sources put pharmaceutical and over-the-counter drug brands at roughly 13-14% of total U.S. national linear TV ad spending in 2025, and a single-digit-to-teens share of total ad airtime/impressions in recent years, far below 75%. Pharma is nonetheless a disproportionately large TV advertiser relative to other single industries, and documented DTC ad spending for prescription drugs runs into the billions of dollars annually with television as the majority channel. Separately, content analyses of drug commercials have found a substantial proportion of claims in these ads to be potentially misleading, an issue distinct from the ad-volume statistic.