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A
I got a call coming in at 12, so we'll try to be punctual. And I'll try not to filibuster you.
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B
Okay. I can always try to, you know, land the. Help you land the plane if we.
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A
That's a good idea.
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B
Just go too far afield.
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A
Give me that when I'm gone too long.
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C
Hello, and welcome to the GD Politics Podcast. Hi, I'm Galen Dreek. My favorite interviews with politicians usually happen after they've won their last race and can reflect on their time in office and the complexities of politics and the world. Candidly, today you're going to hear such an interview from former Governor of Texas and former Secretary of Energy Rick Perry. We begin by talking about the heated Senate primary currently going on in his home state. The former governor has thrown his support behind incumbent Senator John Cornyn and and doesn't shy away from criticisms of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, or the Democratic side for that matter. We then turn to a more personal matter, which is Governor Perry's experience with the psychoactive drug ibogaine and his advocacy for its use in treating things like addiction, ptsd, brain trauma, and cognitive decline. It may seem like a counterintuitive position for a social conservative, and we get into that. We end by talking about the moment during the 2012 Republican presidential primary debate when Perry forgot the name of one
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B
of the agencies he intended to shutter as president, the Department of Energy.
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C
It became something of a viral moment at the time. But in this interview, we talk about what was going on in his personal life behind the scenes, which he describes as the most difficult six months of his life.
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B
Alright, here's the interview. Governor Perry, welcome to the podcast.
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A
It's a pleasure to be with you. Thank you.
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B
I'm catching you at an interesting time in Texas politics. We're less than two weeks away from the Texas primary. Early voting has already begun, particularly in the Senate. There's a heated contest on both sides of the aisle. Now, you've endorsed Senator John Cornyn, who's running for a fifth term against Congressman Wesley Hunt and State Attorney General General Ken Paxton. Just to start, I mean, I have a lot of questions here, but why did you throw your support behind Senator Cornyn?
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A
Character counts. Ronald Reagan said that. And as a matter of fact, I came to the Republican Party. I grew up a conservative Democrat in a very rural part of Texas and north kind of north central Texas, and was elected to the state House as a Democrat. And then I've found that my politics and my beliefs didn't mesh with then Democrat party and particularly on pro life issues and then subsequently on some economic issues. And so Ronald Reagan made it okay for people like me to become a Republican. And in the late 80s I switched political parties and I made both political parties happy. The day that I left the Democrat party and joined the Republican Party, I think the Democrats were kind of happy to get rid of me and I was happy to join the Republican party and they were happy to have me. So my, my point with setting that standard is Ronald Reagan and his both philosophy and character were what brought me to the Republican Party in the late 80s. And Reagan often talked about character counting. And listen, you stay in public office for 40 years, you can always gonna find somebody that's not happy with how you voted or what have you. I get that. But this is a pretty easy choice for me. The character of John Carnan versus the character of Ken Paxton. And end of story, there's no comparison. John is a faithful, loyal individual in both his public and his private life. Politically, he is an old school Republican conservative, Ronald Reagan conservative. And he's a senior member of the United States Senate, which is, you know, just from the blocking and tackling side of politics, a good thing to have a senior senator who is very well plugged in Washington D.C. yeah, I mean,
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B
this race is harder for Cornyn than one might have expected. I mean, you look at the amount of money spent, Cornyn and groups supporting him have spent more than 50 million. You know, Ken Paxton and his aligned groups has spent, you know, single digit millions. The polling averages right now show Paxton slightly ahead. A recent University of Houston poll showed Paxton seven points ahead. I mean, what's going on here? Why is a scandal and controversy plagued Paxton giving Cornyn a tough primary?
- [05:24]
A
I really can't answer that. It kind of goes against your common sense. It goes against historical presidents and you know, I will. We'll see, I guess is the answer. But for me and for my observations, this is the classic no brainer. Who's best for Texas, who can best deliver for Texas? I think John Cornyn, head and shoulders. But here's what it really gets down to is do you care about character? I mean, if you don't, then that's okay. You know, that's your call. You got that one vote, you can go do what you want. But when you go in the bathroom tonight and you look in that mirror and you make the decision, do I want to have someone who has clearly been immoral, unethical and illegal representing me in the United States Senate, to the
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B
question of character in general. It's hard for me to imagine a primary like this happening during your time as governor of Texas. It was maybe something of a different era. Traditional Republicans used to have a lot of sway in Texas. You could argue that they produced two presidents. What happened to the influence of that, more say, traditional Republican part of the party that would give Ken Paxton this kind of an opening here?
- [07:01]
A
I can't answer that other than I just was visiting with a New York Times reporter about this issue. Um, we do a Bible study every Wednesday morning. When I say we, this goes back to 2017 and the members of the Trump cabinet, Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0. The cabinet that's in place now. Every Wednesday morning, we have a Bible study taught by the same people who teach the Congressional Bible Study and the Senate Bible Study. So having that biblical basis, I think is really important for, from my perspective, not just your political standpoint, but from your, your day to day life. And we have a set of standards. I tell people the Bible's kind of like a checklist that a pilot would use. I was a pilot in the United States Air Force. So they pounded in the bus. Use the checklist. Use the checklist. It will save your life. It will save the people's lives who are in your airplane. The point is, the Bible is that checklist. So if the Republican Party is going to be the party of Judeo Christian value, then having someone who basically has flaunted those rules and regulations, whether it's standing up in front of God and saying, I will be faithful to you until death do us part, which he obviously failed at. Whether it's eight senior members of his staff. I'm talking about Paxton here, who stood up and said, this guy has broken the laws of the state of Texas and the federal government and we can't work for you anymore. I mean, that is a. A damning indictment.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Eight of the people. Eight of the people who you hired at your senior level. I'll give you an example. I was a statewide elected official from 1991 until 2015. Do the math. How many years is that, huh? 35? No, pretty long. 25. There we go. 25 years. A quarter of a century. I will suggest to you, if you went back and you talked to the senior staff people that work for me, you couldn't find one person who would stand up and say, you know what? I'm not going to work for this guy anymore because he is immoral, ill, ethical or illegal. Not one. And here you have Eight. This is really important. I mean, your folks need to really think about this. If you got a person who's saying, don't worry about that, trust me, next time I'm going to do a better job of hiring people, or I'm not going to. I don't think you can overcome that. Or if you're willing to basically say, you know what? I just don't like this Carnan guy so much that I'm willing to take this absolutely flawed candidate. I don't get that. Yeah. You know, and there, there may be a lot of people that decide that that's what they want to do, and that's their right. They got a. Their. Their right to vote. But as I said, and I'll finish with this, when they go in there and they look in the mirror and they see the reflection, they gotta be honest with themselves. Am I really picking the individual that is going to be reflective of what I believe in? And am I really going to trust this individual to not cheat on me, to cheat on the laws, cheat on the moral standards that we expect in our everyday lives?
- [11:03]
B
Yeah, you know, I don't want. I want to talk about Texas, and I don't want this to become too much about the president, but, you know, we're talking about changes within the Republican Party and, you know, having experience in government where the people who work for you say they would never work for you again, and, you know, questions of moral character. And, I mean, do you think that part of Paxton's appeal is the result of the direction that President Trump has brought the party in, where it's a lot about symbolic conflict and maybe a little bit less about policy results at times?
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A
I, I don't know. And, and this, this election's not about Trump, obviously. President Trump is not endorsed in this race. He is not endorsed in this race. As a matter of fact, he has made the statement that he knows all three of them, likes all three of them, all three of them have supported him. So in my opinion, he's a non factor here. This is about John Cornyn and his character and Paxton and his character. It's really that simple for me. Now, it may be, if you want to make it substantially more complex and go find a vote somewhere that you don't agree with, that's your call. But for me, this gets down to the simple fact of one of these candidates is an individual who has proven for 40 years that he is morally, ethically and legally sound versus an individual who over the course of his political life has basically said you can't trust me in my personal life. You can't trust me over here dealing with ethical issues. And you might think I have some legal problems as well, but I've been able to manage my way through them. I, for one, would rather have a person I can trust may not agree with them a hundred percent of the time, but when you find the political person that you agree with, 100 is fine. Give me a call.
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B
You'll be the first. Yeah, I mean, you mentioned that this isn't really about Trump. I think some people might argue about the direction of the Republican Party being driven by Trump. But put that aside. John Cornyn has voted with the President, you know, 99% of the time in the most recent Senate. So, you know, why hasn't Trump endorsed? Like, would you. Do you want to see Trump endorse Cornyn?
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A
Listen, I think Texans are. I've been on. I've been on both sides of. Of President Trump. I've been for people that President Trump was for. I've been for people that President Trump was against.
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B
I think just about everyone at this point has been on both sides of
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A
President Trump, and that's the way. I'm not trying to downplay the president's support here. If he were to give it to someone, I don't know how that would play out. But my point is, I don't think this is about Donald Trump. I think this is about Texas. And what is the Republican primary voter going to decide about the direction that they want the Republican Party to be and a reflection of what they want the Republican Party to be.
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B
And if Paxton does win in that case, like, what message does that send? Like, if this is about the future of the Texas Republican Party and. And Paxton wins, what does that tell you?
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A
Well, you know, from my perspective, I don't think it's a. It's a. I don't think it's a good message. I think the idea that this. That the character doesn't count. I mean, if you want that to be your bumper sticker, good luck. Yeah.
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B
Okay. I want to talk for a second about the Democratic side, because that's also interesting. My sense is that most democracy Democrats who work in politics believe that James Talarico has a better chance of winning a statewide race in Texas than Jasmine Crockett. Obviously, this is not. You don't have necessarily a dog in this fight, but ultimately you want Republicans to win in November. Do you think folks who put more faith in James Talarico as a statewide candidate are right in that assessment?
- [15:39]
A
You know, I'm going to have to leave the, the Democrat primary to the, to the Democrat voters. They, they got to decide. You know, I, I could sit here and critique all of the candidates or I'd say all the candidates. Crockett, Calorico. I think they're, they're both equally flawed and I think Texans are, you know, it's a fascinating phenomena. And this has been going on for 25 years, since my first run for a full term for governor in 2002. The media was all frothing at the mouth of, oh, you know, we're, you know, we're going to get the state back into Democrat hands because they had this little dalliance with this Bush guy. Now he's gone and, you know, Perry's kind of a accidental governor anyway. You know, he just, you know, kind of slipped in there as lieutenant governor and then Bush went on to be the president. And so we got Tony Sanchez, who's running, who's a multi billionaire or multimillionaire business guy, oil and gas guy, and he's going to self fund, put 80 to $100 million in it and we'll get the state back. It's, you know, we are, we've historically been a Democrat state and we're going to get back to it. Every election cycle we hear that. Every election cycle, you know, it did. And, and that's true for this one. I will be very surprised, stunned, even a better word, if the Democrats were able to win a statewide elected position unless we pick a massively flawed candidate, which potentially could happen here. But my instinct is that's not going to happen. John Cornyn will be our nominee. And whether they pick a flawed individual as Jasmine Crockett or a flawed individual like Talarico, the Republicans will win.
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B
I want to ask one more question about the Democrats because you talked about your Bible study and the importance of the Judeo Christian faith guiding you in politics as well. Talarico has leaned pretty heavily into his Christian faith in his political appeals. He's a pastor in training. Do you think there's anything admirable about Talarico's approach in that regard?
- [18:26]
A
I would say that he needs to walk into that room where that mirror is and really ask whether or not he can profess a faith in Christianity and support abortions.
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B
And is that really the main sort of sticky.
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A
You asked me, you asked me what my position would be. My advice to him would be, you know, is your mortal soul worth more than your political position, your political win, your will to be The United States Senator on the Democrat side. And if you do not pray at the altar of pro choice, pro abortion, you're not going to get the nod. And the Democrat ticket. So I can't find it in my. I left the Democrat party in the, in the, in the 80s because I saw a party that was so beholding to the pro abortion position. And as a individual who will stand up in front of a group of people and professor Christianity and to be pro abortion does not. To me, those two don't mix. So, you know, you gotta pick one or the other.
- [19:59]
B
I wanna, I'll come back to some political questions of the day, but I wanna talk about an issue that you're particularly passionate about. And in fact, I first reached out to your team because I read a profile of you in the New York Times Times describing your experience with ibogaine, which is a naturally occurring psychedelic drug currently illegal in the US that's being studied.
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A
Actually, just to clarify for you, it's not a psychedelic drug, it's a psychoactive drug.
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B
Psychoactive.
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A
It's an.1 origin and there's a difference.
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B
No. Thank you for catching me. And we'll get into that. But I just want to say. So it's currently illegal in the US but it's being studied as a treatment for things like addiction, ptsd, brain trauma and cognitive decline. And you took this drug yourself in Mexico, where it's not prohibited. And so I want to talk a little bit about your experience. I mean, we can, we can get into the fact of, you know, how do you bridge the divide between social conservatism and interest in descheduling or researching these kinds of drugs? But first I just want to talk about, like, what your actual experience was. I mean, what led you to want to try ibogaine?
- [21:08]
A
There was some indications early on that the compound ibogaine, which is a naturally occurring shrub tree from central Gabon, which has been used over there for centuries as a rite of passage, a spiritual compound. And it showed up in the Americas, in the west in the late 1960s. Kind of got swept up with everything else. When the Nixon administration was going after, they had two groups that they didn't like. They didn't like blacks, they didn't like hippies. And so he had his FDA to go after those individuals who were using cannabis, using lsd, using psilocybin, all these, these other compounds, some psychedelic, some. And, and they were, they were, they were deemed to be compounds. And listen, I've never been and never will be in favor of the Legalization of these compounds used outside of the medical realm. Um, you know, recreational use of drugs. Not far, not ever gonna be far, but studying them and finding out if there are some areas of assistance relative to mental health, let's say depression, anxiety, or in the case of ibogaine for regenerative. And when we talk about regenerative, I'm talking about literally seeing functional MRIs that show brains being regenerated from either atrophy, which is a naturally occurring thing that happens to the brain, or multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, some other of the degenerative conditions that we see. So that was kind of the background for me. What we were starting to digest was that this compound, properly diagnosed, properly dosed, properly guided through, and properly followed up with, was showing some really interesting potential for what we refer to as cte, multiple concussions. I think the. Is it Cerebral Traumatic encephalopathy, cte. We see that in professional athletes, football players, hockey players, soccer players who had multiple concussions. And what we've learned is that those concussions are cumulative in their effect. And so if you've been concussed multiple times, those kind of build on themselves. And that was what led me to go to Mexico to be treated. I didn't have any trauma in my life. I mean, you know, people who had ptsd, whether, however that PTSD being may come, I never had any of that in my life. But I was concussed multiple times as a young person, twice in athletic events, once unloading horses, and I'm talking about knocked out for over one minute, three different times. Those are severe concussions. Yeah. And I had mild insomnia and anxiety from the time I was about 22 years old, when I first saw it in my life, from when I went to pilot training, it's the first time I really had to start performing at a high level. And I managed it. I picked an odd profession to go into later in life politics to have a little insomnia and anxiety, which it would crop up from time to time. I mask it rather well. You never saw it, I don't think. And. But the point is, I knew it was there. And if I was going to be an advocate for this medicine to help these veterans who had post traumatic stress, who had traumatic brain injury, who had addiction issues, I wanted to see would it help me? And that's what I did. So not only is there the position of, yeah, the anxiety and the depression has substantially been removed from my makeup. There was functional MRIs that were done before I was Treated a week after I was treated and then six months after I was treated that showed clear evidence of the regeneration in my brain. The atrophy that showed up and it was Mild. I was 73 years old in 2023, I believe is when this treatment occurred. I had mild atrophy. My neurosurgeon took a look at it. Yeah. And it's there. Said, he said your brain looks pretty good actually for a 73 year old guy. But it was there six months later. After one treatment with ibogaine, the atrophy no longer showed up on my fmri. So listen, I, I'm, I'm not going to sit here in front of you and, or the world and say this is a guaranteed proof that if you'll go take ibogaine, it will make your atrophy go away. What I will say is that we are about to go off on to doing clinical trials in the state of Texas, that we are going to find out whether or not that's true or not. The, the trials that were passed this last session of the legislature that Governor Abbott signed that are being put together now to, to go into the University of Texas Houston as the overseeing entity that's going to oversee these clinical trials. I will suggest to you in a year, year and a half, we will start seeing very clear evidence of the regenerative power of this medicine. The anti addiction part of this, the antidepressant, anti anxiety. I know I'm biased, but I have talked to enough veterans who have been treated that it's literally changed their lives in a very positive way and many of them who were on the verge of suicide. So I say often how bad you gotta hate somebody that you don't make this available to these veterans.
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B
Yeah. And I should say that part of the way that you were introduced to ibogaine was through your work with veterans who were dealing with PTSD and addiction.
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A
Correct issues.
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B
And that's a big part of your ad.
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A
That's actually the, that, that was actually the introduction, the introduction to the medicine. I, you know, I'm going to say in prior to 2017, I never even heard the word ibogaine.
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B
I think it's important to say here that there are potential upsides as you've described and potential risks. I just want to read from that New York Times piece that I mentioned. They say, quote, small recent studies have suggested the drug holds unusual therapeutic potential. One treatment with ibogaine has been shown to achieve significant results. That's what you were just talking about. But the powerful Drug which is illegal in the United States, comes with risks because ibogaine lengthens the time between heartbeats. A user who gets the wrong dosage is taking other drugs, or whose heart rate is not being monitored during treatment can go into cardiac arrest. Even under the most scrupulous of circumstances. Ibogaine therapy is a long and grueling inward journey. So I'm curious, sort of, what is the position here of what should happen next with ibogaine? Should it be legal, should it be rescheduled so it's no longer Schedule 1, which is a category that says, you know, it has no medical purpose and it's only destructive, is sort of what the federal government says about it. Now understanding those upsides and those potential risks, what would you like to see as the next step?
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A
Yeah, well, and I think you're seeing it in Texas because we have passed and are going to start these clinical trials. There is a, that's called a Q interval between heartbeats that the medicine has. The way that it's formulated today extends that interval to the point of where it could cause cardiac arrest. What we have found in Mexico is that they're in, working with the Stanford University, they have come up with a, a drip, a magnesium drip that alleviates that cardiac arrest. So from the standpoint of the risk, I think is, from my perspective, is substantially reduced, I'm not going to say eliminated, but substantially reduced because of this magnesium drip. But specifically ask the question of what would I like to see and what I would like for the federal government to do is to reschedule this, not make it legal to reschedule it to make something legal. Says you take away all the restrictions and you can buy it off the streets. And, uh, that's not a good idea for any of these very powerful compounds. But I would like to see it rescheduled from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3, where there can be substantial clinical trials across the country. Mississippi has passed an initiative not unlike what passed Texas. West Virginia has just passed, and those I might add, in Mississippi, it passed 110 to 1, and I think it passed 9. Who's that one?
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B
Is he on your shit list?
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A
Well, you know, it's. There's always somebody, someone who's, you know, going to be a naysayer. That's, that's okay. But I mean, the overwhelming. The idea that Mississippi, a very conservative state, voted 110 to 1 for these clinical trials on ibogaine to go forward is pretty fascinating. I mean, it passed in Texas, I want to say, out of 180 something votes in the House and the Senate. There were only seven no votes. I mean, you can't hardly get a motion to recess for the day and, and, and get everybody to vote for it. You know, there's always somebody that's just going to say no. I think I'll just vote no anyway.
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B
Yeah.
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A
My point is from schedule one to schedule three I think would be very helpful. We do the clinical trials. I think this compound, particularly when you think about the addiction problems that we have in this country, whether it's alcohol, cocaine, heroin, opioids, fentanyl, I mean, there is a stunning mental health crisis in this country dealing with addictions. Ibogaine has been shown to be seriously effective against addictions, stopping the brain's desire for whatever that compound is. I mean, one treatment, one oral treatment with ibogaine and people who have been addicted to alcohol and 85% of the cases and the initial studies that Stanford did, they're cured, they're healed. I mean, that, that, I mean programs and, and listen, I'm, I'm, I'm not trying to be critical of, of, you know, 12 step programs, Alcoholics Anonymous, any of those, you know, God bless them for the, the lives that they have saved. But the I there, those are single digit success rates in most cases. When you start talking about success rates up in the, in the 70s and 80s, I mean, that sounds too good to be true. But the fact is we're seeing that type of results and that's the reason I'm so supportive of these clinical trials going forward is so that we can in fact get us based, you know, FDA overseeing clinical trials and you know, get our big institutions, you know, whether it's Johns Hopkins or it's the University of Texas, UT Southwestern, all of these great institutions that we have do clinical trials, then we will know. And if the regenerative side of this is what we think it is for Parkinson's, for ms, you know, potentially if you have a degenerative brain condition, you know, some of the, some of the really challenging ones are, you know, let's see. I mean, yeah, you know, this is
- [35:39]
B
a little personal, but we talked about, you know, faith and drugs and you know, mental health and so on. But, and you know, I, I have some experience with not exactly this drug, but, but other drugs myself. When they talk about a long and grueling inward journey, right, like this is not, you don't sort of go into a clinic, take a pill and walk out half an hour later. I mean, what are we talking about here in terms of what happens to somebody when they're going through an ibogaine treatment.
- [36:12]
A
Yeah. Well, let me, let me just give you my, my experience and let me forward this by saying everyone's experience is different. The best I can tell, if anybody comes in, says, let me tell you exactly how this is going to go down for you, you might want to just say this person might not know what they're talking about. Almost everyone has a different experience. You may have some like experiences. You're going to have in most cases, a substantial amount of throwing up. I don't have any idea why that is the physiological event that occurs. But practically everyone, and it's a long experience. It may last between 8 and 14 hours and again, different lengths of time for different people. You take the, you take the compound orally and it's calculated on your body weight how much of the ibogaine alkaloid you take orally takes anywhere between 45 minutes and an hour and a half for it to have an effect. When you start feeling that this medicine is starting to have an effect on you, you lay back on a pallet or a bed, depending on which facility you're at, and put a head, excuse me, a eye shade mask on and that stopping of the visuals coming in from outside. And, and most people will have a visual from the standpoint of some people have a. Going back through their life. I've had people tell me it was not unlike a Rolodex that was kind of spinning around with different parts of your life. And you've. It's a review of your life. Some people may find that to be a bit frightening. I did not, I did not have a review of my life. I had a, I had a journey through space and I was basically traveling through space. I was very curious about this. My, my curiosity was what had driven me through deciding that I was going to take this medicine. Uh, will it affect my insomnia, my anxiety that I had? What else? And what I found was that there was a spiritual aspect to it. Not an overtly spiritual aspect, but certainly a, an experience that I would suggest was very inwardly spiritual in its effect on me and that, you know, God's real, he loves me. And that. The, the, the, the, the, the process also involves in a losing relative control of your limbs. Ataxia, I think, is the, the proper term for it. And I have, and again, I have no idea why those, whether it's the, the, the throwing up, whether it's the ataxia. My response to those are, do these Clinical trials, we may find out some that there are ways to alleviate those. There may be a way to deal with this compound in the lab. I don't know the answers to those. I'm an animal science major. I'm not a neuroscientist when it comes to. But my point is that is why these clinical trials are so important. If we have a compound that has the ability to an 85% or so, even if it's 65% of the cases, be able to stop an addiction that is being detrimental to the, you know, the future of these individuals, why in the world wouldn't we go forward with that? Why would we not do everything in our power to make this available to people in a country and in a world where we have extraordinary amounts of addictions? And the interesting thing, and I'll wrap up with this, what we are feeling very confident about is it's not just ability to address addictions from substances. It's also non substance addictions, gambling, pornography. I mean, now I happen to think overeating is a, I think that's a substance addiction. I think that's probably an addiction to sugar. But my point is we've got all of these addictions out there and, and we potentially have a, a compound that could stop it and cure it.
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B
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- [42:25]
B
I'm sitting here listening to you describe your experience and I'm curious how you bridge the, you know, divide or gap between this kind of advocacy and, you know, the more socially conservative parts of the Republican Party, right? There are people who believe that this stuff is, this stuff is evil, satanic, what have you. And even if it's not evil, just think back to the GOP's legacy, like imagining Nancy Reagan listening to the story you're telling or, you know, the war on drugs, et cetera. Like how do you put this in the context of your political experience?
- [43:14]
A
That's exactly what we ran up against with the Texas Legislature. You have a very conservative body. I mean, I. I would argue that the Texas legislature is as conservative today as it's ever been in its history. And the way we made the progress that we made with the Texas legislature and the way that they went from being hard.
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C
No.
- [43:51]
A
To supporting this was we brought veterans in who had gone through this process, who had been treated, and these are young men and women who literally had put their lives on the line for our country, literally, and our government had failed them. From the standpoint of how we address the ptsd, the traumatic brain injury, the addictions issues that came from. As a matter of fact, our government was part of the problem in that in the mid-2000s, they were literally giving our war fighters sacks of opioids because they didn't know how to deal with the PTSD and the traumatic brain injury. So they just gave them a sack of opioids and said, here, take these. Maybe it'll make you feel better. And then we addicted this entire generation of war fighters to a lot of degrees with these compounds. And those members of the legislature looked into the eyes of those veterans, those people who in too many cases were one step away from just kind of ending it all, because they didn't. They. They saw. They saw no relief, no help until this medicine came along, and they were introduced to ibogaine, and they took the trip to Mexico because that was the only place they could legally take it. And they found peace, and they found a spiritual aspect of this that was incredibly powerful. And those individuals came back and they heartfelt, gave those testimonies, if you will, to the members of the legislature, and that changed minds. And in changing minds, they changed the course of where I think psychiatric medicine is going. You know, five years ago, if you said, we're going to be having these conversations about, you know, farmer, governor of Texas, and psychedelics and, you know, psychoactive drugs, and I would go, get out of here. But we looked at the science, we looked at the outcomes. We trusted people who we literally had trusted our lives with, so to speak, and made the right decision. So, you know, I want to think that Nancy Reagan and people like Mrs. Reagan would be open to this kind of conversation today, because I think when, you know, if you went up and you sat down with the current administration and which we have done to some degree, they are open to this, because you can't argue with the results. The results are pretty stunning. Although they seem to be too good to be true, time after time after time, a veteran who has potentially been on the verge of ending his own or her life, being saved by this medicine, that is a powerful thing. And that is what I will suggest to you, has changed and has changed the Republican Party's position of we love the veterans who have served so honorably, nobly, sacrificially over the last two decades. And when they've come in and they said, here is a compound that, you know, unfortunately, we got to go to Mexico to get, we got to leave the boundaries of the United States to go get, and we ought to consider doing the proper clinical trials with the right type of medical oversight to make it available to our brothers and sisters. And every person, I'll speak for myself, I would suggest almost every family out there has someone with an addiction somewhere. It may be a, you know, it may be alcohol, it may be some other not legal compound. It may be one of those non substance addictions of gambling or pornography or overeating. Almost everyone's got one of those. And we have the potential with this medicine to address that. And I think that common sense is what you're seeing play out across these states. And I, I literally had a call from a governor of another state that is considering this legislation right now. He's seen my advocacy, he's seen my public position and he called me, he said, hey, would you call me and visit with me about this? Which I'm obviously going to do.
- [49:09]
B
Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about your experience with politics before we wrap up. I'm curious how, how you even feel about somebody asking you questions about the quote unquote, oops moment. But you mentioned, you know, experiencing anxiety, insomnia, some things like that. I know what it's like to try to function in a public facing role when you haven't slept or when you're feeling anxious or whatever. Yeah. That moment in the 2012 debate when you were saying the three departments that you were going to eliminate and you forgot the Department of Energy.
- [49:49]
A
It's three agencies of government when I get there that are gone. Commerce, Education and the. What's the third one there? Let's see.
- [49:58]
C
Epa.
- [49:59]
A
Epa. There you go.
- [50:02]
B
Let's talk about. Seriously,
- [50:05]
C
is EPA the one you were talking about or.
- [50:07]
A
No, sir, you can't name the third one? The third agency of government. I would, I would do away with the education, the commerce. Commerce and let's see. I can't.
- [50:22]
C
The third one.
- [50:22]
A
I can't. Sorry, oops.
- [50:25]
B
When you reflect back on that moment, what do you think about it?
- [50:29]
A
Now? Here's. I mean, you bring up a really interesting scenario, and I want to back it up even a little bit farther for you and tell you why I think that occurred. In the first week of July, I had major back surgery. I had a fusion between my, I think L1 and S5. Is that right? Anyway, down in the lower part of my back, major surgery had a fusion, and there was some complications with that surgery. I had a neurological hyperfusion, and they treated it with opioids. And six weeks later, I announced for the presidency.
- [51:24]
B
Oh, boy.
- [51:24]
A
I think August 13th and erroneously thinking I could have major back surgery. Heal up and perform at the level you need to perform to run for the presidency of the United States. You know, I'm what, 60. I'm 61 years old. I'm thinking I'm, you know, 10 foot tall, bulletproof, and I can do this. At the time that debate rolled around, I was taking compounds to try to continue to cover up the. The pain from that surgery on that hyperfusion. I was taking compounds to go to sleep at night, Ambien. I was taken provigil in the morning to be alert and be focused. So I. I'm. In hindsight, I think about how debilitated I was as an individual, and it made a lot of sense to me. Now, as I look back on that, I'm surprised I functioned as well as I did, that I could even remember two of the three that I was going to get rid of instead of. You know, and it's humorous now, but it was. It was a brutal period of time, and I was trying to perform at a very high level. I was not successful, obviously, but it. It made the point to me that I understand the. The challenges that. That when. When people are given these particularly opioids. I think opioids are a incredibly. You know, I'm sure they've got their place properly, but what we know about them is that. I'll give you an example here, quickly. Opioids in particular, some people are very prone to be addict. Addicted to them and addicted to them very quickly. It's one of the reasons that the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma, such an evil bunch of people, in my opinion, and they push this stuff onto our population out there. But here's what we have found. If you try to get off opioids through just an abstinence program, you know, it's like, okay, I'm gonna quit taking these things and get over it now. It takes 18 months for your brain to get back to a normal looking state in a functional MRI. 18 months. With the treatment of ibogaine, that brain scan gets back to a normal looking brain between 48 and 72 hours. That's what the Stanford, some of the Stanford studies showed us and some of the postdocs and the doctors working on that. I mean that is a fascinating question. Again, gets right back to, here's why we need to be doing these clinical trials on this plant medicine, ibogaine to find out is that really the, is that really the fact? And if it is, we need to be making that readily available to substantially a large number of people in this country.
- [55:16]
B
Yeah, I, I mean it is interesting putting that moment in the context of how are you were being treated medically and the like. I'm, you know, something of a, a politics elections nerd. So I mean I, I've done whole docu series looking back at quote unquote, game changers in campaigns and asking, you know, did they really matter as much as we said that they mattered at the time. And, and so I am curious, like from your perspective, that oops moment, was that defining in the 2012 presidential primary for you? I mean, might things have been different
- [55:49]
C
had that not happened?
- [55:50]
B
Like when you wrestle with what that means in your life and in even American history, what significance does that moment have to you?
- [55:58]
A
Yeah. So here's what I would say. I think I was a. I think I was a candidate who was probably not going to be successful because of my physical and my mental state due to the surgery that was done and you know, was the most difficult six months of my life. And but, you know, it is what it is. I'm. Would I change anything? And you know, probably not. It all turned out all right from my perspective. I, I'm a lot more interested in where God has got me placed at the moment and what I'm doing than looking back on, you know, would I have been in a different place had it not rained 28 inches in 24 hours in 1978? And I not go to work for Southwest Airlines and stayed at the farm. I mean, I can go back through my life and there are these, you know, God puts up hurdles, he removes them and I, you know, not, not for me to, to say that a particular point in time had a huge effect on me. There have been a lot of them that had an effect on me. But I'm pretty, not pretty. I'm very satisfied that I try to do God's will and it'll all turn out all right.
- [57:43]
B
Wrapping up here, you sort of referred to the, the grueling nature of running for office. Of course, it had to do with your specific experience at the time. But politics is, is a blood sport, and it's only gotten more conflictual in recent years. Do you have a broader message for the direction you'd like to see American politics go in moving forward?
- [58:09]
A
Well, you know, I always tell people, I said, you know, governing is really pretty easy. It's, it's finding the people who are willing to just stay focused on the aspect of governing. And generally when I talk about governing, I talk about from the state level, because I'm a big fan. Being a federalist at heart and believing in the 10th Amendment and letting the states be the laboratories of innovation. And then folks will decide where they want to live and how they want to live and what have you. If you want to live in a place that, you know, overtaxes you, over regulate you, over litigate you, and you can't find anybody to work for you because the public schools have failed, you know, you're welcome to live in California, or you can not over tax, not over regulate, not over litigate, and have a skilled workforce and move to Texas and enjoy more of your money.
- [59:11]
B
I thought I was gonna get a. I thought I was gonna get like a conciliatory, optimistic note of, of like the future of America, which I, I mean, I get the, I get the point.
- [59:20]
A
I think that is the future of America. I, I think if. Let the states compete with each other and politics and capitalism is never going to be beanbag. I mean, it's always going to be. If you're looking for a quiet, easy place to live, America and capitalism are probably not where you want to be because it's, you know, you're going to be taking a chance every day. You could lose everything every day. But the opportunity to be successful, the opportunity to really help a lot of people is there, but it's, it's not easy, and it's. You're going to be tested and you're going to fail. Are you going to get up? We'll see.
- [60:15]
B
All right, Governor Perry, thank you so much for joining me today.
- [60:18]
A
Good to be with you. God bless you.
- [60:20]
C
My name is Galen Daruk. Remember to become a subscriber to this podcast@gdpolitics.com and wherever you get your podcasts. Paid subscribers get about twice the number of episodes and can join our paid subscriber chat to pass along questions for
- [60:34]
B
us to discuss on the show.
- [60:35]
C
Most importantly, you ensure that we keep making a podcast that prioritizes curiosity, rigor
- [60:40]
B
and a sense of humor.
- [60:42]
C
Also, be a friend of the pod and give us a 55 star rating wherever you listen to podcasts, maybe even tell a friend about us.
- [60:48]
B
Thanks for listening and we will see you soon.