Why did former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard endorse Donald Trump? What did she say?
Former Democratic congresswoman who ran for party’s presidential nomination in 2020, Tulsi Gabbard, has endorsed Trump in his 2024 White House bid.
Tulsi Gabbard, who served four terms as a Democratic US representative for Hawaii, on Monday endorsed former President Donald Trump in his 2024 campaign to return to the White House. The National Guard veteran joined the Republican candidate for an appearance in Detroit at the National Guard Association of the United States where she made the announcement.
The two had gone to Arlington National Cemetery earlier in the day for the third anniversary of the August 26, 2021 suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport. The former president laid wreaths in honor of three service members who died in the attack, the Abbey Gate massacre, which claimed the lives of 13 US service members along with over 100 Afghans during the chaotic exodus of the US military from Afghanistan.
Why did former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard endorse Donald Trump? What did she say?
Gabbard, who ran for the Democratic nomination in 2020, left the party in 2022. Since then, she has radically shifted her once progressive policy stances and echoed pro-Russia conspiracy theories. As well, she has become highly critical of Democrats and the Biden administration.
Speaking on Monday, she said that Trump “understands the grave responsibility that a president and commander in chief bears for every single one of our lives.” This was evidenced in her view during his first term in that “he not only didn’t start any new wars, he took action to deescalate and prevent wars,” she said.
Gabbard credited him with “exhausting all measures of diplomacy. Having the courage to meet with adversaries, dictators, allies and partners alike in the pursuit of peace, seeing war as a last resort.”
However, she says that “the same cannot be said of Kamala Harris.” Gabbard explained that under the Biden administration the nation is “facing multiple wars, on multiple fronts, in regions around the world and closer to the brink of nuclear war than we ever have been before.”
“This is one of the main reasons I am committed to doing all that I can to send President Trump back to the White House so he can once again serve us as Commander-in-Chief,” Gabbard said. Additionally, she was sure his first priority “would be to walk us back from the brink of war.”
She then went on to accuse the current administration of retaliating against its political opponents, undermining civil liberties and weaponizing institutions “against those they see as a threat.”
She claimed that “Trump has been their first and foremost target because they don’t even want us to have the option to vote for him.” Gabbard said that she has been the most recent target of this, claiming that she has been put on a terrorist watchlist for voicing her concerns about what a Harris’ administration would entail.