Tulsi Gabbard, a former lawmaker and potential presidential candidate in 2020, declared her departure from the Democratic Party on Tuesday.
The announcement marks the end of a period of time during which Gabbard has grown increasingly critical of the Democratic Party and its positions.
“I am no longer able to support the Democratic Party of today. In a video posted to social media, Gabbard claimed that the country was now completely in the hands of an elitist cabal of warmongers who were motivated by cowardly wokeness. They “divide us by racializing every issue & stoking anti-white racism, who actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms enshrined in our Constitution,” Gabbard said. The “Tulsi Gabbard Show,” the inaugural edition of her new podcast, featured the news.
Following her election in 2012, Gabbard made history by becoming the first American Samoan and practicing Hindu in Congress. She also blasted Democrats’ “open border” policies and anti-police rhetoric.
The ex-congresswoman, who was the 2nd district representative for Hawaii, has long been a distinctive and oftentimes contentious voice in the Democratic Party.
She cited her experience in the Iraq War as one of the Democratic candidates for president in the crowded 2020 field and outlined a clearly non-interventionist foreign policy. She co-sponsored several laws intended to keep migrant families together at the border and blamed US action in Latin America for the instability that led to the spike in migration across the southern US border during the campaign.
And during Gabbard’s presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton said in an interview that the Hawaii Democrat was being groomed to run as a third-party candidate and was a favorite of the Russians, calling the person she was referring to a “Russian asset” without mentioning the president-elect.
Regarding the matter, Gabbard initiated a slander case, which she subsequently dismissed in May 2020.
After she put an end to her presidential bid in 2020, Gabbard praised Joe Biden, but she has since become a strong opponent of the President and frequently appears on Fox News.
“President Biden ran his campaign on a platform of national reconciliation, bridging the partisan gap. He just delivered a significant speech in which he said that those who support President (Donald) Trump are the most radical element in our nation and a danger to our democracy. According to her announcement video on Tuesday, that represents half of the nation.
Following her speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Gabbard was also criticized earlier this year by local Democrats who voted to denounce her “for participation in an event that garnered cash that will affect Democrats around the country.”
The former representative urged “independent-minded Democrats” to leave the Democratic Party with her, but she did not specify which party she would join going future.