Donald Trump’s presidential marketing campaign has acquired an official endorsement from Tulsi Gabbard – a former congresswoman who ran to be the Democratic candidate for the presidency in 2020, earlier than distancing herself from the occasion.
On Monday, Trump welcomed Ms Gabbard, 43, to a stage in Detroit, in the important thing swing state of Michigan.
Ms Gabbard stop the Democratic Social gathering in 2022, complaining of its “wokeness”, and has since develop into an everyday and outspoken visitor on Fox Information.
In the meantime, greater than 200 Republicans who served beneath earlier presidents and occasion leaders have given their backing to Trump’s rival, Kamala Harris.
In an open letter, former staffers for George HW Bush and George W Bush, and Senators John McCain and Mitt Romney mentioned one other Trump administration would endanger American democracy.
Ms Gabbard appeared alongside Trump to commemorate US service personnel killed in an assault in Afghanistan three years prior, utilizing it as a chance to criticise the Biden administration.
13 US service members and greater than 100 Afghans had been killed through the suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai Worldwide Airport in Kabul.
The incident occurred as American troops made a chaotic withdrawal from the nation, and the Taliban returned to energy.
Trump labelled it a “humiliation” that “set off the collapse of American credibility and respect all all over the world”.
He was joined earlier within the day by Ms Gabbard, a army veteran, at Virginia’s Arlington Cemetery to recollect the American lives misplaced.
Ms Gabbard made frequent criticisms of US army interventionism throughout her profession in Congress from 2013 to 2021.
Showing at Monday’s occasion in Michigan, Ms Gabbard mentioned she was interesting to Democrats, Republicans and independents alike to select Trump on the poll field in November – saying it was a matter of “saving our nation and serving the folks”.
Her official backing of Trump marks the fruits of a exceptional political journey during the last decade that started on the progressive left of the Democratic Social gathering.
She was the primary Hindu member of the US Congress, happening to function vice-chairwoman of the Democratic Nationwide Committee – earlier than resigning to endorse the 2016 presidential marketing campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders.
Ms Gabbard ran for president in 2020, championing liberal points like government-run healthcare, free faculty tuition and gun management.
However Joe Biden turned the Democratic nominee that yr, and went on to win the presidency. Two years later, Ms Gabbard stop as a Democrat, saying the occasion had succumbed to “cowardly wokeness”.
By early 2024, she was singing the praises of Mr Biden’s rival, Trump, who will this time compete for the White Home in opposition to Ms Harris.
She warned of a rising menace to American democracy – saying this hazard was posed by the prosecution of Trump by America’s left-wing.
Within the subsequent months, it was even speculated that Ms Gabbard may very well be within the body as Trump’s potential operating mate for November – a task that finally went to JD Vance.
Since her departure from the Democratic Social gathering she has develop into an everyday contributor to Fox Information and has been accused of spreading “selling Russian propaganda” by officers in Ukraine.
Ms Gabbard’s feedback got here days after Trump acquired the endorsement of one other Democratic defector, Robert F Kennedy Jr, who final week suspended his unbiased marketing campaign for the White Home.
Prime Democrats had been fast to dismiss Ms Gabbard’s endorsement.
“Fairly than specializing in incomes the assist of hardworking People, Trump is extra fixated on profitable the backing of extremists like Gabbard and RFK Jr — they usually’ll do nothing however overwhelm his sinking ship of a marketing campaign,” the occasion’s Fast Response Director Alex Floyd mentioned in an announcement.