Tulsi Gabbard, a onetime Democratic presidential candidate turned unbiased, introduced at a Donald Trump rally in North Carolina on Tuesday that she’s formally becoming a member of the Republican Get together.
“I’m becoming a member of the occasion of the individuals, the occasion of equality, the occasion that was based to battle towards and finish slavery on this nation. It’s the occasion of frequent sense, and the occasion that’s led by a President who has the braveness and power to battle for peace,” Gabbard stated. “You recognize, I used to be a Democrat for over 20 years. At this time’s Democrat Get together is totally unrecognizable,” she continued. “If you have a look at the occasion of Kamala Harris, for instance, she is anti-freedom. She is pro-censorship, she is pro-open borders, and she or he is pro-war with out even pretending to care about peace.”
Gabbard, 43, turning into a Republican ought to come as no shock to anybody who has adopted her profession, significantly lately, as the previous lawmaker from Hawaii has lengthy made a reputation for herself by brazenly criticizing Democrats and has change into a staunch supporter of former President Trump.
Her announcement of her occasion change comes after distinguished Republicans, akin to former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter former Home Republican Convention Chair Liz Cheney, have endorsed Harris within the 2024 election. Gabbard cited the Cheneys’ assist of Harris as proof that the Democratic Get together is considered one of “warmongers.”
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Gabbard, the daughter of educators and small enterprise homeowners who have been concerned in native politics, started her political profession in 2002, when she turned the youngest particular person ever elected to the Hawaii state legislature, representing District 42 in West Oahu as a Democrat. She left politics in 2004 to serve within the Military Nationwide Guard earlier than returning after deployments to Iraq and Kuwait to run and win election in 2010 for Honolulu Metropolis Council.
When Gabbard threw her hat into the ring in 2011 for the Democratic major for Hawaii’s second district seat in Congress, she was nonetheless a relative unknown and underdog. However after beating 5 different challengers, together with the previous mayor of Honolulu—on a marketing campaign largely outlined by her vocal opposition to Bush Administration-era overseas wars and her private reversal on same-sex marriage, which she’d beforehand opposed however now supported—Gabbard shortly emerged as a “rising star” of the Democratic Get together, as former Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi referred to as her. Then-President Barack Obama endorsed her congressional bid, and she or he was invited to talk on the 2012 Democratic Nationwide Conference.
After she turned the primary Hindu, first American Samoan, and—alongside Illinois’ Tammy Duckworth—the primary feminine fight veteran elected to Congress in 2012, Gabbard swiftly rose within the occasion and was elected a vice chair of the DNC in 2013.
However identified for her populist economics and pro-veteran but anti-interventionist politics, Gabbard actually didn’t toe the occasion line. She usually clashed with Democratic management for being publicly vital of Obama’s overseas coverage, and through the 2016 presidential election, she criticized the DNC’s major course of as biased in favor of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In 2016, she resigned from her DNC vice-chair submit to endorse unbiased Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ marketing campaign, for which she turned a distinguished supporter and gave the nominating speech on the 2016 Democratic conference.
After Trump went on to win the 2016 normal election, Gabbard stated she had a “frank and optimistic” assembly with the President-elect and was rumored to be thought of for a Cupboard place.
In 2019, Gabbard launched a presidential marketing campaign and introduced that she wouldn’t search reelection to Congress. However, significantly after a vote of “current” in Trump’s first impeachment trial, she got here to be the “most disliked” candidate within the intensive Democratic discipline. One of many standout moments of her short-lived marketing campaign got here throughout a major debate through which she challenged then California Sen. Kamala Harris’ file as a prosecutor. But it surely wasn’t sufficient to propel her candidacy, which by no means polled larger than single digits and was suspended in March 2020, after which she endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden. She was not invited to talk on the 2020 Democratic conference.
After leaving workplace in 2021, Gabbard turned an much more outspoken critic of the Democratic Get together, usually showing on Fox Information and even serving as a visitor host for Tucker Carlson’s present on a number of events. She expressed assist for Republican candidates and insurance policies and spoke on the 2022 Conservative Political Motion Convention (CPAC). In October 2022, she introduced that she was formally leaving the Democratic Get together, which she decried as “below the entire management of an elitist cabal of warmongers pushed by cowardly wokeness.” She went on to endorse quite a few GOP candidates within the 2022 midterms, together with Trump’s now-running mate Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance.
Earlier this 12 months, Gabbard had been speculated as a possible operating mate decide for Trump, and when she was requested about it on Fox Information in March, she stated, “I’d be honored to serve our nation in that approach and be ready to assist President Trump.” After Gabbard formally endorsed Trump in August, she was tapped alongside former unbiased candidate-turned-Trump supporter Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to co-lead Trump’s transition staff, which might set the priorities for his incoming administration if he’s elected in November.
When Trump took the stage after Gabbard introduced her new GOP membership on Tuesday, he referred to as it a “nice honor” and exclaimed, “Wow, that was a shock.”