Former Democratic lawmaker Tulsi Gabbard has endorsed Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, describing the ex-president as the only candidate who can walk the US back from “the brink of nuclear war.”
Trump brought Gabbard on stage during a speech at the National Guard Association’s annual conference in Detroit on Monday, introducing the former Hawaii congresswoman as a “true American patriot” with “great common sense” and “great spirit.”
Gabbard, a 17-year National Guard veteran who served two combat tours in the Middle East, praised Trump’s isolationist brand of foreign policy.
“We saw this through his first term in the presidency when he not only didn’t start any new wars, he took action to de-escalate and prevent wars,” she said, adding that Trump had “the courage to meet with adversaries, dictators, allies and partners alike in the pursuit of peace.”
“The same can not be said about Kamala Harris,” Gabbard continued. “In fact the opposite is true, and we’re living through this reality today as this administration has us 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 why I’m committed to doing all that I can to send President Trump back to the White House,” she told the crowd. “Because I am confident that his first task will be to…walk us back from the brink of war.”
Gabbard left the Democratic Party in 2022, arguing that it had fallen “under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers” and social-justice ideologues. Three years earlier, Gabbard was widely credited with ending Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign with a single debate performance.
In the 2019 Democratic primary showdown, Gabbard slammed Harris’ record as California’s attorney general, criticizing her for jailing thousands of marijuana offenders “and then laughing about it,” for her use of prison labor, and for blocking evidence that would have freed innocent men on death row.
“There is no excuse for that and the people who suffered under your reign as prosecutor, you owe them an apology,” Gabbard said, leaving Harris unable to respond.
Gabbard has long opposed US involvement in and funding of foreign conflicts. During her four terms in office from 2013 to 2021, she advocated dialogue with America’s rival superpowers, coupled with a hardline policy on Islamic terrorism. Like Trump, she has faced accusations of being a “Russian asset,” most notably from failed 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Gabbard responded to Clinton’s 2019 jab – likely a reference to her past praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fight against terrorism in Syria – by calling Clinton “queen of the warmongers” and suing her for defamation.
Gabbard is the second high-profile former Democrat to endorse Trump in recent days, after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his third-party campaign and backed the former president on Friday. Gabbard and Kennedy have both cited President Joe Biden’s funding of the Ukrainian military and “weaponization” of the justice system and intelligence agencies against Trump as key factors behind their decision.