() — Former congresswoman and 2020 presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard announced Tuesday that she is leaving the Democratic Party.
For Gabbard, the announcement is the culmination of years in which he has been increasingly at odds with the Democratic Party and its policies.
“I can no longer stay in the Democratic Party today. It is now under the total control of an elite cabal of warmongers driven by a cowardly awakening, dividing us by racializing every issue and stoking anti-white racism, who actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms enshrined in our Constitution,” Gabbard said. in a video posted on social media. The announcement was made on the first episode of his new podcast, “The Tulsi Gabbard Show.”
Gabbard, who made history by becoming the first practicing American and Hindu Samoan in Congress after her election in 2012, also criticized what she said were Democrats’ “open borders” policies and anti-police rhetoric.
The former congresswoman, who represented Hawaii’s 2nd District, has long been a unique and occasionally controversial voice in the Democratic Party.
As one of the Democratic presidential candidates in the crowded 2020 field, she billed herself as an Iraq War veteran and espoused a distinctly anti-interventionist foreign policy. On the campaign trail, she blamed U.S. intervention in Latin America for creating the instability that triggered increased migration across the U.S. southern border and co-sponsored several bills aimed at keeping migrant families together in border.
And when Gabbard was running for president, Hillary Clinton suggested in an interview that she was being groomed to run as a third-party candidate and that she was a favorite of the Russians. Clinton suggested that the person she was talking about was a “Russian asset,” though she did not name the Hawaiian Democrat.
Gabbard filed a libel lawsuit over the matter which she subsequently dropped in May 2020.
Gabbard endorsed Joe Biden after suspending his 2020 presidential campaign, but has since been an outspoken critic of the president, appearing regularly on Fox News.
“President Biden campaigned on a message of unity, healing the partisan divide and bringing the country together. He just gave a big speech saying that supporters of President (Donald) Trump are the most extremist group in our country and a threat to our democracy. That’s half the country,” he said in his announcement video on Tuesday.
Gabbard also faced criticism earlier this year from local Democrats who voted to convict her “of participating in an event that raised funds that will hurt Democrats across the country” after she spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
The former congresswoman did not indicate which party she would be affiliated with in the future, but called on “independent-minded Democrats” to join her in leaving the Democratic Party.
