The ex-lawmaker quit the party last week, calling them “warmongers” and “anti-white” racists
Tulsi Gabbard speaks during a news conference at the 9/11 Tribute Museum in New York, October 29, 2019 © AP / Mary Altaffer
Former US congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has called on Democrats to leave the party, which she said is controlled by “woke, fanatical ideologues.” Gabbard herself left last week, calling the leaders “an elitist cabal of warmongers.”
Speaking to Fox News host Sean Hannity on Friday, Gabbard said that she experienced “a lot of backlash and anger” from the “woke, fanatical ideologues that are in control of today’s Democratic Party” when she announced her decision to leave the party earlier in the week.
Gabbard, who Democrats have long accused of siding with their Republican adversaries, said that she decided to leave due to her former party’s support for “anti-white racism,” open borders, persecution of their political opponents, and stoking of foreign conflicts.
Truth is not subjective. I could no longer stay in a party that thinks the truth is whatever they say it is, that denies objective reality such as the difference between men and women, and that tries to discredit or silence anyone who dares to challenge them. pic.twitter.com/3KZL8pLazf
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) October 17, 2022
The ex-Hawaiian congresswoman told Hannity that she received some positive messages from Democrats “who felt emboldened and inspired that they too don’t have to self-censor and cower in the corner for fear of being canceled or smeared or losing their job.”
“[Democrats] created this culture of fear,” she continued, calling on moderates within the party to “step up” and quit. To those ”who feel as sickened as I do about today’s Democratic Party, leave, move forward and put our country first,” she implored.
Gabbard served four terms in office from 2013 to 2021, and contested the Democratic Party’s 2020 primary elections on a foreign policy-focused platform. Throughout her primary campaign she was labeled an apologist for Syrian President Bashar Assad and a “puppet” of Russian President Vladimir Putin, for suggesting that the US allow Assad to fight Islamic State terrorists in Syria and seek cooperation rather than conflict with Russia.
In recent years, Gabbard has found common ground with conservative pundits like Hannity and fellow Fox host Tucker Carlson, sharing Hannity’s disdain for the Democrats’ embrace of transgender ideology – which she refers to as a denial of “objective reality” – and Carlson’s anti-interventionism.
However, many Republicans in Washington DC back the Democrat-led campaign to arm Ukraine, with hawks like South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham openly calling for the assassination of Putin. Hannity pressed Gabbard on whether the US has a “moral obligation” to intervene in the conflict. Gabbard insisted that the US’ only obligation is to “bring about an end to this war as quickly as possible.”
