Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D, HI-2) announced she’s running for president in 2020. Or rather, she announced that she is going to announce in a released clip from her forthcoming interview with CNN’s Van Jones.
#BREAKING: In an interview on @CNN, U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard announces that she will run for President of the United States in 2020. https://t.co/JoA4hxwOKh pic.twitter.com/fnwb2NSw64
— Hawaii News Now (@HawaiiNewsNow) January 11, 2019
Gabbard confirmed the news to CNN’s Van Jones in an interview set to air on Saturday night.
“I have decided to run and will be making a formal announcement within the next week,” Gabbard told Jones.
Gabbard has made a lot of fans among progressives, but also a number of critics because of some of her positions on issues such as foreign policy.Gabbard is one of the first two female combat veterans to serve in Congress and is its first-ever Hindu member.
Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard announced on Friday that she’s running for president in 2020. Gabbard confirmed the news to CNN’s Van Jones in an interview set to air on Saturday night.
There is plenty to discuss surrounding Rep. Gabbard. The congresswoman spent the earlier part of the week feuding with her own party, including her own US Senator Mazie Hirono:
Gabbard’s opinion piece argues that for years “politicians have weaponized religion for their own selfish gain, fomenting bigotry, fears and suspicious based on the faith, religion or spiritual practices of their potential opponents.”
The congresswoman later zeroes in on the recent questioning of Buescher, without mentioning Hirono by name. Both Hirono and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) had questioned Buescher last month about whether he could rule impartially on issues related to abortion and same-sex marriage, noting that Buescher was a member of the Knights of Columbus, which has taken public stances on both.
“I stand strongly against those who are fomenting religious bigotry, citing as disqualifiers Buescher’s Catholicism and his affiliation with the Knights of Columbus,” wrote Gabbard. “If Buescher is ‘unqualified’ because of his Catholicism and affiliation with the Knights of Columbus, then President John F. Kennedy, and the ‘liberal lion of the Senate’ Ted Kennedy would have been ‘unqualified’ for the same reasons.”
Gabbard goes on to take a swipe at U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) who questioned Amy Coney Barrett during her confirmation hearings in 2017 to serve as U.S. Circuit Court judge in the 7th Circuit.
”Elected leaders engaging in religion-baiting are playing with fire. They are sacrificing the well-being, peace and harmony of our country to satisfy their own political ambitions for partisan political interests,” wrote Gabbard. “We must stand together, call out and reject religious bigotry no matter where it comes from, and fight to protect the freedoms and principles that bind us together as Americans.”
Gabbard also drew friendly fire from parts of her own party with her support of Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Presidential Campaign.
The 37-year-old congresswoman was a vocal supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders in 2016. She gained national attention when she resigned as vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee in order to throw her support behind the Vermont senator during the presidential campaign season.
Explaining her decision at the time, Gabbard said, “I think it’s most important for us, as we look at our choices as to who our next commander in chief will be, is to recognize the necessity to have a commander in chief who has foresight, who exercises good judgment.”
Gabbard’s support for Sanders was not forgotten, and, in 2018, her reelection bid was endorsed by Our Revolution, the grassroots political organization launched by Sanders campaign members after the 2016 election. She also enjoyed support from groups like the Sierra Club and Planned Parenthood.
Meeting with President Trump shortly after election day didn’t go over well either. But the decision Rep. Gabbard is mostly known for is her controversial and un-authorized visit to Syria in 2017, paid for by supporters of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, which saw the congresswoman spouting Assad’s talking points verbatim on return. That died down some after she dispatched her promised primary challenger, but expect it to resurface now. And then there is the matter of where she fits into the growing Democratic Party primary field:
As the race takes shape, Gabbard’s rivals – of whom there are likely to be many – will know they can make political hay of her controversial views and over episodes like her visit to Assad amid his devastating campaign against his own people.
What’s unclear is how those politically close to her will handle what will be an internecine battle. Gabbard has developed deep roots in the party’s left wing, joining the board of the Sanders Institute, founded by the senator’s wife, and frequently posturing as the Democrats’ leading antiwar voice when more mainstream members of the party succumb to militarism the party’s base dislikes, as when they endorsed Trump’s strike against Assad in 2017.
The quiet hope among backers of Sanders and Warren so far is that her campaign will ultimately fizzle out before things have to get ugly.
But that’s far from assured, given that many of Gabbard’s supporters – particularly in parts of the peace movement – are fervent and have been hoping for this kind of announcement by her for years.
Young, controversial, articulate, good on camera, controversial, contradictory, veteran, peace advocate, progressive, not progressive enough, controversial; Tulsi Gabbard has one thing going for her some other primary challengers for 2020 Democratic Party nomination are desperately seeking: She is interesting.
Adam Corolla interviewed Andrew Breitbart in 2011. He basically predicted what happened in 2016 for the Republicans, and what could happen for the Democrats next year – although, being Andrew Breitbart, he was four years too early:.
“I’m just, I’m just telling you, this is foreshadowing – what is going to happen over the next year with the Republican Party is what happened in 2003 with the Gray Davis recall. It’s going to be a freak show, it’s going to be porn star, it’s going to be the ghost of Gary Coleman, it’s going to be Arianna Huffington…I’m telling you, if you speak like that, in that exactly that language, that’s what this country wants to hear right now. They’re sick of these eunuchs, uh, you know these white guys who are poll-testing everything. The – it really comes down to brass tacks. It comes down to a fundamental understanding of how to make crap, [how to get that crap out] to the customer, these people…I don’t need a politician to run this thing, I need somebody who was a contractor. I need somebody who has common sense, who has been in the real world within the last five years, not somebody who’s been in a think tank for the last thirty.”Report
Breitbart was accurately forecasting the GOP, but I’m not seeing Tulsi as the Dem equal to Trump.
What little I’ve read about her from other lefty sites seems to indicate she is the nutty aunt in our family.Report
I’m thinking about it more in terms of the California recall free-for-all. I included the second half of the quote more because it focused on the antipathy for the establishment, although I did find it interesting how much it sounded like Trump’s pitch.Report
California might have a reputation for craziness, but we held things together. Compared to Trump. Arnold is Jimmy Carter. And Jerry Brown is smart, pragmatic, and capable.Report
California, under the Democratic supermajority and Governor Jerry Brown, was the very epitome of Burkean caution and fiscal prudence.
The budget is in balance, things get paid for, and (this may shock those from other states) you can actually drink the water, which flows freely from household taps.
No, seriously, you can look it up.Report
It is my understanding that there are significant water quality problems in various parts of the Central Valley. That’s roughly true across the entire West — metro areas generally have excellent water, rural farming areas have problems.Report
No Republican or Republican sympathizer will ever believe this because reasons.Report
They still have Detroit and IL.Report
The folks in Nevada would like a word with SoCal about that “free flowing” water…Report
Forget it, Jake.
We stole it, fair and square.Report
I am possibly the only person here waiting eagerly for the SCOTUS to make a decision in Texas v. New Mexico and Colorado, to see if they’re going to up-end water law across the West or not.Report
Her primary constituency consists of all the Democrats who think Trump’s biggest problem is that he hasn’t kissed Bashar al Assad’s ass enough. She’s going fuckin’ nowhere.Report
For clarity, is Saudi ass superior? Does the al-Nusra flavoring help or hurt it?Report
Saudi ass isn’t particularly better, but having “sucked up to an unusual bloody-handed MENA despot” as one of the major bullet points on your CV isn’t exactly a plus when it comes to running for office.Report
Say what you will about the guy who had that journalist butchered, but at least he’s not trying to get us to pull out of a kinetic military action.Report
Hey, a politician taking a set of principled stands against bloody-handed MENA despots would, indeed, be a Good Thing [tm].
But that isn’t what Gabbard is doing. And she isn’t even going to have the implicit cover that people who don’t rock the foreign policy boat get by not rocking the boat too much.
She’s had a bunch of positions that will not endear her to the Democratic electorate. Almost all of them are also weird and bad.Report
What’s the position on Eternal War in the Middle East of the Democratic electorate?
I know what I thought it was, but then I saw Trump say we had to pull out and now I’m confused.Report
Not Tulsi Gabbard’s.
I know you must think she’s pretty good on the strength of the fact that Team Blue hates her, but since she’s running for Team Blue’s nomination, that is in fact a serious obstacle to her Presidential ambitions.Report
I think she’s pretty bad on the basis of the fact that she was considered electable enough to get where she is now.
But I think that she’s fairly clarifying on the whole “the only reason you could possibly oppose Elizabeth Warren is because she’s a woman!” issue.
I can only assume that Democrats who won’t vote for Tulsi are misogynists. Probably white ones. (“But I have a Native American ancestor! I promise!”)Report
So liberal opposition to Tulsi Gabbard disproves the idea that much of criticism of Warren is rooted in misogyny?
You’ll need to diagram the steps in that one.Report
No, not at all. I’m saying that opposition to Warren because she is a woman is exactly as abhorrent as opposition to Tulsi Gabbard because she is a woman.
And people who refuse to vote for either of them should be expected to defend themselves against charges of misogyny.Report
To me, the difference is that the opposition to Warren is framed in ways that make it clear that it is (largely) rooted in the fact that she is woman (i.e., everyone acknowledges that she is smart, experienced and capable, has little criticism of her positions, but bring up her ‘likeability’), while the opposition I have seen to Gabbard is framed in terms of her policies, positions and associations – all things that would apply equally if she were male.Report
There were people who in 2016 said that they wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton, but they insisted this had nothing to do with sexism, and to prove it they said they’d be happy to vote for Elizabeth Warren.
And now a number [1] of them are saying they won’t vote for Elizabeth Warren.
[1] Not a large number, but one amplified by social media by the obvious mechanisms.Report
And now a number [1] of them are saying they won’t vote for Elizabeth Warren.
Goodness! And assuming that nothing of note happened between 2016 and 2019 with regards to Elizabeth Warren, this makes them complete hypocrites.Report
So what of note happened that would justify this change?
Or is the real point here to insist that there’s no sexism on the Left for some reason?Report
Well, I personally think that the whole “I *DO* have a Native American ancestor somewhere between 6 and 10 generations back!” thing that happened last October demonstrated a *MASSIVE* lack of judgment.
I think that it would be quite possible to say “you know what, I’ll throw my weight behind someone else…” after that happened even if, before that happened, you’d see Warren as a strong candidate.
Or is the real point here to insist that there’s no sexism on the Left for some reason?
Oh, there’s a ton. I assume that it’s why people oppose Tulsi Gabbard, until they demonstrate otherwise.Report
…”people who refuse to vote for either of them should be expected to defend themselves against charges of misogyny.”
Man, I would love to see that argument fleshed out.
Like, “You’re only voting for Kamala Harris against Warren out of a deep seated misogyny!”
The problem here is the same one where conservatives think it is a real zinger to accuse us of racism when we won’t vote for a Tim Scott or Alan Keyes.
The problem is that they see women and minorities as empty vessels, interchangeable tokens. So one is as good as any other.
They also need to invent straw men, who insist that all criticism is illegitimate, when no one ever said any such thing.
All of this ends up being a red herring to distract from the uncomfortable truth that the media coverage of women candidates has always been weird, different from how men are covered. Whether is it Sarah Palin, HRC, or Warren, the coverage always seems to be on the homecoming queen level about smiles and liability and fashion choices.Report
Ah, Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.
Yeah, the more effort that people put into denying stuff usually is a red flag, isn’t it?Report
“So liberal opposition to Tulsi Gabbard disproves the idea that much of criticism of Warren is rooted in misogyny?”
i love this wide-eyed innocence
like you aren’t one of the guys telling us how there was no principled criticism of Hillary Clinton, that it’s all just misogyny, just men being scared of a competent and powerful womanReport
Seriously… at this point Saudi Arabia’s actions in Yemen are worse than Assad… if we’re going to assign MENA scores. I also think MbS is quite likely more destabilizing in the short-/medium-/long-run than his predecessors… If the Saudi’s didn’t have such astoundingly concentrated wealth that they know how to use effectively, we’d have had a much different past with them.
I can’t say if her CV gets a plus or a minus for meeting with Assad, but it gets a plus for getting out of office and meeting with anyone other than a donor.Report
I think the President has to be a winner. The Republicans may hold insane views on most things, but they are winners. The Democrats may hold slightly saner views, but they are for the most part losers (besides Obama and Harry Reid). Tulsi Gabbard strikes me as a winner, which is what the President should be. I am certainly open to her candidacy. I wonder what her policy is.Report
Sarcasm? Performance art?Report
Honestly held viewpoint. I’ve crossed over the dark abyss of cynicism to acceptance.Report
On the twitters, it’s fun to watch the people who tweeted stuff like “Yeah, I’d love to vote for a female candidate. Just not that one. Or that one. Or that one. Or that one.” talk about Tulsi as if she were the second coming of the devil herself.
Not that I’m going to vote for her, of course.Report
Where’s the fun in that? Doesn’t everyone talk about everyone else as if they’re the devil on Twitter?Report
I’d vote for Warren, Harris, Gillebrand in a heartbeat. I voted for Clinton proudly.
Tulsi is a Hindu-nationalist loon who is actually to the right of most Democrats. She is a Democrat that is most liked by people who hate Democrats and concern trolls. But I repeat myself.Report
Hindu-nationalism? In 2019?Report
But can she dance?
Given her comments on the Knights of Columbus alone, I might just have to vote for this one (and by this one I mean woman, not democrat).
If I have to trade a Hindu Hawaii for the freedom to join in the Elks of Catholicism… so be it.Report
What in your mind distinguishes a winner from a loser? Is it simply having the tactical-strategic skill to win an election? Or is there something more? Particularly if the former, what is it about Gabbard that makes you think she can win on the mainland?Report
So many politicians are just along for the ride and will just say and do whatever let’s them stay in the car. Hilary Clinton is one of these. On the other hand, Trump, Obama, Harry Reid, and Tulsi Gabbard want to drive the car.Report