By CatholicVote | Created at 2024-10-23 22:32:52 | Updated at 2024-10-24 00:31:15
1 hour ago
CV NEWS FEED // Former Hawaii U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who not long ago was widely regarded as a rising star in the Democratic Party, announced Tuesday that she is becoming a Republican.
The former lawmaker, presidential candidate, and U.S. Army veteran made the announcement at a campaign rally for Republican nominee former President Donald Trump in the battleground state of North Carolina.
“I’m proud to stand here with you today, President Trump, and announce that I’m joining the Republican Party,” Gabbard said. “I am joining the party of the people.”
She called Trump’s party the “party of equality. The party that was founded to fight against and end slavery in this country.”
“It is the party of common sense and the party that is led by a president who has the courage and strength to fight for peace,” Gabbard emphasized.
“I was a Democrat for over 20 years,” she pointed out during her remarks. Gabbard called the Democratic Party of 2024 “completely unrecognizable, which points to the clear choice that we have in this election today.”
“When you look at the party of Kamala Harris for example, she is anti-freedom, she is pro-censorship, she is pro-open borders, and she is pro-war,” Gabbard continued, adding that Harris does not even pretend “to care about peace.”
🚨BREAKING: Former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard officially joins Republican Party at NC Trump rally:
"I'm proud to stand here with you and announce that I am joining the Republican Party."
War vs. peace
Harris “has shamelessly embraced the endorsement and support of warmongerers like Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney,” Gabbard said, “and others who care more about power and feeding the military-industrial complex than they care about you, the American people, and peace.”
“President Trump has pledged to end wars, not start them,” she continued. “And this is why in the eyes of the Kamala Harris-Dick Cheney Democrat Party, they will do everything possible to try to destroy him.”
She went on to praise Trump, who she endorsed earlier this year, for his “commitment” to the “fundamental American principles of freedom, and peace, and prosperity.”
On Tuesday night, following her Trump rally speech, Gabbard wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “For independent thinkers like myself, there is no home in the Democrat Party.”
“However, there is a home for us in the Republican Party,” she noted. “The Republican Party of warmongering elite Dick Cheney is in the past.”
“Trump’s GOP is a big open tent party of the people, equality, commonsense, and the party that is led by a President who has the courage and strength to fight for peace,” she stressed:
Tonight I stood with President Trump and announced I am joining the Republican Party. President Trump is our best and only hope in this election to lead our country toward a future where every one of us can live in a truly free, peaceful, and prosperous nation. Now is the time for us to stand together, vote for Trump and save our country.
For independent-thinkers like myself, there is no home in the Democrat Party. However, there is a home for us in the Republican Party.
The Republican Party of warmongering elite Dick Cheney is in the past. Trump’s GOP is a big open tent party of the people, equality,… pic.twitter.com/lz19KyYERf
An independent voice
Gabbard represented Hawaii’s 2nd congressional district as a Democrat for four terms from 2013 to 2021.
She served as vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) from 2013 to 2016 – resigning the position after deciding to endorse socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, for that year’s Democratic presidential nomination over establishment favorite Hillary Clinton.
Toward the end of her congressional tenure, Gabbard mounted a longshot bid for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination.
In 2022, she left the Democratic Party to become an independent, denouncing the party of which she had once been a vice chairwoman as “under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness.”
In August 2024, after years of vocally criticizing the Biden-Harris administration, she officially endorsed Trump in this year’s presidential election.
>> GABBARD STUMPS FOR TRUMP: ‘COMMITTED TO DOING ALL I CAN’ <<
In 2019, Gabbard made headlines following a viral exchange during a Democratic Primary debate where she criticized fellow candidate then-Sen. Kamala Harris’ record on crime during her tenures as California Attorney General and San Francisco District Attorney.
As CatholicVote previously reported, “Many observers considered the short exchange was a turning point for Harris’ ill-fated 2020 candidacy – with some going even further and stating that it ‘ended’ the then-senator’s bid.”
“Sen. Harris says she’s proud of her record as a prosecutor and that she’ll be a prosecutor president, but I’m deeply concerned about this record,” Gabbard said during the exchange.
“There are too many examples to cite, but [Harris] put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when asked if she ever smoked marijuana,” the then-congresswoman noted. “She blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so.”
“The bottom line is, Sen. Harris,” Gabbard said, talking to the now-Democratic nominee in 2019,
when you were in a position to make a difference and an impact in these people’s lives you did not. And the people who suffered under your reign as prosecutor – you owe them an apology.
