Former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who ran for president as a Democrat in 2020 and has since aligned herself with the U.S. right wing, officially endorsed former President Donald Trump at a National Guard event in Detroit on Monday.
“This administration has us facing multiple wars on multiple fronts and regions around the world, and closer to the brink of nuclear war than we ever have been before,” Gabbard said after being brought on stage by Trump at the annual meeting of the National Guard Association of the United States, a lobbying organization.
“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 where he can once again serve us as our commander in chief, because I am confident that his first task will be to do the work to walk us back from the brink of war," she continued.
After dropping out and endorsing Joe Biden in the 2020 Democratic primary, Gabbard left the party she served with for four terms in Congress in 2022 and campaigned for Republicans in the midterms that year. Once a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, Gabbard has earned celebrity on the right, speaking at the annual Conservative Political Action Conferences and guest hosting Tucker Carlson’s show when he was still on Fox News.
More recently, she has been reportedly helping Trump prepare for his Sept. 10 debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, who Gabbard notably clashed with during the 2020 Democratic primary debates. On Monday morning, Gabbard traveled with Trump to Arlington National Cemetery to mark the third anniversary of the suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport that killed 13 U.S. service members and more than 100 Afghans during the U.S. withdrawal in 2021.
“Every time she ran, she was good. She did well. She decided to leave, she couldn't take it anymore. But she is very special,” Trump said. “And I didn't know this, but she is a lieutenant colonel. That’s not bad. Lieutenant colonel? Not bad. I didn't know that, you know? I just found out. I said, ‘put it down. You got to put that down’ [in his speech]. That’s better than all the other stuff I read.”
Gabbard served in the Hawaii Army National Guard from 2003 to 2020 before transferring to an Army Reserve unit based in California. She served a year in Iraq in 2004 and 2005, was deployed to Kuwait from 2008 to 2009, and deployed again to Africa in 2021 after leaving Congress.
Robert F. Kennedy, the former Democratic-turned-independent candidate who endorsed Trump last week after suspending his White House bid, teased on Fox News on Sunday that the Republican ex-president "is going to make a series of announcements about other Democrats who are joining his campaign."
He did not elaborate on Democrats who might soon announce their support for Trump, and it's not clear if Gabbard was who he meant by this.
“Donald Trump’s MAGA brand is so toxic that he’s resorted to touting support from off-putting extremists like RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard. Gabbard and Trump have a lot in common – they have both earned the praises of white supremacists and other extremists, celebrated the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and campaigned for dangerous election deniers," Democratic National Committee spokesperson Alex Floyd said. "Rather than focusing on earning the support of hardworking Americans, Trump is more fixated on winning the backing of extremists like Gabbard and RFK Jr. – and they’ll do nothing but weigh down his sinking ship of a campaign.”
Spectrum News' Ryan Chatelain contributed to this report.