Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, told Fox News Digital Monday that she would ‘be honored to serve’ in a potential Trump administration.
If tapped, Gabbard expressed her desire to work in a position where she can make the greatest impact, particularly in areas related to foreign policy or national security. Gabbard is an active-duty military veteran who completed two tours in the Middle East, and currently serves as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves.
‘I feel I can make the most impact in these areas of national security and foreign policy, and work to bring about the changes that President Trump talks about,’ Gabbard said Monday evening from a campaign fundraising event in Atlanta, Georgia. Gabbard added that bringing an end ‘to the influence of the military industrial complex,’ working to prevent World War III and bringing the U.S. back ‘from the brink of nuclear war’ would be among her priorities. War should be a ‘last resort,’ Gabbard said. She has also supported former President Trump’s plans to end the war in Ukraine.
Gabbard spent time as the vice chair of the Democratic National Committee between 2013 and 2016, and previously supported candidates like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, and President Biden. However, blaming a shift within her former party that she has not agreed with, Gabbard became increasingly friendly with the GOP before leaving the party and eventually joining Trump’s transition team last month.
‘There are a lot of people who I meet in a lot of different places every day who are former Democrats, or people who are leaving the Democratic Party,’ Gabbard said Monday. ‘People who recognize the same things that I have and experienced the same things that I have and realize that the Democratic Party of today doesn’t stand for them, doesn’t stand for freedom, it doesn’t stand for civil liberties… doesn’t stand for peace.’
The former Democratic congresswoman has been outspoken against what a Harris administration could do to peace around the world and, on Monday, she slammed Democrats – including Vice President Kamala Harris – for what she described as their refusal to engage in diplomacy with U.S. adversaries.
‘President Trump did in his last administration what President Obama refused to do, what President Biden refused to do, what Kamala Harris has made clear she refuses to do – which is to go out and do that tough work that a president and commander in chief has to do in diplomacy,’ Gabbard said. ‘Not just hanging out with your friends, and your allies, and your partners, but actually going out and talking to your adversaries.’
Gabbard argued that peace will remain elusive until the leaders in the White House are willing to do this sort of diplomacy. She also slammed Harris for escalating the war in Ukraine and being ‘flippant’ about the chances of a nuclear disaster.
‘The longer this war goes on and the more that Kamala Harris and Joe Biden and the neocons of Washington continue to escalate this war, the greater risk we are of a potential nuclear war, World War III,’ Gabbard said on Monday. ‘It is unconscionable and unacceptable that Kamala Harris and others who are continuing to escalate [the war in Ukraine] are so flippant about the reality of nuclear war.’