Tulsi Gabbard, who sought the Democratic Party’s nomination for president in 2020, cut ties with the party and labeled it “elitist” in a video shared on Tuesday.
She said she is leaving the party because it is “under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue and stoking anti-white racism, [and] actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms that are enshrined in our Constitution.”
The former U.S. representative to Hawaii outlined her grievances with the party in a nearly 30-minute video that appeared to double as the first episode of a new podcast called “The Tulsi Gabbard Show.”
A full transcript of the video is the first post on a new Substack newsletter from Gabbard.
In her view, the party is edging the U.S. toward nuclear war, subverting the rule of law for political gain, and constricting constitutional rights.
She said the “pro-war Democratic Party” is “firmly in the grips of the military-industrial complex and don’t know, or don’t care, about the cost of war or who pays the price.”
“President Biden and Democratic Party elites have pushed us to the precipice of nuclear war, risking starting World War III and destroying the world as we know it,” she said. “This is the most urgent existential threat that we face.”
Gabbard’s openly divergent views and irreverence toward party elites have long led some to question her Democratic bona fides.
During her 2020 presidential campaign, the current United States Army reserve officer, who served in Iraq and Kuwait, framed herself as a peace-minded anti-interventionist who cut against mainstream foreign policy.
Turning her attention to the homeland in the video, Gabbard asserted that the Democrat Party “doesn’t believe” in the freedom of speech, religion or the right to bear arms.
Gabbard added that the party is “anti-woman,” referencing its transgender-friendly policies “erase the existence of women.”
She also said the party is anti-family, saying parents are inappropriately cut out of school curriculum choices and coerced into compliance with policies that “sexualize kids.”
