Tulsi announced this week that she is finally and officially breaking from the Democratic party – something that I knew was coming and expected to come sooner.

A vegan surfer from Hawaii. A Hindu woman of color in a deeply loving relationship with a wonderful man. A good friend and godmother to my daughter.

An American who has served her nation in uniform and regularly takes the unpopular stand regardless of the backlash.

Sounds like an interesting and impressive person, no?

Apparently not according to the mainstream media and America’s most prominent political names.

To them Tulsi Gabbard is some kind of illusive James Bond villain. 

A Russian agent.

A traitor to her country.

It’s that last accusation that ignites a roaring passion behind her eyes.

I spoke with Tulsi in a Zoom interview this week as she bounced between interviews with Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan and attending an Independent Women’s forum event in Washington D.C.

She’s popular these days.

Tulsi announced this week that she is finally and officially breaking from the Democratic party – something that I knew was coming and expected to come sooner.

Her reasons for leaving the party are well known, but nonetheless worth repeating.

‘Today’s Democratic Party is anti-freedom,’ she told me from her Washington DC hotel room.

Tulsi announced this week that she is finally and officially breaking from the Democratic party – something that I knew was coming and expected to come sooner.

Tulsi announced this week that she is finally and officially breaking from the Democratic party – something that I knew was coming and expected to come sooner.

‘I love this country, like you. I take these freedoms, these God-given freedoms that are enshrined in our Constitution seriously and treat the oath that I took both as a soldier and as one who has served in public office as a member of Congress very seriously.’

‘How could I associate myself with a party with that letter D next to my name when that party is under the control of woke fanatical ideologues who take every opportunity to undermine those freedoms?’

Damn Tulsi, tell us what you really think.

The biggest thing on her mind is the existential threat of nuclear war with Russia over their ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

‘We are all at risk if this continues to escalate. The president of the United States has the power to be able to lead and help to broker a negotiated end to this.’

Obviously, this is one area on which we disagree. I believe the US must support Ukraine’s struggle against Russia. But I concede that support cannot be open-ended.

Tulsi doesn’t think Biden is doing enough. It seems like relevant and appropriate criticism, but the backlash was fast and predictable.

‘One of her obvious goals here is to inject Russian propaganda into the media ecosystem,’ tweeted a Washington Post journalist.

‘Re Tulsi Gabbard: Makes sense. If you’re pro-Assad and pro-Putin, you join today’s Republican Party,’ added disaffected Republican pundit Bill Kristol.

The first thing I wanted to know from my friend is: How are you handling all of this?

In a nutshell, she’s fed up: ‘It is always a smear attempt, an attempt to discredit, an attempt to belittle.’

‘It gets to a point where if [Americans] hear my name, they don’t even know anything about me or what I stand for or what I’m saying. All they think in their mind is like, she’s a little weird or she’s crazy.’

Tulsi and I were connected by a mutual friend years ago now when she was running for President. I had been critical of her while I was a host on ‘The View’ and my friend called me to say I was wrong about her.

Are we an ‘odd couple’? Yeah, sure.

She’s someone who lives by the spirit of Aloha and bringing people together and is one of the most athletic people I have ever known – regularly surfing, doing yoga and hiking.

I am a red meat eater from Arizona, who is known more for contrarian flame throwing than the ‘Aloha’ vibe. I also absolutely hate working out.

Gabbard served in a field medical unit of the Hawaii Army National Guard while deployed to Iraq from 2004 to 2005 and was stationed in Kuwait from 2008 to 2009 as an Army Military Police platoon leader.

Gabbard served in a field medical unit of the Hawaii Army National Guard while deployed to Iraq from 2004 to 2005 and was stationed in Kuwait from 2008 to 2009 as an Army Military Police platoon leader.

Tulsi and I were connected by a mutual friend years ago now when she was running for President. I had been critical of her while I was a host on 'The View' and my friend called me to say I was wrong about her.

Tulsi and I were connected by a mutual friend years ago now when she was running for President. I had been critical of her while I was a host on ‘The View’ and my friend called me to say I was wrong about her.

But our first lunch is one of the most memorable and enjoyable I have ever had. We bonded over the fact that people hate us for refusing to toe the line.

When Tulsi first came to Congress she was celebrated within her party and the mainstream corporate media with glowing profiles in places like Vogue Magazine.

That all changed when she bucked her party’s leadership and endorsed Bernie Sanders over Hilary Clinton in 2016.

She wasn’t just going to be a puppet sent out for convenient messaging.

In the 2020 Democratic presidential primary she famously stuck a fork in the presidential aspirations of now-Vice President Kamala Harris.

Tulsi called her out on the debate stage for the hypocrisy of throwing low level drug offenders in jail as California’s attorney general and then going on a popular radio show and making light of the fact that she smoked pot herself.

‘She put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana,’ Tulsi said on the debate stage.

Now that Harris is cheering President Biden’s decision to expunge the records of Americans with federal convictions for pot possession, is she saying: ‘I told ya so’? Nope.

‘Good,’ she told me. ‘I hope they listen to more things that I’m saying… so like, whatever their motivation. Okay, cool.’

Gabbard served in a field medical unit of the Hawaii Army National Guard while deployed to Iraq from 2004 to 2005 and was stationed in Kuwait from 2008 to 2009 as an Army Military Police platoon leader.

People often ask me about her strident antiwar stance and commitment to world peace. I am much more hawkish in my beliefs but familiar with the sentiment of the war weary 9/11 generation.

A vegan surfer from Hawaii . A Hindu woman of color in a deeply loving relationship with a wonderful man (Abraham, pictured right) . A good friend and godmother to my daughter.

A vegan surfer from Hawaii . A Hindu woman of color in a deeply loving relationship with a wonderful man (Abraham, pictured right) . A good friend and godmother to my daughter.

She's someone who lives by the spirit of Aloha and bringing people together and is one of the most athletic people I have ever known - regularly surfing (above), doing yoga and hiking.

She’s someone who lives by the spirit of Aloha and bringing people together and is one of the most athletic people I have ever known – regularly surfing (above), doing yoga and hiking.

I tell people that Tulsi was so deeply impacted by her time overseas that it manifested physically — her iconic white streak in her hair. She keeps it as a physical reminder of war that she sees in the mirror every day.

At this point, Tulsi should be desensitized to the ‘traitor’ smear. But she isn’t.

‘The Democrat on the panel was using all those same attack lines basically that I am somehow loyal to Putin or Russia or a traitor to the country that I love,’ she said recalling a segment on Fox News several days ago.

‘It’s one thing to criticize my politics,’ she said, getting fired up. ‘It’s another matter completely for someone to have the audacity to say thank you for your service to our country, but I think you’re a traitor.’

It isn’t just Democrats who have attacked Tulsi in this way – Republicans have done so as well.

To her that is a line too far. Actually, it really pisses her off.

‘[Mitt] Romney did this. Hillary Clinton did this. Others have done this. And what pisses me off about that, Meghan, is not just the offense that I personally take… They’re talking to every man and woman who wears this uniform and telling them, if you dare to step out of the line, if you dare to speak the truth, if you dare to voice your opinion that doesn’t agree with theirs, then you also are a traitor to our country and that is f***ing a no go in anyone’s book.’

Tulsi issued a challenge to the critics who question the loyalty of those who have served.

‘I want to see them go and deploy and leave their loved ones behind, knowing that that last goodbye that you say could be final… if you’re not willing to go do that then you need to shut up.’

When Tulsi talks about service, you can see the fire burning.

Our first lunch is one of the most memorable and enjoyable I have ever had. We bonded over the fact that people hate us for refusing to toe the line.

Our first lunch is one of the most memorable and enjoyable I have ever had. We bonded over the fact that people hate us for refusing to toe the line.

It’s part of the reason she sympathizes with President Biden for the loss of his son Beau, a major in the Delaware Army National Guard in the Iraq War. And it’s why she found his recent remarks about Beau ‘dying’ in Iraq, so alarming.

‘I can’t imagine the sense of loss that a parent feels in losing a child. I can’t — I can’t imagine it,’ she noted, but that wasn’t all.

‘As the president of the United States, he has a responsibility, though.’

‘For the families and the parents who — those Gold Star families — who have lost their loved ones in combat — accuracy matters… He runs the risk of not honoring those sacrifices.’

I agree with her. I can’t fathom the pain of losing a child. I do, however, know the pain of losing someone to the specific cancer, glioblastoma multiforme stage 4, that both Beau and my dad died of.

No pain, no grief, no loss is comparable but there is no way to equate losing a loved one in war to losing a loved one to cancer.

Here Tulsi agrees with me: ‘[President Biden] can honor his son Beau by speaking up about the cancer that he suffered from, that he was deployed to Iraq and what their family went through without conflating it with those who have lost loved ones in combat.’

For Tulsi, she seems to have had about enough with President Biden, whom she endorsed in 2020. To her, he is not the man that she supported.

‘I could not be more disappointed and more disheartened by the fact that the Joe Biden we are seeing is diametrically opposed to everything that I ever knew about him, frankly.’

Biden’s now infamous speech in Philadelphia, delivered before a blood-red background and decorated with all the official trappings of the presidency was, to her, dangerous.

‘How do you get more divisive than that for half the country to now be labeled essentially as terrorists, as extremist, as a threat to the country?’

And it’s more than that to her – she believes the president put ordinary Americans at risk to violence.

‘The president of the United States, has now put a target on their back simply because their politics are different.’

It is not just Biden that has disappointed Tulsi. The ‘the AOC’s of the world and the Bernie Sanders of the world’ among which she numbers, are according to her – overlooking the existential threat to mankind – nuclear war.

‘They’re talking about climate change is the greatest threat facing humanity. But they’re silent when it comes to what we are facing immediately with the prospects of nuclear war.’

‘We’re the closest, closest than we ever have been to the potential of a nuclear catastrophe. And yet the Democratic Party and these so-called progressives are silent… it shows how out of touch with reality they really are.’

What the future holds for Tulsi is anyone’s guess, including her own.

Whether she decides to run for president again will come down to, ‘where can I make the most difference and how can I make the most impact in serving our country.’

I believe her.

Tulsi and I don’t agree about everything, far from it, and sometimes we talk about it – respectfully. But I love and respect her because America needs more people like Tulsi. People who still give me faith that they want the country to come together instead of burning to the ground.

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