Tulsi Gabbard Slams Trump’s ‘Chickenhawk Cabinet’ At Democratic Debate

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) repeatedly brought up her the need to bring American troops home from the Middle East during the Democratic primary debate on Wednesday and attacked President Donald Trump‘s cabinet for being too hawkish and warmongering.

Gabbard flared up after Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) told moderators that his strategy for wars in the Middle East was to remain engaged and to keep troops deployed in the region. The Hawaiian representative attacked Ryan for his stance, replying that “as a soldier, I will tell you that answer is unacceptable. We have to bring our troops home from Afghanistan we are in a place where we have lost so many lives. We have spent so much money, money that’s coming out of every one of our pockets money that should be going into communities here at home meeting the needs of people here at home.”

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She continued on by flexing her military experience, emphasizing that “this is why it’s so important to have a president and Commander in Chief who knows the cost of war and is ready to do the job on day one I am ready to do that job when I walk into the Oval Office.”

Gabbard also brought up her military experience when discussing the rising tensions between Washington and Tehran, accusing the Trump administration of attempting to start a new war in the Middle East. When defending her anti-war foreign policy, Gabbard said, “The president and his chickenhawk cabinet led us to the brink of war with Iran. I served in the war in Iraq at the height of the war in 2005, a war that took over 4,000 of my brothers and sisters in uniforms’ lives. The American people need to understand this war would be far more devastating, far more costly than anything we saw in Iraq.”

Gabbard stuck to what she knows best, military foreign policy, and it seems that strategy worked out, as increased Google searches for her show a sharp uptick in her name recognition.