Tulsi Gabbard’s transition from Democrat to high-profile role with Trump’s 2024 campaign team
Tulsi Gabbard, former US Representative from Hawaii, speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland, US,Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024. (Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Tulsi Gabbard, who once ran for president as a Democrat, is taking on a prominent role as part of former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign team.
On Thursday, she will moderate what Trump’s campaign is calling a “town hall” with him when he visits La Crosse in battleground Wisconsin.
Gabbard publicly endorsed Trump on stage in Michigan earlier this week, and joined his presidential transition team along with fellow former Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“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. “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.”
Trump called Gabbard an “amazing person” and that he looked forward to working with her.
Gabbard, a military veteran who represented Hawaii in Congress for eight years, has also been aiding Trump as he prepares for his first debate against Vice President Kamala Harris on Sept. 10. Gabbard debated Harris and President Joe Biden in the 2020 Democratic primary, and made headlines at the time for taking aim at Harris’ record as a prosecutor.
Since leaving the Democratic Party in 2022 to register as an independent, Gabbard’s adopted several views that align with those held by Trump and his Republican allies.
That includes opposition to U.S. support for Ukraine in its fight against Russian invaders; criticism of the criminal indictments against Trump; and statements railing against the so-called deep state and “woke” ideologies of the Democratic Party.
Gabbard, an anti-interventionist when it comes to foreign policy, has accused President Joe Biden’s administration of stoking tensions around the globe — describing Democrats as a “cabal of warmongers” when she became an independent.
“This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine’s becoming a member of NATO, which would mean US/NATO forces right on Russia’s border,” she wrote of the Russia-Ukraine war on X, formerly known as Twitter, in 2022.
She also shared false information alleging U.S. involvement in Ukraine biological weapons laboratories. Her comments received pushback from the likes of Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, a Republican, who described her comments as “treasonous lies” that were “parroting false Russian propaganda.”
The State Department, around the time such claims were being spread, said the Kremlin was intentionally proliferating “outright lies that the United States and Ukraine are conducting chemical and biological weapons activities in Ukraine.”
The year Russia invaded Ukraine, Gabbard made multiple appearances on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox to discuss the conflict, clips of which were aired on Russian-state media.
After leaving the Democratic Party, she campaigned for election-deniers in the 2022 midterm cycle, including Arizona’s Kari Lake and New Hampshire’s Don Bolduc — both of whom were defeated.
During an event for Bolduc, she compared President Biden (who she endorsed in the 2020 primary after bowing out of the race) to Adolf Hitler.
In 2023 comments to Fox’s Jesse Watters, Gabbard continued to make comparisons to Hitler as she said Biden and the party’s focus on diversity was similar to the “geneticist core principles embodied by Nazism and Adolf Hitler.”
More recently, she’s accused Biden of weaponizing law enforcement to go after his political opponent after Trump was indicted on federal charges stemming from his handling of classified material and his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) earlier this year, she suggested, like many Republicans have, that the criminal charges against Trump were an effort to interfere in the 2024 election.
“The Democrat elite and their cronies are using our criminal justice system to prosecute and distract the Republican presidential candidate in the midst of his campaign,” she said.
After Biden dropped out of the race, Gabbard turned her focus toward Harris — though asserted a larger “deep state” was at work in the federal government.
“Biden’s out, Kamala is in. Don’t be fooled: policies won’t change. Just like Biden wasn’t the one calling the shots, Kamala Harris won’t be either. She is the new figurehead for the deep state and the maidservant of Hillary Clinton, queen of the cabal of warmongers. They will continue their efforts to engulf the world in war and taking away our liberty,” Gabbard claimed on X.
Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speak during a presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Sept. 10, 2024. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Climate change remains on the backburner of the 2024 election following little mention of environmental policy during the first — and possibly only — debate between the two presidential candidates.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump faced off for the first time on Tuesday night from the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, where neither candidate dedicated ample time to addressing what they would do to reduce the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions and bolster the clean energy industry.
“I think what we learned last night is that climate really is not on the ballot this fall,” Leah Aronowsky, a science historian at the Columbia Climate School, whose research has focused on the history of climate science and climate denialism, told ABC News.
Climate change has not taken center stage this election cycle due to other topics — such as the economy, immigration and abortion — but that doesn’t mean that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is any less important, John Abraham, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, told ABC News.
The first mention of greenhouse gas emissions came amid Trump’s claims that he “built one of the strongest economies in the history of the world.” The former president accused the Biden administration of enacting policies that would destroy the domestic oil industry and cause inflation to worsen.
But, the Biden administration produced 12.9 million barrels per day in 2023, breaking the record set in 2019 at 12.3 million barrels, data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows.
During the debate, Harris touted the Biden administration bringing domestic gas production to “historic levels.” Lena Moffitt, executive director of the environmental organization Evergreen Action, an environmental nonprofit, told ABC News the reference was likely an effort to entice a broad array of voters by promising to extend commitment to fossil fuel extraction while also building out a renewable energy industry and focusing more on electric vehicles.
Harris was also questioned during the debate on whether she has changed her “values” on whether to ban fracking.
Reliance on domestic stores of oil necessitates continued fracking, Harris said, making clear that she will not ban the technique used to extract oil and gas from underground rock formations, despite Trump’s insistence that she had been against it for “12 years.”
ABC News could not identify why Trump claimed Harris had been claiming for 12 years that she would ban fracking.
In 2016, while attorney general of California, Harris sued the U.S. Interior Department over its environmental assessment on the California coastline, which would have allowed fracking on the Pacific Outer Continental Shelf. Since 2020, Harris has made it “very clear” that she will not ban fracking, she said during the debate.
“I was the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, which opened new leases on fracking,” she said. “My position is that we have got to invest in diverse sources of energy so we reduce our reliance on foreign oil.”
The only question explicitly about climate change came at the very end, just before the candidates’ closing arguments.
When asked what she would do to fight climate change, Harris first reminded voters that Trump has described the climate crisis as a “hoax” before talking about where Americans are being hit hardest by extreme weather events: their homes.
Homeowners in states that experience extreme weather events are increasingly being denied home insurance, or premiums are “being jacked up,” Harris said.
“You ask anybody who has been the victim of what that means — in terms of losing their home, having nowhere to go,” Harris said.
Appealing to homeowners was a smart move on Harris’ part, Aronowsky said, adding that homeowners will take the brunt of the economic hardships of the extreme weather that is predicted to increase as global temperatures continue to rise.
“We’re going to see more and more insurance companies dropping the homeowners from policies, Americans getting hit with exorbitant insurance premiums,” she said. “So, it’s really a looming political crisis.”
Harris said that young Americans “care deeply” about climate change. It’s because they’ve seen first-hand how climate change can affect their lives, Moffitt said.
“It is an issue that a lot of Americans really care about, especially young voters,” Moffitt told ABC News.
Trump did not answer the question on climate change, instead focusing on jobs that he said are no longer in existence due to Chinese-owned auto plants being built in Mexico.
“They lost 10,000 manufacturing jobs this last month,” Trump said. “It’s going — they’re all leaving.”
Investing in the clean energy industry will actually create more jobs, Abraham said. The U.S. now has an opportunity to participate in the green energy economy to power the country, which will create high-tech, high-paid jobs, he said.
“I think it’s a real missed opportunity for Republicans,” Abraham said. “If you’re a fiscal conservative, you want to be part of this new energy economy and make money off it.”
Clean energy employment increased by 142,000 jobs in 2023, according to a U.S. Department of Energy report released last month.
With the passing of the landmark Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration has made more progress than any previous administration on environmental policy, the experts said.
But environmental advocates and policymakers will have to find a way going forward to help the public understand how climate change will affect Americans in their everyday lives, Aronowsky said.
“It’s becoming clear that talking about climate as a … standalone issue is a political dead end,” she said.
(CHICAGO) —Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday unveiled her economic platform, her first major policy rollout since becoming the Democratic nominee.
Former President Donald Trump on Thursday held a press conference in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he said he’s “entitled” to insult his Democratic opponent because he doesn’t respect her and attacked her record on the economy.
Here’s how the news is developing:
Bulletproof glass shields Trump at North Carolina rally
Former President Donald Trump spoke behind bulletproof glass at his rally in North Carolina on Wednesday as new security measures are being put in place after the assassination attempt against the former president.
Trump was surrounded by the glass barriers as he addressed supporters in Asheboro. The event marked his first outdoor rally since the shooting on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, during which Trump and two others were injured and one person was killed.
-ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler
RFK Jr. planning to leave 2024 race: Sources
Robert Kennedy Jr. is planning to drop out of the race by the end of this week, sources familiar with the decision tell ABC News.
Sources say that Kennedy is leaning toward endorsing former President Donald Trump, though the sources cautioned the decision is not yet finalized and could still change. One source added that the hope is, in part, to finalize things quickly in order to try to blunt momentum from the DNC.
Kennedy is set to address the nation on Friday, his campaign said earlier Wednesday.
-ABC News’ Aaron Katersky, Will McDuffie, Olivia Rubin, John Santucci and Katherine Faulders
RFK Jr. to address nation Friday about ‘path forward’
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will “address the nation” live Friday to discuss his “path forward,” his press secretary posted on X Wednesday.
The campaign did not immediately offer any more specifics.
-ABC News’ Will McDuffie
Harris headed to Milwaukee rally tonight
Democratic candidate for president, Vice President Kamala Harris, is set to speak at a rally in Milwaukee on Tuesday, according to her campaign.
Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ vice presidential running mate, will be in attendance, the campaign confirmed. Also expected at the event are Congresswoman Gwen Moore, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, members of the Milwaukee Bucks franchise, including Khris Middleton and President Peter Feigin, and labor leaders.
Harris and Waltz appeared at the DNC in Chicago on Monday night, where Harris surprised delegates by taking the stage early in the night for a brief speech.
Tuesday’s rally, which is being held at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, is aimed at energizing Wisconsin voters, the campaign said.
Iran denies involvement in attempts to hack Trump, Biden campaigns
Iran is denying reports it was involved in attempts to hack the presidential campaigns of former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, the latter of which while he was still in the race.
In a statement, the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations, said that reports of attempted hacking, which came from Google and Microsoft, are “unsubstantiated.”
“Such allegations are unsubstantiated and devoid of any standing. As we have previously announced, the Islamic Republic of Iran harbors neither the intention nor the motive to interfere with the U.S. presidential election,” the statement read. “Should the U.S. government genuinely believe in the validity of its claims, it should furnish us with the pertinent evidence—if any—to which we will respond accordingly.”
-ABC News’ Pierre Thomas
7:32 AM EDT Bernie Sanders to speak at DNC on ‘lowering health care costs’
Lowering health care costs will be a central theme at the Democratic National Convention this week, campaign and convention officials said on Monday, with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), confirmed as one notable program speaker set to focus upon the issue — specifically on “lowering Rx drug prices” and “taking on Big Pharma.”
Speakers throughout the week like Sanders, California Rep. Robert Garcia, Illinois Rep. Lauren Underwood and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham will highlight the support of Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz for strengthening the Affordable Care Act, convention officials shared first with ABC News.
In a Friday speech setting out a string of economic proposals, Harris pledged to “lower the cost of insulin and prescription drugs for everyone.” She also said she’d “demand transparency from the middlemen who operate between Big Pharma and the insurance companies, who use opaque practices to raise your drug prices and profit off your need for medicine.”
-ABC News’ Isabella Murray
Kerry Washington, Tony Goldwyn and more to host DNC
Actors Kerry Washington, Tony Goldwyn, Mindy Kaling and commentator Ana Navarro will serve as hosts at the Democratic National Convention this week, convention officials confirmed to ABC News.
Each will host one night of the four-day convention, starting the programming with opening remarks and reappearing onstage throughout the night.
Goldwyn will host Monday night, Navarro on Tuesday and Kaling on Wednesday. Washington will host on Thursday, the night Vice President Kamala Harris formally accepts her nomination.
CNN first reported this news.
Harris and Walz debut new campaign buses and kick off tour ahead of DNC
Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz debuted their new campaign buses Sunday and kicked off a bus tour of southwestern Pennsylvania ahead of this week’s Democratic National Convention.
Upon their arrival on Air Force Two, a few hundred supporters greeted Harris, Walz and their spouses at a hangar where the new were buses parked.
Supporters told ABC News they were thrilled by Harris’ candidacy, with one saying she had not felt this excited about politics in years. Some said they had never volunteered for a campaign before signing up to work on Harris’.
“I was excited about Biden, but I am a million times more excited about Kamala,” Nicole Molinaro, a Pittsburgh-area mom, said. “I think that we need her leadership. We need her intelligence. We need her progressive, you know, stance. I think we need her experience. We need everything about Kamala.”
Another supporter, Edward Freel, said he was unsure about Harris at first, “but then, as I started listening better and following her, [I thought] this woman is going to be good for this country.”
Trump campaign releases counterprogramming schedule for DNC week
During the week of the DNC, Former President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance will be out on the campaign trail, holding events in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.
Trump allies — including Sens. Ron Johnson and Rick Scott, and Rep. Byron Donalds — will travel to Chicago to host press conferences every day of the convention. The Trump team will also give a press conference on Thursday ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris accepting the Democratic party’s nomination.
“As they meet Americans where they are in battleground states across the country, President Trump and Senator Vance will remind voters that under their leadership, we can end inflation, protect our communities from violent criminals, secure the border, and Make America Great Again,” Trump Campaign Senior Advisors Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said in a statement.
-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa, Soo Rin Kim and Kelsey Walsh
Michelle Obama to speak at DNC this week
Former first lady Michelle Obama will speak at the DNC in Chicago this week, ABC News has confirmed with her office.
Her appearance, first reported by Essence Magazine, will be among a lineup of prominent Democratic leaders who are rallying in support of Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Former President Barack Obama is also scheduled to speak at the DNC.
According to a source familiar with the planning, Michelle Obama will speak on Tuesday — the same day as the former president.
-ABC News’ Michelle Stoddart and Gabriella Abdul-Hakim
Former Democrat Rep. Tulsi Gabbard will help Trump prepare for presidential debate
Former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard will assist Trump in preparing for his first debate against Vice President Kamala Harris.
“[Trump] does not need traditional debate prep but will continue to meet with respected policy advisors and effective communicators like Tulsi Gabbard, who successfully dominated Kamala Harris on the debate stage,” Trump campaign National Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in a statement to ABC News, confirming a development first reported by The New York Times.
Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii and a one-time Democratic presidential candidate during the 2020 election, gained brief momentum during her presidential run after challenging Harris on the debate stage on topics like criminal prosecutions.
Since leaving the Democratic Party, Gabbard has been gaining traction among Trump supporters, and more recently she has appeared on Fox and other conservative news outlets attacking Harris.
– ABC News’ Rachel Scott, Soo Rin Kim, Kelsey Walsh, and Lalee Ibssa
Election 2024 updates: ABC News Harris-Trump debate to be held in Philadelphia
The first debate between Vice President Harris and former President Trump will be held by ABC News at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
The Sept. 10 debate will be moderated by ABC News anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis.
It will air live at 9:00 p.m. ET on the network and on its 24/7 streaming network ABC News Live, Disney+ and Hulu.
Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Desert Diamond Arena, on Aug. 23, 2024, in Glendale, Arizona. (Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — After months of delays, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., is scheduled to hold a hearing Thursday that could determine the trajectory of former President Donald Trump’s election interference case.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is expected to consider competing proposals for how the case should proceed following the Supreme Court’s recent ruling granting broad immunity for official acts taken by presidents.
Thursday’s hearing will mark the first time lawyers for Trump and special counsel Jack Smith set foot in Chutkan’s courtroom since last fall. Trump’s lawyers successfully delayed the case — which was originally set to go to trial in March — by appealing their claim of presidential immunity to the Supreme Court, whose ruling dramatically altered the legal landscape for the former president.
In a superseding indictment handed up last week, Smith attempted to revise his case against the former president by trimming out any allegations related to Trump’s official duties — which would be exempt from prosecution following the Supreme Court’s ruling — while keeping the same four criminal charges that Trump faced in his original indictment.
“The Defendant had no official responsibilities related to the certification proceeding, but he did have a personal interest as a candidate in being named the winner of the election,” the new indictment said.
Trump, who is not expected to appear at Thursday’s hearing in person, has directed his attorneys to plead not guilty on his behalf.
In addition to making minor changes to clarify Trump’s actions were undertaken in a private capacity, prosecutors removed the once-central allegation that Trump attempted to use the Department of Justice to support his false claims about election fraud. The indictment also removed details about Trump’s conduct while rioters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 — including refusing to call off the rioters — and some examples of advisers directly correcting Trump about his false claims of election fraud.
In a joint filing last week, prosecutors told Judge Chutkan that the revisions to the indictment ensured the Supreme Court’s protections for official acts would not apply to the new case, which distinguishes Trump’s “private electioneering activity” from “official action.”
Defense attorneys disagreed, arguing in the same filing that prosecutors wrongly included allegations that are subject to presidential immunity and that they misused a federal obstruction statute.
“We believe, and expect to demonstrate, that this case must end as a matter of law,” defense attorneys wrote.
While the Supreme Court’s decision broadly expanded the scope of presidential immunity — conferring absolute immunity for core presidential powers and a presumption of immunity for all other official acts — the court declined to fully apply its decision to the facts alleged in Trump’s indictment, and instead tasked Chutkan with conducting a “fact-specific analysis” to determine whether the former president’s conduct was official or unofficial.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys disagreed about the best way for Chutkan to proceed following the Supreme Court’s decision, with Smith urging Chutkan to address the immunity question “first and foremost” through a series of paper briefings, according to Friday’s joint filing.
Defense attorneys, in contrast, urged Chutkan to first consider whether the case should be thrown out on the grounds that Smith was illegally appointed — the same argument used by a federal judge in Florida to dismiss the former president’s classified documents case — before taking up the question of presidential immunity in a schedule that could stretch the proceedings into the new year.
Thursday’s hearing is likely to offer the first indication of how Chutkan plans to address the long-delayed case ahead of the November election and apply the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling.
Addressing reporters Wednesday on the topic of election interference, Attorney General Merrick Garland defended Smith’s decision to bring a superseding indictment two months ahead of the November election, saying that he is “quite confident” that Smith observed DOJ policies related to elections.
“I stand by the actions of the special counsel,” Garland said. “The superseding indictment is an effort to respond to the direct instructions of the Supreme Court as to how to effectuate a new indictment in an ongoing case.”
Trump, meanwhile, has continued to defend his efforts to overturn the election results.
“Whoever heard you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election where you have every right to do it?” Trump said in a Fox News interview that aired this past Sunday.
