In one of the more powerful moments from the 2020 presidential race, during the Democratic Primary debates in 2019, former Congresswoman from Hawaii and now-former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard obliterated then-Senator Kamala Harris, sounding off on her record as a prosecutor and later hypocrisy.
As background, Vice President Harris was, when a prosecutor, extremely tough on marijuana offenses, locking up thousands for possession of the illegal narcotic. She then later admitted that she had smoked marijuana, laughing about doing so, leading many to ridicule her for her hypocrisy on the subject.
Among those who did so was Tulsi Gabbard, who sounded off during the second Democrat debate. Beginning by bringing up Harris’s record as a prosecutor, Gabbard said, “Senator Harris says she’s proud of her record as a prosecutor, and that she’ll be a prosecutor president, but I’m deeply concerned about this record.”
Continuing and pulling no punches, Gabbard called out the apparent hypocrisy of Harris on the marijuana matter, saying, “There are too many examples to cite, but she put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana.”
Still not done, Tulsi alleged that Harris hid exculpatory evidence, saying, “She blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so. She kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California and she fought to keep the cash-bail system in place.”
Watch her here:
After the debate, Harris tried defending herself by suggesting that Gabbard was just trying to make waves and stay on the stage, saying, “This is going to sound immodest, but I’m obviously a top tier candidate, and so, I did expect that I would be on the stage and take hits tonight because there are a lot of people that are trying to make the stage for the next debate.” She added, “Especially when people are at zero or one percent or whatever she might be at, and so, I did expect that I might take hits tonight.”
More recently, Tulsi skewered Kamala and defended VP pick JD Vance in a tweet, saying, “@JDVance1 enlisted in the Marine Corps after 9/11 and deployed to Iraq in 2005, the same year I was there during the height of the war. He put his life on the line in service to our country,. Was Kamala Harris ready to sacrifice her life for our country? Of course not. Once again, Kamala exposes her hypocrisy.”
In the attached video, former Rep. Gabbard, herself a veteran, skewered Kamala’s audacity, saying, “The audacity that she has to say this is off the charts. She’s talking about JD Vance, someone who enlisted in the Marine Corps after the terrorist attack on 9/11.” She added, “Kamala Harris is driven by her own political ambition. She’s a self-serving politician who should not be in office.”
Watch Tulsi speak about Vance and Harris here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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