Tulsi Gabbard is an American politician, United States Army Reserve officer and political commentator who served as the US representative for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district from 2013 to 2021.
108 Facts About Tulsi Gabbard
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Tulsi Gabbard was a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 United States presidential election, In October 2022, Gabbard announced that she had quit the Democratic Party without joining any other party.
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In 2002, Tulsi Gabbard was elected to the Hawaii House of Representatives at the age of 21.
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Tulsi 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.
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In March 2020, Tulsi Gabbard ended her presidential candidacy to endorse Joe Biden and was succeeded by Kai Kahele in the House of Representatives on January 3,2021.
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Tulsi Gabbard has since taken more conservative positions on issues such as abortion, transgender rights and border security.
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Tulsi Gabbard endorsed Florida's Parental Rights in Education Act and was a featured speaker at the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference.
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Tulsi Gabbard continued her frequent presence on Fox News, including serving as a fill-in host for Tucker Carlson Tonight and eventually becoming a paid contributor to the network.
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In October 2022, Tulsi Gabbard announced that she had left the Democratic Party altogether, citing their positions on foreign policy and social issues as the primary reasons for her departure, and as of that date is unaffiliated with any party.
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Tulsi Gabbard followed her announcement by endorsing and campaigning for numerous Republican candidates in that year's midterm elections.
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Tulsi Gabbard was the fourth of five children born to Carol Gabbard and her husband, Mike Gabbard.
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In 1983, when Tulsi Gabbard was two years old, her family moved to Hawaii, where her family had lived in the late 1970s.
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Tulsi Gabbard has both European and Samoan ancestry, and was raised in a multicultural household.
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Tulsi Gabbard's mother was born in Indiana and grew up in Michigan.
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Tulsi Gabbard's father was born in American Samoa and lived in Hawaii and Florida as a child; he is of Samoan and European ancestry.
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Tulsi Gabbard was raised in accordance with the teachings of the Science of Identity Foundation religious community and its spiritual leader, Chris Butler, and was sheltered from outside influences.
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In 2015, Tulsi Gabbard called Butler her guru dev.
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Tulsi Gabbard has been reluctant to speak publicly about the SIF.
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Tulsi Gabbard was homeschooled through high school, except for two years at an all-girls SIF boarding school in the Philippines.
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Tulsi Gabbard worked for a number of organizations founded by her father, including:.
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In 2002, while working as a self-employed martial arts instructor, Tulsi Gabbard dropped out of Leeward Community College where she was studying television production to successfully run for election to the Hawaii House of Representatives.
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In 2009, Tulsi Gabbard graduated from Hawaii Pacific University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a concentration in International Business.
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In Iraq, Tulsi Gabbard served at Logistical Support Area Anaconda, completing her tour in 2005.
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Tulsi Gabbard was commissioned as a second lieutenant, and assigned to the 29th Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 29th Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the Hawaii Army National Guard, this time to serve as an Army Military Police officer.
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Tulsi Gabbard was stationed in Kuwait from 2008 to 2009.
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Tulsi Gabbard was one of the first women to enter a Kuwaiti military facility, as well as the first woman to receive an award of appreciation from the Kuwait National Guard.
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Tulsi Gabbard is a recipient of the Combat Medical Badge and the Meritorious Service Medal.
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Tulsi Gabbard continued to serve as a major in the Hawaii Army National Guard until her transfer to the 351st Civil Affairs Command, a California-based United States Army Reserve unit assigned to the United States Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command, in June 2020.
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Tulsi Gabbard's campaign removed the video and added a disclaimer to the website's banner image of Tulsi Gabbard in uniform in a veterans' cemetery that the image does not imply an endorsement from the military.
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In October 2020, Tulsi Gabbard left the Hawaii Army National Guard to join the Army Reserve with a California-based unit.
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On July 4,2021, Tulsi Gabbard was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel.
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At the age of 21, Tulsi Gabbard became the youngest legislator ever elected in Hawaii's history, and was at the time the youngest woman ever elected to a US state legislature.
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In 2004, Tulsi Gabbard filed for reelection but then volunteered for Army National Guard service in Iraq.
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Rida Cabanilla, who filed to run against her, called on Tulsi Gabbard to resign because she would not be able to represent her district from Iraq.
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Tulsi Gabbard introduced a measure to help food truck vendors by loosening parking restrictions.
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Tulsi Gabbard introduced Bill 54, a measure that authorized city workers to confiscate personal belongings stored on public property with 24 hours notice to its owner.
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In May 2011, Tulsi Gabbard announced her candidacy for Hirono's House seat.
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In December 2012, Tulsi Gabbard applied to be considered for appointment to the US Senate seat vacated by the death of Daniel Inouye.
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In March 2013, Tulsi Gabbard introduced the Helping Heroes Fly Act, which sought to improve airport security screenings for severely wounded veterans.
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Tulsi Gabbard introduced the House version of the Military Justice Improvement Act.
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Tulsi Gabbard was reelected on November 8,2014, defeating Crowley again, by 142,010 to 33,630 votes ; Libertarian candidate Joe Kent garnered 4,693 votes.
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Tulsi Gabbard introduced Talia's Law which sought to prevent child abuse and neglect on military bases.
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Tulsi Gabbard was reelected on November 8,2016, defeating Republican nominee Angela Kaaihue by 170,848 to 39,668 votes.
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In 2018, Tulsi Gabbard introduced the Securing America's Election Act, a bill that would require all districts to use paper ballots, which would yield an auditable paper trail in the event of a recount.
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Tulsi Gabbard was reelected in November 2018, defeating Republican nominee Brian Evans by 153,271 to 44,850 votes.
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On October 25,2019, Tulsi Gabbard announced that she would not seek reelection to the House in 2020, citing her presidential campaign.
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Tulsi Gabbard introduced a similar bill, with Kentucky Republican congressman Thomas Massie, aimed at ensuring the release of Julian Assange from prison in the United Kingdom where he was being held pending resolution of extradition proceedings to the United States.
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On January 22,2013, Tulsi Gabbard was unanimously elected to a four-year term as a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee.
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Tulsi Gabbard released a statement about the heated and public disagreements surrounding the debates in a Facebook post in 2015.
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Tulsi Gabbard privately wrote to Wasserman Schultz, accusing her of violating the DNC's duty of neutrality by favoring Hillary Clinton.
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Tulsi Gabbard resigned as DNC vice chair on February 28,2016, to endorse Senator Bernie Sanders for the nomination for President of the United States.
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Tulsi Gabbard was the first congresswoman to endorse Sanders, and later gave the nominating speech putting his name forward at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.
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In July 2016, Tulsi Gabbard launched a petition to end the Democratic Party's process of appointing superdelegates in the nomination process.
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Tulsi Gabbard endorsed Keith Ellison for DNC chair in the 2017 chairmanship elections.
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Tulsi Gabbard was assigned as Bernie Sanders's running mate in California for any write-in votes for him.
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In February 2019, Tulsi Gabbard officially launched her 2020 presidential campaign.
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Tulsi Gabbard was the first female combat veteran to run for president.
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Tulsi Gabbard was the most frequently Googled candidate after the first, second, and fourth 2020 Democratic debates.
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Tulsi Gabbard did not meet the polling threshold for the third presidential debate, prompting her to criticize the DNC's qualification criteria as not transparent.
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Tulsi Gabbard did qualify for the fourth debate in Ohio in October 2019, but accused the media and the Democratic party of "rigging" the 2020 election, and briefly threatened to boycott the debate before deciding to participate.
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Tulsi Gabbard skipped the LULAC Latino Town Hall to appear on Hannity's TV show, where she criticized the Democrats' impeachment process.
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In July 2019, Tulsi Gabbard was the only 2020 presidential candidate to visit Puerto Rico and join protests urging Governor Ricardo Rossello to resign.
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Tulsi Gabbard was defended by many fellow 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, who rejected Clinton's suggestion that Tulsi Gabbard was a Russian asset.
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Tulsi Gabbard filed a defamation lawsuit against Clinton in January 2020, but dropped it five months later.
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Tulsi Gabbard was the only non-white Democratic party candidate to earn delegates in the 2020 election cycle.
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On March 19,2020, Tulsi Gabbard dropped out of the 2020 election and endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden.
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Tulsi Gabbard was the only candidate with primary delegates to not be invited to the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
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In May 2020, Tulsi Gabbard gave her sole 2020 down-ballot endorsement to Democratic candidate Isaac Wilson, who was running for election to the 63rd district of the South Carolina House of Representatives against incumbent Republican Rep.
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Tulsi Gabbard spoke on the pre-recording, albeit not in the live recording made after Kamala Harris was announced as Joe Biden's running mate.
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Tulsi Gabbard called for the Hawaii DOH Director Bruce Anderson and state epidemiologist Sarah Park to step down and alleged that Hawaii Governor David Ige is partly to blame.
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However, Smith was put on paid leave and Tulsi Gabbard responded, saying that the action "further erodes the public trust" and that it "sends a dangerously chilling message to others in our government who are doing the right thing, that they better toe the line or they will be punished".
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Tulsi Gabbard was a presenter at iHeartRadio Honolulu's virtual festival, Island Music Awards, and announced the winner of the "Female Artist of the Year" award.
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Tulsi Gabbard has made several appearances on Fox News programs since leaving Congress, such as Tucker Carlson Tonight, The Five, and The Ingraham Angle, where she criticized figures such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and US Representative Adam Schiff, calling the latter a "domestic terrorist" for what she deemed as his attempt to "undermin[e] our constitution by trying to take away our civil liberties and rights" in the aftermath of the 2021 storming of the US Capitol.
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In 2022 Tulsi Gabbard spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference, drawing criticism from Hawaii Democrats.
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On October 11,2022, Tulsi Gabbard announced on Twitter that she was leaving the Democratic Party, accusing its leadership of "cowardly wokeness, anti-white racism, hostile to people of faith and spirituality, and dragging us closer to nuclear war".
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Shortly thereafter, Tulsi Gabbard endorsed and campaigned for several mostly unsuccessful Republican candidates in the 2022 midterm elections, several of whom say that the 2020 US presidential election was stolen.
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Tulsi Gabbard has said that as president she would "end the failed war on drugs, legalize marijuana, end cash bail, and ban private prisons".
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In June 2020, Tulsi Gabbard introduced an amendment to the House version of the 2021 NDAA to allow members of Armed Services to use products containing CBD and other hemp derivatives.
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In January 2020, in response to a question from a voter, Tulsi Gabbard called for legalizing and regulating all drugs, citing Portugal's model for drug decriminalization.
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Tulsi Gabbard has expressed support for increased border security and voted with Republicans for vetting of Iraqi and Syrian refugees.
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Tulsi Gabbard called for halting the visa waiver program after mass numbers of Syrian immigrants entered Germany, until the threat of terrorists attacks is resolved.
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However Tulsi Gabbard has expressed support for an easier path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, increasing skilled immigration, and granting work visas to immigrants.
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Tulsi Gabbard said she would be open to a proposal for a border wall if experts say it's warranted.
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Tulsi Gabbard protested the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota in 2016.
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Tulsi Gabbard successfully passed an amendment to the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act that would require the Department of Energy to reexamine the safety of the Runit Dome, a leaking Cold War era nuclear waste site in the Marshall Islands.
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Tulsi Gabbard later called for "fresh eyes" to ensure a more independent assessment of the waste site's safety.
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Tulsi Gabbard has spoken in favor of a Green New Deal but expressed concerns about vagueness in some proposed versions of the legislation and its inclusion of nuclear energy.
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Tulsi Gabbard said, "a successful prosecution of Assad w[ould] require collection of evidence from the scene of the incident", and that she "support[ed] the United Nations' efforts in this regard".
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Tulsi Gabbard criticized the US military's 2020 Baghdad International Airport airstrike as an act of war by President Trump and a violation of the US Constitution, arguing that the president did not have congressional authorization for this act.
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In 2017, Tulsi Gabbard was blacklisted by Azerbaijan for taking part in a visit to Armenia and the disputed, breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is populated and governed by ethnic Armenians.
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Tulsi Gabbard has called on the US Senate and President Donald Trump to officially recognize the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 as a genocide.
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Tulsi Gabbard argued against economic sanctions on Russia on the basis that Americans would suffer from higher oil and gas prices.
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Tulsi Gabbard has since advocated for a two-tier universal health care plan that she calls "Single Payer Plus", loosely modeled after Australia's system and allowing for both supplementary and duplicative private insurance.
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Tulsi Gabbard has previously pushed to reinstate Medicaid eligibility for people from the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau who are working and living in the United States.
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Tulsi Gabbard has called for addressing the national nursing shortage and supports clear GMO labeling, voting in 2016 against a GMO-labeling bill she said was too weak.
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Tulsi Gabbard voted "present" when the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Trump in December 2019.
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In 1998, then-teenage Tulsi Gabbard supported her father's successful campaign to amend the Constitution of Hawaii to give lawmakers the power to limit marriage to opposite-sex couples.
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In 2004, the then-22 year old Tulsi Gabbard led a protest outside the Hawaii House Judiciary Committee objecting to the committee's decision to hold a hearing on a bill to establish legal parity between same-sex couples in civil unions and married straight couples after voters had, in 1998, approved the constitutional amendment not to support gay marriage by a margin of more than 2-to-1.
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In 2012, Tulsi Gabbard apologized for her "anti-gay advocacy" and said she would "fight for the repeal" of the Defense of Marriage Act.
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Tulsi Gabbard was a member of the House LGBT Equality Caucus.
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Tulsi Gabbard suggested the bill should apply to all grades.
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Tulsi Gabbard is vegan and, as a Hindu, follows Gaudiya Vaishnavism.
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In 2015, Tulsi Gabbard married freelance cinematographer and editor Abraham Williams, the son of her Honolulu office manager, in a traditional Vedic wedding ceremony.
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On November 25,2013, Gabbard received the John F Kennedy New Frontier Award at a ceremony at the Institute of Politics at Harvard's John F Kennedy School of Government for her efforts on behalf of veterans.
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On February 26,2015, Tulsi Gabbard received the National Association of Counties County Alumni Award for her "steadfast commitment to the nation's counties".
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On July 15,2015, Tulsi Gabbard received the Friend of the National Parks Award from the National Parks Conservation Association.
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On September 30,2018, Tulsi Gabbard received the Ho'ola Na Pua Advocacy Award for "her dedication to serving and empowering human trafficking survivors in Hawaii" at their annual Pearl Gala.
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On October 16,2018, Gabbard was honored as Hawai'i Pacific University's 2018 Paul T C Loo Distinguished Alumni.