NEW YORK — One month after leaving the Democratic Party, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii is joining Fox News as a paid contributor.
A representative for the conservative-leaning cable channel confirmed Gabbard signed a deal Monday and will start appearing on its programs next week.
Gabbard, 41, pursued the 2020 Democratic nomination for president. But she has been distancing herself from the party ever since and has appeared as a frequent guest on Fox News, including its most-watched shows, “The Five” and “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
When Gabbard ran for president, Hillary Clinton, the party’s 2016 nominee and former secretary of state, called Gabbard “a favorite of the Russians” and suggested she would run as a third-party candidate in order to get Donald Trump reelected.
Gabbard was a supporter of Clinton’s rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, in the 2016 race for the Democratic nomination.
Gabbard, who for campaigned for president as an opponent of U.S. military interventionism, denied Clinton’s claims. After dropping her presidential bid in March 2020, she endorsed Joe Biden, who went on to defeat Trump.
But in recent months Gabbard has been increasingly critical of the Biden administration’s unwavering support of Ukraine as it defends itself against Russia. Gabbard has said Russia had “legitimate security concerns” regarding Ukraine becoming a member of NATO.
Gabbard said on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” that Biden could have prevented the war by giving into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demand to rule out the possibility of Ukraine ever joining NATO. Her appearances have been used by Russian state-controlled media.
Gabbard officially broke with the Democratic Party last month, saying, it “is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness.”
Gabbard has also become aligned with the Republican Party on domestic and cultural issues and campaigned for a number of the party’s Senate candidates, including those who supported Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
A military veteran who served in Iraq as a member of the Hawaii Army National Guard, Gabbard represented Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District from 2013 to 2021.
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