Friday 14 October 2022 05:52 PM 'A f***ing no-go!': Vet Tulsi Gabbard's incendiary blast at cynics in interview ... trends now

A vegan surfer from Hawaii. A Hindu woman of color in a deeply loving relationship with a wonderful man. A good friend and godmother to my daughter.

An American who has served her nation in uniform and regularly takes the unpopular stand regardless of the backlash.

Sounds like an interesting and impressive person, no?

Apparently not according to the mainstream media and America's most prominent political names.

To them Tulsi Gabbard is some kind of illusive James Bond villain. 

A Russian agent.

A traitor to her country.

It's that last accusation that ignites a roaring passion behind her eyes.

I spoke with Tulsi in a Zoom interview this week as she bounced between interviews with Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan and attending an Independent Women's forum event in Washington D.C.

She's popular these days.

Tulsi announced this week that she is finally and officially breaking from the Democratic party – something that I knew was coming and expected to come sooner.

Her reasons for leaving the party are well known, but nonetheless worth repeating.

'Today's Democratic Party is anti-freedom,' she told me from her Washington DC hotel room.

'I love this country, like you. I take these freedoms, these God-given freedoms that are enshrined in our Constitution seriously and treat the oath that I took both as a soldier and as one who has served in public office as a member of Congress very seriously.'

'How could I associate myself with a party with that letter D next to my name when that party is under the control of woke fanatical ideologues who take every opportunity to undermine those freedoms?'

Damn Tulsi, tell us what you really think.

The biggest thing on her mind is the existential threat of nuclear war with Russia over their ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

'We are all at risk if this continues to escalate. The president of the United States has the power to be able to lead and help to broker a negotiated end to this.'

Obviously, this is one area on which we disagree. I believe the US must support Ukraine's struggle against Russia. But I concede that support cannot be open-ended.

Tulsi doesn't think Biden is doing enough. It seems like relevant and appropriate criticism, but the backlash was fast and predictable.

'One of her obvious goals here is to inject Russian propaganda into the media ecosystem,' tweeted a Washington Post journalist.

'Re Tulsi Gabbard: Makes sense. If you're pro-Assad and pro-Putin, you join today's Republican Party,' added disaffected Republican pundit Bill Kristol.

The first thing I wanted to know from my friend is: How are you handling all of this?

In a nutshell, she's fed up: 'It is always a smear attempt, an attempt to discredit, an attempt to belittle.'

'It gets to a point where if [Americans] hear my name, they don't even know anything about me or what I stand for or what I'm saying. All they think in their mind is like, she's a little weird or she's crazy.'

Tulsi and I were connected by a mutual friend years ago now when she was running for President. I had been critical of her while I was a host on 'The View' and my friend called me to say I was wrong about her.

Are we an 'odd couple'? Yeah, sure.

She's someone who lives by the spirit of Aloha and bringing people together and is one of the most athletic people I have ever known - regularly surfing, doing yoga and hiking.

I am a red meat eater from Arizona, who is known more for contrarian flame throwing than the 'Aloha' vibe. I also absolutely hate working out.

But our first lunch is one of the most memorable and enjoyable I have ever had. We bonded over the fact that people hate us for refusing to toe the line.

When Tulsi first came to Congress she was celebrated within her party and the mainstream corporate media with glowing profiles in places like Vogue Magazine.

That all changed when she bucked her party's leadership and endorsed Bernie Sanders over Hilary Clinton in 2016.

She wasn't just going to be a puppet sent out for convenient messaging.

In the 2020 Democratic presidential primary she famously stuck a fork in the presidential aspirations of now-Vice President Kamala Harris.

Tulsi called her out on the debate stage for the hypocrisy of throwing low level drug offenders in jail as California's attorney general and then going on a popular radio show and making light of the fact that she smoked pot herself.

'She put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana,' Tulsi said on the debate stage.

Now that Harris is cheering President Biden's decision to expunge the records of Americans with federal convictions for pot

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