Trump Doesn’t Know Tulsi Gabbard but He Does Know She’s Not a Russian Asset
Credit to Author: Tim Marcin| Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2019 13:25:04 +0000
President Trump visited with his good pal Sean Hannity on Fox News Monday night, and was quick to defend Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard from allegations that she was a Russian asset.
Of course, it was also a convenient excuse to attack Hillary Clinton as “sick” for suggesting such a thing.
Clinton made headlines last week by suggesting in a podcast appearance that Rep. Gabbard was "the favorite of the Russians,” assuming “Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because she's also a Russian asset.” Gabbard responded with harsh tweets calling Clinton the “queen of warmongers.”
Trump used the appearance to defend Gabbard, Stein and — most of all — himself in the primetime interview.
“Now, I don’t know Jill Stein, I know her as an environmentalist, OK, and probably a good woman,” Trump said. “The last thing she is, is a Russian asset. I don’t know Tulsi Gabbard. But I know one thing, she’s not an asset of Russia.”
“These people are sick,” the president added. “There’s something wrong with them.”
Trump touched on a number of his favorite subjects through the interview, including the idea that that Attorney General William Barr should investigate Clinton, the Biden family were the real corrupt ones in Ukraine, and of course the media is corrupt.
But soon he circled back to Gabbard and Stein.
“And then you have Hillary Clinton saying, two days ago, Tulsi Gabbard is a Russian asset and that Jill Stein is a Russian agent,” he said. “And I said, ‘Wait a minute, it took me two and a half years. I wish you would have said that earlier because people would have realized she’s crazy. She’s crazy!”
Clinton didn’t offer up any real evidence that Russia favored Gabbard in the interview with David Plouffe, the former campaign manager for Barack Obama. She said she thought it seemed like Gabbard was being groomed as a third-party candidate, backed by “a bunch of sites and bots.”
Trump isn’t the only high-profile politician to come to Gabbard’s defense. Senator Bernie Sanders backed his fellow Democratic presidential candidate by citing her military service.
“Tulsi Gabbard has put her life on the line to defend this country,” Sanders tweeted. “People can disagree on issues, but it is outrageous for anyone to suggest that Tulsi is a foreign asset.”
Cover: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House October 21, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
This article originally appeared on VICE US.