Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) fell in line with the Democrats to vote against the confirmation of Tulsi Gabbard as the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), despite her history of standing up for him against the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
Gabbard, who was successfully confirmed in a 52-48 vote on Wednesday morning, did so without the support of Sanders, for whom she resigned from her vice chair position at the DNC in 2016.
The then-Hawaii congresswoman, who had served as the DNC’s vice chair since 2013, cut her four-year term short with a February 2016 endorsement of Sanders for president, citing her need to push back against “more interventionist wars of regime change”:
“As a vice chair of the DNC, I am required to stay neutral in Democratic primaries. But I cannot remain neutral any longer. The stakes are just too high,” Gabbard said. “That’s why today, I’m endorsing Sen. Bernie Sanders to be our next president and commander-in-chief of the United States.”
“We need a commander-in-chief who has foresight, who exercises good judgement, and who understands the need for robust foreign policy which defends the safety and security of the American people, and who will not waste precious lives and money on interventionist wars of regime change,” she continued, before arguing that “Such counterproductive wars undermine our national security and economic prosperity.”
Gabbard concluded her statement by saying that American voters had two “clear” choices in the Democrat primary.
“We can elect a president who will lead us into more interventionist wars of regime change, or we can elect a president who will usher in a new era of peace and prosperity,” she said. “It’s with this clear choice in mind that I’m resigning as vice chair of the DNC, so that I can strongly support Bernie Sanders as the democratic nominee for president of the United States.”
In a leak of thousands of internal DNC emails just a few months later, it was revealed that other top DNC officials, including chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), had conspired to prop up former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s campaign over Sanders’.
When Gabbard and Sanders both ran on the 2020 Democrat ticket, the Hawaii lawmaker and longtime Vermont politician were still friendly with each other.
“Tulsi Gabbard has put her life on the line to defend this country. People can disagree on issues, but it is outrageous for anyone to suggest that Tulsi is a foreign asset,” Sanders wrote on social media in October 2019 after Clinton baselessly accused her of being a Russian asset:
Gabbard has long been called a “Russian asset” by establishment Democrats, including Wasserman Schultz.
After they both ended their 2020 campaigns, Gabbard posted another video on social media, calling Sanders her “friend” who had “committed his life to the fight for justice, healthcare, and equality for all Americans”:
After Sanders voted against invoking cloture on Gabbard’s nomination on Tuesday — the day before the confirmation vote — journalist Glenn Greenwald called him an “opportunistic partisan coward”:
The senator continued to be heavily criticized for going against his former ally following the confirmation vote, with more social media users calling him “spineless” and a “pathetic, swamp politician”:
