As former President Donald Trump closes in on a third straight Republican presidential nomination, speculation has continued to mount about who will join his ticket as the vice presidential nominee.
During a town hall with Fox News’s Laura Ingraham this week, Trump confirmed he is considering several people to join his ticket, but one name in particular stood out: former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.
Gabbard’s consideration for vice president is notable for several reasons, but first and foremost is that she was a member of the Democratic Party until fairly recently. A veteran, she represented Hawaii in the House of Representatives and ran for the party’s presidential nomination in 2020, seeking to take on Trump. But four years later, she is more at home with Republicans than she is with her old party.
Why? Because even in her 2020 presidential campaign, Gabbard dissented from her party’s radical progressivism and rejected the orthodoxy of the national security establishment that is propped up by the military-industrial complex. Her independent streak even prompted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2019 to suggest absurdly that Gabbard was “the favorite of the Russians” and was being “groomed” to run as a spoiler third-party candidate.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
It is this independent streak that makes a team-up between Gabbard and Trump for the 2024 general election such a brilliant idea. They are both unwelcome in the Washington establishment because they reject the prevailing groupthink that dominates the federal bureaucracy and the establishment of both parties.
From her skepticism of U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts to her willingness to embrace the commonsense idea that men should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports programs, Gabbard has shown a propensity to buck the political forces around her. It makes her a true outsider with an independent voice, much in the same way Trump is. He would be well served to pick her as his vice president.