Meghan McCain Slams Dem 2020 Hopeful Tulsi Gabbard as ‘Assad Apologist’ #GreatAwakening
Several Democrats running in 2020 for president have visited ABC’s The View for largely friendly interviews that still somehow manage to be more even-handed than what they experience on actual news programs. However on Wednesday’s show, Democrat Rep. Tulsi Gabbard from Hawaii surprisingly faced tough questions from hosts Meghan McCain and Ana Navarro about her position against U.S. intervention in Syria and Venezuela.
After facing some neutral questions from co-hosts Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin, Meghan McCain stepped in to grill the Democrat for secretly visiting Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2017, calling her an “Assad apologist:”
“When I hear the name Tulsi Gabbard, I think of Assad apologist, I think of someone who comes back to the United States and is spouting propaganda from Syria. You have said that the Syrian president, Assad, is not the enemy of the United States, yet he's used chemical weapons against his own people 300 times,” she began.
McCain added, “When you say regime change is hurtful for the country but gassing children isn't hurtful, it's hard for me to understand where you come from as a humanitarian standpoint if you were to become President?”
Gabbard started to protest, saying, “You're putting words in my mouth.” But McCain pressed her to clarify her position.
MCCAIN: You did not say that Syrian President Assad is not the enemy of the United States? Say it now, clarify.
GABBARD: The issue here is how can we help --
MCCAIN: One moment. Is he the enemy of the United States?
Gabbard wouldn’t answer “yes” or “no” but instead affirmed that Assad was a “brutal dictator” who has used chemical weapons on his people. She went on to reaffirm her non-interventionist foreign policy positions. Next up was fill-in host Ana Navarro, who surprisingly admitted that she was with President Trump on his stance on the crisis in Venezuela. Navarro pressed Gabbard, whom she called a friend, on her similar stance on that country:
I'm very troubled by the tweets about Venezuela that you've put out. We've talked about that, what Maduro is doing to the people of Venezuela. There’s over 3 million have been displaced. People are starving. He's not allowing humanitarian aid in. He is a thug, he is a dictator, he is corrupt. And I am very supportive of what the United States is doing right now, leading the solidarity in support of freedom-loving Venezuelans and putting economic sanctions. Why are you so against intervention in Venezuela, not military intervention but what we are doing?
Gabbard again argued that there was “devastating impacts” on countries when the U.S. tried to enact regime change, before they cut to commercial.
You can see the exchange below:
While The View co-hosts almost entirely focused on her foreign policy record, host Abby Huntsman asked her if she supported the Green New Deal, (she didn’t) and Joy Behar asked her about health care policy, where Gabbard fell in line with the rest of her party for universal “free” health care for all.
But more recently, Gabbard rebuked her Democrat colleagues in an op-ed for bashing Catholic judicial nominees, and got flak from the left for doing so. Neither the networks nor The View asked her about that.
To read the full transcript, click expand:
MEGHAN MCCAIN: When I hear the name Tulsi Gabbard, I think of Assad apologist, I think of someone who comes back to the United States and is spouting propaganda from Syria. You have said that the Syrian president, Assad, is not the enemy of the United States, yet he's used chemical weapons against his own people 300 times. That was a red line with President Obama. That is not our enemy. 13 million Syrians have been displaced. When you say regime change is hurtful for the country but gassing children isn't hurtful, it's hard for me to understand where you come from as a humanitarian standpoint if you were to become President?
TULSI GABBARD: You're putting words in my mouth.
MCCAIN: You did not say that Syrian President Assad is not the enemy of the United States? Say it now, clarify.
GABBARD: The issue here is how can we help --
MCCAIN: One moment. Is he the enemy of the United States?
GABBARD: An enemy of the United States is someone who threatens our safety and our security. There is no disputing the fact that Bashar al-Assad of Syria is a brutal dictator. There's no disputing the fact that he has used chemical weapons and other weapons against his people. There are other terrorist groups in Syria who have used similar chemical weapons and other weapons of terror against the people of Syria. This is an unfortunate thing that wrenches at every one of our hearts. This is not something that I'm disputing, nor am I apologizing or defending these actions. My point is that the reality we are facing here is that since the United States started waging a covert regime change war in Syria starting in 2011, the lives of the Syrian people have not been improved. Their well-being has not gotten to a better place, their suffering has not decreased. It has increased, in addition to the fact that Al Qaeda is stronger in Syria today than ever before. So not only are we dealing with the fact that this regime change war we've been waging in Syria has not helped the Syrian people, it has made their lives worse off --
MCCAIN: Bashar al-Assad is gassing his people.
GABBARD: It has also undermined our national security leaving us in a place where Al-Qaeda is a stronger threat there then ever before and Iran has greater influence in Syria than ever before.
...
ANA NAVARRO: [I]'m very troubled by the tweets about Venezuela that you've put out. We've talked about that, what Maduro is doing to the people of Venezuela. There’s over 3 million have been
displaced. People are starving. He's not allowing humanitarian aid in. He is a thug, he is a dictator, he is corrupt. And I am very supportive of what the United States is doing right now, leading the solidarity in support of freedom-loving Venezuelans and putting economic sanctions. Why are you so against intervention in Venezuela, not military intervention but what we are doing?GABBARD: Because every time the United States, and particularly in Latin America, has gotten involved in regime change, using different tools to enact that regime change, there have been both short and long-term devastating impacts. If there are ways that we can work with surrounding countries to try to get humanitarian aid in to people there, then we should be doing that. But for the United States to go in and choose who should be the leader of Venezuela, that is not something that serves the interests of the Venezuelan people that's something that they need to determine themselves.
NAVARRO: But the U.S. Is not choosing who's going to be the leader of Venezuela. Millions of Venezuelans are marching on the street. Do you put military intervention in the same level that you put economic and diplomatic efforts?
GABBARD: The United States has used both military, CIA, sanctions and other tools to intervene and enact regime change in countries around the world. Iran is a great example. The CIA led a covert operation to overthrow the government in Iran decades ago. This led to decades upon decades of hardship and suffering and authoritarian governments and has led us to the place where we're dealing with many challenges.
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