Gabbard, a former Democrat who ran against Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2020 presidential primaries and served in the Army National Guard, offered her support as she and Trump commemorated the three-year anniversary of the Kabul airport bombing, which claimed the lives of 13 U.S. service members.
“This administration has us facing multiple wars on multiple fronts and regions around the world and closer to the brink of nuclear war than we ever have been before,” Gabbard stated. “This is one of the main reasons why I’m committed to doing all that I can to send President Trump back to the White House, where he can once again serve us as our commander in chief.”
Gabbard, who has been assisting Trump in preparing for his debate against Harris, served in Congress from 2013 to 2021 and left the Democratic Party in 2022, condemning it as an “elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness.” Since then, she has campaigned alongside Republicans, including during the 2022 elections.
Her endorsement of Trump focused on foreign policy and the importance of avoiding military conflicts abroad. Describing the United States as being “on the brink of war,” Gabbard emphasized that Trump “understands the grave responsibility that a president and commander in chief bears for every single one of our lives.”
“He exercised the courage that we expect from our commander in chief in exhausting all measures of diplomacy, having the courage to meet with adversaries, dictators, allies, and partners alike in the pursuit of peace, seeing war as a last resort,” Gabbard continued. “We cannot be prosperous unless we are at peace. And we can’t live free as long as we have a government that is retaliating against its political opponents and undermining our civil liberties, weaponizing our very institutions, against those they deem as a threat.”
The rally in Detroit followed a wreath-laying ceremony earlier that day at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery in the Washington, D.C., area, where Trump and Gabbard joined family members of some of the service members killed during the Afghanistan withdrawal.
Critics of the Biden administration have been linking the chaotic and deadly withdrawal to Vice President Kamala Harris as she campaigns against Trump.
“We were going to do it with dignity and strength,” Trump told rallygoers. “We gave it up. We gave them everything.”
