Tulsi Gabbard (12 April 1981-) was a member of the US House of Representatives (D-HI 2) from 3 January 2013 to 3 January 2021, succeeding Mazie Hirono and preceding Kai Kahele. She was the first Samoan-American and Hindu to serve in the US Congress.
Biography[]
Tulsi Gabbard was born in Leloaloa, American Samoa in 1981 to a Samoan father and an American mother, and she embraced Hinduism as a teenager. She entered the US Army in 2004 and rose to the rank of Major after serving in the Iraq War, and she also entered politics as a Democratic Party member. Gabbard served in the State House of Representatives from 2002 to 2004, on the Honolulu City Council from 2011 to 2012, and in the US House of Representatives from 2013. She was a member of the Progressive Democrats, and she supported abortion rights, opposed free trade, called for a separation of commercial and investment banking, supported same-sex marriage, and opposed the US intervention in Iraq, Libya, and Syria. In February 2019, she announced that she was entering the Democratic primary for President of the United States in 2020. She notably argued that there was no difference between foreign and domestic policies, and she also controversially supported Donald Trump's decision to withdraw US troops from Syria in October 2019, leading to Hillary Clinton accusing her of being a Russian agent, something which Gabbard vehemently denied. She ultimately dropped out of the presidential race, and her House seat went to Kai Kahele. After leaving office, Gabbard's political views shifted to the right; she supported Florida's "Don't Say Gay Bill" and argued that the ban on discussing sexual orientation and gender identity should be extended to all grades (rather than just third grade), supported banning transgender athletes from sports, took conservative views on abortion, and was a featured speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in 2022. In October 2024, she joined the Republican Party to support Trump's re-election campaign, and he nominated her to serve as his Director of National Intelligence.