Former Hawaii Democrat Tulsi Gabbard Declined RFK Jr. Offer To Be His Running Mate

Former Hawaii Democrat Tulsi Gabbard said she declined the offer by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be his running mate in his independent presidential bid.

“I met with Kennedy several times, and we have become good friends. He asked if I would be his running mate. After careful consideration, I respectfully declined,” Gabbard was quoted as saying by ABC News.

She declined to further explain why she turned down that offer. Kennedy has considered Jesse Venture, the former Minnesota governor and television host Mike Rowe to be his veep.

He chose Silicon Valley lawyer Nicole Shanahan to be his running mate during a campaign event in Oakland, California, last week and said her young age, work in health and artificial intelligence appealed to him.

Gabbard had earlier ran an unsuccessful campaign for the Democratic presidential nominee in 2019 and quit the party in 2022. Gabbard said “warmongers” in the party were the reason she exited. She said these people were “driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue”.

She also supported the Florida government’s ban on LGBTQ+ topics in some public school classrooms, showing that she did not side with the views held by the Democratic Party on this issue.

Gabbard made history as she became the first woman of colour since 1972 to bag a delegate to the Democratic National Convention.

She also previously served as US Army Reserves and was deployed twice to Iraq and Kuwait and took a two-week absence from the presidential campaign trail in 2020 as she reported for active duty in Indonesia with the Hawaiian Army National Guard.

The Democrat who has American Samoan industry sparked a huge controversy in 2017 when she held a meeting with Syria’s autocratic president, Bashar al-Assad and other religious leaders as she visited the West Asian nation as it was witnessing a civil war which continues to this day.

She has not backed Donald Trump directly but indicated that she would be open to be his vice-president.

She signalled she would be open to the role during a Friday interview on Fox News. “I would be open to that,” Gabbard told host Jesse Watters, when asked if she would consider a vice presidential slot.