Rep. Tulsi Gabbard warned her supporters of the threat of a continued nuclear arms race between the United States, Russia, and China and promised to address the matter during her first week as president if she wins the White House in 2020.
“When we talk about the greatest threat that we face, I often speak about this threat of nuclear catastrophe, because it is an existential threat,” the Hawaii Democrat running for the party’s presidential nomination said this week.
An Iraq war veteran, Gabbard has made anti-interventionism foreign policy a cornerstone of her presidential campaign. In October, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused her of being a “Russian asset,” and Sen. Kamala Harris similarly attacked her for spending “four years full-time on Fox News criticizing President Obama.” Gabbard chalked up the criticism of the Democratic establishment’s opposition to “change that I’m seeking to bring in our foreign policy.”
“The United States and Russia, we still have hundreds of missiles, if not thousands, pointed at each other on hair-trigger alert — on hair-trigger alert — and there have been a lot of close calls,” Gabbard continued telling her supporters.
“In the first week of my presidency, I will call for a summit with Russia and China to end the nuclear arms race and agree on steps to move the world back from the nuclear abyss,” she tweeted.
We talk about “existential threats,” but nothing is more threatening to our world than nuclear war. In the first week of my presidency, I will call for a summit with Russia and China to end the nuclear arms race and agree on steps to move the world back from the nuclear abyss. pic.twitter.com/5s22B9hyax
— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) December 17, 2019
The 2020 Democrat has also been critical of President Trump’s hardline policy on Iran, saying in September that deploying troops and weapons to Saudi Arabia threatened the stability of the region and would “lead us to an all-out inferno of a war in not only Iran but across the region.”
Gabbard, 38, will not participate in Thursday’s Democratic Debate hosted by PBS/Politico and has been critical of the Democratic National Committee’s process for selection. Her campaign has lagged in polls, pulling in only 1%-2% support in the latest averages from RealClearPolitics.
