After Tulsi Gabbard landed a number of blows on 2020 rival Kamala Harris at the second Democratic presidential debate, Harris hit back calling the Hawaii congresswoman an “apologist” for Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Gabbard said Harris’ comment was a “cheap smear,” but CNN’s Anderson Cooper pressed her on her views on Assad, eventually getting her to admit that the strongman is a torturer and murderer.
“My take is one of a soldier. I have seen the cost of war firsthand,” Gabbard said after the debate. “I will never apologize for doing all that I can to prevent more of my brothers and sisters from being sent into harm’s way to fight counter-productive regime-change wars that make our country less safe, that take more lives and cost taxpayers trillions more dollars. So if that means meeting with a dictator or meeting with an adversary, absolutely I would do it.”
Gabbard has long been opposed to U.S. involvement in the Syrian civil war and secretly met with Assad in 2017. The Syrian president has been accused of using chemical weapons to attacks his own citizens.
Cooper asked Gabbard whether she considered Assad a torturer or murder. Gabbard responded: “That’s not what this is about. I don’t defend or apologize or have anything to do with what he has done to his own people.”
Gabbard then listed off several U.S. presidents who have met with authoritarian leaders, and Cooper continued to press her on whether Assad was a torturer and murderer.
“I don’t dispute that,” she said.
