Tulsi Gabbard tore into rival Tim Ryan at the first Democratic debate after he falsely claimed the Taliban was behind the September 11 terror attacks.
Ryan, a congressman from Ohio, got into an exchange with Gabbard over having a presence in the region. Ryan said that if the U.S. didn’t have troops there the Taliban would grow, and then made the spurious claim that the Taliban was behind the 9/11 attacks. Gabbard, a famously noninterventionist congresswoman from Hawaii, went on the attack.
“The reality of it is if the United States is not engaged, the Taliban will grow. And we will have bigger, bolder terrorist acts, we have got to have some presence there,” Ryan said.
38-year-old Gabbard, a current member of the National Guard and veteran of the Iraq War, hit back, “The Taliban was there long before we came in and will be there long before we leave. We cannot keep U.S. troops deployed to Afghanistan thinking that we are going to somehow squash this Taliban.”
Ryan, 45, appearing exasperated, responded: “I didn’t say squash them. When we weren’t in there they started flying planes into our buildings.”
Gabbard immediately corrected him.
“The Taliban didn’t attack us on 9/11. Al Qaeda did,” she said before the two began talking over one another.
Reactions erupted over Twitter, with many making jokes about Gabbard’s past defense of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s regime.
Congratulations to Tulsi Gabbard, the proud owner of a gently used Tim Ryan.
— Liam Donovan (@LPDonovan) June 27, 2019
Tulsi just killed Tim Ryan with sarin gas.
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) June 27, 2019
Tulsi Gabbard defending the Taliban is certainly top 5 moments tonight. #DemDebate
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) June 27, 2019
A barista: Hello, what can I get you today?
Tulsi: First of all, I enlisted in the United ? States ? military ?
MIL ? I ? TAR ? Y— Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) June 27, 2019
When you get rolled by Tulsi Gabbard on national TV, yeah, stay home https://t.co/GXupZlwQsm
— Brandon Friedman (@BFriedmanDC) June 27, 2019
