The chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee is calling her vice chair a liar. Debbie Wasserman Schultz is now denying that Tulsi Gabbard was not invited to tonight’s Democratic debate — instead, the chair is saying that her vice chair chose not to come.
But as the New York Times reported just yesterday, “Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, a vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, said she was disinvited from the first Democratic presidential primary debate in Nevada after she appeared on television and called for more face-offs.”
Here’s Wasserman Schultz on MSNBC suggesting Gabbard is not telling the truth:
“What about your vice chair, Tulsi Gabbard, the congresswoman from Hawaii, she says you told her she could not come here today. That doesn’t sound inclusive,” said MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell.
“Yeah,” said the chair, “that’s simply not the case.”
“She’s welcome to come here?”
“The congresswoman was asked to focus on our candidates on the issues that are important to Americans to draw a contrast with the Republicans,” Wasserman Schultz claimed.
“But she says there should be more than six debates.”
“And we are a big tent party and welcome those opinions. But this debate and every debate going forward is about the issues. She is continuing to focus on process which she’s entitled to do. But we asked her if she could focus on those issues and she chose not to come because I guess she can’t.”
“She says that you said she can’t come.”
“That is simply not the case. What we said as my staff communicated to her staff, is that she needed to focus on the issues and make a commitment to do that, and in fact, she said yesterday in a news interview that if she came, she would be a distraction and so she chose not to come,” claimed Wasserman Schultz.
