Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) said she is considering boycotting the fourth Democratic presidential debate, accusing the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and media of trying to rig the 2020 primary.
Gabbard made the announcement just days ahead of the Oct. 15 debate held in Ohio. She said she was “seriously considering” not participating because she believes the DNC and corporate media are rigging the election against voters in early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada.
“In short, the DNC and corporate media are trying to hijack the entire election process,” she added.
The Hawaii congresswoman said she is giving “serious” consideration about boycotting the next debate and will announce her decision in the next few days.
Gabbard qualified for the fourth debate after failing to meet the criteria to participate in the September debate. Twelve candidates have qualified for the October debate, which requires candidates to have a minimum of 130,000 unique donors, 400 unique donors per state in at least 20 states, and be polling at 2 percent in at least four approval polls.
Gabbard received support for her statement from fellow Democratic presidential hopeful, Marianne Williamson, who wrote on Twitter: “I have great respect for Tulsi for saying such inconvenient truth. She is absolutely correct.”
“I started hearing from a lot of people in the media when they said, ‘OK, you didn’t make the third debate. Are you quitting?’” Gabbard said, then responded with “Hell no!”
“If any of them had been listening to what I’ve been saying about what this movement is about, about why I’m running for president, and what is at stake, they would understand why we are here and why we will never quit,” she added.
“There’s a whole bunch of different polls that have come out. The DNC has only recognized some of them as being qualifying polls for the debate,” she said.