WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda and former presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard both served in the state Legislature. Both later represented state’s Second Congressional District, both with “D-Hawaii” attached to their title. That, Tokuda made clear this week, is where their common political ground ends.
On Tuesday, a day after Gabbard endorsed former president Donald Trump in his bid to return to the White House and just hours after she accepted a position on Trump’s transition team, Tokuda took to social media to fire off a terse statement of dissent.
“Trump and Tulsi do not represent Hawaii values and fail to fight for our freedoms,” Tokuda posted to her official Facebook account. “We will reject their extremism this November."
“This is not pono,” she posted.
Gabbard, who famously severed ties with the Democratic party two years ago on the grounds that it had become “an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness,” announced her support for Trump at a National Guard event in Detroit.
Now an independent, Gabbard praised the former president as a leader, committed to the peaceful resolution of global conflict.
“We saw this through his first term in the presidency, when he not only didn’t start any new wars, he took action to de-escalate and prevent wars,” Gabbard said. “He exercised the courage that we expect from our commander-in-chief in exhausting all measures of diplomacy, having the courage to meet with adversaries, dictators, allies and partners alike in the pursuit of peace, seeing war as a last resort.
“The truth is,” she continued, “as we head towards our decision as a country in November, the same cannot be said about Kamala Harris. In fact, the opposite is true and we are living through this reality today, as this administration has us facing multiple wars on multiple fronts and regions around the world, and closer to the brink of nuclear war than we ever have been before.”
Gabbard accused Harris, one of her rivals for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, of being party to the “weaponization” of government institutions to retaliate against herself and other political foes. She cited her own reported inclusion on a Transportation Safety Administration watch list as proof.
Trump named both Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy, who earlier dropped his independent bid for president, to the transition team, which will make recommendations on policy and personnel for Trump’s potential return to office. The team is co-chaired by former Small Business Administration head Linda McMahon and Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick.
Gabbard started her political career in the state House of Representatives from 2002 to 2004. She served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2013 to 2021.
She was succeeded by former state senator Kai Kahele, who vacated the seat after a single term to launch an unsuccessful campaign for governor. Tokuda, who served in the state Senate from 2006 to 2018, defeated Republican Joe Akana for the seat in 2022.
Gabbard, a former anti-gay marriage activist who later amended her position, had long been viewed suspiciously within her former party. After her failed bid for the presidency and prior to her decision to leave the Democratic Party, she became a regular contributor to conservative Fox News. Prior to Trump’s selection of J.D. Vance as his running mate, there was speculation in Republican circles that she could be a potential candidate for vice president.
The other three members of Hawaii’s current Congressional delegation, including Sen. Mazie Hirono, with whom Gabbard has had a contentious relationship, have not commented publicly on Gabbard’s endorsement of Trump or her selection for Trump’s transition team.
Michael Tsai covers local and state politics for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at michael.tsai@charter.com.