She's Seen This Show Before: Tulsi Gabbard at Mar-A-Lago, Helping Donald Trump With Debate Prep

Donald Trump has made some interesting choices in his forays into politics, including in his choice of advisors. On Friday, one more interesting choice has to do with debate prep: no less than Tulsi Gabbard, who is reportedly at Mar-A-Lago, helping the former president rehearse for the upcoming debates with Kamala Harris.

Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Gabbard was in Florida preparing with the former president and said in a statement that Trump has “proven to be one of the best debaters in political history as evidenced by his knockout blow to Joe Biden. He does not need traditional debate prep but will continue to meet with respected policy advisers and effective communicators like Tulsi Gabbard, who successfully dominated Kamala Harris on the debate stage in 2020.”
Democrats are framing the presidential race as one between a prosecutor and a convicted felon, but in 2020, Harris was attacked for her record as a prosecutor while many other candidates ran to the left. During that race, many Democrats were pushing for vast criminal justice reform.
“There are too many examples to cite,” Gabbard said on the debate stage.

This is an interesting — and a great — choice. Tulsi's played this game before, and her slam-dunking of Kamala Harris in the 2019 Democratic primary debates — well, that just never gets old. I could watch the video over and over.

What's more, Tulsi Gabbard was literally part of the opposition. She ran for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 cycle — in other words, she ran to challenge Donald Trump for the presidency. The Democrats went with the befuddled old Joe Biden, but Tulsi's hat was in the ring. She has spent time in the enemy's camp; presumably, she knows how they think, what tactics they might try, and so forth.

Tulsi Gabbard Calls Kamala Harris an 'Empty Suit,' Slams Her Flip-Flops and Lack of Substance

And, yes, she has already dealt with Kamala Harris.

NEWS

Former President Trump has brought in former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard into debate prep.

NYT says she has joined at least one session with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

Gabbard and Vice-President Kamala Harris had several debate moments during the 2020 presidential primary… pic.twitter.com/h4dIDl1LmW
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) August 16, 2024

It wouldn't be the worst idea to have Tulsi Gabbard play the role of Kamala Harris in the practice debates, at least if Tulsi can somehow manage to temporarily disable about 3/4 of her IQ points to better simulate the vice president's mental capacity. As for Harris's notorious cackle, well, maybe they can play a recording because that horrible sound would be impossible to duplicate by any normal human.

So, what does Tulsi get out of this?

Well, she certainly seems to harbor some personal animus towards Kamala Harris. Being placed on a TSA terror watch list may have contributed to that, and just helping Donald Trump eke out a win in November may be enough reason for her to jump in to help. But beyond that? Well, sometimes people help with cabinet posts, ambassadorship, or other plum posts, and as it happens, I also have an idea there: Secretary of Veterans Affairs. It's a mostly non-partisan position. I would trust Tulsi Gabbard implicitly with the task of looking out for the nation's veterans, being one of those veterans myself, and being married to a veteran to boot.

Tulsi Gabbard helping Donald Trump take down Kamala Harris in a debate and then having her in charge of the VA seems like a win-win to me.