A Hawaii Democratic Representative who backed Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary met with President-elect Donald Trump and his transition team on Monday as a possible pick in the new administration.
CNN reports that Tulsi Gabbard might be chosen for the Defense Department, State Department or the United Nations. Gabbard had been a vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee before she left to support Sanders; she only transferred her loyalties to Clinton after the Democratic National Convention closed.
It seems clear that Gabbard would fit in with Trump’s isolationist rhetoric; after the meeting, Gabbard stated:
President-elect Trump asked me to meet with him about our current policies regarding Syria, our fight against terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS, as well as other foreign policy challenges we face. I felt it important to take the opportunity to meet with the President-elect now before the drumbeats of war that neocons have been beating drag us into an escalation of the war to overthrow the Syrian government — a war which has already cost hundreds of thousands of lives and forced millions of refugees to flee their homes in search of safety for themselves and their families … While the rules of political expediency would say I should have refused to meet with President-elect Trump, I never have and never will play politics with American and Syrian lives.
Trump stated in late October in an interview with Reuters that he would not consider putting Democrats in his cabinet. Last week he met with Michelle Rhee, a Democrat who as chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools fired principals and toughened teacher evaluations.
