Tulsi Gabbard releases ‘unhinged' video claiming ‘warmongers' want a nuclear conflict they know they'll survive

Independent

a day ago

President Donald Trump's intelligence director posted a video warning of global 'elites' she claimed were pushing major superpowers towards a 'nuclear holocaust' on Tuesday.
The purpose of Tulsi Gabbard's video and its grim theme was unclear, but appeared aimed at driving fears among her more than 3.7 million followers on X concerning a supposed cabal of powerful people whom Gabbard and the president have long argued continue to pull the strings behind the scenes — even with Trump once again in the White House.
Individual targets of right-wing conspiracy theories on this subject include big Democratic funding billionaires such as George Soros and Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates.
Gabbard, speaking directly to the camera, says in the video that the world is 'closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation than ever before' and blames unnamed interest for supposedly inciting conflict between superpowers.
'[P]olitical elite warmongers are carelessly fomenting fear intentions between nuclear powers,' Gabbard says in the video. 'Perhaps it's because they are confident that they will have access to nuclear shelters for themselves and for their families that regular people won't have access to.'
'It's up to us, the people, to speak up and demand an end to this madness. We must reject this path to nuclear war and work toward a world where no one has to live in fear of a nuclear holocaust,' she then followed.
Many commenters on social media were taken aback by the foreboding theme of the video and Gabbard's delivery, with some calling it 'unhinged.'
The context for the director of national intelligence's dark message was Gabbard's recent visit to Hiroshima, one of the two cities bombed by the U.S. with atomic bombs during the World War II. In contemporary context, it also follows the sudden escalation of tensions between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, as well as the continued failure of the Trump administration to convince Russia to cease its invasion of Ukraine, as the president promised he could.
Gabbard reflected on the damage the Hiroshima bombing caused in her message, explaining: 'This attack obliterated the city, killed over 300,000 people, many dying instantly, while others died from severe burns, injuries, radiation, sickness and cancer that set in the following months and years. Nagasaki suffered the same fate: homes, schools, families; all gone in a flash.'
Her efforts to blame modern-day conflicts on 'political elite[s]' is a common tactic for the Trump-aligned far right, which includes Steve Bannon and the cohort of Republicans who style themselves as 'anti-globalist'.
In reality, the coalition of nativists and anti-interventionists have combined to form a second-term Trump foreign policy that has pursued Obama-esque talks with Iran, ceased strikes on Houthi forces attacking western vessels and Israeli targets after deeming the campaign ineffective, and sought peace in Ukraine on terms that may not end up being favorable to the Ukrainian government.
At the same time, Trump is taking a tougher-than-ever approach to trade with China and showing a willingness to buck the Israeli government both on Gaza and Iran policy.
The hatred of said elites was a driving force behind the cuts to USAID and the general gutting of America's foreign aid infrastructure under the first six months of Trump's second term. Michael Flynn, national security adviser to Trump in his first presidency, wielded it to blame a supposed shadowy collection of wealthy powerful people for 'imposing' the Covid virus on the world.
It is also one of the major forces motivating the Trump administration's war on Harvard and other top universities, which populist conservatives have long depicted as corrupt institutions that churn out so-called 'elites' and legal/political leaders with liberal or far-left sensibilities.
Gabbard previously had a record of covering up the use of banned weapons, not warning about their usage.
During her 2020 bid for the presidency, Gabbard's campaign published materials questioning whether forces loyal to then-ruler of Syria Bashar al-Assad were the victims of a false flag narrative blaming them for a chemical attack on rebel forces. According to the Washington Post, the materials were published on her campaign website in 2019; by the next year, she said publicly that she did not believe that 'false flag' story to be true.