There's a lot of "hypocrisy" within the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and from media partners hosting the presidential debates when it comes to giving female politicians a fair shot, 2020 presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard said Monday night.
In an interview on "Fox News @ Night" with host Shannon Bream, Gabbard, D-Hawaii, said that "American voters have a right" to ask questions about the DNC and their partners' methods when making the rules for the debates
TULSI GABBARD CALLS ON BIDEN, SANDERS TO DEMAND DNC ALLOW HER ON ARIZONA DEBATE STAGE
Gabbard – the last remaining woman in the Democrats’ presidential race – has been shut out of the party’s next debate with a rule change that makes it mathematically impossible for her to claim a spot.
Under the party’s most recent set of debate rules, any candidate who had won at least one delegate in the party’s first 25 nomination contests had the right to take the stage.
Gabbard gained two delegates in American Samoa’s caucuses on Super Tuesday.
But on Friday, the DNC announced new criteria requiring candidates to hold at least 20 percent of all awarded delegates by the time of the next scheduled debate in Phoenix, Ariz. on March 15.
"You hear a lot of talk. We just celebrated International Women's Day and the progress that women are making around the world," Gabbard remarked. "But when it comes to actually making sure that – in this presidential primary – that the only woman candidate left in the race, the only woman of color, and the first female combat veteran ever to run for the presidency has a voice, the DNC and their corporate media partners say, 'No thanks. Actually, that's not what we want the American people hear.'"
Gabbard told Bream that the DNC's inconsistent rule-changing is a "greater disservice" to voters who will "not have the opportunity to make that best-informed decision about who our next commander-in-chief should be."
"Because, we're not seeing these other candidates bringing to the forefront the issues that I am about the need to bring this -- sea change in our foreign policy, to stop waging these wasteful regime change wars toppling dictators in other countries, the new Cold War nuclear arms race, all of which are not making us any safer," she told Bream. "And, instead, redirect our taxpayer dollars towards really serving the very urgent pressing needs that the American people here at home all across the country are very concerned about. Things like the coronavirus, for example."
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Does Gabbard believe that either Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders or former Vice President Joe Biden are equipped to have discussions on the issues she cares about?
"They're not," she stated.