Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) slammed Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) for her record as a California attorney general and her hypocrisy over marijuana in one of the congresswoman’s strongest moments on the Democrat debate stage on Wednesday.
“Senator Harris says she’s proud of her record as a prosecutor, and that she’ll be a prosecutor president, but I’m deeply concerned about this record,” Gabbard began.
“There are too many examples to cite, but she put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana,” she continued.
Harris famously said during an interview with the The Breakfast Club radio show that she smoked marijuana while she was in college while listening to Snoop Dogg and Tupac.
Harris has faced lingering questions on her tough stances as a federal prosecutor.
In 2010, she opposed an initiative to legalize marijuana, according to the Los Angeles Times. It was not until 2015 that she began calling for the decriminalization of marijuana, according to Elle Magazine.
Watch the moment here:
WATCH: Tulsi Gabbard tears into Kamala Harris' tough-on-crime record as California Attorney General. #DemDebate2 pic.twitter.com/Bw8iFW5wgI
— America Rising (@AmericaRising) August 1, 2019
“She blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so,” Gabbard continued. “She kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California and she fought to keep the cash-bail system in place.”
“That impacts people in the worst kind of way,” she added.
Gabbard received plaudits for going after Harris from some fellow Democrats.
Former Sen. Mike Gravel (D-AK) said Gabbard did an “excellent job” in exposing that Harris is a “hollow candidate.”
Tulsi did an excellent job exposing the reality that Kamala is a hollow candidate, a candidate with an atrocious prosecutorial record and a newcomer to progressivism. Another careerist who only wants power. Thank you, Tulsi.#DemDebates2
— Mike Gravel (@MikeGravel) August 1, 2019
Journalists noted that Biden had been unable to land an effective blow on Harris, who attacked him repeatedly:
Biden is too cognitively decrepit to effectively expose Kamala so the task has fallen to Tulsi
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) August 1, 2019
The Gabbard campaign retweeted a story about the moment, as well as a tweet mocking Harris’s response:
Kamala tells Tulsi "I challenge you to make decisions under fire" 😂 pic.twitter.com/H1lpAwoHU7
— Jay IronHook (@JayIronHook) August 1, 2019
Gabbard is an Army National Guard major who has deployed to Iraq.
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