Donald Trump called it a “surprise” that Tulsi Gabbard, the former congresswoman who left the Democratic Party two years ago and has since campaigned for the Republicans, announced on Tuesday evening that she would join the Republicans.

The Republican Party’s least surprising news of an admittedly surprise-filled campaign cycle — with the self-proclaimed “Black Nazi”, Trump to take a 9/11 conspirator in front of a 9/11 memorial, and he has confessed to it admiration of the late Arnold Palmer’s genitals, to name a few, happened at a meeting in Greensboro, North Carolina.

“I am proud to stand with you today, President Trump, and announce that I am joining the Republican Party,” Gabbard said, minutes into a speech she gave after being invited by the former president to speak.

She endorsed Trump in August, making her GOP affiliation the latest step in a full-fledged MAGA baptism.

Trump stood to the side, leaned forward and let his jaw drop before standing back up, giving two thumbs up and telling Gabbard, “That’s great.”

“Those of you here or those watching at home who are independent-minded people like me, who love our country and are committed to the Constitution and to freedom, the Democratic Party is no home for people like us,” Gabbard said. She then called Democrats “anti-freedom, pro-censorship, pro-open borders.”

“Tulsi, that’s great,” Trump said, when it was his turn to turn the microphone back on. “Wow. That was a surprise. That was real: she’s been independent for a long time. That’s a great thing, a great honor. Thank you so much, Tulsi.

Gabbard has been independent for “a long time” if “a long time” is two years. The former House representative, who served Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District from 2013 to 2021 and ran for her former party’s 2020 presidential nomination, left the Democrats in October 2022.

During her time in office, she held a mix of views across the spectrum, supporting very non-republican ideas such as a national health care insurance program and criminal justice reform included a ban on private prisons.

By the time she left the Democratic Party, a move she had made announced on the first episode of her podcast, The Tulsi Gabbard Show, she quoted a litany of MAGA epithets for progressives: “I can no longer remain a member of the current Democratic Party. It is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers, driven by cowardly wokeness, who divides us by racializing every issue and stoking anti-white racism.”

The Republican candidates she has been campaigning for since 2022 include election deniers such as Lake Kari.

In addition to adopting MAGA rhetoric that criticizes “wokeness” and deals with election truths, Gabbard faces Trump’s isolationist foreign policy and, like the Republican candidate, has questionable record about Russian President Vladimir Putin, with accused the West for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Gabbard, a National Guard veteran who served in Iraq and Kuwait, noted that Vice President Kamala Harris and the “shameless” embrace of former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney, a key figure in the Republican Party, was a key motivator for her decision to join the Republican Party. launching the war in Iraq based on flawed intelligence. Hundreds of thousands of civilians and 4,500 American soldiers were killed.

Many liberals are also baffled by Harris’ questionable approach to citing Cheney’s support.

The Daily Show host Jon Stewart – who played a key role in criticizing the culpability of the US media and political classes in the Iraq War in the 2000s – confronted Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, over their ticket in which she welcomed the endorsement of the arch-neoconservative. WHO approved the use of torture and proud bragged that he would “do it again in a minute.”