Tulsi Gabbard ‘not paying attention’ to polls ahead of Caucus Day

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - With just weeks left before Caucus Day in Iowa, the first primary for the Democratic presidential contenders, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard remains near the bottom of the list for voters in the latest polling information from Real Clear Politics.

However, in a one on one interview with Live 5’s Kaitlin Stansell, Gabbard said she’s not intimidated by the rankings.

“I’m not paying attention to polls or pundits or anything like that,” Gabbard said. “I really am continuing to focus all of my efforts on directly connecting with voters.”

Gabbard said she wants to bring about real change as Commander in Chief, and she touts her military experience in understanding the complicated, tragic, and taxing toll wars can take on a country.

“This is yet another one of those stupid wars that we should not be waging. Unfortunately, President Trump’s decision put us directly into a state of war with Iran that, if allowed to continue to escalate, will prove to be far more costly in American lives and in taxpayer dollars than anything we’ve seen in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Gabbard voted this week to pass a war powers resolution. She spoke from the House floor Wednesday.

“President Trump has committed an illegal and unconstitutional act of war, pushing our nation headlong into a war with Iran without any authorization from Congress,” Gabbard said.

Her words were a very visible condemnation of President Trump’s actions. However, they followed the harsh criticism she garnered from her recent vote of “present” for the House’s two articles of impeachment.

She has said she believes impeachment would only embolden Trump and his supporters and lead to his reelection, and Saturday she continued to shift her attention away from conversation about the impeachment process.

“There are so many things that we as a country, not democrats or republicans. but we as a country really need to be focusing on…of getting our priorities straight of actually putting the interest of the American people at the forefront and have leaders in Congress coming together to accomplish that mission,” Gabbard said.