Tulsi Gabbard on Fire in Atlanta

Tulsi Gabbard

By Robert Wenzel

The fifth Democratic primary debate of the 2020 presidential election cycle was held Wednesday night at Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta, Georgia.

Just call it Tulsi Gabbard night.

She was given very little airtime by the lefty establishment moderators but she used every minute powerfully. Most of it attacking US involvement in overseas "regime change" wars.

Most impressive was an exchange with Pete Buttigieg.

She called out Buttigieg for his statement that he would send US troops into Mexico. He replied by dissing her meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad. In other words, he took the bait. She set him up, she responded that he just proved he lacks courage by saying he wouldn't meet with foreign adversaries.

Watch this:

Our commander-in-chief needs to have good judgment & what you’ve just pointed out is that you lack the courage to meet with both adversaries and friends, to ensure the peace and national security of our nation -TULSI2020 #TulsiGabbard #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/vEEzUaNygP

— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) November 21, 2019

Earlier, Washington Post White House reporter Ashley Parker tried to set up Tulsi. She asked her about her comments about Hillary Clinton and Tulsi brought it around to the foreign regime change wars.

But then, out of nowhere, Parker asked for a comment from Kamala Harris despite the fact that she was not mentioned.

Tulsi had, of course, challenged Harris in an earlier debate and Harris has been diving in the polls ever since. So this was a perfect opportunity for Harris to get revenge but Tulsi swatted away Harris's response as if it were just an anopheles mosquito.

Watch:

WATCH: Sen. Harris heavily criticizes Rep. Gabbard's record, and Gabbard fires back. pic.twitter.com/7fLwSVpLbu

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) November 21, 2019

Tulsi at one point mentioned libertarians. This is the second time I have heard her do this.

I am beginning to think she realizes that she has support amongst many libertarians and that there are many libertarians in the "first in the nation" primary state of New Hampshire.

Joe Biden also showed up at the debate. I'm guessing he got his shot of testosterone, that I am told he is given before each of these debates, a little late and that it didn't kick in right away. He was mumbling and fumbling more than usual for the first 10 minutes or so. Then he seemed to gain his stride during the middle of the debate but lost it again toward the end. So maybe they will up the dosage for the next debate as well as shoot him up a little earlier.

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren really didn't make much of an impact. They just stuck to their talking points that we all know so well already.

The craziest damn thing was Amy Klobuchar's hair shaking every time she spoke. You couldn't really listen to what she had to say with that hair shaking.

If you have ever done anything embarrassing in your life, put things in perspective: You haven't gone on a presidential debate stage and had your hair shaking the entire time.

Is Amy Klobuchar's hair set to vibrate? #MSNBCDebate #DemocraticDebate #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/sR7h8DMnct

— Pasha Bahsoun (@ThePashaB) November 21, 2019

Buttigieg was also smashed by moderator Rachel Maddow. He was answering a question in typical politician style by rolling off the question to say what he wanted to get out. After a couple of minutes of this, she stopped him in an aggressive tone and said: "Could you please answer the question I asked." He was stunned and there was noticeable silence/tension in the room for a few seconds.

Outside of Maddow and Tulsi, there was not much of an attack on Buttigieg and he gave polished answers at other times he was called. But he seemed to have memorized them in a manner that he couldn't look at the moderators and the audience when answering. His eyes were open, but it didn't look like he was focusing, he was trying to read in his mind the prepared answers.

Of all the moderators ( 4 different women), Maddow was the only one that did some aggressive distorted attacks on Trump.

The lefty Silicon Valley billionaire Ted Styer was just boring. I have no recollection of what he said.

Bernie matched his regular mad look by stating that the world only has 8 or 9 years before major cities across the world go underwater because of climate change.

Bernie also emphasized the "bring the troops home" theme more than he has in previous debates. He probably realizes the theme is working for Tulsi.

Others on stage, who did not make any particular impression included Cory Booker and Andrew Yang. This was Tulsi Gabbard night. But, oh, what nights it could be if she only understood economics.

Please read this, Tulsi.

Robert Wenzel is Editor & Publisher of EconomicPolicyJournal.comand Target Liberty. He also writes EPJ Daily Alert and is author of The Fed Flunks: My Speech at the New York Federal Reserve Bankand most recently Foundations of Private Property Society Theory: Anarchism for the Civilized Person Follow him on twitter:@wenzeleconomics and on LinkedIn. His youtube series is here: Robert Wenzel Talks Economics. More about Wenzel here.