On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Cuomo Primetime,” 2020 presidential candidate Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) accused fellow 2020 candidate Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) of responding to Gabbard’s criticisms of Harris’ criminal justice record by launching “smear attacks on me…that I am somehow some kind of foreign agent or a traitor to my country, the country that I love, the country that I put my life on the line to serve, the country that I still serve today as a soldier in the Army National Guard.” Gabbard also discussed her positions on Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Gabbard began by stating that Assad is “a brutal dictator, just like Saddam Hussein, just like Gaddafi in Libya. The reason that I’m so outspoken on this issue of ending these wasteful regime change wars is because I have seen firsthand this high human cost of war and the impact that it has on my fellow brothers and sisters in uniform.”

She also addressed Assad’s responsibility for chemical weapons attacks in Syria. Gabbard said that she hasn’t defended Assad, but has expressed skepticism and asked for evidence.

Gabbard then turned to Harris’ response to criticisms of her criminal justice record by saying, “[T]he only response that I’ve heard her and her campaign give is to push out smear attacks on me, claim that I am somehow some kind of foreign agent or a traitor to my country, the country that I love, the country that I put my life on the line to serve, the country that I still serve today as a soldier in the Army National Guard.”

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