Except, when Camerota requested Sellers provide evidence, he did not have any specific evidence to connect her to the Russian government.
What Sellers did was successful in that it put Gabbard in a position, where she could ignore the smear and let it cloud her appearance or she could call out the debate's host. She opted to defend herself.
"This morning, a CNN commentator said on national television that I'm an asset of Russia. Completely despicable," Gabbard said.
In 2004, Gabbard, who is a major in the Hawaii Army National Guard, resigned from her seat in the Hawaii state legislature and deployed to Iraq for a 12-month tour as a specialist in the 29th Support Battalion's field medical unit.
Gabbard also deployed to the Middle East in 2007 and helped train members of the Kuwait National Guard. She was elected to the House of Representatives in 2012.
As a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Gabbard criticized the DNC for limiting the schedule during the 2016 primary to six debates. She claimed weeks later that she was "disinvited" from attending a Democratic presidential debate because she appeared on MSNBC and called for more debates.
In February, during the heat of the primary, Gabbard resigned from her position as DNC vice chair and endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders. She declared, "We can elect a president who will lead us into more interventionist wars of regime change. Or we can elect a president who will usher in a new era of peace and prosperity."
She elaborated in an email to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. "Hillary Clinton was not only the leading Democratic voice for the war in Iraq. She was the head cheerleader and architect of the war to overthrow the Libyan government of Gaddafi which has resulted in chaos, a failed state, and a stronghold for ISIS and Al-Qaeda. Hillary was and continues to be the loudest voice for the disastrous war to overthrow the Syrian government of Assad."
"These wars of regime change have cost trillions of dollars, thousands of American lives, and the lives of hundreds of thousands of children, women, and men in the Middle East," Gabbard contended. "And al Qaida and ISIS are stronger than ever."
The endorsement was one of the Sanders campaign's most high-profile endorsements of the election.
Following Trump's victory, he invited Gabbard to meet with him at Trump Tower in November. Gabbard defended her decision to accept the invitation as a backlash among Democrats ensued.
"President-elect Trump and I had a frank and positive conversation in which we discussed a variety of foreign policy issues in depth," Gabbard stated. "I shared with him my grave concerns that escalating the war in Syria by implementing a so-called no fly/safe zone would be disastrous for the Syrian people, our country, and the world. It would lead to more death and suffering, exacerbate the refugee crisis, strengthen ISIS and al-Qaeda, and bring us into a direct conflict with Russia which could result in a nuclear war."
She continued, "We discussed my bill to end our country's illegal war to overthrow the Syrian government, and the need to focus our precious resources on rebuilding our own country, and on defeating al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other terrorist groups who pose a threat to the American people."
Yet, the greatest focus of the Democratic Party's anger by far has been directed at Gabbard for meeting with Syrian Bashar al-Assad in January 2017 while she was in Syria to see the devastation caused by the conflict. This meeting has become an endless source for innuendo and lies about her lack of allegiance to the United States.
She defended the meeting. "Originally, I had no intention of meeting with Assad, but when given the opportunity, I felt it was important to take it. I think we should be ready to meet with anyone if there's a chance it can help bring about an end to this war, which is causing the Syrian people so much suffering."
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