HARSH, BUT FAIR: Tulsi Gabbard: Democrats in Congress Preferred People Rotting in Prison to Giving Trump a Win.
“We were working on passage of the First Step Act,” she explained, which is “a criminal justice reform bill. It had support from very progressive members of Congress, people who call themselves progressives, people who call themselves conservatives. They’d reached a consensus, built a bill that wasn’t perfect, but it actually made progress towards prison reform and reducing high recidivism rates in prisons, helping people in their lives and also saving money in the process.”
But there was one major problem: prison reform was pushed by President Trump. “I’m not even kidding you,” Gabbard went on to say. “There are leaders in the House and the Senate who came out in opposition to this bill because they did not want to deliver a political win to Donald Trump. They’d rather leave people rotting in prison than deliver a win to Donald Trump, give him something that he could say that he accomplished.”
They’re willing to sacrifice any interest or principle for power. See, e.g., the rehabilitation of Ralph Northam and Justin Fairfax.