Tulsi Gabbard went on The Joe Rogan Experience hours after announcing she was leaving the Democratic Party to say she had lost friends over her Fox News appearances.
“It ranges from people kind of like giving you a cynical look, like ‘whose side are you really on.’ To people just outright ending that friendship or that professional relationship cause they don’t want to have anything to do with you,” Ms Gabbard told the podcast host.
When asked if she had experienced that treatment, Ms Gabbard replied: “Over and over”.
“And it’s not just Tucker Carlson. There’s been this negative stigma for almost as long as I’ve served in Congress against anyone who actually goes on Fox News, period,” she said.
Ms Gabbard, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, announced on Tuesday she was leaving the party, describing it as an “elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness”.
The 41-year-old became an outspoken critic of fellow Democrats after her election to Congress in 2013, and made at least 100 appearances on Fox News’ primetime lineup, including hosting Tucker Carlson’s show.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ms Gabbard told Carlson in an appearance in March that Ukraine was not worth protecting because it “isn’t actually a democracy,” and claimed that US-funded “biolabs” could result in the release of “dangerous pathogens”.
Her clips castigating US efforts to support Ukraine were replayed to great fanfare on Russian state television, where hosts referred to her as “our girlfriend Tulsi”, and pondered if she was a Russian agent.
She told Rogan in the episode released on Tuesday night that she appeared on Fox News because it was the most popular cable news channel and had treated her more fairly than CNN and MSNBC.
Rogan replied: “Well, it seems like one of the things that Fox News does well is if they have a Democrat on, they don’t attack them, they allow them to express themselves.”
He went on to say that conservative pundits and politicians were treated differently by other networks.
“When a right-wing person — seems to be, if they’re on MSNBC or if they’re on CNN, it’s like they have these weapons ready to go, the blades are sharp and they attack and they’re trying to discredit that person,” the podcast host said.
“They will talk over them, they’ll be rude to them. They will mock whatever position they have instead of like trying to offer some sort of a reasonable debate against it,” Mr Rogan added.
Ms Gabbard’s departure from the Democratic party and claims of preferential treatment by Fox News were mocked by commentators on Twitter.
Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, tweeted: “The problem isn’t going on Fox, the problem is going on Fox and kissing their ass.”
Veteran newsman Dan Rather wrote: “Tulsi Gabbard announcing she’s leaving the Democratic Party is sort of like someone you’ve already broken up with saying ‘that’s it, we’re through’.”
The Bulwark’s editor at large Bill Kristol tweeted: “Re Tulsi Gabbard: Makes sense. If you’re pro-Assad and pro-Putin, you join today’s Republican Party.”
In an appearance on Fox and Friends on Wednesday morning, Sarah Palin urged the former Hawaiian Congresswoman to remain an independent.
“If she’s smart, she’ll stay independent because the Republican Party has problems of its own too within the establishment,” Ms Palin told the hosts. “Too many Republicans allow obsessive partisanship to get in the way. They’re into their power plays and all that, and that gets in the way.”
