Tulsi Gabbard: Trump’s curveball National Intelligence pick

In Congress, she has voted against US military intervention abroad, arguing that it should always be a last resort. She also thought "Islamist terrorism" was a threat overlooked by former President Barack Obama.

Gabbard later ran for President in 2020 but dropped out after a short campaign and endorsed Joe Biden. Two years later, she left the Democratic Party to become an independent. By 2024, she had joined the Republican Party and publicly backed Donald Trump in the presidential election. Now, she has been rewarded.

Views on Syria

In January 2017, Gabbard travelled to Syria, where she met with President Bashar al-Assad twice. She had earlier visited the country in 2015, famously questioning young girls injured by Russian air strikes how they could be sure it was Russia that did this and not Islamic State (despite IS having no air force). The translator was forced to mis-translate the question to save the girls from getting upset. 

Al-Assad explained the threat posed by Islamic State and the Nusra Front fighters. While there, she visited a university in Damascus, where she expressed her belief that the US should stop supporting "terrorists". She also visited a damaged church and met Christian pastors who said IS-affiliated groups were targeting them.

Gabbard later denied carrying messages from the Trump administration, saying she had not informed any officials about the trip and that she agreed with al-Assad on the importance of holding free and fair elections in Syria, monitored by international observers. This sparked intense criticism from both Republicans and Democrats, who accused her of legitimising al-Assad's brutal regime. Howard Dean, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, demanded her expulsion from Congress.

When it later emerged that her trip was funded by two Lebanese businessmen with ties to al-Assad's Baath Party, she reimbursed the cost of the trip but stood by her comments despite a report from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons that found that al-Assad's soldiers killed 90 people (mostly children) by repeatedly shelling the town of Latamna with sarin and chlorine gas in 2016-17.

From left to right

As with many politicians, Gabbard's views have been known to shift according to the prevailing winds. For instance, she began her political career with conservative views but became supportive of abortion rights and same-sex marriage after getting involved with the Democratic Party in Hawaii—one of America's most liberal states. 

In 2016, Hillary Clinton won 62% of the Hawaiian vote, while Trump won 30%. Many Democrats were, therefore, stunned when news broke that she met Trump just two weeks after he won the 2016 election in an encounter arranged by former Trump advisor Steve Bannon. Her foreign policy positions were felt to align with those of Trump's, not least their shared desire to reduce US military involvement overseas. 

The prospect of working with Trump initially appealed, but she criticised him for ordering air strikes on Syria, accusing him of recklessness and yielding to the "war hawks" in his administration. Still, she was reluctant to publicly lambast Trump, which caused friction in her congressional district, a Democratic stronghold.

Hailing from a politically active family, for Tulsi Gabbard, politics is in the blood. Her father, Mike Gabbard, was a Republican member of the Hawaii Senate but later switched his affiliation to the Democrats. In 2022, Gabbard went the other way, slamming her Democratic colleagues as "a gang of war advocates and promoters of social injustice," adding that it was no longer the party she joined over 20 years ago.

Becoming Trumpian

In her speeches, she frequently invokes her military experience, arguing that US interventions in the Middle East have destabilised the region, made America less secure, and cost countless lives. She blames the Democrats for this, despite Republican Presidents George W. Bush and his father having both ordered the US military into Iraq.

Since leaving the Democrats in 2022, Gabbard has appeared regularly on Trump's favourite news network, Fox News, and endorsed prominent Republicans. She joined Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who initially ran in the Democratic primaries before switching to an independent run, then eventually endorsing Trump.

She announced her support for Trump in 2024, which bolstered her popularity in Republican circles, then played a significant role in preparing Trump for his only televised debate against Kamala Harris, his 2024 opponent. In October 2024, she told a rally in North Carolina that she had now officially joined the Republican Party.

Fox in the chicken coop

As Trump's candidate for DNI, she would oversee all 18 US intelligence agencies, including the CIA, FBI, and NSA. Unlike previous DNI candidates, Gabbard has never held a senior government intelligence position, having only ever served two years on the House Homeland Security Committee. By contrast, the current post-holder, Avril Haines, was the deputy director of the CIA.

If confirmed by the Senate, Gabbard will face the task of restructuring the plethora of US intelligence agencies, a goal she shares with Trump, who has long accused the US intelligence community of working against him—part of the "deep state" so beloved of conspiracy theorists like Gabbard.

In her book For Love of Country, published earlier this year, she accuses "the FBI, the CIA, and a whole network of rogue intelligence and law enforcement agents working at the highest levels of our government" of being part of a "slow-rolling coup". This is music to her boss's ears. Trump has accused the US intelligence apparatus of being "corrupt" and vowed to "clean it up".

Views on Russia

Both Gabbard and Trump have also expressed views that would be welcomed in Moscow. Senior intelligence officials now worry that, as DNI, Gabbard could alter or suppress reports related to Russia or divert funding from investigations in areas that Russia's supporters in Washington may find uncomfortable.

Gabbard often embraces Russian narratives, including the claim that biological weapons might have leaked from secret Ukraine-based US bio-labs during Russian air strikes. After Russia invaded Ukraine, she said it could have been avoided had the West "acknowledged Russia's legitimate security concerns". 

Republican Senator Adam Kinzinger has called her a "traitor," Senator Mitt Romney of Massachusetts termed her a "parrot" for pro-Moscow views, and some UK media outlets have labelled her "a prolific peddler of Russian propaganda". In Russia, she has had favourable coverage. State-controlled RIA Novosti called her a "superwoman". 

Taking positions

Despite her alignment with Trump on many issues, Gabbard has also criticised some of his key decisions, such as his withdrawal from the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal and his ordering of the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, describing the latter as a violation of the US Constitution. 

She has also defended two of the US intelligence community's most hated figures—NSA surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden, who leaked classified information and sought asylum in Russia, and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who published US military and diplomatic documents that highlighted US misconduct in Iraq. 

Her calls for charges against both men to be dropped have drawn harsh criticism, with Senators now scrutinising Gabbard's security clearance, focusing on her foreign contacts and any potential security risks, as leading right-wing commentators publicly question Trump's choice of DNI.

Defenders and critics

Trump's former National Security Advisor John Bolton described her nomination as the "worst" in US history and called for a thorough vetting process, while David Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush and author of the 'Axis of Evil' phrase, sarcastically suggested that instead of appointing Gabbard, the US should just appoint Russian President Vladimir Putin as intelligence overseer.

Amidst concerns about the potential national security risks posed by her nomination, Democratic lawmakers say Gabbard may have been "compromised" and suggest she could be a tool of Russian influence, while former Democratic House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff diplomatically described her views as "questionable".

She has her defenders. Republican Senator Eric Schmidt said it was "absurd" to label Gabbard a Russian asset simply for holding different political views, adding that there was no concrete evidence to support such claims. Trump has continued to back her candidacy, expressing confidence in her ability to safeguard US national security and prevent intelligence reports from being used against US citizens. 

Trump and Gabbard both oppose Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which authorises electronic surveillance on American soil, and which is up for renewal in 2026. The FISA warrants are key to US intelligence operations. 

In short, the agencies look set to face a DNI who wants to deprive them of information—if she is confirmed as DNI. This is no certainty of that. The 2004 law establishing the role of DNI states that the role-holder "shall have extensive national security expertise", which Gabbard does not. One suspects that a few US spooks may be mindful of that.