President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he selected former Hawaii Congresswoman Lt. Col. Tulsi Gabbard to be his Director of National Intelligence (DNI).
Gabbard, a member of the National Guard, was in Congress from 2013-2021. A former Democrat, she recently announced she was joining the Republican party and endorsed Trump in his race against Vice President Kamala Harris.
Gabbard has been an opponent of US involvement in the Ukraine war since Russia launched its invasion. “This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine’s becoming a member of NATO, which would mean US/NATO forces right on Russia’s border,” she wrote on X on February 23, 2022.
During a presidential run in 2020, Gabbard made opposing “regime change wars” central to her campaign. She staunchly opposed US involvement in Syria and made a trip to the country in 2017 to go on a fact-finding mission. While in Syria, she met with President Bashar al-Assad, enraging hawks in Washington.
Gabbard also made clear during her campaign that while she opposed regime change wars, she was a hawk when it came to the war on terror. “When it comes to the war against terrorists, I’m a hawk,” she said in 2016. “When it comes to counterproductive wars of regime change, I’m a dove.”
Gabbard has repeatedly claimed that “Islamism” is the “greatest threat” facing the US. She recently said Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel was a “stark reminder of the ongoing short and long-term threat of Islamist terrorism that continues to spread around the world today. Their goal is to establish a global Islamist caliphate, where all must live under their sharia law.”
In the wake of October 7, 2023, Gabbard said the US must “stand with Israel.” She has also smeared members of Congress who have called Israel’s actions in Gaza genocidal as “apologists and supporters of Islamist Hamas terrorists.”
During her time in Congress, Gabbard was a staunch critic of Trump’s foreign policy, calling him “Saudi Arabia’s bitch” and strongly opposing his support for the brutal Saudi/UAE war on Yemen, which she called “genocidal.” She also opposed Trump’s escalations against Iran.
One of Gabbard’s last acts in Congress was the introduction of a bill that would have prohibited funding to enforce sanctions that inflict suffering on civilian populations.
