Let’s Discuss Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s Stupid Choice For National Intelligence Director
I spy a Putin patsy.
Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, hasn’t received much attention so far. Admittedly, she’s not an accused sexual predator like failed attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz or defense secretary-designee Pete Hegseth, who still apparently has unwavering support from Senate Republicans and his mother. Nor will she run Trump’s MAGA secret police from the Department of Justice and the FBI.
However, Gabbard remains arguably Trump’s most dangerous future Cabinet member. The national intelligence director oversees and manages the national intelligence program and serves as the principal advisor to the president, the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council. She’d provide Trump with the president’s daily briefing, which has been called “the most highly sensitized classified document in the government,” so I assume Trump would keep his copy next to the toilet brush.
There are many reasons why Gabbard is a poor fit for this role, but perhaps the most obvious is she’s objectively unqualified, even if she has appeared often on Fox News, a major resume booster in Trump World.
Last month, Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, posted on social media, “As a former CIA case officer, I saw the men and women of the U.S. intelligence community put their lives on the line every day for this country — and I am appalled at the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to lead DNI.”
“Not only is she ill-prepared and unqualified,” Spanberger said, “but she traffics in conspiracy theories and cozies up to dictators like Bashar-al Assad and Vladimir Putin.”
Democratic Rep. Jason Crow, another House intelligence committee member, told NBC News “We get a lot of intelligence from our allies, and there I would be worried about a chilling effect.” He said he had “deep questions about where her loyalties lie” considering her “her long-standing affinity” for autocrats and America’s enemies — not just Donald Trump but Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin
Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz doesn’t question Gabbard’s loyalties, but that’s not a compliment. She told MSNBC MSNBC, “There’s no question I consider her someone who is likely a Russian asset.”
Although Gabbard is born-again MAGA now, she served in the House of Representatives from 2013 to 2021 as a Democrat. She was vice chair of the Democratic National Committee when Wasserman Schultz was chair (perhaps the tent was a little too big). These are her former colleagues and caucus members who are repudiating her.
Gabbard’s gimmick
Tulsi Gabbard launched her presidential campaign (as a Democrat) in 2019, stating that she’d “bring this soldier’s principles to the White House, restoring the values of dignity, honor and respect to the presidency.” During a Democratic primary debate, she claimed that Trump was “creating a situation that just a spark could light off a war with Iran.” She said he should “swallow his pride” and “get back into the Iran nuclear deal.”
Although she voted “present” in Trump’s first annual impeachment, she later told The Hill TV's Rising hosts Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, “Look, there is no question in my mind that Donald Trump is unfit to serve as president and commander in chief. I've said this over and over again. I am running for president to defeat him for that reason.”
Maybe she needed to say Trump was unfit a few more times so it could stick in her own mind. Gabbard defected to MAGA after January 6, so it does appear as if she considers attempted coups and open authoritarianism selling points. She was clearly comfortable undermining election results, as she accused the Democratic Party of “rigging” the 2016 primary against Bernie Sanders, who I hope has deleted her number from his contacts list.
In October 2019, Hillary Clinton accused Russia of “grooming” Gabbard for its own ends, none of which were in America’s best interests. This CNN photo illustration is classic, because Clinton looks real mean and Gabbard seems like a shocked innocent: “What is she talking about? What’s a ‘Russia’?”
Months before Clinton’s remarks, NBC News reported that Gabbard had become “a favorite of the sites Moscow used when it interfered in [the 2016 presidential election.]” Alex Stamos, former chief security officer at Facebook and an NBC News analyst, said, “Her promulgation of positions compatible with Russian geo strategic interests can help them mainstream such discussion in the [Democratic] party.”
Gabbard hung out with Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Siss in 2015 and complimented his supposed “great courage and leadership” in the fight against “extreme Islamist ideology.” This was two years after the dictator had 800 protesters killed. She also received thousands of dollars in donations from far-right Hindu nationalist organizations.
In 2016, Gabbard met with Syrian dictator Bashar-al Assad, who’d murdered his own people with chemical weapons. During the primary, Gabbard defended her Assad meet cute while arguing that the U.S. should stop waging “regime change” wars.
“Leaders in this country from both political parties looking around the world and picking and choosing which bad dictator they want to overthrow,” Gabbard told NPR in 2017. “Sending our military into harm's way and then trying to export some American model of democracy that may or may not be welcome by the people in those countries, and it’s proven to have been a failure.”
This put her in line with useful idiot Jill Stein, as well as the GOP’s growing isolationist wing. Gabbard was a progressive Trojan Horse, smuggling these anti-democratic views into the Democratic party. Although superficially pleasing to the anti-war Left, Gabbard’s world view is affirmatively pro-dictator. She’d have America abandon its allies and abdicate its role as leader of the free world, all while Putin applauds.
Gabbard flamed out in the Democratic primary because Democrats don’t nominate Russian assets. The firm “no traitors” policy has unfortunately resulted in a one out of three record against Donald Trump.
Gabbard should be an easy no.
Tulsi Gabbard has regurgitated a steady stream of Russian propaganda after Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022. Whether she’s paid to funnel this garbage is a matter for her accountant. What’s obvious is that she has what The Washington Post’s Josh Ragin describes as a “conspiratorial, dictator-friendly worldview,” which is consistent with Trump’s democracy-loathing, authoritarian Cabinet. Gabbard, like Trump, is more supportive of the free world’s enemies than its allies. It’s inherently destabilizing to the global order.
Rep. Abigail Spanberger posted on social media, “Someone who has aligned herself with Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad and trafficked in Russian-backed conspiracy theories is an unsuitable and potentially dangerous selection. The objections to her nomination transcend partisan politics. This is a matter of national security.”
Like most Democrats, Spanberger still believes that there’s a bipartisan consensus on national security matters or that both parties ultimately agree about who America’s enemies actually are. Everything Trump has said and done, with full Republican support, would suggest otherwise.
I wouldn’t bet on Senate Republicans not confirming Gabbard as director of national intelligence. We’ve already gambled on the type of nation America is and we lost big.
The problem is this is not a case of an otherwise loyal president nominating a potential Russian asset--the president himself has proved to be a national security risk. That this national security risk won the votes of most military members and veterans is appalling but it also means there's not only no risk to him in nominating her, but even if she dropped out he'd still be likely to share secret information with Putin and who knows who else.
The end result probably won't be immediately obvious, but our own allies and assets are going to be less likely to cooperate with us, even if we had another loyal president again, because there's the risk that any information shared can get easily disseminated to Putin. Our intel apparatus is becoming permanently damaged, and we are walking into several more 9/11s and Iraq Wars--military actions based on faulty intel--as a result.
The voters who wanted to "shake things up" are certainly going to get that.
I'm disappointed that coverage of Tulsi Gabbard often fails to include her involvement, along with her entire family, in a dangerous and homophobic pseudo-Hindu cult, led by a reclusive self-appointed guru who set up shop in Hawaii back in the 70's.
She only became a Democrat in the first place because in Hawaii, that was the only viable path to political power. She has since proven that she was never an honest Democrat, and never actually believed in Democratic principles. She is an opportunist and simply hungry for power.
I suppose that coverage of her weird religious history is suppressed in the press because of our foolish tendency to grant legitimacy to whatever variety of god-bothering that people decide to subscribe to. In her case, it's dangerous to grant her access to power. The voters rightly turned her out and she should be denied any promotion. Trump of course, believes in nothing except transactions with those who further his own ends. He would appoint Beelzebub himself if he was willing and able to wear a MAGA hat.