Speculation Abounds Over Tulsi Gabbard’s Future After Trump Publicly Rebukes Her On Iran: How is Her Job ‘Tenable?’
(Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images)
Speculation is mounting over the future of Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard’s standing and position in the administration after President Donald Trump publicly dismissed her recent assessment that Iran was not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon.
In a striking exchange aboard Air Force One on Monday Trump was pressed by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Iran’s nuclear capabilities when he flatly contradicted Gabbard’s prior testimony to Congress.
“Very close,” Trump said, when asked how near Iran was to obtaining a bomb.
Collins reminded the president that Gabbard had testified otherwise in March, conveying the view of the intelligence community.
“I don’t care what she said,” Trump replied bluntly, shaking his head. “I think they were very close to having one.”
Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman and 2020 presidential candidate turned Trump appointee, had told the House Intelligence Committee that “the IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khomeini has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.”
Trump has hit back at several allies who have made a push against U.S. military intervention, including Tucker Carlson, but his pointed disavowal of Gabbard’s briefing triggered immediate speculation about her future among politicos and pundits alike.
National Review’s senior political correspondent Jim Geraghty highlighted an Axios report that noted Gabbard had been excluded from a Camp David meeting. The meeting happened just two days before she dropped a video warning that “elites” were pushing the world to the brink of “nuclear war”:
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) openly questioned whether Gabbard was “subtly help Putin and hurt Israel.”
As pointed out by Mediaite’s Joe DePaolo on Monday, Gabbard’s stance on Iran has long diverged from Trump’s own, pointing to a 2020 message on X that has recently gone viral in which she warned: “To all who voted for Trump bc of his antiwar rhetoric, it’s time to realize he lied to u.”
