Ex-Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger joked that Tulsi Gabbard could offer ousted Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad “safe harbor” in her home.
Kinzinger, who made the jibe the day before Assad’s regime fell, has been outspoken about Donald Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence following a 2017 visit to Syria, where she met with the tyrant when she was a Democratic House member.
“Wonder if @TulsiGabbard will offer Assad safe harbor at her house?” the former Illinois representative quipped on X. “They are great friends.”
When Assad’s whereabouts were unknown after he fled, Kinzinger said: “Someone check @TulsiGabbard[’s] house.”
After Assad’s 50-year regime was toppled on Sunday, Kinzinger claimed that it was “Tulsi’s nightmare scenario.” “Her hearing for DNI will be BRUTAL and she won’t get in,” he said in another post.
Gabbard has previously denied crimes were committed by the Syrian regime and said Assad “is not the enemy of the United States.”
She is the latest Trump cabinet pick to fight for her nomination following Pete Hegseth’s struggle for his confirmation as defense secretary and Matt Gaetz’s withdrawal from the running of attorney general.
On Monday, Gabbard was on Capitol Hill to meet with Senator Lindsey Graham and members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mike Rounds and James Lankford, to fight her case, according to Politico’s Playbook.
Senator Lankford of Oklahoma previously said he wants to know the “context” and “purpose” of her meeting with the Syrian dictator in 2017 before he backs her as Trump’s director of national intelligence.
“We’ll have lots of questions. She met with Bashar Assad, we’ll wanna know what the purpose was and what the direction for that was, as a member of Congress,” Lankford told CNN’s Dana Bash on State of the Union last month.
“We’ll wanna get a chance to talk about past comments that she’s made and get them into full context.”
Lankford said the committee would “get everything out” about Gabbard, and referred to her being “outspoken” in the past.
Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton told Playbook that Gabbard has shown “an inclination to believe the most outrageous propaganda against the United States by some of its strongest enemies.”
Despite a barrage of criticism, Gabbard’s allies are coming out in support of her.
An anonymous Senate Republican told the outlet that if Gabbard’s 2017 visit to Syria was “a problem,” she wouldn’t have been promoted to lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve in 2021.
In 2019 while under pressure following scrutiny over the visit, Gabbard did refer to Assad as a “brutal dictator.”
Trump transition team spokesperson Alexa Henning told Politico that Gabbard is “in lockstep with President Trump” when it comes to the events in Syria over the weekend.
“This is why President Trump was re-elected to prevent endless wars and put America First,” Henning said.
The president-elect said that the U.S. should not get involved nor should it have ever inserted itself into the conflict. “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!” Trump wrote on Truth Social over the weekend.
