Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has again been haunted by her past opposition to U.S. intervention in Iran as she emerges from the woodwork to defend President Donald Trump’s current conflict.
A resurfaced tweet posted by Gabbard on May 16, 2019, when she was a Hawaii Democratic congresswoman running to be that party’s presidential nominee, finds her attacking Trump for sabre-rattling against Tehran during his first term.
“Trump promised to get the U.S. out of ‘stupid wars,’” she wrote. “But now he and [then-national security adviser] John Bolton are on the brink of launching us into a very stupid and costly war with Iran. Join me in sending a strong message to President Trump: The U.S. must NOT go to war with Iran.”
Earlier this month, a Fox News interview with Gabbard dating from January 2020 also re-emerged, in which the she rebuked Trump over the assassination of Quds commander Qasem Soleimani, saying: “Speeding towards an all-out war with Iran would make the wars that we’ve seen in Iraq and Afghanistan look like a picnic.
“It will be far more costly in American lives and American taxpayer dollars, and all towards accomplishing what goal? What objective?”
The DNI, a veteran who has made keeping the U.S. out of foreign military commitments a cornerstone of her political brand, will be expected to defend Trump’s adventurism when she appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee Wednesday.
Gabbard can expect to be asked about the president’s U-turn on his 2024 election pledge to start no more “forever wars” and whether she feels betrayed by recent developments.
Gabbard endorsed Trump’s foreign policy message and characterized his predecessor Joe Biden as a “warmonger.”
Her appearance comes a day after Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, announced his resignation in an open letter to Trump.
“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.
“I pray that you will reflect upon what we are doing in Iran, and who we are doing it for. The time for bold action is now. You can reverse course and chart a new path for our nation, or you can allow us to slip further toward decline and chaos. You hold the cards,” the letter read in part.
Gabbard responded to Kent’s bombshell decision Tuesday with a cautiously-worded X post in which she did not mention him by name or venture an opinion on his reasons for stepping down.
“Donald Trump was overwhelmingly elected by the American people to be our president and commander-in-chief,” she wrote.
“As our commander-in-chief, he is responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat, and whether or not to take action he deems necessary to protect the safety and security of our troops, the American people and our country.
“After carefully reviewing all the information before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent threat and he took action based on that conclusion.”
Trump himself dismissed Kent as a “nice guy” who was “weak on security” while White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said his letter contained “many false claims” and insisted the president had “had strong and compelling evidence that Iran was going to attack the United States first.”
Looking ahead to Gabbard’s congressional appearance, Justin Logan of the Cato Institute think-tank told NBC News: “We haven’t seen much of Gabbard since Trump attacked Iran, so this will be high stakes for her.
“People like Gabbard have a tough needle to thread: defend the administration without looking like a forelock-tugging flunky who’s thrown her principles into the wind.”
This is not the first time the DNI has been placed in an awkward spot by Trump’s impulsive foreign policy calls – and drawn his ire.
Last year, just prior to the Operation Midnight Hammer strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, it was pointed out to the president by a journalist that Gabbard had told Congress she did not believe Tehran was close to building a bomb, to which Trump responded: “I don’t care what she said.”
He was also reportedly incensed when she posted a three-minute video on X warning that “political elite and warmongers” are “carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers,” placing the world “on the brink of nuclear annihilation.”
Gabbard cut a remote figure in January when the U.S. swooped in to remove Nicolas Maduro from power in Venezuela, another intervention she had publicly opposed in the past, posting photos of herself doing yoga on the beach rather than taking her place among the decision makers.
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