Key Points and Summary – Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was a notable absence from a Senate briefing on the US strikes against Iran, fueling speculation about a rift within the Trump administration.
-The conflict stems from Gabbard’s March testimony stating that the intelligence community assessed Iran was not actively building a nuclear weapon, a conclusion President Trump has now publicly and repeatedly called “wrong.”
-While Gabbard has since attempted to align with the President, stating on June 25th that “new intelligence” confirms Iran’s facilities were “destroyed,” her initial assessment and subsequent absence from the high-level briefing highlight significant internal disagreement on a critical national security issue.
Tulsi Gabbard Out the Door?
When President Donald Trump’s national security team briefed the Senate on Thursday about strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities last Saturday, there was one notable absence: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
Already taking heat for her prior Congressional testimony in March, stating Iran was currently not working towards a nuclear weapon, she seems to be clearly on the outs in Trumpland more and more with each passing day.
Her absence followed a report from CNN, citing unnamed sources familiar with an early Defense Intelligence Agency assessment, that claimed the strikes only set back the Iranian nuclear program by “months.”
The White House pushed back firmly against the claims, publishing their statement that quoted global analysts, world leaders, and American national security officials who all agreed that the strikes achieved their objective or caused “significant” damage.
Gabbard’s absence from Thursday’s briefing, however, left some senators publicly questioning whether the Trump administration is unified in its belief that the strikes were successful or wise.
Speaking to The Independent, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said that he believes Gabbard has a “very different opinion” from Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
While Gabbard remains in her position, Trump is on the record stating that he believes Gabbard was “wrong” in her assessment. When asked by a reporter in New Jersey if he has intelligence that Iran is building a nuclear weapon, citing claims by his intelligence community that no such plans exist, Trump insisted that his “intelligence community is wrong.”
Upon returning from a G7 summit in Canada, a reporter also asked the president about Gabbard’s comments, prompting another on-the-record disagreement.
“I don’t care what she said,” Trump said, referring to her March testimony. “I think they were very close to having one.”
Since then, Gabbard has said that she and the president are “on the same page,” and claimed in an X post that media outlets took her testimony “out of context.”
“The dishonest media is intentionally taking my testimony out of context and spreading fake news as a way to manufacture division,” Gabbard said. “America has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months, if they decide to finalize the assembly. President Trump has been clear that can’t happen, and I agree.”
On June 25, Gabbard also publicly backed the president, criticizing reports suggesting that the strikes were not as effective as the White House claims.
Writing on X, Gabbard said that “new intelligence” has confirmed that Iran’s nuclear facilities were “destroyed.”
The news comes as Gabbard faces criticism for “falling in line” with the Trump administration following the bombing of Iran, after years of building her political identity on her opposition to foreign intervention.
Writing for The Atlantic, Shane Harris and Isaac Stanley-Becker joined a chorus of criticism of Trump’s national intelligence chief, repeating claims that she “appeared to undermine” the case for U.S. intervention in Iran. The authors pointed to Gabbard’s comments to Congress in March, in which she said that the U.S. intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon,” despite unprecedented stockpiles of enriched uranium for a state that does not possess nuclear weapons.
Gabbard has also faced criticism for a three-minute video she published on X on June 10, in which she warned that “political elite and warmongers” were “carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers” and putting the world on the “brink of nuclear annihilation.”
While the video could easily be interpreted as a warning to those who condemn Trump’s attempts to de-escalate the conflict in Ukraine, others – including the president himself – reportedly saw it as a warning to the administration not to allow Israeli strikes on Iran.
As of Thursday evening, the White House had not offered an explanation for Gabbard’s absence from the Senate briefing.
About the Author:
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society. His latest book is The Truth Teller: RFK Jr. and the Case for a Post-Partisan Presidency.
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