Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s strength and standing within the Trump administration is coming under question after the president twice publicly brushed off her testimony that Iran is not close to developing a nuclear weapon, and amid reports of tensions between the two.
President Trump nominated Gabbard as his intelligence director despite some doubts from both parties, and her anti-war stance fits in with the MAGA movement’s aversion to getting the U.S. sucked into foreign conflicts.
But the two are not longtime allies, and she increasingly appears to be on the outside looking in as Trump crafts his policy on the Israeli-Iran war.
“She was rewarded for sticking by Trump during the 2024 election and being a fierce advocate for him, particularly as it relates to military intervention,” one Trump ally said of Gabbard, explaining why Trump nominated her to the intelligence post.
A video Gabbard posted on social media last week following a visit to Hiroshima, the Japanese city where the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb near the end of World War II, has come under heavy attention in Trump World.
In the more than three minute video, which was posted to her personal account on social platform X, Gabbard details the devastating consequences of nuclear warfare and accuses “political elite and warmongers” of “carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers.”
Some saw Gabbard as getting ahead of the White House’s messaging on Iran and Israel when it came to the video.
“It’s not a time for politics, but for pragmatism,” the Trump ally said, noting the decisions Trump has to make on whether to involve the U.S. directly in the war by bombing the Fordow nuclear facility. That facility is buried in an Iranian mountain, and only U.S. bombs and flights may be able to get to it.
Gabbard’s office has pushed back hard on any suggestion of a split.
Olivia Coleman, Gabbard’s press secretary, called such reporting a “lazy regurgitation of a fake news story” disputed by the White House and Vice President Vance.
“While the Director is busy briefing the President, Vice President, and national security cabinet every day on the ongoing conflict, The Hill continues to spin lies made up by bored, irrelevant anonymous sources with nothing better to do than sow fake division,” Coleman said in a statement.
“The Director remains focused on her mission: providing accurate and actionable intelligence to the President, cleaning up the Deep State, and keeping the American people safe, secure, and free.”
Vance this week praised Gabbard as “a veteran, a patriot, a loyal supporter of President Trump and a critical part of the coalition he built in 2024.”
But there are also questions from some in Congress about Gabbard’s role.
The intelligence director was set to appear before Senate Intelligence Committee leaders this week only to abruptly cancel.
“We were told that she was called to meetings at the White House,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told reporters Wednesday.
“So her presence before the Intelligence Committee was canceled today. It'll be postponed to a different time.”
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the vice chair of the panel, said he has “no idea what our policy is right now towards Iran other than chaos.”
But he also offered some support for Gabbard and her delivery of intelligence information, while questioning whether Trump is listening to her enough.
“I will say this, there has been no change in the intelligence from what Gabbard did say that was true back in March, that [there is] no evidence that Iran had moved towards a weapon, and the point that the president may be taking action with no consultation — we've seen about endless wars in the Middle East, how this happens. And again, I have no idea what his plan is, what our plan is.”
“If this president wants to completely ignore the intelligence community, we are playing in dangerous ground, and this is exactly the way we got ourselves into Iraq,” he said.
Gabbard has long cautioned against U.S. intervention in foreign wars — a position that aligned the former progressive darling with the “America First” mantra when it comes to foreign policy.
Trump said Thursday he would decide whether to take direct action in the next two weeks, a sign he is still holding out hope for a diplomatic solution.
Gabbard has been in attendance for meetings this past week in the Situation Room, but Trump has reportedly leaned more on the counsel of officials like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine.
“The president hears all voices across the country, and he makes decisions based on his instincts. And he has always said diplomacy is his first option,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday.
Trump raised eyebrows this past week with his remarks about Gabbard when he was asked about her testimony from March indicating that Iran was not as close to developing nuclear capabilities as Israel claimed.
“I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having one,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.
On Friday, Trump more explicitly said Gabbard was “wrong” in her assessment about Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Gabbard was also absent from a meeting at Camp David earlier this month between Trump and his national security team. Gabbard was on National Guard duty at the time, and her allies have noted that she was in attendance for White House meetings the next day.
Well before the latest flare up between Israel and Iran, Gabbard had been critical of Trump during his first term for pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal and assassinating a top general.
Though the latest video didn’t reference the matter, some in the White House saw it as off-message — a quality known to irritate the president.
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) said that while Gabbard’s anti-interventionist stance could depart from Trump’s on the Iran-Israeli war, Gabbard’s pattern in office has been to curate intelligence to suit the White House’s prerogatives rather than to contradict the president.
“It seems like she's, at times, on the other side of things from the president, which, you know, I didn't vote for her,” he said.
“She tends to find the answer, and then goes and tries to find the evidence to support her answer. [That’s] exactly the opposite way you should be analyzing national security issues, right? You should start with the intelligence and then try to come to the conclusion. … she goes to the conclusion first and then tries to come up with the evidence to support her conclusion. That's not helpful to this president or any president.”
An administration official said it is Gabbard’s job to provide Trump with timely, accurate and actionable intelligence, and she will continue to do so.
The White House has shunned any suggestion Trump has lost faith in any member of his national security team — remarks that come amid reporting that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has also not played a key role in mapping out a response.
“President Trump’s Peace through Strength foreign policy is a tried-and-true approach that keeps America safe and deters global threats,” White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement.
“Efforts by the legacy media to sow internal division are a distraction that will not work,” Cheung added. “President Trump has full confidence in his entire exceptional national security team.”
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