Tulsi Gabbard Confirmed As Director of National Intelligence

By streiff | 11:48 AM on February 12, 2025

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Tulsi Gabbard has been confirmed as the Director of National Intelligence. In a party-line 52-48 vote, with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) crossing the aisle to vote with the Democrats, one of President Trump's more problematic nominees accomplished what was thought impossible only three weeks ago.

Gabbard, like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was one of the outside-the-GOP and outside-the-box figures who made Trump an acceptable candidate to voters he could not have ordinarily reached. But Gabbard's nomination to be DNI caught most by surprise.

The biggest argument against her was that she did not have a background in intelligence in the military or during her time as a representative. She is a Reserve lieutenant colonel, but her service was in military police and civil affairs units. She was accused of being soft on Russia and Syria. Her visit with Bashar al-Assad in 2017 and skepticism over the proof that he'd used chemical weapons, along with a view of NATO that is outside policy circle norms, further complicated her path to Senate confirmation. The intelligence establishment was also upset by her advocacy on behalf of Edward Snowden and Julian Assange as whistleblowers rather than felons.

Quite honestly, confirmation is probably due more to senators who were on the bubble in how they would vote, putting aside their misgivings regarding Gabbard's experience and outlook and giving President Trump his choice.

This is a remarkable statement from Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy on why he will support Tulsi Gabbard to be the next U.S. Director of National Intelligence. pic.twitter.com/K2Ummw8jCa
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) February 12, 2025

Now, the hard work starts. She is charged with leading a workforce that is hostile to Donald Trump and probably dismissive of her, and her first task is to make that a painful place to be. She has to clean up an intelligence community that has been relentlessly politicized and has long since stopped believing it exists to support the administration and now views itself as a policy-making establishment.

If she can't be marginalized, she will be the subject of relentless personal attacks. As Schumer said back when Donald Trump was fighting the intelligence community, “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you. So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he’s being really dumb to do this.”

President Trump was given his choice. Let's hope she lives up to expectations and turns around a flailing and floundering intelligence community focused on its own prerogatives into the awesome intelligence and covert action organization it should be.