It is a measure of Donald Trump’s low regard for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, including its former occupant, that while the commander-in-chief was making final preparations to invade Venezuela and kidnap its president, Tulsi Gabbard was posting pictures of herself on a beach in Hawaii.
Gabbard, who informed Trump of her resignation today, spent 15 months as director of national intelligence — on paper, at least. According to the law, the DNI is supposed to be the president’s chief adviser on intelligence matters. Gabbard never did, and many of his positions conflicted with the administration’s actions. Trump belittled even his usual efforts to speak truth to power. In the spring of 2025, when Gabbard testified to the consensus view of the intelligence community that Iran “not to develop nuclear weapons,” Trump replied, “I don’t care what he said.” Gabbard has long opposed US military intervention in Iran and has not publicly supported Trump’s decision to go to war. One of his chief messengers stop the protest of war.
In his resignation letterGabbard told Trump she would resign on June 30, after recently learning that her husband, Abraham Williams, has a rare form of bone cancer. “Abraham has been my rock in eleven years of marriage,” Gabbard wrote. People who know the couple have told me that they are very close; Williams, a video producer and filmmaker, has filmed Gabbard throughout her time in public service, including when she traveled to Syria to meet with dictator Bashar al-Assad when she was a member of the Democratic Party. Contrary to Washington’s slogan, there is every reason to think that Gabbard wants to spend more time with her family. But the Iran war may have made the choice easier.
It’s amazing that Gabbard lasted so long in his career. CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who served as DNI in Trump’s first term, has taken the unofficial — and inevitable — role of top intelligence adviser to a man who works instinctively.
Because the president was not interested in Gabbard’s views on intelligence, he tried to get her attention in other ways. Gabbard accused former US officials of orchestrating a “year-long coup” against Trump. He denounced the so-called Russia Hoax and tried to undermine the conclusion, by a bipartisan Senate committee, that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. And he retaliated against perceived political enemies of Trump by revoking the security clearance of current and former intelligence officials. None of this won the president popularity, and it did lasting damage to the intelligence community. Gabbard’s decision to put politics ahead of fairness has prevented intelligence analysts from making statements that might run counter to the government’s preferred narrative, current and former officials have told me.
To prove her baseless claims, Gabbard detailed US intelligence material—at times CIA objections-and make public what those documents actually said. Gabbard’s claims of “weaponizing” the intelligence community gave Trump another dubious point in his relentless campaign of political revenge. Gabbard fired two top intelligence analysts after writing an assessment that contradicted Trump’s efforts to associate the Venezuelan president with a criminal gang. Trump’s torture claims served to justify his attack on Venezuela – a major irony for DNI’s alleged opposition to intervention.
By law, it was Gabbard’s role to advise policymakers on life-and-death decisions and help them understand the stream of intelligence that flows into US intelligence agencies every day. Instead, he made his position a platform to promote misinformation and undermine public confidence in the very institutions he was sworn to lead.
ODNI has long been a weak agency. It has never fulfilled the mandate laid out for it two decades ago, when Congress tried to correct the failures that led to the 9/11 attacks by creating another layer of bureaucracy on top of an already strained intelligence community. “Gabbard’s tenure has shown how easily an organization like ODNI that lacks a clear mission and impact can become overly politicized and abandon the kind of bias and truth-seeking that is necessary for good intelligence work and American national security,” William Walldorf, a professor of politics and international affairs at Wake Forest University and a senior fellow at the think tank Priorities, told Defense Priorities.
Towards the end of his tenure, the main question to ask about Gabbard was: Why is he staying? He had faced the disgrace of being locked out of major meetings and dismissed by the president, after seeing the United States facing a new war. When I’ve asked the question to people who have worked with Gabbard in the legislative and executive branches, they usually give a simple explanation: He wants power (and he doesn’t mean that as a compliment). Former congressional staffers described him to me as the most ambitious person they had ever met in Washington. American and foreign intelligence officials have told me that he is handsome and warm in person; in a slightly flattering language, they called him calculating, careful, and very aware of the importance of developing his image. In every sense, then, a natural politician.
Gabbard ran for president once, as a Democrat. If he decides to give it another shot, he has an opportunity among Trump supporters. The president’s decision to attack Iran is polling poorly among voters. Gabbard remains popular among former MAGA-friendly media lobbyists who have grown impatient with the president and see him as reneging on his promise not to lead the nation into a war of choice. Broadcaster Joe Rogan, who called Trump’s war on Iran “nuts,” is a friend of Gabbard’s, and recently praised her as “amazing” and “the same person on the air, off the air”; he concluded succinctly, “He’s so cute.”
Because Gabbard was not involved in some of the president’s most unpopular decisions, she cannot be easily blamed. That gives him a rare reputation in an administration that prizes loyalty over honesty. Being an outsider in the Trump administration might be the best thing that ever happened to Gabbard’s career.
