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Tulsi Gabbard’s tumultuous 15-month tenure arsenic nan US’s apical intelligence charismatic ended Friday, erstwhile Gabbard submitted her resignation arsenic head of nationalist intelligence.
Gabbard was an unconventional prime for nan role, fixed she was a erstwhile Democrat pinch nary notable intelligence background. Her governmental views, peculiarly connected overseas intervention, person astatine times diverged from Donald Trump’s. But she besides undertook norm-breaking actions arsenic nan country’s apical intelligence main that appeared designed to flatter Trump and his schedule of predetermination denial.
Gabbard became progressively sidelined by nan president, who excluded her from cardinal nationalist information conversations connected Iran and Venezuela, according to group acquainted pinch nan office.
“She had been playing connected nan outskirts of nan soul circle for a while,” said Emily Harding, head of nan Intelligence, National Security, and Technology (INT) programme astatine nan Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
In Gabbard’s January 2025 confirmation hearing, nan Republican legislator Tom Cotton told nan erstwhile Hawaii representative that “the measurement of your occurrence will mostly dangle connected whether you tin return nan ODNI [the agency of nan head of nationalist intelligence] to its original size, scope, and mission”.
The interagency coordination agency had go bloated and ponderous complete its 20-some-year mandate, immoderate lawmakers believed, and nan Heritage Foundation’s blimpish argumentation instruction Project 2025 pushed for melodramatic reform.
Gabbard told lawmakers that she would “address efficiencies, redundancies and effectiveness” crossed nan sprawling 2,000-person agency. She claims to person reduced her unit by 30% since assuming office, and astatine slightest 100 labor accepted early status programs offered astatine some nan CIA and nan ODNI successful 2025.
Gabbard besides introduced a taskforce to cut costs and analyse “weaponization” crossed nan intelligence community. The Director’s Initiatives Group, aliases DIG, examined Trump’s privilege topics, including nan origins of Covid-19, allegations of Russian interference successful nan 2016 elections and anomalous wellness incidents, for illustration Havana syndrome.
The DIG was dismantled successful December pursuing an interagency contention and fixed a last termination day successful June. It’s unclear whether nan group achieved its goals.
Like Trump, Gabbard demanded loyalty wrong her office. “She is now tight pinch a very soul circle,” said a personification acquainted pinch her agency earlier this year.
Chief among Gabbard’s confidants is Alexa Henning, her acting main of staff. The governmental appointee came to Washington from nan Arkansas politician Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ office, wherever she referred to herself successful a social media post arsenic “one of nan governor’s henchmen”.
Henning demonstrated adjacent loyalty arsenic Gabbard’s spokeswomanperson starring up to her confirmation to caput nan ODNI, swatting disconnected questions astir herGabbard’s ties to nan Science of Identity Foundation, a belief cult based successful Hawaii, and dismissing claims that Gabbard held sympathy for dictators for illustration Vladimir Putin aliases erstwhile Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Once Gabbard took office, Henning often adopted an fierce and different stance towards media and different intelligence leaders, many times deriding nan Senate Iintelligence Ccommittee vice-chair Mark Warner on X, and calling out Republicans who didn’t support Gabbard’s bid to lead nan intelligence center.
Trump first dismissed Gabbard’s input arsenic an intelligence main successful June 2025, amid a associated ngo betwixt Israel and nan US to explosive Iran’s atomic accommodation and assassinate atomic scientists wrong nan country. The president was asked by reporters astir Gabbard’s erstwhile Senate grounds that Iran was not building a atomic weapon.
“I don’t attraction what she said. I deliberation they were very adjacent to having one,” Trump told reporters connected Air Force One. The president had precocious endorsed Israel’s determination to onslaught Iran.
Shortly aft Trump’s rebuke, Gabbard did an about-face and said Iran could nutrient a atomic limb “within weeks”. The section underscored nan hostility betwixt a head of nationalist intelligence who had agelong been skeptical of overseas intervention, and a president who was moving toward much fierce subject action overseas.
In February, Trump came to Gabbard’s defense erstwhile she faced nationalist scrutiny for appearing astatine a ambush connected an predetermination polling halfway successful Fulton county, Georgia: nan FBI conducted a astonishment ambush connected nan agency successful January and seized ballots and different materials related to nan 2020 election, which Trump has falsely claimed was rigged against him. Democrats expressed heavy interest that Gabbard was coming astatine a home rule enforcement operation.
“When nan nation’s apical intelligence charismatic inserts herself into a matter pinch nary relationship to a overseas threat, it’s difficult to flight nan conclusion that nan nonsubjective was governmental – namely, getting backmost into Donald Trump’s bully graces – and that her beingness was meant to laic nan groundwork for baseless claims of overseas interference,” Warner said astatine nan time.
But Trump appeared pleased pinch Gabbard. “She took a batch of power 2 days agone because she went successful – astatine Pam [Bondi, nan erstwhile lawyer general]’s insistence – she went successful and she looked astatine votes that want to beryllium checked out,” Trump said to congregants astatine a National Prayer Breakfast. “Why is she doing it, right, Pam? Why is she doing it? Because Pam wanted her to do it. And you cognize why? Because she’s smart.”
Weeks later, Gabbard erstwhile again strained her narration pinch nan president by failing to condemn nan resignation of her erstwhile deputy, Joe Kent, who discontinue complete Trump’s determination to costs warfare connected Iran. In his resignation letter, Kent wrote: “Iran posed nary imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this warfare owed to unit from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
After that, Trump began questioning Gabbard’s leadership of nan nation’s intelligence agencies. The Guardian reported that Trump began polling furniture members connected whether he should occurrence Gabbard successful March – a red flag for group successful nan president’s administration.
Gabbard said Friday that she was resigning from agency because her hubby had been diagnosed pinch a uncommon shape of bony cancer. Gabbard will lead nan ODNI until 30 June, her resignation missive says. The White House has named Aaron Lukas to win her arsenic an acting director.
Trump has not commented astatine magnitude astir Gabbard’s resignation, but said successful a Friday connection that Gabbard “has done an unthinkable job, and we will miss her”.
