Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has publicly defended President Donald Trump‘s authority to determine threats posed by Iran. This was an indirect response to the resignation of her deputy, Joe Kent.
Tulsi Gabbard defends Donald Trump’s decision on Iran War
In a social media statement released following Joe Kent’s resignation, Tulsi Gabbard addressed the core dispute without mentioning her former deputy by name. Kent’s resignation letter had alleged that “high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media” were using misinformation to deceive Trump “into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States.”
Gabbard took a different approach, focusing on presidential authority rather than the intelligence itself. She wrote that because Donald Trump was “overwhelmingly elected by the American people to be our President and Commander in Chief… he is responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat.”
Furthermore, Gabbard emphasized her office’s role in supporting the president’s decisions. National Intelligence, she explained, “is responsible for helping coordinate and integrate all intelligence to provide the President and Commander in Chief with the best information available to inform his decisions.” Adding, “After carefully reviewing all the information before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent threat and he took action based on that conclusion.”
Following her statement, political observers quickly pointed out that Gabbard seems not to have explicitly agreed with Trump’s assessment of the Iranian threat. Jonathan Karl, an ABC News correspondent, observed that “nowhere in this statement does she say that she agrees that Iran posed an imminent threat — or that the intelligence supports such a conclusion.”
This careful wording represents a notable shift from Gabbard’s previous positions on Iran. During her 2020 Democratic presidential campaign, she repeatedly warned against military action against Iran. She produced campaign ads claiming Trump wanted to start a war with Iran and cautioned Fox News viewers that “War with Iran would make Iraq/Afghanistan wars seem like a picnic.” All in all, Gabbard’s political evolution on the Iran issue is striking when examining her congressional record.
Originally reported by Devanshi Basu on Mandatory.
