{UAH} TRUMP PICKS A FORMER DEMOCRAT SENATOR AS DNI

Trump picks Democrat-turned-Republican Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence

By Josh Christenson and

 

Samuel Chamberlain

Published Nov. 13, 2024

 Updated Nov. 13, 2024, 4:08 p.m. ET

President-elect Donald Trump continued to fill out his national security team Wednesday, announcing that former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard will be his nominee for director of national intelligence.

Gabbard, a former vice chair of the Democratic National Committee who endorsed Trump and joined the Republican party late in the 2024 campaign, will oversee America’s 17 intelligence agencies in the powerful post.

3

Trump officially announced Tulsi Gabbard as his nominee for director of national intelligence.REUTERS

“I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community, championing our Constitutional Rights, and securing Peace through Strength,” said Trump of Gabbard, who had previously been rumored to be considered for defense secretary and CIA director.

The Post reported Tuesday that Gabbard, 43, had been privately requesting a defense secretary appointment — hours before Trump, 78, made the surprise announcement that Fox News host Pete Hegseth would be filling the position.

AD

Unlike other nominees who received bipartisan praise like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who will likely be on a glide path to become secretary of state, Gabbard may be headed for a contentious confirmation fight.

Critics have called her willingness to meet with Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad while the US was backing rebels opposing his government and her hardline stance against US involvement in the war between Ukraine and Russia disqualifying for higher office.

3

The former Democrat has been rumored to be considered for defense secretary and CIA director.AP

Those views could put her at odds with more than half of Senate Republicans, who voted for $60 billion in aid to Ukraine last spring.

Gabbard endorsed the soon-to-be 47th president at a rally in Greensboro, NC, last month, saying the Democratic Party she departed two years earlier is “completely unrecognizable”

“It is because of my love for our country and specifically because of the leadership that President Trump has brought to transform the Republican Party and bring it back to the party of the people, and the party of peace, that I’m proud to stand here with you today, with President Trump, and announce that I’m joining the Republican Party,” she proclaimed.

A four-term Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, Gabbard made her own bid for her old party’s nomination in 2020, before dropping out after Super Tuesday and endorsing Joe Biden.

While serving in the House, she was the only lawmaker to vote “present” on Trump’s first impeachment by Democrats in late 2019.

Earlier in the 2020 Democratic primary, she had delivered a knockout blow to then-California Sen. Kamala Harris over her record as the Golden State’s former attorney general.

AD

3

“I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community, championing our Constitutional Rights, and securing Peace through Strength,” said Trump.AP

“She put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana,” Gabbard told the audience at the July 2019 debate in a moment that later went viral on social media.

“She blocked evidence, she blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so.”

Gabbard and Democrat-turned-independent presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. formed an unlikely team in the final stretches of the 2024 campaign, with the latter also endorsing Trump.

Both were harshly critical of Democrats for being the “party of war,” while Republicans had become the “party of peace.”

“When you look at the party of Kamala Harris, for example, she is anti-freedom. She is pro-censorship, she is pro-open borders and she is pro-war without even pretending to care about peace,” Gabbard said at the North Carolina campaign event on Oct. 22.

“President Trump has pledged to end wars, not start them. And this is why, in the eyes of the Kamala Harris-Dick Cheney Democrat Party, they will do everything possible to try to destroy him,” she added.

Harris had tried to broaden her coalition by touting endorsements from the former vice president and his daughter, ex-Wyoming GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, in an effort to shore up the anti-Trump vote.