Posted on 06/17/2025 9:08:58 PM PDT by Miami Rebel
As President Donald Trump privately mulled joining Israel’s campaign against Iran this month, one member of his Cabinet sent what he viewed as an audacious attempt to steer him in the opposite direction.
At 5:30 a.m. on June 10, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard tweeted a cryptic, three-minute video warning that “political elite and warmongers” are “carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers” — and that the world is “on the brink of nuclear annihilation.”
Trump saw the unauthorized video and became incensed, complaining to associates at the White House that she had spoken out of turn, according to three people familiar with the episode — two of them inside the administration and all granted anonymity to describe sensitive dynamics.
Her post came a few days after Israel hawks met with Trump at the White House to lobby him to support Israel’s attacks on Iran. In the eyes of Trump and some close to him, Gabbard was warning him not to greenlight Israel attacking Iran. Trump even expressed his disapproval to her personally, the three people said.
“I don’t think he dislikes Tulsi as a person … But certainly the video made him not super hot on her … and he doesn’t like it when people are off message,” said one of the people, a senior administration official. The official added that Trump also doesn’t appreciate it when people appear to be correcting him and that “many took that video as trying to correct the administration’s position.”
Trump’s reaction to the video — which has not been previously reported — underscores a widening gap between a president on the brink of potentially joining Israel’s war, and his anti-interventionist intelligence chief, who in the past has been adamantly against the U.S. engaging in new foreign conflicts.
Indeed, the man Gabbard endorsed on the campaign trail — who spoke of ending the Ukraine-Russia War on Day 1 and ushering in a new era of peace — is striking a different tone from her now that he’s sitting behind the Resolute desk.
Those tensions came to the forefront early Tuesday when a reporter aboard Air Force One asked Trump about Gabbard’s declaration before Congress in March that Iran was not seeking to build a nuclear weapon. Trump appeared to dismiss her assessment.
“I don’t care what she said,” Trump replied. “I think they were very close to having a weapon.”
It’s a remarkable change in tone from the way the president once talked about the former Democratic representative from Hawaii-turned-Trump supporter. Last fall, Trump touted Gabbard’s backing on the campaign trail. He added her — as well as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — to his Cabinet in part to highlight the ideological diversity of the MAGA coalition.
But in recent months, Trump has increasingly mused about nixing Gabbard’s office completely, an idea he floated when he gave her the job. In the White House there have been discussions about folding its mandate into the CIA or another agency, according to one of the people familiar with his response to the video and two others familiar with the matter — though it’s unclear what that would mean for Gabbard. The Director of National Intelligence serves as the president’s principal intelligence adviser and oversees the sprawling U.S. spy community.
Gabbard’s tweet about nuclear war may have spurred those conversations along. Citing a recent trip to Hiroshima, Japan — where she visited the blast site from one of the two atomic bombs the U.S. dropped to end World War II — the DNI warned in graphic terms of weapons potentially “vaporizing entire cities.”
Her statements were in keeping with the sentiment of many MAGA leaders that deeper U.S. involvement in the Israel-Iran clashes could pull America into a regional and even worldwide conflict. But ever since then there’s been simmering frustration with Gabbard in the West Wing.
The president, after all, notably called former President Barack Obama “pathetic” in 2016 for visiting Hiroshima, and argued that people shouldn’t apologize for anything the U.S. did during WWII.
And Trump has “just been kind of down on her in general,” said one of the people familiar with Gabbard’s interactions with the White House, adding that Trump thinks she “doesn’t add anything to any conversation.”
Gabbard insisted to reporters Tuesday that she and the president are “on the same page” on Iran, and a person close to Gabbard denied any tensions between her and the president. As recently as Tuesday, the two were meeting with other top officials in the Situation Room at the White House, and the administration even changed the time of the briefing to accommodate her schedule to ensure she could attend, the person said.
The Gabbard ally added that she is fully on board with what Trump is trying to do with Iran, and said she has never let her personal views color the advice she provides to the president — nor has she tried to sway Trump to her own point of view.
Asked for comment, White House spokesperson Steven Cheung said the president “has full confidence in his entire exceptional national security team” and insisted that “efforts by the legacy media to sow internal division are a distraction that will not work.”
Vice President JD Vance’s team also reached out unprompted Tuesday night to defend Gabbard in a statement, arguing that she is “an essential member” of the team.
“Tulsi Gabbard is a veteran, a patriot, a loyal supporter of President Trump, and a critical part of the coalition he built in 2024,” he said in a statement.
Gabbard argued to reporters on Tuesday that what Trump said about Iran’s nuclear program is consistent with her March testimony before Congress. Gabbard said then that even as the intelligence community assessed that Tehran hadn’t reinvigorated its nuclear weapons program — findings consistent with assessments shared by senior officials during the Biden administration — Iran’s stockpiles of enriched uranium were at their highest levels.
“President Trump was saying the same thing that I said in my annual threat assessment back in March; unfortunately too many people in the media don’t care to actually read what I said,” she said.
Trump’s comments on Air Force One, however, suggest it’s not just the media who didn’t catch that nuance.
The apparent divide has been a source of gossip among people on both sides of the ideological spectrum who are closely following the rising tensions in the Middle East. Israel hawks like conservative talk show host Mark Levin have mocked Gabbard’s assessment, suggesting that U.S. intelligence under her leadership has been flat-out incorrect.
Some of Gabbard’s detractors are now holding up Trump’s words to argue that she should get the axe.
“She shouldn’t be in that job,” Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton, who had his own falling out with Trump, said Tuesday.
Video of Trump’s comments about Gabbard on Air Force One have also stirred speculation on Capitol Hill that he has lost trust in her, said one senior congressional aide. Lawmakers of both parties were sharing the video widely among themselves on Tuesday morning, said the aide, who was granted anonymity to share details of private conversations.
“This is not just the hawkish camp,” the person said. “This is every single member sending it around.”
Even people who agree with Gabbard have been worried about her influence waning: On his podcast War Room on Monday, MAGA ringleader Steve Bannon rhetorically asked his guest Tucker Carlson why Gabbard was not invited to what appears to have been a critical Camp David huddle earlier this month, where Trump and senior officials from his CIA director to chief of staff and the vice president discussed how to posture amid Israeli’s looming strike.
“You know why … This is a regime change effort,” Carlson answered.
Gabbard — who has spoken of losing friends while serving in the military — has in the past been extremely outspoken against such incursions. The former lawmaker has long been “focused on not getting ourselves into another horrible war we can’t succeed in or get our way out of,” said Daniel Davis, a senior fellow at the think-tank Defense Priorities, whom Gabbard tapped to serve in a top job at ODNI but whose appointment was axed following an uproar about his past criticism of Israel’s conduct in Gaza.
Gabbard’s defenders have pushed back on suggestions that she’s getting iced out. The intelligence chief, who is a Lt. Col. in the U.S. Army National Guard, was on Army Reserve duty the weekend of the Camp David huddle, according to one person familiar with the matter.
The Gabbard ally also said that she has been in the room with the president and vice president throughout deliberations on the Israel-Iran issue, working out of the White House rather than ODNI’s office since Israel first started its bombing campaign. Trump, instructed her to reach out to her Israeli counterpart and the Gulf States to be in touch.
Gabbard isn’t without allies in the administration. Even as she’s been savaged by Republicans eager for Trump to enter the fighting fray, Vance took it upon himself to defend her on X on Tuesday afternoon.
But what matters, of course, is how Trump himself views her. And while Gabbard is indeed still around the White House, the senior administration official remarked that “just because you’re here doesn’t mean that you’re doing a great job.”
Trump’s original decision to nominate Gabbard to serve as his spy chief sparked widespread concern among national security officials and Democrats — and even some hawkish Republicans privately — on Capitol Hill. She has flirted with fringe ideas about the wars in Ukraine and Syria, and has evinced a deep skepticism of the intelligence community she now oversees.
After she was confirmed in February, Gabbard carved out an unusually public role for a spy chief, eagerly carrying out the president’s agenda and letting the world know about her work for Trump in regular appearances on Fox News and in social media posts and interviews with right-wing media stars.
She revoked the security clearances of dozens of the president’s political enemies and critics, maligned some of the officials that work beneath her and fired two top officials who oversaw the production of an intelligence assessment that undercut Trump’s justification for the mass deportation of migrants from Latin America.
But there were signs that she may be on her own path, according to some in the administration. For one, her very visit to Hiroshima perplexed the White House, according to one of the aforementioned administration officials.
The intelligence chief appears to have tacked on a trip to the city as she paid a visit to a Marine Corps air station in Iwakuni, close to Hiroshima, after attending the Shangri-La dialogue in Singapore. But the White House has questioned whether the trip was relevant to her role as Director of National Intelligence, even as the Gabbard ally said the Japan trip was coordinated and approved by the NSC.
As Gabbard navigates the politics of Trump’s White House, she may also be thinking ahead to what might come next. In a recent podcast interview with former Fox News host Megyn Kelly in May, Gabbard didn’t rule out running for president in 2028.
“I will never rule out any opportunity to serve my country,” Gabbard said.
If Trump decides to join Israel in attacking Iran, that could complicate her calculus of serving in the administration.
The media is trying to drive a wedge between Trump and his Cabinet picks
Don’t fall for it.
A. I’ve seen and heard the entire Gabbard clip. I don’t need Politico or the National Review to interpret it for me.
B. “FRiend, the CinC is NOT contemplating war— far from it.”
That’s simply not supported by the facts, by which I mean President Trump’s public comments and Truth Social posts.
“I don’t care what she [Gabbard] said. I think they [the Iranians] were very close to having a weapon.”
So, for the very greatest strategic issue facing us today, the one where the President relies on his DNI, he is trashing the one thing she’s responsible for.
He said there was no intention to kill Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “for now.” Who talks of possibly eliminating another country’s chief of state if not considering war?
In discussing the current state of hostilities, he said this: “We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran. Iran had good sky trackers and other defensive equipment, and plenty of it, but it doesn’t compare to American made, conceived, and manufactured ‘stuff.’ Nobody does it better than the good ol’ USA.”
He said WE have control of the skies, not Israel. Why would someone NOT considering war speaking of controlling the skies of a country we are NOT at war with or even weighing the possibility of war?
POLITICO has said it’s TRUE, so need we say anything more???
/s
“I don’t care what she said,” Trump replied.
Shouldn’t have said that in front of the press. He says way to much in front of the press.
Listen to Gabbard’s 3 minute clip. Then listen to the President. Then tell me that their outlooks are consistent.
Well said!
He does that all the time, but he’s the boss, she isn’t. It was not her place to be espousing flower power while he is instructing the citizens of Teheran to get the hell out.
OK— this is troll like behaviour. You have absolutely NO, zero basis, and especially not this rambling concoction of bullcrap suppositions and innuendo statements from the likes of Bolton (who Trump actively despises for his deception, lying and manipulation of his actual ORDERS) for trying to complete the fabrication narrative that “she is finished”.
Amateurish in the extreme- no DNI would ever “enumerate” the factual differences between US and other country’s intel. In point of fact she hasn’t share any differences and wouldn’t. You seem to be ignoring that, and diving into this poorly crafted rambling bunch of gibberish and speculation from “three individuals” whom Politico says .. “know” what Trump thinks— What absolute crapola. Maybe a comic book would be more elucidating at the proper level of reading for understanding.
What you don’t get is that “I don’t care what she said” means exactly that on this nuclear acquisition subject— and NOTHING else. It cannot be construed or conflated with ALL the other claptrap and gossipy drool that is this “article” by nobodies at Politico.
So eager to screw up Trump’s team— grasping at dimwit rag of demonrat Robby Mooks trying to insert division. By doing so, is to work for the enemies, the losers against Trump, who assume he is some sort of dictator, when he works with disparate and widely separated views within his team. The article assumes too much and states all of it as facts— which are not there.
It’s NOT the clip. You don’t get that, clearly. The March testimony to Congress is in complete agreement with Trump, followed by decisive actions to support his decisions. The writers of this novelette conflate the two— and they are two different things as topics. Trump does not disagree with the opinions against nuclear war. Hardly, it’s been the subject matter of his most recent Putin calls.
Trump is constantly— deceptive toward enemies within and outside the country. That is one of his main tactics— keep media morons guessing, and keep them off balance.
“We” means the alliance and partnership with the one true ally we have in the ME. Without our overwhelming ability (as in always above— see: Space Force) the more meticulous aspects of the Israel operations would be nearly impossible to conduct as we will see towards the end of this week. This cooperation is the major difference from the morons controlling Joey Bags Biden and his grifters, and neo con jackasses in Congress from people who have the conviction of their words. Believable, because they don’t know for certain.
The President no longer relies on the stupid system of WH NSC— he’s broken that up. This is reflected in the idiotic speculation of Politico’s hacks, which some here apparently think is somehow factual. It has never been.
“For now”— is a negotiating tactic, assuming that in the near future Khamenei will abscond out of Iran, because either way we and Israel know exactly where he is. A very old tactic— like sending sat photos of the principal residence—wonder why? Keep em guessing.
Why wouldn’t the same sort of assumptions be made of the military movements under Joe Biden, like the 2 carrier groups? Everyone knew they were there to monitor and prevent Israeli operational actions. Because it was Biden’s incompetents and lackeys no one saw a credible threat- while hindering the Israelis every move. Credible threat does not mean war— rather it conveys the potential ease of conducting war, because it is credible. The leadership difference is tectonic in shift. Check out the Tehran evacuation of 10 million on the word of a credible threat, that might not even make war a necessity.
At the time, Trump was all about negotiation. He changed his mind afterward. How do we know, that at the time, she wasn’t supporting his stance?
But if you want to get get all hot and bothered about it and type in all caps, that’s fine by me.
[He said WE have control of the skies, not Israel. Why would someone NOT considering war speaking of controlling the skies of a country we are NOT at war with or even weighing the possibility of war?]
This.
Polly wanted a cracker.
4 writers?
Fake news
I posted this three days ago:
These statements both occurred in the first weeks of the Trump administration. We now know that the Biden holdovers in the FBI lied to Bondi about the extent of the Epstein files in the FBI's possession.And AG Bondi's FBI told her that she received ALL of the Epstein files.
It wouldn't surprise me to learn that Gabbard's intel agencies fed her similar stories in the first months of the Trump administration.
It wouldn't surprise me that Obama/Biden holdovers in the intelligence agencies did the same thing to Gabbard and gave her false information on Iran to protect the legacy of the Obama/Biden Iran deal. They gave Gabbard bad intel, and she repeated it in front of Congress, just like Bondi did on TV.
They were both trusting of their own organizations and got burned. At least Bondi went public and raided the FBI offices in New York City. I don't know what Gabbard is doing about it.
-PJ
Kayfabe
Miami rebel is a paid troll
This our LAST chance to rid ourselves of the Islamic Republic of Iran and help return it to the world of moderate and peaceful nations.
They declared war on the US in 1979 and have been heel-bent on erasing us and our allies since then.
The blood of many Americans is on their hands and this is the time to knock them out of the ballpark so the Iranian people and ALL THE PEOPLE of the world will not feel threatened.
This our LAST chance to rid ourselves of the Islamic Republic of Iran and help return it to the world of moderate and peaceful nations.
They declared war on the US in 1979 and have been heel-bent on erasing us and our allies since then.
The blood of many Americans is on their hands and this is the time to knock them out of the ballpark so the Iranian people and ALL THE PEOPLE of the world will not feel threatened.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.