Gabbard plans to address head on concerns about her 2017 meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
After she returns from her National Guard duty this weekend in Oklahoma, Donald Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, will travel on Monday to Washington D.C., her team tells National Review, where she will kickstart her closed-door meetings with senators who are eager to press her about her unorthodox views on Russia and Syria.
Ahead of the meeting, Gabbard’s team is prioritizing outreach to Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which has jurisdiction over her nomination. In her private meetings with senators, the U.S. Army Reserve lieutenant colonel, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, and former Hawaii congresswoman plans to address questions about her foreign policy rhetoric by leaning into Trump’s approach to negotiating with American adversaries overseas, a source familiar with the matter tells NR.
Gabbard plans to address concerns senators have about her decision to meet personally with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2017 as a then-congresswoman by emphasizing the importance of maintaining open lines of communication with foreign adversaries, a source familiar with the matter tells NR, while also reassuring them that she does not sympathize with or defend dictators. And she plans to follow Trump’s lead in continuing to advocate an end to U.S. involvement in “endless wars” and argue for massive change at intelligence agencies to address erosion of public trust in American institutions.
The whip count surrounding Gabbard’s nomination remains unclear given how much of the media conversation has focused in recent days on Pete Hegseth, Trump’s secretary of defense nominee. Gabbard could be the next cabinet pick to fall under intense media scrutiny.
As director of national intelligence, Gabbard would be vested with sweeping authority to brief the president elect on U.S. intelligence matters and declassify secret intelligence. “The concern will be that she become a gatekeeper for what information gets through to the president,” one GOP senator tells National Review. “It’s a pretty big operation, when you consider all the intelligence agencies combined.”
Given the broad scope of the role in overseeing U.S. intelligence agencies, Republican senators will grill Gabbard about why she has called for the U.S. to drop charges against Julian Assange and pardon Edward Snowden – two national security leakers who are reviled by most foreign policy hawks in Congress.
Senators tell National Review they plan to grill Gabbard about her “fact-finding mission” to meet personally with Assad, as well as her rhetoric casting doubt on U.S. intelligence reports that the Syrian dictator used chemical weapons against his own people. In February 2019, Gabbard told MSNBC that “Assad is not the enemy of the United States because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States,” though she later called him a “brutal dictator.” Her rhetoric and personal decision as a congresswoman to pursue diplomacy at the time will come under further scrutiny given rebel forces in Syria seized Aleppo from Assad’s forces only days ago and have continued their advance on his regime throughout the week.
The Senate Intelligence Committee will soon be chaired by Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) and includes many foreign policy hawks on both sides of the aisle. Republican senators eager to press her about her unorthodox views will also be paying close attention to her background check.
“I’ve never met her before, but certainly we’ve had a lot of questions about her activities,” Senator John Cornyn (R., Tex.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a brief interview with NR on Thursday. “And I’m glad that there will be a thorough vetting of the nominees now based on the MOE between the administration and the FBI,” referencing the memorandum of understanding that will allow the nomination vetting process to kick off in earnest.
Republican senators insist publicly and privately that the conference is focused on deferring to Trump in his choice of unconventional nominees.
“I have had the opportunity to visit with a number of people who worked with her in the House, who have told me that she is very bright, she was a very good member on the committees that were involved in our national security, that they felt that she took the time to learn and to respond,” says Senator Mike Rounds (R., S.D.), a member of the Intelligence Committee who is scheduled to meet privately with Gabbard next week.
“I want to listen to what she’s got to say, and then I can start to make up my mind, as to whether there’s any reasons or any concerns that I would have,” Rounds added. “I’m going to walk in with an open mind. I think she has a path forward. But I won’t know for sure until I’ve had a chance to meet with her.”
There’s little doubt that Gabbard’s dovish foreign policy views and former party affiliation as a Democrat, which she only jettisoned months ago, will also raise questions behind closed doors about her commitment to the GOP’s agenda.
Throughout the nomination process, Gabbard will talk about how her views are shaped by her time in combat, including her deployments overseas. To win over skeptics, she will lean on her allies in the U.S. Senate, many of whom served with her in the U.S. House.
Those who are likely to support her bid are hopeful that a background check will prove helpful in disputing some of the more unsavory political narratives about her, such as the argument from critics that her talking points about the Ukraine war makes her a “Russian asset.” These allies are also quick point out that as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve, Gabbard already has security clearance and regularly goes through the military’s background check process.
Republican senators will also grill her about her positions on Russia. That includes comments she made in 2019 expressing concern over alleged “U.S.-funded biolabs” in Ukraine, which she later walked back, as well as her rhetoric blaming the West for Russia’s invasion on Ukraine. The same day Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, for example, Gabbard wrote on social media: “This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine’s becoming a member of NATO.” Days later, she said in a video message: “It’s time to put geopolitics aside and embrace the spirit of aloha, respect and love, for the Ukrainian people by coming to an agreement that Ukraine will be a neutral country.”
And yet worries about her views on the Ukraine war – and claims from Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz that she is a “Russian asset” – may prove to be an ineffective political cudgel against her nomination given Democrats’ years-long effort to paint Trump as a Kremlin puppet, GOP senators tell NR.
The Democratic Party’s effort to lampoon Trump as a Russian asset was “all just made up completely out of thin air,” Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis (R., Wyo.) tells NR. “So anytime somebody brings up Russia anymore, I think the whole country is desensitized to that,” she said, adding: “it’s just another way to try to sully somebody’s reputation when there’s nothing there.”
“Most of these concerns I hear are coming from the media, not from my colleagues,” Senator Ron Johnson said in a brief interview with NR earlier this week. He said she “served our country honorably in the military” and has now met her multiple times in person. “I agree with her from a standpoint of ending these endless wars, so I’m pretty much on board with the positions she’s taken. I’m supportive.”
Earlier this week, centrist GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska told NR her office is in contact with the Trump transition team about setting up a meeting.
“She’s from Hawaii, but has had some Alaska connections so some Alaskans know her,” Murkowski said. “So I’m doing that kind of due diligence on her.”