New Trump Pick: Tulsi Gabbard Named Director of National Intelligence

Following a bit of deliberation and speculation from the outside about where the unique talents of people like Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will land in the new Trump administration, we have an answer for at least one of those names.

Tulsi Gabbard has been officially named by President-elect Trump to serve as his Director of National Intelligence:

Gabbard, a veteran with three deployments into war zones, became a staple on the campaign trail leading up to Trump’s victory last week and was paramount in giving former Democrats a reason to vote for the former president.

According to Fox News, Gabbard was originally considering the Secretary of Defense position before that job went to Pete Hegseth:

In September, Gabbard told Fox News Digital she would be “honored” to join a Trump administration and added that bringing an end “to the influence of the military industrial complex,” working to prevent World War III and bringing the U.S. back “from the brink of nuclear war” would be among her priorities.

She was reportedly interested in the defense secretary job, but Trump is reported to have promised that appointment to former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, also an Army veteran.

Gabbard has criticized Democrats as “pro-censorship” and “anti-freedom,” but her criticisms have extended to Republicans, as well. She has spoken out against U.S. involvement in the Middle East and criticized Trump during his first administration for the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.

Gabbard controversially met with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2017 during the country’s civil war. She was opposed to the U.S. arming Syrian rebel groups and said she was “ready to meet with anyone if there’s a chance it can help bring about an end to this war.”

Mollie Hemingway, of The Federalist, sums up the weight of this pick in terms of rooting out the deep state bureaucracy:

Here’s a little wrap on the breaking news via Fox:

Exit question: What does the deep state do now that the people they’ve been targeting for years are now in charge of the intelligence community?

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Nate Ashworth

The Founder and Editor-In-Chief of Election Central. He's been blogging elections and politics for over a decade. He started covering the 2008 Presidential Election which turned into a full-time political blog in 2012 and 2016 that continues today.

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