WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump has selected Tulsi Gabbard to be his next director of national intelligence, tapping on Wednesday the former Hawaii congresswoman with a controversial track record on Syria to lead the nation’s spy agencies.
Gabbard, a 43-year-old Iraq War veteran who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, made headlines three years earlier when she traveled in secret to regime-controlled Syria to meet with its president, Bashar al-Assad.
Gabbard, then a House Democrat, did not inform party leadership in advance of her weeklong trip. Lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle were outraged that a sitting member of Congress would meet with Assad, whom the United States had deemed a war criminal for using chemical weapons against his own people.
“I think we should be ready to meet with anyone if there’s a chance it can help bring about an end to this war, which is causing the Syrian people so much suffering,” Gabbard said after her 2017 meeting.
She later sponsored legislation — the Stop Arming Terrorists Act — designed to end US support for Syrian rebel groups fighting Assad, whom she declined to call a war criminal when running for president.
In 2015, she voted in favor of legislation to tighten the flow of Syrian and Iraqi refugees to the United States, and sided with Republicans in demanding that then-President Barack Obama use the term “radical Islam” when describing US counterterrorism operations.
Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a Washington-based group that advocates for victims of Syrian atrocities, told Al-Monitor that Gabbard as DNI is a “horrendous choice.”
Gabbard, a Samoan American who served on the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees during her four terms in Congress, called for the withdrawal of US troops from Syria and Afghanistan.
“When it comes to the war against terrorists, I’m a hawk,” but “when it comes to counterproductive wars of regime change, I’m a dove,” she told MSNBC in 2019.
Gabbard’s isolationist foreign policy stance is out of step with many of Trump’s more interventionist cabinet picks, including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), whom the president-elect named Wednesday as his secretary of state.
In a 2020 interview with MSNBC, Gabbard took aim at the “neocon war hawks that surround President Trump,” who she alleged were attempting regime change in Iran. She opposed the Trump administration’s killing of Iran’s top general, Qasem Soleimani, in a Baghdad drone strike.
Gabbard also opposed US support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen and called Trump “Saudi Arabia’s bitch” for backing its leadership following journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder.
Despite her professed anti-war stance, Gabbard said in a February interview that she opposed a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip , calling it “too simplistic of an approach” to halt the bloodshed. She’s also described the pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrating against the war as being “puppets” of Hamas.
Gabbard formally announced she would be joining the Republican Party during a Trump campaign rally last month. In a statement Wednesday, Trump highlighted Gabbard’s background as a Democrat and “fearless spirit.”
“As a former candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, she has broad support in both parties. She is now a proud Republican! 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. Tulsi will make us all proud!” the statement read.