Tulsi Gabbard Scrambles to Save Spy Job as Another Trump Pick Hits Trouble

Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination as Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence had largely gone under the radar, with critics taking aim at Pete Hegseth and Matt Gaetz.

But now she’s the latest Trump administration pick to come under scrutiny over her colorful past.

With questions being raised about her links with Russia and Syria, the former Hawaii congresswoman met with senior Republicans on Capitol Hill on Monday in a bid to shore up her support.

Gabbard, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, has defended now-deposed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in interviews, saying he was not an enemy of the United States. She visited Assad in Damascus in 2017, four years after he was accused of gassing his own people.

After Assad fled to Moscow with his family over the weekend, former Illinois GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger trolled her on X, writing: “Wonder if @TulsiGabbard will offer Assad safe harbor at her house? They are great friends.”

Former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton also questioned Gabbard’s judgment, telling Politico that her idea of U.S. foreign policy was like a “funhouse of mirrors.”

He referenced her support for a Russian-backed conspiracy theory that the U.S. was researching biological warfare in Ukraine and said she had “an inclination to believe the most outrageous propaganda against the United States by some of its strongest enemies.”

Bolton claimed that Gabbard’s worldview “goes beyond normal political discourse in this country—and really is evidence of some kind of flaw, maybe even a character flaw, that she doesn’t realize what she’s saying.”

In a bizarre twist, Russian state media backed Gabbard for America’s spy chief, a move that only served to fuel her critics.

She will need Senate confirmation to take up the role overseeing 18 intelligence agencies and managing a budget of more than $70 billion.

The former Democrat, who ran unsuccessfully for the party’s presidential nomination in the 2020 election, was meeting on Monday with Sens. Mike Rounds (R-SD), James Lankford (R-OK), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who called her “extremely bright and capable” last month.

Transition spokesperson Alexa Henning hit back at Bolton, telling Politico: “John Bolton is irrelevant and him saying he would write in Dick Cheney for president this year should tell you everything you need to know about his disastrous and failed foreign policy instincts of never-ending wars and more American deaths.”

Henning insisted Gabbard “is in lockstep with President Trump and his statements on the events in Syria over the weekend. This is why President Trump was re-elected to prevent endless wars and put America First.”