Why is Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s new intel tsar, so controversial? 

United States President-elect Donald Trump has named Tulsi Gabbard as his director of national intelligence.

The Republican Party leader named the former Democratic congresswoman as part of a series of appointments to cabinet and other key positions in his administration. But his choice of Gabbard as the US intelligence chief stands out even among a line of controversial appointments because of her positions on key foreign policy issues over the years. Trump’s latest pick is drawing fire even from some Republicans.

So who is Gabbard, and why is her appointment so controversial?

Who is Tulsi Gabbard?

Gabbard, 43, was the first Hindu in the US Congress as well as its first member born in the US territory of American Samoa. She was raised in Hawaii and spent a year of her childhood in the Philippines. She is also an Iraq war veteran, having served in the US military. Gabbard was also deployed in Kuwait.

She was a representative from Hawaii’s second district in the US House of Representatives for four terms from 2013 to 2021. While she was in the House, she was a Democrat. Gabbard supported Senator Bernie Sanders in his 2016 presidential bid. She also ran an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2020 as a Democrat.

However, in 2022, she left the party and became an independent. In a video message she posted on her YouTube channel and X account in October 2022, she said: “I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness.” She also accused the party of stoking “anti-white racism”.

In August this year, Gabbard formally endorsed Trump in his presidential bid. In October, she announced she was joining the Republican Party at a Trump rally in North Carolina.

What does the director of national intelligence do?

The director of national intelligence (DNI) is the head of the US Intelligence Community, who oversees the National Intelligence Program and serves as an adviser to the president, the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council on matters of national security.

The position was created in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US. The first DNI was appointed by former President George W Bush in 2005.

The National Intelligence Program funds intelligence activities in several federal departments and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The Intelligence Community comprises 18 organisations, which the DNI oversees. Besides the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, they are: Air Force Intelligence, Army Intelligence, Coast Guard Intelligence, Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security, Department of State, Department of the Treasury, Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Marine Corps Intelligence, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, National Security Agency, Navy Intelligence and Space Force Intelligence.

The current DNI is Avril Haines, who was appointed by President Joe Biden and began the job in January 2021. Haines was the first woman to serve as the DNI. If sworn in, Gabbard will be the eighth DNI.

Where does she stand on key intelligence issues?

Gabbard does not have direct experience in an intelligence position and, unlike other DNIs, has not held any senior government roles. Gabbard served for two years in the House Committee on Homeland Security.

Time and time again, she has been critical of and has diverged from the US Intelligence Community’s decisions. She has largely taken an anti-interventionist stance. In other words, she has advocated for the US to stay uninvolved when it comes to conflicts around the world.

Russia and Ukraine

Gabbard has been accused of amplifying Russian propaganda.

Three days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Gabbard posted a video on her X account urging the US, Russia and Ukraine to “put geopolitics aside” and accept that Ukraine “will be a neutral country” without being a member of military alliances such as NATO.

In March 2022, she posted another video on X saying there are more than 25 US-funded biolabs in Ukraine. She wrote it after a claim originated in Moscow that US-backed bioweapons labs were operating in Ukraine. The claim was denied by the US and Ukraine, and there is no independent evidence to back the assertion.

This post earned her criticism from Republicans in Congress, including former Representative Adam Kinzinger, who called Gabbard’s statement “traitorous” and said she was embracing “Russian propaganda”. Senator Mitt Romney said she was “parroting fake Russian propaganda”.

In another X post, she clarified that “biolabs” and “bioweapons labs” are separate things and said her original post was misunderstood.

Syria

Gabbard has opposed US intervention in the Syrian war, which sprung up in 2011 after President Bashar al-Assad cracked down on peaceful protests against his government, which then developed into a rebellion.

In 2015, she criticised former Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration for supporting the Syrian opposition movement against al-Assad.

In 2017 during a secret trip to Syria, Gabbard met al-Assad, she told CNN.

“Let the Syrian people themselves determine their future, not the United States, not some foreign country,” she told CNN.

Iran

Gabbard was critical of the decisions made by Trump’s administration during his first term in office from 2017 to 2021.

In 2020, she said the Trump administration provided “no justification whatsoever” during an intelligence briefing on the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force. He was assassinated in 2020 in a US air raid in Iraq outside Baghdad’s international airport.

The White House and the Pentagon confirmed the killing of Soleimani, saying the attack was carried out at Trump’s direction and was aimed at deterring future attacks allegedly being planned by Iran.

When Gabbard was asked by CNN if she believed Iran posed an imminent security threat, she said the central question that needed to be asked was: “Is our country’s national security better off because of Donald Trump’s actions and decision? And the answer to that is no.”

She accused Trump of leading the US down a path towards war with Iran in a CNN interview in which she said that was “no justification whatsoever for this illegal and unconstitutional act of war that President Trump took”, referring to the Soleimani assassination.

India

Gabbard has had a close relationship with the Indian government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whom she has met multiple times.

The Intercept news site found in 2019 that Gabbard’s House campaigns had received donations from more than 100 individuals associated with a Hindu majoritarian movement that Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party is a part of.

In January 2019, Gabbard was a guest of honour at the Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas, the Indian government’s annual diaspora outreach event, in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh.

Gabbard’s nomination comes less than a month after the US unsealed an indictment against former Indian intelligence officer Vikash Yadav, accusing him of a foiled plot to murder Indian-American Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in the US in 2023.

The uncovering of this plot involved the work of US law enforcement agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI, both of which Gabbard will oversee as the DNI.

Israel and Gaza

Gabbard has also criticised pro-Palestine protesters in the US in recent months, describing them as “puppets” of a “radical Islamist organisation” in an apparent reference to Hamas.

She has fully backed Israel’s war in Gaza, in which more than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children.

Gabbard also does not appear to support a ceasefire in Gaza despite her anti-interventionist stances on other conflicts. In an interview uploaded to YouTube in February, she called Hamas a “threat that needs to be defeated militarily and ideologically”.

When asked what she thought about the US supporting a UN resolution that seeks a ceasefire in Gaza, Gabbard said it needs to be approached strategically.

“We have to be realists about the threat that continues to exist for the people of Israel. So as long as Hamas is in power, the people of Israel will not be secure and cannot live in peace.”

What criticism has her appointment drawn?

Her appointment has been viewed with scepticism by some members of Congress.

Democratic Representative and former CIA officer Abigail Spanberger posted on X that she is “appalled at the nomination”.

“Not only is [Gabbard] ill-prepared and unqualified, but she traffics in conspiracy theories and cozies up to dictators like Bashar-al Assad and Vladimir Putin,” Spanberger wrote.

What does Gabbard’s appointment mean for the US?

Mark Cancian, a marine colonel and senior adviser at the Washington, DC-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies told Al Jazeera that Gabbard’s appointment was clearly a reward for her support during Trump’s campaign.

Cancian said he expects Gabbard in her confirmation hearings in the US Senate “will be criticised for lack of qualifications”.

“But those are adequate, though not strong. She was on the House Armed Services Committee and served in the military.” He also pointed out that Trump’s nominee for director of the CIA, her principal subordinate, is John Ratcliffe, who has extensive experience in the intelligence community.

Cancian added that Gabbard’s nomination itself does not signal a change in US policy.

“The changes in intelligence will likely be driven by the larger policy choices of the administration on Ukraine, Israel, Iran and China.”