The political career of former Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard in Hawaii is unpredictable.
But eventually became President Donald Trump Minister of National Intelligence It’s still a surprising twist for many.
Gabbard owns Never worked in an intelligence bureaucracy. But her suspicion of foreign intervention in the United States was forged during the National Guard’s overseas deployment, She doesn’t trust “deep” She is a natural choice for the White House that wants to curb global U.S. military operations and fundamentally narrow the federal government.
Gabbard was a new star in the Democratic Party in most of the 2010s, from featured speakers at the 2012 Democratic National Convention to a long-time presidential candidate in 2020.
Eventually, her party body broke down on her partisan policy stance on Syria and Russia, recognizing Senator Bernie Sanders for the first time, then leaving the party entirely in 2022, and finally recognizing Trump in 2024. Pu and joined the Republican Party.
Today, I explained Host Sean Rameswaram talks with economist senior editor Steve Coll about Gabbard’s long and weird journey from Hawaii A spiritual community grew up to her military deployment to Iraq to her turbulent times on the national political stage. Cole wrote Long profile Gabbard and has published many books on U.S. intelligence and foreign policy, including Ghost War,,,,, bin ladensand director.
Below are excerpts of their conversation for detailed description and clarity. There are more in the full podcast, so listen Today, I explained Wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcast,,,,, Pandoraand Spotify.
Steve in the United States has a new spy chief. What makes Tulsi Gabbard different from everything she has before?
Actually, a lot of things. She is an unorthodox choice, partly because she has no direct experience in the intelligence community, partly because she Unorthodox view About the power of the United States in the world and deeper states.
I think you feel gentle and kind about it. Some people there think Tulsi Gabbard is Russian agents.
Well, this is the allegation against her. She used to Prosecution Hillary Clinton said something for $50 million. I think this is too much.
“[S]He is aligned with Donald Trump’s agenda to review and discipline those who are disloyal. ”
But she has Show sympathy For Putin’s plight and dictators like Bashar al-Assad, a former Syrian dictator. She has Ask for pardon Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who exposed the illegal surveillance of Americans. Sometimes, she sounds more like a progressive politician than a corporate spy leader. And I think she would say that’s the point- we need a different perspective on the U.S. intelligence system.
It sounds worth understanding better how the overhauled intelligence chief can further change our relationship with Russia. So let’s get to know Tulsi Gabbard better. Where did she start?
She grew up in Hawaii a little unusual Condition. Her parents are members of a religious community called the Identity Science Foundation, which originates from the Hare Krishna branch of meditation and yoga teaching.
Her parents belong to the community, she experienced considerable contact as a child, led by a charismatic master named Chris Butler, a former surfer and college dropout whom he had with The follower of the Hare Krishna lived on the streets, but later began his own community. Some of its former members have Describe it as a cult. They describe him as a dictator, he is Worship To some extent, when people enter the room or regard his food fragments as artifacts, he lie down prone.
How did she get into politics?
Her parents created a path to politics when they were young. One of Chris Butler’s strongest views, at least in the 1980s and 1990s, was against homosexuality, which he saw as a hatred and the right to establish homosexual and lesbian couples. Teenager Tulsi Gabbard protest Together with her parents, oppose the right to establish a gay marriage in Hawaii.
It was when she was very young, only 20 or 21 years old that she and her father ran to public office in Hawaii at the same time. She was elected to the state legislature, and her father was initially elected to council.
Then 9/11 happened. She decided after 9/11 She wants to join the army. She initially joined the Hawaiian National Guard and was then deployed to Iraq and went to a base north of Baghdad in 2005. She describes this experience of war as a view of the U.S. government, American power.
She eventually became a colonel Disillusioned According to the wars fought by the United States after 9/11, especially in her case, Iraq. She did eventually return to the politics of Honolulu City Council. Then, in 2012, one seat in Congress was four seats owned by Hawaii. She won the Democratic primary, she is Accept now By the National Democratic Party. At the Democratic Party Congress that summer, they gave Tulsi Gabbard Covetable talking attractions.
She arrived in Washington, [then-House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi brought her under her wings. She is considered to be maybe Next ObamaAnother Hawaiian politician, a man of color, a military career – what do you don’t like? Good speaker, telecom.
Then soon, as these things went on in Washington, it began to separate. To some extent, she didn’t play the game. She began fighting with party leaders including Barack Obama She shouted out Because there is not enough difficulty for Islamic terrorism.
So by the time the presidential cycle arrived in 2016, she began to get rid of the parties that hugged her. She decided to resign from the Democratic National Committee and Acknowledgement Bernie Sanders participated in the 2016 campaign. This decision kept pulling her to the left of the party. In 2016, what you can see is what some people say Horseshoe shape In American political populism, the further you go to the left, the closer you get to Maga.
It feels like a lot of American voters are improving, they voted for Obama there, and then they stepped forward to Bernie, and then they ended up voting for Donald Trump a few times.
Yes, this is absolutely correct. By 2019, she is still a Democrat. She may be crucial Donald Trump was in public, although she met him in the fall of 2016 when she was elected, when he was auditioning for the first member of the administration. Anyway, she is already part of the Maga conversation. She met Tucker Carlson, played on the Fox News show, and she received some compliments from enthusiastic Trump supporters in Manosphere and Podcasting Granscape etc..
Still, she remained in Democrats in the Democratic Party, and then she showed in 2019 that ambitions were to run for president as the heir to the party’s Bernie Wing. She did have a tough time. She never comes from single numbers. She really can’t raise a lot of money. Her attack by Hillary Clinton and others is a tool for foreign powers. After that, she paused and recognized Joe Biden. But she obviously no longer interested in the leadership of the Party, and they no longer interested in her, which was a relatively short time since she became such a rising star.
How did she go from being a Republican to being one of the most important players in our intelligence community, if not the most important one?
Well, you know, it’s really a puzzle, because Donald Trump can nominate her as Secretary of Veterans Affairs, and everyone will say, “It’s an innovative choice!” She’ll be fine. Try to confirm. Instead, he named her the highest spy in the American system.
As the director of national intelligence, she has two jobs. One is to edit and filter what secret information the president and his top cabinet get every morning. That’s the most important part of the job.
Second, and importantly, she oversees 18 huge U.S. spy agencies from the CIA to eavesdropping on the NSA to others. She developed a strategy, Kibiz’s budget, or else set the direction for the intelligence community.
She has no experience with these bureaucracies. She is not an intelligence analyst. Indeed, for years, the foreign policy issues she was most interested in had to be a little messy or confused in different ways. She sometimes aligns with misinformation and propaganda about the Russian or Syrian dictatorship. She seems to be an unquestionable thinker.
She obviously has a strong policy perspective, but she will choose the facts as if she was just cruising the internet and making arguments from what she found. So when I wrote her biography it initially confused me. Like, why this job?
But the answer reveals herself in her own speech and writing and her own beliefs. She even brought some of them to the confirmation hearing.
So, in fact, that’s why I think Donald Trump is attracted to her leadership and why she’s in the intelligence community and how she’s aligned with Donald Trump’s agenda, it’s Her first job included two executive orders, which the president believed was signed by a fair sign. Basically, the National Intelligence Director is basically designated for a period or three months to review those who are disloyal and discipline them, have “weaponized intelligence” in the previous government or otherwise politically Unreliable. She will lead the comment.
What you can say is that she is motivated to do it. She believes that in the intelligence community, she will now have the ability to do something.
So these are her boss’ first tasks. But obviously a large part of her work will be hit with our opponents. China thought of it. Historically, Russia would have thought of it. But how do you say that putting Tulsi Gabbard in charge of our national intelligence where we are going to move forward with Russia and what Trump wants to do with Russia?
Well, she never seemed to see Vladimir Putin as an enemy of America. She tends to express herself indirectly by criticizing the Democratic elite’s remarks about Putin. She would laugh at them calling him the new Hitler. She accused NATO of provoking Putin. Therefore, in this sense She is aligned With President Trump’s assessment of Putin, he can do business with him, and he should try to do business with him.
Perhaps there are some people around President Trump who see grand strategies in this regard. They might say that the U.S. policy brings Russia and China in close integration, complicates the strong power position of the United States, and that the U.S. must pull one of the two, and that Russia’s choice is the better option. That seems to be Assumptions In the early days of the Trump administration, this brought the Hawks and non-interventionists together.
But for Tulsi Gabbard, I didn’t hear anything on a board like this. I think she was just instinctive, that is, the elites got it all wrong, Vladimir Putin was unfairly damaged.
