Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump by way of Getty Pictures, Chip Somodevilla
Would he have stated the identical factor about Pete Hegseth?
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President Donald Trump reportedly known as his Director of Nationwide Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard “hotter than everyone” at a White Home occasion — at greatest, a poor selection of phrases, at worst, blatant sexual harassment of a feminine employees member in public.
The complete context of the quote was Gabbard’s current DNI report, which alleged that in late 2016, Obama administration officers realized, by categorised assessments, that Russia had not employed cyberattacks to change vote tallies within the presidential election between Trump and Hillary Clinton that yr, a scandal referred to as “Russiagate.”
‘She’s the most well liked one within the room’
Talking Tuesday, July 22, at a White Home reception for Republican lawmakers, Trump stated of Gabbard, “She’s like, hotter than everyone. She’s the most well liked one within the room proper now. [Gabbard] came upon that Barack Hussein Obama led a gaggle of individuals, they usually cheated within the elections, they usually cheated with out query.”
He added. “She has all of the paperwork; she has every part that you just want. You’ve discovered issues that no one thought we’d ever discover. Very glad and really honored to have you ever with us.”
Gabbard’s DNI report labeled former Obama Administration officers’ actions associated to Russian interference within the 2016 election “treasonous” and “a years-long coup,” formally referring the matter to the Division of Justice for attainable prosecution. Thus far, no prices have been filed. Obama’s workplace has known as Gabbard’s report a distraction.
Gabbard’s DNI report
Gabbard’s DNI findings appeared to contradict a number of bipartisan investigations, such because the 2019 Mueller Report and the 2020 Senate Intelligence Committee investigation, which didn’t discover proof of altered votes or infrastructure hacking, however confirmed that Russia engaged in in depth affect operations from hacking DNC techniques to releasing emails by way of intermediaries, and launching social media disinformation geared toward serving to Trump whereas hurting Clinton.
Critics argue that Gabbard conflates two distinct findings: first, that there was no proof of vote manipulation by cyberattacks, and second, that Russia engaged in a broad, well-documented affect marketing campaign geared toward swaying the 2016 election, in accordance with FactCheck.org.
Gabbard’s Russiagate findings clean over Trump tensions
Tensions between Gabbard and President Trump escalated earlier this yr over the U.S. evaluation of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. In March 2025, Gabbard testified that the intelligence neighborhood continued to evaluate that Iran was not actively constructing a nuclear weapon and that no order had been given by Supreme Chief Ali Khamenei to restart a weapons program.
Trump, nonetheless, publicly rejected her conclusion, claiming Iran was “very shut” to creating a bomb and dismissed Gabbard’s evaluation as “incorrect.” The disagreement sparked a public rift, with Trump undermining his intelligence chief on a number of events.
Within the months that adopted, Gabbard sought to make clear her remarks, stating that whereas Iran could not have resumed weaponization efforts, it had enriched sufficient uranium to doubtlessly assemble a bomb inside weeks or months.
Regardless of this alignment with Trump’s issues, Gabbard was reportedly excluded from key nationwide safety briefings, together with disaster discussions surrounding the Israel–Iran battle. Her sidelining raised issues amongst analysts in regards to the politicization of intelligence and the diminishing independence of the DNI position underneath Trump’s management.