However, based on suggestions included in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's blueprint for a second Trump presidency, Trump may try to change this. In the chapter on the intelligence community, the document suggests that ODNI should be the sole agency drafting daily intelligence briefings for Trump and have full oversight of the entire intelligence community budget.
Since Gabbard was announced as the ODNI nominee, several Democratic lawmakers have criticized the decision, pointing to Gabbard's lack of experience in the intelligence community and her questionable views on Russia and Syria.
Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, a member of the House Intelligence Committee from Virginia. written on x She was “appalled by Tulsi Gabbard's nomination,” adding: “Not only is she poorly prepared and unqualified, but she peddles conspiracy theories and hobnobbes with dictators like Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin.” Is.”
Gabbard has a long history of taking controversial stances on foreign policy, as well as being associated with conspiracy theories.
Gabbard has for years been associated with an extremist branch of Hare Krishna called the Science of Identity Foundation. The group, which includes some former members has been described as a cultis led by Chris Butler, whom some of his followers worship as a god, and Gabbard too Described as his “guru”.
She gained national notoriety in 2017 when she met in person with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during what her office called a “fact-finding” mission to the Middle East. He later cast doubt on US intelligence agencies' assessment that the Assad regime had used chemical weapons against civilians, and called US air strikes against Syrian targets in response to the chemical attacks “reckless and short-sighted”.
Upon leaving the Democratic Party in 2022, he criticized it as using coded language reminiscent of that used by QAnon followers, and labeled his former party an “elitist cabal of warmongers” driven by “cowardly indifference.”
In 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, Gabbard made comments that some interpreted as justifying Putin's decision, claiming that if the U.S. refused to accept Ukraine's decision to join NATO, “Had Russia's legitimate security concerns been acknowledged”, the war could have been avoided.
He also made comments that were used to promote the Russian-backed conspiracy theory that US-funded biolabs in Ukraine would be used to launch biological weapons. When Trump announces Gabbard is his choice for DNI, Russian state TV presenters Celebrated news.
Gabbard also campaigned for Kari Lake in her unsuccessful gubernatorial race in Arizona in 2022. Lake was at the time one of the most vocal proponents of election denial conspiracy theories about Trump's election defeat in 2020 and would spend years claiming without evidence that her own defeat in 2022 was due to election fraud. Had happened.
Gabbard did not respond to repeated requests for comment about her relationship with Willis, but in an interview last April, she mentioned the fact that she was visiting the border and filming a documentary. – although he did not mention Willis's involvement.
“I just got back last night after being over the border in California for a few days. This is a part of our country's border that doesn't get a lot of attention,” Gabbard said. Kelsey Sheeran Perspective podcast. “I am preparing a short documentary. I went there and brought my husband, who is a cinematographer, and some cameras specifically because most people in America don't know what's going on.”