Donald Trump’s pick for Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, once dragged him and called him “unfit to be our commander-in-chief.”
Gabbard isn’t the only one of Trump’s top staffers to have been vocal against him during his first presidency. His own running mate, J. D. Vance, once said, “I’m a ‘never Trump’ guy. I never liked him.” He also called the former president an “idiot” and worried he was “America’s Hitler.” However, he will now serve as Trump’s Vice President and claims to be an ardent pro-Trumper. His sudden, dramatic change has raised eyebrows and questions about whether he was radicalized or an opportunist.
Now, there’s another individual who underwent quite a radical shift on Trump’s team: Gabbard. Gabbard, a former U.S. House of Representatives member, was perplexingly nominated by Trump for Director of National Intelligence. Her nomination has stirred dismay, given she has no background in intelligence and has been accused of being a “Russian asset.” Even Republicans have been shocked by Trump’s cabinet picks. Of course, MAGA supporters have begun ardently defending every single pick, including Gabbard. It’s unclear, though, if many of them realize that she was once a Democrat who condemned Trump.
Since her nomination as Director of Intelligence, Gabbard’s past criticisms of Trump have resurfaced. On X, Republicans Against Trump shared a clip of Gabbard stating, “He’s essentially pimping out our men and women in uniform to a foreign power who’s the highest bidder … He is unfit to be our commander-in-chief.” Gabbard was referring to Trump’s decision to send thousands of troops to protect Saudi Arabia’s oil field after claiming the country paid $1 billion to house the American soldiers. She also sent out a scathing Tweet, accusing Trump of being “Saudi Arabia’s b—h.”
It wasn’t the last time that Gabbard slammed Trump. A year later, she was applauded by Trump and conservatives for voting neutral on his impeachment. In response to Trump’s compliments, she reiterated that she still believed he was “unfit to serve as president and commander in chief.” She noted to a reporter that she made her “unfit” comments “over and over again.” Gabbard believed so strongly that Trump wasn’t fit for the Presidency that she ran for President in 2020 in hopes of defeating him. It wasn’t until late 2022 that she left the Democratic Party over foreign policy disagreements.
Gabbard’s transformation is even more jarring than Vance’s, given that she was once actually a Democrat and, as recently as 2020, endorsed Joe Biden for President while slamming Trump as unfit for the presidency. If her anti-interventionalist stance was one of her major reasons for switching sides, Trump is still an odd choice to throw her support behind. Her own previous comments illustrate that she wasn’t in agreement with his militaristic and foreign policy decisions either. Additionally, many argue whether Trump is a pacifist or a warmonger. Some analysts have posited that his whole anti-war/pacifist image is really just a facade. After all, during his first presidency, he was occasionally the one escalating wars and vetoing ending U.S. involvement in conflicts like Yemen.
Needless to say, it’s perplexing not only that Trump nominated Gabbard for the Director of National Intelligence but also that Gabbard chose to align herself with Trump in the first place.
