Perhaps no other person in President Donald Trump’s cabinet has been more outspoken against war with Iran than his Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
The former Hawaiʻi congresswoman and lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve has built much of her political identity around her opposition to regime change wars that she says undermine national security, waste taxpayer dollars and needlessly put American lives at risk.
But then over the weekend, there she was in the Situation Room sitting alongside Vice President J.D. Vance while the U.S. and Israel launched a deadly assault that ultimately killed Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, second from left, was in the Situation Room with Vice President J.D. Vance, center, as the U.S. launched its war against Iran. (Source: White House)
Since then, the war has only escalated and at least six U.S. service members have died.
For years, Gabbard told anyone who would listen that Iran was one country the U.S. should stay out of lest it be drawn into yet another Middle East quagmire.
When Trump ordered the killing of Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani in 2020, Gabbard — then a Democrat and member of Congress — took to the House floor to condemn the attack, saying war with Iran would be “so costly and devastating it would make our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan look like a picnic.”
She was running for president at the time and that same week her presidential campaign started selling “No War With Iran” T-shirts for $24.99. Her Tulsi2020 website proclaimed: “How many more American lives, how many more trillions of dollars will be wasted before we exit? It could be now, or it could be 10 or 20 years from now, but there is no American victory.”
Tulsi Gabbard’s 2020 presidential swag included “No War With Iran” T-shirts. (Screenshot/2026)
Gabbard’s past statements have become fodder for her critics, especially Democrats, just as they have Trump and others in the administration, including Vance, who have warned against entering into intractable conflicts abroad and toppling foreign regimes.
As Gabbard said in 2024: “A vote for Donald Trump is a vote to end wars, not start them.”
U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, a former congressional colleague of Gabbard who in general has avoided calling her out directly, has highlighted the hypocrisies. The day the U.S. launched its attack he reposted her past declaration, “No War With Iran,” for his 352,000 followers to see. While he didn’t offer any commentary on the post, he did take to the Senate floor this week to condemn U.S. military action in Iran using similar words that she used to espouse.
“This is a war of choice; it did not have to happen,” Schatz said. “Congress has a duty not just to check a reckless president, but also to represent the will of the people. And the American people — left, right and center — do not want another regime change war in the Middle East.”
Hawaiʻi Sen. Brian Schatz reposted Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s 2020 tweet the day the U.S. attacked Iran. At the time of her tweet, Gabbard was a Democrat in the House of Representatives. (Screenshot/2026)
Since the attack, Gabbard has been silent and has not issued any public statements on social media or through her office about the U.S. war in Iran. Olivia Coleman, a spokesperson for Gabbard, did not respond to a Civil Beat request for comment.
This isn’t the first time Gabbard’s past has put her in an uncomfortable spot. During Trump’s first term she opposed any incursions into Venezuela and was critical of the saber-rattling coming out of the administration. In 2019, she posted on X, formerly Twitter, that the U.S. needed to “stay out of Venezuela” and let Venezuelans “determine their future.”
“We don’t want other countries to choose our leaders – so we have to stop trying to choose theirs,” she said.
A few days later Gabbard posted again, this time about the Trump administration’s perceived motives for intervening.
“It’s about the oil … again,” she proclaimed.
Then in January, when U.S. forces raided Venezuela to capture the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, Gabbard took nearly three days to weigh in publicly and issued a terse response in which she offered “kudos” to those involved. It would later be revealed that Gabbard had been excluded from the planning meetings altogether and that some within the White House had joked that the acronym for Director of National Intelligence — DNI — stood for “Do Not Invite.”
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, seen here at a 2024 campaign rally, has been a consistent critic of U.S.-led regime change wars. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon/2024)
Todd Belt, a political science professor at George Washington University who previously worked at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo when Gabbard represented the district in Congress, said she has tried hard to stay in the president’s good graces.
She recalibrated her assessments of Iran’s nuclear capabilities last June to align more closely with Trump after he said she was wrong and she accused former president Barack Obama of treason. She also participated in the FBI’s seizure of 2020 election ballots in Georgia as part of an investigation propped atop debunked claims that the contest was rigged.
But to Belt it’s her willingness to go along with the administration’s efforts abroad that is the most stark because her opposition to regime change has been such a core feature of her public persona.
He chalks it up to one thing: Ambition.
“It’s just her trying to get closer to the center of power,” Belt said. “If you want to be effective and have the president’s ear then with this president you need to do the things he likes to see done.”
Sign up for our FREE morning newsletter and face each day more informed.
Sign Up
Sorry. That’s an invalid e-mail.
Thanks! We’ll send you a confirmation e-mail shortly.
