Tusli Gabbard was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Wednesday as the new director of national intelligence. The 52-48 vote was nearly along party lines, with Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky as the only Republican senator to join Democrats and vote against her.
McConnell released a statement after the vote saying Gabbard had “failed to demonstrate that she is prepared to assume this tremendous national trust” — echoing several concerns raised by Democrats.
He added the Senate should withhold its consent “when a nominee’s record proves them unworthy of the highest public trust, and when their command of relevant policy falls short of the requirements of their office.”
“The nation should not have to worry that the intelligence assessments the President receives are tainted by a Director of National Intelligence with a history of alarming lapses in judgment,” McConnell said.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence manages intelligence gathering agencies and advises the president and National Security Council on such matters.
Gabbard was a Democratic member of Congress for eight years, before leaving the party and supporting Donald Trump’s 2024 run for president. Ahead of the vote, Democratic senators sounded the alarm about Gabbard and hoped to convince more Republicans to block her nomination.
Among them, Democratic Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer of New York said their entire caucus cannot “trust the most classified secrets to someone who echoes Russian propaganda and falls for conspiracy theories.”
Gabbard met with former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2017 — who is now exiled in Russia — and was a critic of American support for Ukraine to defend itself from the Russian invasion.
McConnell’s statement also criticized Gabbard for supporting intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden and her blaming “western threat inflation” for what he called “Chinese aggression” against allies in the Indo-Pacific region.
“Entrusting the coordination of the intelligence community to someone who struggles to acknowledge these facts is an unnecessary risk,” McConnell said. “So is empowering a [director of national intelligence] who only acknowledged the value of critical intelligence collection authorities when her nomination appeared to be in jeopardy.”
McConnell’s statement closed by saying he hopes Gabbard now “rises to the immense responsibilities of her office.”
Gabbard is only the second nominee of Trump that he has voted against. He also did so with the confirmation of Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary, saying he failed to demonstrate he could meet the high demands of the job and “reckon with” the fact the U.S. “faces coordinated aggression from adversaries bent on shattering the order underpinning American security and prosperity.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, called Gabbard a "patriot" on the Senate floor Tuesday, saying she would “refocus” the intelligence community on its core mission of “collecting intelligence and providing unbiased analysis of that information.”
Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has voted to confirm every nominee put forth by Trump.
State government and politics reporting is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
