Who is Tulsi Gabbard? Meet Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence

Tulsi Gabbard, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for director of national intelligence, could face one of the most bruising Senate confirmation battles.

The 43-year-old former congresswoman and onetime Democratic presidential candidate has no intelligence experience, yet would be overseeing 18 intelligence agencies with a $100 billion budget.

Gabbard has been accused by public officials for voicing an anti-American agenda that hurts American interests, including blaming the U.S. for the war in Ukraine and being sympathetic to U.S. adversaries.

In 2017, Gabbard met twice with Syria’s authoritarian leader Bashar al-Assad, who is accused of war crimes against his own people during the Syrian civil war, which killed hundreds of thousands. A few months after the meeting, Gabbard said she was skeptical Assad used chemical weapons, despite overwhelming evidence from the U.S. government that he did.

Gabbard has parroted Russian propaganda multiple times, most notably in a 2022 post on social media, where she claimed Russia attacked Ukraine because of U.S. funded biolabs. The labs are actually public and part of an international effort to stop bioweapons and prevent outbreaks. Russian state TV has even called Gabbard “our girlfriend.”

Gabbard is anti-war and has fiercely criticized Republican and Democratic administrations over military interventions.

For years, she’s fought off claims from high-profile politicians that she’s a Russian asset, with Democrats warning that she’s a national security risk.

“The U.S. intelligence community has identified her as having troubling relationships with America’s foes, and so my worry is that she couldn’t pass a background check,” Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth said on CNN.

If Gabbard is confirmed for the DNI position, she’d become one of Trump’s top intelligence advisers, controlling what intelligence the president sees and determining what kind of sensitive information is declassified or not.

“It’s a powerful position,” said Olivia Troye, a former Trump administration national security official. Gabbard “doesn’t have any perspective of what it’s like for these intelligence operations that happen across the community…I wonder what it also does for the morale of the community, and I’m concerned about the exodus that may happen.”

Troye added that if Gabbard is confirmed, America’s allies may not share as much information with the U.S.

“Foreign adversaries probably celebrate this moment. I think they have succeeded in putting someone that is sympathetic to their causes. I think that is alarming and dangerous,” Troye said. “I think for our European allies and others around the world…they’re going to guard their information and realize, okay, we can no longer be a partner with the United States when we are concerned about our own security being compromised and at risk.”

Gabbard was once fiercely critical of Trump’s presidency, saying in 2020 that he was unfit to serve with a long “list of wrongdoings and abuses of power.”

Gabbard served in the House for eight years as a Democrat, sitting on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and serving as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee.

She endorsed Bernie Sanders for president in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020 after her failed presidential campaign. But the once staunch Democrat endorsed and campaigned for Trump this election cycle and told him at a rally in October that she was joining the Republican Party.

Gabbard is expected to appear on Capitol Hill next week for meetings.

Learn more about Tulsi Gabbard on “ABC News Live Prime” on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. ET.