Wikipedia (en)
Tulsi Gabbard (; born April 12, 1981) is an American politician and military officer serving as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve since 2021. Gabbard served as U.S. representative for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district from 2013 to 2021. She also served as the youngest state legislator in Hawaii from 2002 to 2004. She was a candidate in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries. She left the Democratic Party in 2022 to become an independent. In 2024, she joined the Republican Party. In November 2024, President-elect Trump selected Gabbard for the position of director of national intelligence in his second term, starting January 2025.
Gabbard joined the Hawaii Army National Guard in 2003 and was deployed to Iraq from 2004 to 2005, where she served as a specialist with the medical unit, and received the Combat Medical Badge. In 2007, Gabbard completed the officer training program at the Alabama Military Academy. She was stationed in Kuwait from 2008 to 2009 as an Army Military Police platoon leader. In 2015, while also serving in Congress, Gabbard became a major with the Hawaii Army National Guard. In 2020, still while serving in Congress she transferred to the U.S. Army Reserve. She was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel in 2021.
During her time in Congress, Gabbard became known for her stand against Islamic terrorism in the Middle East and her opposition to U.S. military intervention in the Syrian civil war. Around 2015, she often criticized the Obama administration for not using more direct rhetoric in recognizing Islamic extremism as a problem. Gabbard met with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in 2017. In a 2019 interview with MSNBC, she said, "Assad is not the enemy of the United States because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States." In a subsequent interview on CNN, she said "There are brutal dictators in the world. Assad of Syria is one of them."
Gabbard also served as vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) from 2013 to 2016 but then resigned from the position to endorse Bernie Sanders for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. She ran her 2020 presidential campaign, but dropped out and endorsed Joe Biden in March 2020. Gabbard was the first Samoan American member of Congress. After her departure from Congress in 2021, she took more conservative positions on issues such as abortion, foreign policy, LGBTQ rights, and border security.
In August 2024, Gabbard endorsed former president Donald Trump for the 2024 United States presidential election. In November 2024, Trump announced his intention to nominate Gabbard as the director of national intelligence. If confirmed, she will become the highest-ranking Pacific Islander American government official. Her nomination drew scrutiny of her past statements on Syria, alongside concern over her comments regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine that were considered sympathetic toward Russia. Many veterans have defended her record, noting that Gabbard has honorably served in the U.S. Armed Forces for over two decades.
