A Look Back At The Bizarre Political Career Of Tulsi Gabbard.

With Tulsi Gabbard Resigning As Head Of Director Of National Intelligence, Now Is A Good Time To Look At Her Chameleon Political Career.

Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has resigned from her position, citing her husband’s tragic recent diagnosis with bone cancer.

This is likely the end of the long and twisted political career of Tulsi Gabbard.

Gabbard over her career, has perhaps been one of history’s most shifting politicians, positioning herself as a Neo-con Democrat, then an anti-imperialist leftist, then an anti-establishment conservative, and finally landing a role as Trump’s Director of National Intelligence.

In this article, I will review the long history of Gabbard’s baffling political career.

The Tulsi Gabbard Of 2013-2016: Neo-Con Democrat.

Tulsi Gabbard, a former member of the Hawaii Army National Guard who was deployed to Iraq from 2004 to 2005 who also went to Kuwait in 2008 as an Army Military Police officer, was elected as U.S. representative for Hawaii’s 2nd congressional district in 2013.

Early on in her career, Gabbard was mostly a pro war, Zionist Democrat.

The Neo-con National Review described Gabbard as “one of the most hawkish Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee” in 2015.

Indeed, Gabbard during this period took the Neo-con position on a wide range of issues, including Ukraine, Gaza, and Iran.

In 2014, Gabbard cheered on the 2014 coup in Ukraine and pushed for the proxy war in Ukraine saying, “the U.S. must consider options that truly isolate Russia economically and diplomatically—not just sanction a handful of oligarchs—and send a message of unity and strength from the international community” and saying “We must offer direct military assistance—defensive weapons, military supplies and training” to the U.S. installed far right government in Ukraine.

Gabbard similarly took the Neo-Con position on Iran . In 2013, she “co-sponsored and voted for the Nuclear Iran Prevention Act” which “aimed to reduce Iran’s oil production by 80 percent, after sanctions had already reduced the amount by half since 2011”.

She repeated the Zionist talking point that Iran is “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism” and complained in 2015 that “We have the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, omitting Iran and Hezbollah from the list of threats to our country for the first time in a long time” adding, “There seems to really be a lack of a coherent strategy with regards to how we, as the United States, are dealing with Iran, as we look at this threat of a nuclear-armed Iran”.

While Gabbard did end up voting in favour of the Iran deal in 2015, she was previously critical of it.

Mondoweiss reported :

After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu controversially addressed the United States Congress in 2015 in an effort to undermine the Obama administration’s Iranian nuclear negotiations, she wasn’t one the 60 Democrats who boycotted the speech. “It’s unfortunate that an issue as important as preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons has been muddled by partisan politics,” she said, “This is an extremely serious issue, at a critical juncture, that should not be used as a political football.”

Gabbard similarly had ties to the Zionist lobby at the time.

Reportedly , “In the two-year period spanning November 2014 to November 2016,
Gabbard received $21,975 from pro-Israel groups”, and “she spoke at the Christians United for Israel conference, despite their rabidly pro-Israel views”.

In 2016, Gabbard similarly “received an award from controversial Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who has close ties to the pro-Israel GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson. A picture from the event shows Gabbard posing with Shmuley and Adelson’s wife Miriam.”

The Tulsi Gabbard Of 2016-2020: Anti-Imperalist Progressive.

In February of 2016, Tulsi Gabbard began her rebranding process when she “resigned her position as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee to endorse Bernie Sanders” saying, “As a veteran and as a soldier I’ve seen firsthand the true cost of war, I think it’s most important for us as we look at our choices as to who our next commander-in-chief will be ... to recognize the necessity to have a commander in chief who has foresight, who exercises good judgment”.

Over the course of the first Trump term, Gabbard began to present herself as an anti-war critic of American foreign policy.

In 2017, Gabbard was one of the only high profile figures to oppose the dirty war in Syria, calling out the U.S. backing of Al Qaeda linked rebels saying, “Why are the United States and its allies supporting these terror groups which are destroying Syria, when it was al Qaeda that attacked the United States on 9/11, not Syria” and adding, “Let the Syrian people themselves determine their future, not the United States, not some foreign country”.

Gabbard similarly became a staunch critic of the U.S. providing intelligence and weapons to Saudi Arabia’s genocidal war on Yemen, tweeting “Hey realdonaldtrump : being Saudi Arabia’s bitch is not ‘America First.’” in 2018 in response to the Trump administration’s continued backing of the war.

“We must end US arms sales to Saudi Arabia. SA is carrying out a genocide of the Yemeni people using our planes, our bombs, our technicians, and pilots that we trained. Air strikes have killed over 4,600 civilians. Starvation and cholera from blockades have killed thousands more” Gabbard tweeted in 2019.

During this period, Gabbard similarly became more critical of Israel, tweeting , “Israel needs to stop using live ammunition in its response to unarmed protesters in Gaza. It has resulted in over 50 dead and thousands seriously wounded”, while Israel was slaughtering peaceful protestors in Gaza during the Great March of Return in 2018.

She similarly strongly opposed Trump’s sanctions and coup attempt in Venezuela.

Referring to the regime change efforts in Venezuela, Gabbard tweeted , “t’s about the oil … again. (John) Bolton just exposed real motive for intervention in Venezuela: ‘We’re in conversation with major American companies now...It would make a difference if we could have American companies produce the oil in Venezuela. We both have a lot at stake here’” and “Oil lobbyists have ‘unprecedented access’ to Trump’s administration—meanwhile Pence/Bolton continue their crusade for regime change in Venezuela, the world’s richest oil reserves. The height of swamp politics.”

“I think the U.S. coming in and trying to insert itself into what is happening in Venezuela is what is the problem. They’re doing that through very heavy sanctions, they’re doing that through various means, and threatening to use our military to go in and topple the regime there” Gabbard said during an appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast.

Gabbard also strongly opposed an American war with Iran, saying, “Trump’s shortsighted foreign policy is bringing us to the brink of war with Iran and allowing Iran to accelerate nuclear program—just to please Saudis and Netanyahu. This is not America first.”

“War with Iran would make the Iraq War look like a cakewalk,” Gabbard said in 2019.

This anti-war version of Gabbard eventually culminated in her running for president in the Democratic party primary of 2020, on a platform of ending regime change wars.

During this presidential campaign, Gabbard called to take U.S. troops out of the Middle East and even sold “No War With Iran” T-shirts.

The Tulsi Gabbard Of 2020-2024: Conservative Opposed To Ukraine War, But In Favour Of The Gaza Genocide.

After her failed presidential campaign of 2020, Gabbard left her Congressional position in 2021.

Following this, Gabbard began to shift her cultural and social views towards a more conservative position.

However, she continued to keep some of her anti-war views.

Tulsi Gabbard took a strong position opposed to the Biden administration’s proxy war in Ukraine , saying, “Biden can very easily prevent a war with Russia by guaranteeing that Ukraine will not become a member of NATO” in 2022.

In 2022, Gabbard officially left the Democratic Party , citing the Ukraine proxy war as one of the main justifications for leaving, saying the party is “now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers” and “dragging us ever closer to nuclear war”.

She also cited disagreements on cultural and social issues, saying the Democratic Party is “driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue & stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms”.

However, she was a full supporter of the Biden administration’s backing of the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

In 2024, Gabbard opposed an end to the modern-day Holocaust in Gaza, saying, “You cannot achieve peace without the defeat of Hamas”.

She similarly slandered protestors opposed to the Genocide , calling them “puppets of a ‘radical Islamist organisation’”.

In 2024, Gabbard endorsed Trump saying that the Biden administration “has us facing multiple wars on multiple fronts in regions around the world” ( while simultaneously supporting the Biden administration’s genocide in Gaza) and saying that under a Trump administration “I am confident that his first task will be to do the work to walk us back from the brink of war” (despite her previous criticism of Trump’s foreign policy decisions).

2025-2026: DNI For The Trump Administration.

Once the Trump administration came into power, Tulsi Gabbard was nominated and confirmed as Trump’s Director of National Intelligence.

After she was confirmed, journalist Ken Klippenstien noted that “Her first speech as the country’s top intelligence officer was packed with the kind of say-nothing national security drivel that President Trump hates,” adding, “A former Democratic representative from Hawaii and Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee, many liberals have come to dislike Gabbard when she switched parties and became a vociferous supporter of Donald Trump. It looks like her next transformation from MAGA warrior to ‘Deep State’ hack is now well underway.”

Gabbard, as DNI of the Trump administration, oversaw and took part in every policy she used to claim to oppose, including Trump’s bombing of Yemen, coup in Venezuela for oil, and war with Iran.

Gabbard’s only role as director of national intelligence seemed to be gaslighting the country into thinking that Trump was somehow ending wars, while carrying out the Zionist lobby and military-industrial complex’s agenda across the world.

“America’s former strategy of ‘regime change or nation building’ had ended under President Donald Trump,” Gabbard claimed last year , as Donald Trump was planning regime change wars in Venezuela, Iran, and now Cuba.

During the first U.S./Israeli bombing of Iran in June of 2025, there was some friction between Gabbard and the Trump administration over the Nuclear weapons hoax used to justify the war.

The Director of National Intelligence’s annual assessment report from March of 2025 wrote that , “We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003”.

Gabbard, as director of national intelligence, read this portion of the report in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

This assessment directly debunked the Nuclear weapons hoax the Trump administration was using to justify the war on Iran.

When asked about Gabbard’s testimony , Trump replied that Gabbard was “wrong”.

Gabbard, however, caved to Trump’s pressure , now claiming that “Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months, if they decide to finalize the assembly. President Trump has been clear that can’t happen, and I agree” in order to manufacture consent for the bombing.

Gabbard continued to stay quiet and remain in her position as Director of National Intelligence after the June bombing of Iran, and after the Israeli/American war started in February of this year, including after the massacre at the Minab girls’ school, among other blatant war crimes committed by the U.S. against civilians in Iran.

After Joe Kent, one of Gabbard’s top officials, resigned over the Iran war, saying “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby”, Gabbard continued to stay silent and continue her position at the DNI.

Gabbard even publicly defended Trump over Joe Kent’s resignation letter , saying, “Ultimately, we have provided the President with the intelligence assessments, and the President is elected by the American people and makes his own decisions based on the information that’s available to him”.

In her resignation letter, Gabbard offered no criticism of Trump’s foreign policy or the Zionist war in Iran.

Who Is The Real Tulsi Gabbard?

Tulsi Gabbard’s strange political career is hard to pin down.

Some have argued that Gabbard has always been a deep state actor engaging in psy-ops, citing the fact that “She was a psyop specialist from the US Army Psychological Operations Command”.

In 2022, Military.com reported that “Tulsi Gabbard gave a guest lecture to students at the Army’s psychological warfare school last week on several topics”.

We Are The Mighty, a military outlet, reported that “In June 2020, Gabbard also left the National Guard and transferred to the Army Reserve. She was assigned to a California-based unit in the United States Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (Airborne) and promoted to Lieutenant Colonel on July 4, 2021”.

Gabbard was also previously a member of the neoconservative Council on Foreign Relations, was selected as a “Young Global Leader” by the neoliberal World Economic Forum in 2015, and was praised as “smart and reasonable,pragmatically strong on defense” by the Neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute that same year.

As documented above, she also previously has ties to the Zionist lobby, including with Miriam Adelson and Christians United for Israel.

Whoever the real Tulsi Gabbard really is, after her role as Director of National Intelligence during the Iran war and refusal to stop the war, it is unlikely the next version of Gabbard to emerge will be taken seriously by many.

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