WASHINGTON ― The Senate confirmed Tulsi Gabbard as Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence after months of contentious debate about her record, as Republicans initially skeptical about her nomination folded amid public pressure from the president’s MAGA allies.
The vote was 52-48, falling mostly along party lines. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) voted against Gabbard. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) was the deciding vote on her confirmation.
Gabbard, a former Democratic member of Congress who switched parties last year, had been viewed as the Trump nominee with one of the hardest paths to confirmation. Many Republicans were concerned by her criticism of top-secret U.S. intelligence programs and praise for intelligence leaker Edward Snowden, her 2017 meeting with former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and her many past statements echoing Moscow’s talking points about Russia’s war on Ukraine.
“It would befit you and be helpful to the way you are perceived to the members of the Intelligence Committee if you at least acknowledge that the greatest whistleblower in American security —so-called — harmed national security,” Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) told Gabbard during her confirmation hearing earlier this month, after she refused to sufficiently condemn Snowden. Gabbard still declined to call Snowden a “traitor.”
Young wasn’t the only Republican senator with concerns about Gabbard’s nomination. Other members of the Senate Intelligence Committee ― Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, James Lankford of Oklahoma and Jerry Moran of Kansas ― expressed similar sentiments. So, too, did Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana.
In the end, though, they got around to supporting her confirmation after a public pressure campaign from Trump’s MAGA allies, including billionaire Elon Musk and political activists Charlie Kirk and Jack Posobiec. Musk, the Tesla CEO and Trump ally, at one point accused Young of being a “deep state puppet.” But Musk recanted shortly after Young got on the phone with him at the urging of Vice President JD Vance, Young’s onetime Senate colleague, who has worked behind the scenes to assuage GOP holdouts on other Trump Cabinet picks.
Young and Collins pointed to a commitment they received from Gabbard promising not to endorse a potential presidential pardon for Snowden as a reason why they ultimately supported her confirmation.
Even Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), a moderate GOP swing vote, voted to confirm Gabbard, citing “her commitment to rein in the outsized scope of the agency, while still enabling the ODNI to continue its essential function in upholding national security.
“As she brings independent thinking and necessary oversight to her new role, I am counting on her to ensure the safety and civil liberties of American citizens remain rigorously protected,” Murkowski added.
All Democrats opposed Gabbard’s nomination, calling her uniquely unqualified for the position and warning that she would put U.S. national security at risk.
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“Instead of speaking fact and truth, Ms. Gabbard repeatedly speaks the language of falsities and conspiracy theories,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a speech on Tuesday. “The director of national intelligence must be strong against America’s adversaries. But Ms. Gabbard has spent her entire career sympathizing with the likes of Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad.”
The New York Democrat chided Republicans for voting to confirm a flawed nominee because Trump had demanded it.
“What do Senate Republicans care more about?” Schumer asked. “Doing the right thing for national security, for American national security, or doing what is necessary to keep Donald Trump happy, even when they know how badly wrong he is?”