Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, was reportedly in the White House Situation Room as the U.S. and Israel bombed Iran despite her previous, vehement opposition to such an operation.
Gabbard was present alongside Vice President JD Vance, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bissent, according to a photo posted by the White House.
Critics quickly resurfaced Gabbard’s old posts and comments opposing war in Iran following the Saturday morning attacks.
The DNI announced last March that there was no evidence to suggest that Iran was building a nuclear weapon, causing strife between her and the president.
“The intelligence community continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khomeini has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003,” Gabbard had said.
The Daily Beast reached out to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for comment.
After Donald Trump declared her intelligence to be wrong, Gabbard reversed course and said that the Middle Eastern country could have a weapon built “within weeks to months.”
“The dishonest media is intentionally taking my testimony out of context and spreading fake news as a way to manufacture division,” Gabbard wrote on X at the time. “America has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months, if they decide to finalize the assembly.”
She was then spotted in the Situation Room after the U.S. bombed nuclear facilities in Iran last June. The White House posted a photo of Gabbard next to CIA Director John Ratcliffe after the strikes.
Gabbard, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve who served in Iraq, took staunchly anti-war stances during her congressional career and her brief presidential run. In 2019, she told NPR that the United States needed to stop intervening in foreign countries.
“Leaders in this country from both political parties looking around the world and picking and choosing which bad dictator they want to overthrow,” Gabbard told NPR. “Sending our military into harm’s way and then trying to export some American model of democracy that may or may not be welcome by the people in those countries, and it’s proven to have been a failure.”
Much like Trump, Gabbard also dabbled in merchandising, tweeting and selling T-shirts advocating against war in Iran in 2020. The description for the anti-war apparel, which was listed on her presidential campaign website, suggested it was a waste of money and lives.
“Say no to war with Iran!” the shirt description said. “How many more American lives, how many more trillions of dollars will be wasted before we exit? It could be now, or it could be 10 or 20 years from now, but there is no American victory. Let’s bring our troops home from Iraq and Syria now!”
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