Trump's spy pick Gabbard faces a tricky climb for Senate backing

WASHINGTON — Tulsi Gabbard, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to oversee U.S. intelligence, toured Capitol Hill this week looking to reassure some Republican senators who have withheld their support so far and appeal to any Democrats who might be persuaded to back her.

Gabbard’s priorities as director of national intelligence, she has told senators, would include China’s cyber threat and fentanyl trafficking at the border while delivering more relevant intelligence reports, according to a person familiar with her conversations, who asked not to be identified discussing private meetings.

The conversations on Capitol Hill highlight the tricky balancing act Gabbard faces in winning Senate confirmation. She switched from Democrat to Republican this fall, announcing the move at a Trump campaign stop where she called him “our best and only hope in this election to lead our country toward a future where every one of us can live in a truly free, peaceful, and prosperous nation.”

Many of Trump’s allies have pointed to Gabbard as a pick who will bring what they see as much-needed reform to the role of intelligence director. But critics cite her lack of intelligence experience and comments sympathetic to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reason for invading Ukraine.

There’s also concern that her loyalty to Trump will affect how she interprets or presents intelligence to the president.

“My worry is that if they’re afraid of losing their position or that what they say to him will displease him, they’re not going to play their role as hard as they can,” said Susan Gordon, a former senior intelligence officer who served as principal deputy director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term. “For an Intelligence officer, personal loyalty can actually diminish the effectiveness of the position.”

The person familiar with Gabbard’s stance said she would keep her political views apart. Another element of the conversations has been to overcome concern about her past comments suggesting that Putin was justified in invading Ukraine and about a visit to Syria when President Bashar Assad was president. Her statements ran counter to U.S. intelligence assessments.

Gabbard doesn’t endorse Putin or Assad, said the person, and her past actions fit with Trump’s style of foreign policy, which seeks to engage with leaders holding different views in an effort to resolve conflict. Her position that the war in Ukraine needs to come to an end also mirrors Trump’s, the person said.

Trump has openly called for negotiations with Ukraine, and he once sided with Putin’s contention that he didn’t meddle in the 2016 U.S. election, despite the contrary conclusion of his own intelligence community.

In an interview with NBC’s "Meet the Press" on Dec. 8, Trump swatted away concerns about Gabbard, calling her a “very respected person.”

She can’t lose more than three Republican votes in the face of what’s likely to be unified opposition from Democrats. Although even that may not be a certainty, as the political gamesmanship this week over funding the government and avoiding a shutdown has shown.

Some Republican senators — including Tom Cotton and Mitch McConnell — have advocated a tougher line on Russia in Ukraine. Another Republican, Susan Collins, who helped write the law that founded the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, rejected Trump’s pick in his first term — Richard Grenell — over insufficient national security experience. That’s likely to be a factor for Gabbard as well.

In the meetings, many of the senators have voiced their concern over a string of past intelligence failures and the sense that they have been receiving intelligence briefings with little substance, with assessments often reading too much like articles in mainstream news outlets and not enough information about follow-on ramifications, the person close to Gabbard said.

One of the questions about Gabbard, a 43-year-old former congresswoman from Hawaii, is that her own policy views aren’t clear and she has been something of a political chameleon. As a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020, she criticized Trump for quitting the deal that put limits on Iran’s nuclear program. She also called his decision to assassinate a leading Iranian general an act of war.

No Republicans have publicly rejected her nomination so far, but many have also stayed quiet, suggesting her path to confirmation may not be straightforward.

On her podcast, Nikki Haley, the former Republican presidential contender called Gabbard a “Russian sympathizer” and criticized her nomination.

“She opposed ending the Iran nuclear deal. She opposed sanctions on Iran. She opposed designating the Iran military as terrorists who say, ‘Death to America’ every single day,” Haley said. “She said that Donald Trump turned the U.S. into Saudi Arabia’s prostitute.”

Many Democrats already have come out against her, although some have said they remain open-minded about Trump’s nominees, including John Fetterman and Jon Ossoff.

Gabbard holds a top secret clearance as a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, she has deployed overseas multiple times and held past stints on the House Armed Services Committee — all experiences that are likely to bolster her credentials.

For Victoria Coates, a former deputy national security adviser to Trump, the foreign policy shocks in recent years – from the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan to the Hamas attacks on Israel to Assad’s recent downfall —- highlight the need for a fresh take at the top of the intelligence community.

“Having somebody who is not captured by the system is entirely desirable in this case because we have to figure out what’s wrong and fix it,” Coates said.