Senate Confirms Tulsi Gabbard As Director Of National Intelligence
Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman and Fox News contributor, was confirmed by the Senate to be Donald Trump‘s next director of national intelligence.
The Senate voted 52-48 to approve Gabbard. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) joined with all Democrats to oppose.
Democrats railed against Gabbard’s nomination. Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) said that Gabbard has “repeatedly questioned the integrity of the intelligence community. She has gone after the intelligence community that she hopes to lead. She has labelled tens of thousands of intelligence personnel as ‘deep state’ without even a semblance of understanding of what they do every day to keep her safe.” She also cited Gabbard’s surprise trip in 2017 to visit then-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a U.S. adversary.
One of the holdout votes had been Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who announced that he would back Gabbard earlier this morning.
“President Trump chose Tulsi Gabbard to be his point person on foreign intelligence,” Cassidy said. “I will trust President Trump on this decision and vote for her confirmation.”
Gabbard’s nomination was among a handful of Trump’s selections that initially looked to face a tough confirmation battle. But Republicans have fallen in line behind Trump’s cabinet choices, and were expected to advance another controversial nomination, that of Robert Kennedy to serve as secretary of health and human services, later this morning.
