President Donald Trump just humiliated Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard over her previous comments on Iran’s nuclear program.
Trump was asked Tuesday about Gabbard’s March testimony where she explained that the Iran was not building a nuclear weapon. Trump rebuked Gabbard’s remarks while speaking on Air Force One, saying that he believes Iran was close to acquiring a nuclear weapon.
“I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having one,” Trump told reporters.
Q: “Tulsi Gabbard testified in March that the intelligence community said Iran wasn’t building a nuclear weapon.”
President Trump: “I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having one.”
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During the March 26 House Intelligence Committee hearing, Gabbard said that the intelligence community did not believe Iran was building the weapon.
“The IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003,” she said at the time.
According to CNN,
Gabbard insisted she and Trump were on the same page following his remarks on Air Force One.
“President Trump was saying the same thing that I said in my annual threat assessment back in March in Congress. Unfortunately, too many people in the media don’t care to actually read what I said,” Gabbard told reporters, according to CNN.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel struck Iran over concerns it was developing a nuclear weapon. According to
The Associated Press
, the strikes have killed 224 people in Iran while retaliatory strikes have killed 24 people in Israel.
Trump’s contradiction of Gabbard echoed his feuds with U.S. spy leaders during his first term, when he viewed them as part of
a “deep state”
that was undermining his agenda. Most notably,
he sided with Russian President Vladimir Putin
in 2018 when asked if Moscow had interfered in the 2016 election, saying Putin was “extremely strong and powerful in his denial.”
The latest break over Iran was striking because Trump has staffed his second administration with loyalists rather than establishment figures. Gabbard, a military veteran and
former Democratic congresswoman
from Hawaii, was
narrowly confirmed
by the Republican-controlled Senate because of her scant experience with intelligence or managing sprawling organizations.
Gabbard, who left the Democratic Party in 2022 and endorsed Trump in last year’s election, is expected to testify Tuesday in a closed session on Capitol Hill, along with CIA Director John Ratcliffe, during a previously scheduled budget hearing.
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