Tulsi Gabbard one step closer to confirmation: The Intelligence Committee advanced her nomination to the Senate floor

Tulsi Gabbard overcame the first hurdle toward her confirmation as national intelligence director. The former congresswoman's nomination was approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee and sent directly to the full Senate.

The vote ended 9-8 and was conducted along party lines, with all Republicans in favor of Gabbard and all Democrats opposed.

"I’m pleased that the Senate Intelligence Committee voted to advance the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to be the Director of National Intelligence," Tom Cotton (R-AK), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, celebrated.

"Once confirmed, I look forward to working with Ms. Gabbard to keep America safe and to bring badly needed reforms to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence," the Arkansas Republican added on his X account.

Gabbard's nomination will now move to the full Senate. A final vote is expected to take place later this week or, at the latest, early next week.

Gabbard's calculator for confirmation as national intelligence director

Currently, the Republican Party has a majority of 53 in the Senate. Therefore, it would take four senators voting no to overturn a nomination on the floor. So far the closest case was Pete Hegseth. Susan Collins (R-ME), Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) voted against the former Fox News panelist, leaving the vice chairman JD Vance to show up on Capitol Hill to break the tie.

It was the second time in history that the vice president's appearance was necessary. The first was during the first Trump administration when Mike Pence had to vote in favor of Betsy DeVos for the Department of Education.

After her confirmation hearing, Jerry Moran (R-KS), John Curtis (R-UT), Todd Young (R-IN), McConnell and Murkowski are expected to be the key votes. Some of them were concerned with previous statements Gabbard made about Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor who leaked classified documents.

Specifically, the former congresswoman said Snowden's actions were illegal but had equally brought to light surveillance programs that wrongly collected information about Americans.