Tulsi Gabbard in the hot seat: Trump consults advisers on replacing her as intelligence chief

President Donald Trump's cabinet is undergoing rapid leadership changes. Following the dismissals/demotions of former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi, the next one who could be replaced from her leadership post is Intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard, who, like Noem and Bondi, had faced a difficult and controversial confirmation process in the early months of 2025.

According to an exclusive report published in The Guardian, two sources familiar with the situation said Trump privately consulted with Cabinet officials in recent weeks on whether he should replace Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence. The sources stated that there is still no clear candidate for that position.

The trigger, the sources explained, was President Trump's frustration with Gabbard's testimony before Congress last month, where she refused to condemn Joe Kent, a former intelligence employee and a subordinate of hers, who had resigned days earlier arguing that Iran posed no imminent threat to the United States.

As Kent described in his controversial resignation missive, Israel, through lobbyists, led the United States into a war not justified in National Security terms. The White House condemned the letter and denied any Israeli influence in the decision to attack Iran.

While the nature of Kent's departure had already irritated Trump, what ended up irking the president even more was seeing Gabbard seemingly protecting the one who had publicly undermined his justification for attacking Iran.

Asked Sunday whether he maintained his confidence in her, Trump offered a relatively apathetic endorsement on Air Force One. "Yeah, sure," he said. "I mean, she’s a little bit different in her thought process than me, but that doesn’t make somebody not available to serve." 

In addition to Trump, a spokesman for the White House, Steven Cheung, defended Gabbard's tenure in a statement. His own spokeswoman, Olivia Coleman, recalled that in the past two weeks President Trump had said both that he has confidence in her and that she performed well in her hearings.

"She remains committed to fulfilling the responsibilities the president placed in her," Coleman said.

However, recalls The Guardian, this is not the first time Gabbard has created friction with Trump. Last June, the president was upset by a video in which she warned about the horrors of nuclear war after visiting Hiroshima. Weeks later, Trump publicly contradicted her after she testified that Iran had not decided to build a nuclear bomb. "She's wrong," Trump spat at the time, before authorizing strikes on enrichment sites at Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz.

Moreover, the context does not help Gabbard, who seems to be teetering on a tightrope: Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem, two high-level officials who have been criticized a lot in recent months, were fired after Trump initiated a consultation process with his advisers. Basically the same pattern being followed by the Intelligence chief. According to various reports, Bondi pleaded to stay in her workplace, but, even so, she was relegated via a statement on Truth Social. According to The Guardian, Trump has not yet made the final decision to fire Gabbard, so everything may happen in the coming weeks.