Watch Live: Tulsi Gabbard In The Hot Seat For Senate Confirmation Hearing

Here we go – Tulsi Gabbard is in the hot-seat today (along with Kash Patel and RFK Jr.) at her Senate confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Gabbard, Tump’s pick for director of national intelligence, will face a serious grilling from Democrats, while convincing Republican senators that she supports a surveillance system she once sought to repeal.

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Gabbard, a Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii from 2013 to 2021, once called the government’s electronic surveillance program a case of „overreach” by US intelligence and a violation of Americans’ civil liberties. In 2020, she and Republican lawmaker Thomas Massie (R-KY) proposed legislation to repeal section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which governs the program.

During today’s confirmation hearing, Gabbard will be introduced by two mainstream Republicans – former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC), who retired in 2022 – and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA). Following the introductions, the Senate Intelligence Committee will then allow for several rounds of questioning, with each senator given five minutes for questioning. According to NBC News, this will be done in order of seniority, beginning with Chairman Tom Cotton (R-AR), and Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA).

Warner is expected to hit Gabbard over past comments blaming NATO for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to a copy of his prepared opening remarks obtained by NBC.

„Repeatedly, you have excused our adversaries’ worst actions, and instead blamed the United States and our allies for them. For example, you blamed NATO for Russia’ 2022 invasion of Ukraine,” reads Warner’s statement.

He also plans to attack Gabbard for questioning whether former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons, despite US intelligence assessments that he did.

„Instead, you blamed the United States for supporting al Qa’ida, ISIS, and other terrorist groups in Syria,” his statement continues. „I don’t know if your intent in making those statements was to defend those dictators … or if you were simply unaware of the intelligence and how your statements would be perceived”

„In either case, it raises serious questions about your judgment. It also leads me to question whether you have what it takes to build and develop the trust relationships necessary to give our allies confidence that they can share their most sensitive intelligence with us.”

Journalist Breanna Morello has obtained a portion of Gabbard’s opening statement, which reads in part:

If confirmed as DNI, I will fulfill this mandate and bring leadership to the intelligence community with a laser like focus on our essential mission: ensuring the safety, security and freedom of the American people.

My experiences on the battlefield and in the halls of Congress have given me a deep understanding of the complex challenges our nation faces.

JUST IN

I’ve obtained excerpts from DNI nominee Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation hearing opening statement.

TAKE A LOOK:

President Trump’s reelection is a clear mandate from the American people to break this cycle of
failure, end the weaponization and politicization of the IC,… pic.twitter.com/FFe4FySsRs

— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) January 30, 2025

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Authored by Charlie Kirk via RealClearPolitics,

Conservatives of all stripes have enjoyed the first week of Donald Trump’s presidency. The events of the past week have made it very clear that President Trump has come in well-prepared and is laser-focused on fulfilling the many promises that won him the election. Whether it’s securing the border, breaking the DEI cartel, or ending DOJ lawfare, the president is executing his agenda with unprecedented energy and aggression.

In the long term, though, securing the president’s promises can’t be done with executive orders alone. Success will come down to the president picking appointees who can carry out his will.

President Trump chose Tulsi Gabbard as his director of national intelligence for a very clear reason. Ever since he entered the political scene 10 years ago, Trump has faced not just opposition but outright sabotage and deceit from the so-called “intelligence community” of Washington, D.C. They spied on his campaign and gave life to the ridiculous smear that he was a Russian agent. Analysts deliberately withheld information from the president, then leaked about what they were doing to the press. And of course, during the 2020 election, the intelligence apparatus pressured America’s tech companies to engage in widespread censorship while a network of “former intelligence officials” lied through their teeth to denounce the Hunter Biden laptop story as “Russian disinformation.”

The American intelligence world is arrogant, wayward, and in dire need of reform. That is precisely why President Trump chose former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a longtime critic of these agencies, to be his director of national intelligence.

Gabbard is indisputably qualified. She is a veteran of the Iraq War, the worst of the wars that the intel agencies blundered us into. She spent eight years in Congress and served stints on the homeland security, armed services, and foreign affairs committees, all of them relevant to the job. She has authentic bipartisan credentials: She represented the Democrats in Congress, is the choice of a MAGA president, and has the personal endorsement of Meghan McCain (a Republican with whom I have no shortage of differences).

So what do her opponents bring against her? It’s simple: They lie. Every attack on Tulsi Gabbard is a smear concocted by those desperate to prevent the change voters demanded in November.

Some bad actors in D.C., and even within the Republican Party, think they can rerun the game plan of 2017 when people thought the Donald Trump moment was a fluke that would soon be over. And I mean “rerun” literally because one of the top smears against Gabbard is the same one brought against Trump eight years ago: the wild claim that Tulsi Gabbard is a “Russian asset.” Just like the attack on Trump, this smear was popularized by Hillary Clinton, and just like the attack on Trump, it’s based wholly on Gabbard’s refusal to endorse the failed groupthink consensus of Washington. Gabbard supported military aid to Ukraine prior to the country’s invasion in 2022. She called Putin a U.S. adversary. But none of that matters because this attack was never about the truth. It’s about smearing Gabbard for opposing regime change, forever wars, and a blank check for the D.C. cabal.

The same rules apply to the wild claim that Gabbard is an “Assad sympathizer” in league with the fallen dictator of Syria. The allegation is utterly ridiculous. Gabbard’s 2017 trip was cleared by House Ethics beforehand, and she did a debriefing with America’s ambassador to Lebanon afterward. Members of Congress are free to meet with foreign leaders, especially if those leaders are the ones Americans are supposed to spend billions of dollars fighting, directly or indirectly. This is why President Trump has sought direct diplomacy with Vladimir Putin and even North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un.

With nothing else to argue, Gabbard’s critics have to fall back on the complaint that she didn’t believe Assad actually used chemical weapons during his fight to hold onto power. It’s another lie – Gabbard has been saying she believes Assad used chemical weapons for more than five years. But truthfully, it wouldn’t even matter if she thought otherwise. Unlike nearly all of Washington’s war hawks, Gabbard has direct experience fighting in a misbegotten war sold with bad intelligence. Unlike most of Washington, Gabbard learned the lesson that spectacular claims about weapons of mass destruction should be backed with proof, not ridiculous threats against anyone showing skepticism.

Other attacks are even more pathetic. There’s the Hail Mary that she is “soft on Iran” when her track record makes it clear she simply shares the president’s goal of avoiding another fruitless war in the Gulf. Attacks on Gabbard’s Hindu religious beliefs are so puerile they don’t even merit a reply.

Gabbard brings to the table exactly what President Trump needs in a DNI: an independent thinker who isn’t shackled to decades of Beltway consensus and who has learned to be skeptical. This isn’t just what President Trump wants, though. It’s what the American public voted for in 2024 – and the election was not a squeaker.

Republicans who hold office right now hold it thanks to voters who expect them to help Trump keep his promises. If those same Republicans instead scuttle one of the president’s essential appointments on the basis of establishment smears, then I have a simple promise: They will face a primary challenge. I, and many others, will do whatever it takes to see them replaced. Republicans can either participate in the president’s reform agenda or they can be trampled by it.

It’s up to them. Any questions?

Charlie Kirk is founder and CEO of Turning Point USA, Turning Point Action, and host of the top-ranked podcast and nationally syndicated radio program, “The Charlie Kirk Show.”