US President-elect Donald Trump has named Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic Party defector known for her pro-Russian positions, to head the US National Intelligence Directorate (NID) as he finalizes his cabinet appointments before officially taking office on January 20. Trump’s nomination of the former Democratic congresswoman as director of national intelligence raised questions about her visit to Syria in January 2017 and her meeting with President Bashar al-Assad as part of a “fact-finding mission” while she was a member of Congress.
Gabbard wrote in a blog post at the time that she went to the country to “see and hear directly from the Syrian people” affected by the devastating war there. She revealed that she met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is backed by Iran and Russia and is accused of killing hundreds of thousands of civilians and destroying large swathes of the country. In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper after the trip, Gabbard said she went to Syria because “the suffering of the Syrian people was weighing on my heart.”
Assad is “someone we need.”
The meeting with Assad was not planned, she said. But when she “had the opportunity to meet with him,” she did so because “we have to be able to meet with anyone we need to if there is a possibility of peace. And that’s exactly what we talked about.” The Honolulu Civil Beat reported that Gabbard met with Assad twice while in Syria. She first met with him for an hour and a half shortly after arriving in Damascus, and again for 30 minutes two days later. It is common for members of Congress to travel abroad or meet with foreign leaders, but it is rare for them to do so with leaders accused of committing atrocities against their own people.
Or they are perceived as unfriendly toward the United States. The United States is the largest single donor of humanitarian aid to the Syrian people, according to the State Department. Gabbard likened her meeting with Assad to Trump’s meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Not an enemy:
The trip and meetings with Assad overshadowed Gabbard in 2019 when she sought the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination, and these matters were raised again after Trump announced her appointment. “What do you say to the Democratic voters who watched you go there, and what do you say to the U.S. military personnel who have been repeatedly deployed to Syria to push back against Assad?” MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt asked Gabbard on Feb. 19, to which Gabbard responded that the U.S. has repeatedly deployed to Syria to push back against Assad. Gabbard responded that the U.S. deployed those troops “without understanding the mission or the clear objective.”
Asked if Assad was an enemy, she said he was “not an enemy of the United States because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States.” Charles Lister, director of the Middle East Institute’s Syria program, said Wednesday that the trip “was infuriating at the time, as it is today.” Gabbard’s refusal “to acknowledge the crimes of the Assad regime after returning to Washington reveals a lot about her views,” Lister said.
Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), a former CIA officer, wrote on X that she was “appalled” by Trump’s decision. “Not only is she unprepared and unqualified, she traffics in conspiracy theories and cozies up to tyrants like Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin,” she wrote.
She added: “As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am deeply concerned about what this nomination portends for our national security.” A representative for Gabbard did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Gabbard, who left the Democratic Party and later declared herself a Republican, became a close adviser to Trump during his 2024 campaign. But aside from her previous political affiliations, she has also disagreed with him on a number of issues, including Syria. She has repeatedly called Trump a liar and a hypocrite for his actions in Syria.
In April 2017, the US fired 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield in its first direct attack on Syrian government positions since the start of the war there. The Pentagon said at the time that the attack on the Shayrat air base was “in retaliation for the Bashar al-Assad regime’s use of nerve gas to attack its own people.” Trump said the Syrian attack on “innocent civilians” was “horrific” and caused the “slow and brutal death of many.” Gabbard criticized the United States at the time, calling the strike “dangerous, reckless and unconstitutional,” and said Trump acted “recklessly.”
