President Donald Trump has nominated Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman with an anti-LGBTQ+ history, to be director of national intelligence.
President Trump announced Gabbard’s selection on Wednesday. Her appointment requires Senate confirmation and “there is no doubt that there will be a major confirmation battle,” he said. CNN Note. In that post, she will oversee all 18 U.S. intelligence agencies.
“I know that Ms. Tulsi will bring to our nation’s intelligence services the fearlessness that has defined her distinguished career, defending constitutional rights and ensuring peace through force,” President Trump said in a statement. I know.” “Tulsi makes us all proud!” He claimed “she has broad support” from both Republicans and Democrats, but doubts whether she will get much support from Democrats. is doubtful.
Gabbard, a native of American Samoa, served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2013 to 2021, representing the Hawaii district. She was with Hawaii House from 2002 to 2004 and served on the Honolulu City Council from 2010 to 2012. She was a member of the Hawaii Army National Guard from 2003 to 2020 and currently serves as a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve.
In 2024, when he was a member of the Hawaii state legislature, he opposed a bill creating civil unions for same-sex couples. “Trying to pretend there is a difference between ‘civil unions’ and same-sex marriage is dishonest, cowardly, and deeply disrespectful to the people of Hawaii,” Gabbard testified. “As Democrats, we should represent the views of the people, not a few gay extremists.”
She also used the term “gay extremists” that year to describe opponents of her father, Mike Gabbard, who was running for Congress at the time. Although he was not elected, he has served in the Hawaii State Senate since 2006. A former Republican, he switched to the Democratic Party in 2007. He was a prominent anti-LGBTQ+ activist in Hawaii and at one point led the Traditional Alliance Alliance. Marriage called homosexuality “an unhealthy and abnormal behavior that should not be promoted or accepted in society” and supported conversion therapy. He also collaborated with other anti-LGBTQ+ groups.
The Traditional Marriage Alliance advocated for a 1998 Hawaii constitutional amendment that would have given the Legislature the power to “restrict marriage to opposite-sex couples.” The amendment was adopted when it looked like Hawaii would become the first state to achieve marriage equality after a court case, but it never happened. The amendment does not require Congress to restrict the right to marry, and in 2013, lawmakers passed the Marriage Equality Act. However, the amendment was put on hold until voters approved repeal this year.
Tulsi Gabbard, who was active with her father in the Traditional Marriage Alliance, tried to explain her anti-LGBTQ+ past when she tried to run for Democratic presidential nomination in the 2020 election cycle. “I grew up in a very socially conservative family. My father is Catholic. He was the leading voice against same-sex marriage in Hawaii at the time,” she said in 2019. Speaking at a CNN town hall in 2017. Tulsi Gabbard is a Hindu and the first person of that faith to be elected to Congress.
At the time, she said her views had evolved, in part because of her experience in the military. LGBTQ+ Colleagues in the Middle East, including during the era of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” “I saw firsthand the negative effects of a government acting as the moral arbiter of its citizens and attempting to dictate in a very personal way how they should live their lives.” she said at a CNN event. In 2019, he posted a video on YouTube stating that his anti-LGBTQ+ views are wrong and harmful.
In Congress, she supported the Equality Act and had a pro-LGBTQ+ record, including high scores on the Human Rights Campaign’s Congressional Scorecard, including a perfect 100 in one term. In March 2020, she withdrew from the presidential race and endorsed Joe Biden.
But in recent years, Gabbard has taken a new turn. In December 2020, as her term in Congress was ending (she was not running for re-election), she introduced a bill that would ban transgender girls from competing against cisgender girls in school sports. . The bill went nowhere.
In April 2022, she posted a video message on social media saying that Florida’s recently approved “Don’t Say I Say” law restricting school guidance on sexual orientation and gender identity did not go far enough. “I have to say, I was shocked to learn that this system only protects children from kindergarten through third grade,” she said. “Third graders? What about 12th graders? Or not at all?” She also slammed educators who she claimed were “instilling woke sexual values in schools.” The law was eventually expanded to ban such instruction through 12th grade, but a legal settlement this year watered it down and established that certain discussions on the subject would be allowed. Ta.
In October 2022, she announced that she would be leaving the Democratic Party. The party is “currently under the complete control of an elitist cabal of vile woke warmongers who racialize every issue and stoke anti-white racism against us. They actively work to divide and undermine the God-given freedoms enshrined in our Constitution, and they are hostile to people of faith and spirituality,” she said on her podcast. said in a video. The Tulsi Gabbard Show.
He said President Joe Biden’s administration was targeting as terrorists “parents who have vocally opposed the extreme curriculum and sexually explicit content being taught to their children in public schools,” and that transgender people. He said that by supporting women, they are eradicating women. She became a Republican this year, supported Trump as a presidential candidate and helped him prepare for his only debate with Kamala Harris.
Her friendship with some autocratic foreign leaders has also been controversial. She has criticized US intervention in Syria’s civil war and met with the country’s autocratic president Bashar al-Assad in 2017. She further argued that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could have been avoided within the United States, and that NATO “simply recognized Russia’s legitimate security concerns.” Regarding Ukraine becoming a member of NATO, it would mean the presence of American/NATO troops on Russia’s borders,” she wrote to X in 2022.
The Democratic National Committee condemned her nomination as director of intelligence. “It is dangerous for the American people to have someone in our nation’s top intelligence post who has pandered to conspiracy theorists, defended Vladimir Putin, promoted Russian-backed disinformation campaigns, and had collusion with extremist hate groups. ” the DNC said in a statement. Rapid Response Director Alex Floyd. “President Trump’s Cabinet picks demonstrate once again that when it comes to national security and leadership on the world stage, loyalty to President Trump comes first and America last.”
Source: Advocate.com – www.advocate.com
