National Review Senior Political Correspondent Jim Geraghtyreports National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard may be more alienated from the White House than the public realizes — and at a time when the U.S. is about to be pulled into a wildly expensive escalation in the Middle East.
“The editors at Axios recently made a correction to a story from early last week that makes a lot of things look a little different in light of subsequent events,” Geraghty wrote.
Axios’ original story claimed President Donald Trump “and his entire top foreign policy team huddled in Camp David for hours on Sunday to discuss U.S. strategy on the Iran nuclear crisis and the war in Gaza,” according to two anonymous U.S. officials and a third unnamed source.
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Axios further reported the meeting was attended by “Trump, Vice President Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, chief of staff Susie Wiles, special envoy Steve Witkoff, CIA director John Ratcliffe and other senior officials,” along with some “generals and admirals”.
But Geraghty notes Axios later inserted an “editor’s note” detailing that “This story has been corrected to reflect that Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence, did not attend the meeting.”
“So, the president and his entire national-security team gather for a high-stakes meeting, almost certainly knowing that a massive Israeli airstrike against Iran is days away, and the U.S. director of national intelligence isn’t invited?” Geraghty wrote. “What does that tell us? Maybe someone in the Trump inner circle doesn’t want to trust Gabbard with the knowledge that an Israeli strike against Iran is imminent?”
Geraghty suggests Gabbard may be broadcasting either her resentment or concern at being excluded from meetings with a social-media video two days later, declaring, “We stand here today closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation than ever before.”
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“You think she’s a little irked that she’s been cut out of the loop?” Geraghty asked, before posting a link to Gabbard, testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee in March, claiming “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and supreme leader Khameni has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003,” which contradicts the opinions of both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump.
More recently, Trump outright dismissed his intelligence director’s congressional testimony.
"I don’t care what she said," Trump told reporters. "I think they (Iranian leaders) were very close to having it."
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“Why is our intelligence community — or at least those who speak publicly on its behalf — utterly convinced that the Iranians are not pursuing a nuclear weapon, while Israel sees an imminent existential threat?” Geraghty demanded. “Are the Israelis just that much better at spying in Iran? Or does this divide reflect two intelligence communities who are seeing what they want to see?”
Read the full National Review post at this link.