Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has been the target of a smear campaign from ‘deep state’ intelligence officials seeking to undermine her influence through strategic leaks as President Trump ponders whether to join Israel’s war against Iran, those close to her tell the Daily Mail.
Multiple intelligence officials spoke with the Daily Mail about Trump’s spy chief’s schedule and work since Israel launched an attack on Iran last week, shedding light on a normally clandestine affair.
Gabbard is in the room, helping the president and his team determine an informed path forward, these officials stressed, pushing back against multiple reports indicating that she’s been sidelined.
In fact, the president is calling on her, the sources claim.
‘All the National Security Council meetings she’s in on, and then, I mean, there’s lots of impromptu ones where he’s calling her into the office,’ one senior intelligence official shared. ‘She’s in there at all the key junctures,’ the source added.
‘She’s been in every meeting,’ a White House official told the Daily Mail, adding the DNI ‘has not been sidelined whatsoever.’
Reports have suggested that Trump has been advised by a smaller cohort, including VP J.D. Vance, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine.
They say Gabbard and Pentagon Sec. Pete Hegseth are on the outside looking in.
But these Gabbard allies told the Daily Mail the DNI has attended practically every crucial meeting at the White House and Situation Room since the conflict began.
U.S. Director Of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has been the target of a ‘deep state’ smear campaign, two current U.S. officials told the Daily Mail
A slew of reports cited sources claiming Gabbard is on the outs with Trump, but White House and intelligence officials tell the Daily Mail she and the president are working closely together
The war between Iran and Israel has been waging for over a week. President Trump has said he will give himself two weeks to decide whether the U.S. will go into the conflict
VP J.D. Vance also threw his weight behind Gabbard with a glowing social media post: ‘She’s an essential member of our national security team, and we’re grateful for her tireless work to keep America safe from foreign threats.’
The White House official added that Hegseth has also been an integral member of ongoing military discussions regarding the Middle East.
As the war between Iran and Israel waged for a seventh day, President Trump said Thursday he will give himself two weeks to decide whether the U.S. will go into the conflict, but a strike could still come at any moment.
Israeli officials and some U.S. lawmakers have suggested that Trump drop bunker-busting bombs on the remaining functional Iranian nuclear sites, like Fordow, which is built hundreds of feet under a mountain range.
Though one military official told the Daily Mail that conventional GB-57s, the most powerful bunker busters in the U.S. arsenal, may not be enough and that a tactical nuclear weapon may be needed instead to ensure the destruction of the Uranium enrichment labs.
A former Democratic congresswoman, Gabbard is a noted anti-interventionist, a perspective informed by her time in the military.
Others in the administration have suggested the U.S. take more direct action, putting the DNI at odds with Iran hawks urging Trump to bomb Iran.
DNI Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe during a Senate Committee on Intelligence Hearing on March 25, 2025 in Washington, DC
Gabbard posing with a rifle on her social media
‘She’s doing everything she can to find inefficiencies within the intelligence community, but also to clean up a lot of places that have been problematic in the past,’ the source told the Daily Mail. ‘That’s why you’re seeing so many, you know, hit pieces and attacks against her.’
Another intel official described the campaign as ‘a wedge to get her out’ because she’s a ‘disruptive influence.’
‘The IC and a lot of the DC community wants to see her removed because the traditional role of the DNI has been a willfully blind tool of the Intelligence Community; DNI Gabbard is not that.’
Gabbard caught flak for missing a retreat with the president at Camp David earlier this month before the conflict broke out, but she had prior commitments to train with her National Guard unit the same weekend, the White House official said.
She also took heat for a video she posted warning of ‘nuclear annihilation’ that reportedly upset the president.
But multiple administration officials claim that while Trump was not ‘thrilled’ with the clip, he was not ‘engaged’ as some articles claim.
‘There’s a lot of exaggeration and mischaracterization of the nature of all this,’ a White House official said.
Critics have also gone after Gabbard for the DNI’s testimony in March that Iran was not actively pursuing nuclear weapons.
But the spy chief herself told reporters that she and Trump are ‘on the same page’ about Iran’s nuclear weapon production timeline.
Meanwhile, at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), several longtime staffers expressed concern over Gabbard’s priorities.
Sources inside the ODNI accuse Trump’s spy chief of focusing on her appearance rather than her intelligence work, CNN reports. These staffers pointed to her polished Instagram making her appear more like a fitness influencer than a Cabinet member.
During her tenure, Gabbard has overseen the release of the JFK, RFK and MLK files, a directive ordered by the president in his early days in office.
In May, she fired two high-ranking intelligence for their opposition to her leadership, and she has also revoked over 60 clearances and referred at least three individuals to the DOJ for prosecution over leaking.
