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Tulsi Gabbard resigns
Tulsi Gabbard resigned as United States President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence, telling Trump in a resignation letter posted on her X account that she was “deeply grateful for the trust you placed in me and for the opportunity to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for the last year and a half”.
““deeply grateful for the trust you placed in me and for the opportunity to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for the last year and a half””
Gabbard said her resignation would be effective June 30, 2026, writing that her husband, Abraham, “has recently been diagnosed with an extremely rare form of bone cancer.”
Trump confirmed the departure in a Truth Social post, saying, “Unfortunately, after having done a great job, Tulsi Gabbard will be leaving the Administration on June 30th.”
Trump added that principal deputy director of national intelligence Aaron Lukas would serve in an acting capacity, and USA Today reported Gabbard’s tenure oversaw all 18 US intel agencies including the CIA and FBI.
Gabbard’s resignation letter also said she could not ask her husband to “face this fight alone” while she remained in the “demanding and time-consuming position,” according to Fox News Digital’s account of the letter.
War Iran and scrutiny
Gabbard’s resignation came as her tenure as DNI drew scrutiny over her stance during the Iran War, with USA Today describing turbulence and political clashes inside the national security hierarchy.
At a tense March 2026 Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, USA Today said Gabbard declined to say whether Iran posed an “imminent” nuclear threat, arguing that such judgments belonged to the president, not the intelligence community.
USA Today also reported that Joe Kent, National Counterterrorism Center director, resigned over the war, writing, “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” in a letter to Trump.
Al Jazeera reported that after initial silence on Iran, Gabbard defended the Trump administration’s decision to launch the current war on Iran alongside Israel, maintaining that the president, and not the intelligence community, is “responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat”.
The Guardian’s live coverage also placed the resignation alongside Trump’s remarks at Rockland county, New York, where he said, “It’s dangerous to do it, and to do it in this crowd is not a good thing.”
ODNI changes and transition
In her resignation letter and in coverage of her departure, Gabbard cited progress at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, including “advancing unprecedented transparency and restoring integrity to the intelligence community,” while also saying “there is still important work to be done.”
““advancing unprecedented transparency and restoring integrity to the intelligence community””
USA Today reported that ODNI’s statement on May 22 listed declassifying more than 500,000 pages of previously secret government records and launching ODNI 2.0 to reduce bloat by more than 40% at a savings of more than $700 million per year.
Fox News Digital said Gabbard created a “Weaponization Working Group” and that the National Counterterrorism Center prevented more than 10,000 individuals with ties to narco-terrorism from entering the country in 2025 and placed more than 85,000 similarly tied individuals on the terror watchlist.
The Guardian reported that Trump named Aaron Lukas as acting DNI chief, and it also noted that Lukas would take over as acting director of national intelligence.
With Gabbard’s last day set for June 30, 2026, the resignation letter posted on X said she was “fully committed to ensuring a smooth and thorough transition over the coming weeks so that you and your team experience no disruption in leadership or momentum.”
