Drama erupted in Washington this week after bombshell reports claimed top spy chief Tulsi Gabbard was shoved out of hush-hush White House plans to nab Venezuela’s ex-president, Nicolás Maduro. The whisper in the corridors? Gabbard’s official DNI moniker supposedly stood for ‘Do Not Invite,’ insiders joked, instead of Director of National Intelligence,
Sources spilled to Bloomberg that Team Trump kept Gabbard out of the loop, all thanks to her fierce history of blasting US military moves overseas. Some say she never got a seat at the table during those months of planning to capture the Venezuelan strongman. But Vice President JD Vance wasn’t having it, slamming the rumors as ‘totally made-up.’
“We played it CLOSE—just senior cabinet and key officials,” Vance declared to the gaggle of press on Thursday. “Tulsi’s very much with us. Any suggestion she was cut out is complete nonsense.” Vance also brushed off whispers that he was left out of the secretive discussions, affirming he’s ready to tackle any task President Trump hands down.
Gabbard’s rocky relationship with interventionist Washington politics is no secret. Back in 2020, she tried for the White House on an anti-war platform, then ditched the Democrats to swing behind Trump’s bid four years later. She’s spent much of her career slamming US ‘regime change’ wars and sounding alarm bells about America’s costly adventures abroad. Her fiery 2019 warning about Venezuela still echoes: ‘History shows US meddling in Latin America brings suffering to millions, sends our nation into debt, shames our troops, and weakens our security.’
She didn’t stop there. Gabbard publicly grilled ex-Trump national security hawk John Bolton, condemned US threats against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, and ripped the drone strike that killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in 2020.
But the DNI herself isn’t keeping quiet. Fresh from a visit to Hiroshima, Gabbard issued a chilling warning: global tensions are pushing us near nuclear disaster, all thanks to reckless leaders and ‘warmongers’ itching for conflict. And last month, in a fiery speech to Turning Point USA, she took aim at the ‘military industrial complex’ for trapping America in endless, costly wars that erode freedoms and drain lives—all for goals far removed from true security.
These days, Gabbard wields huge power as the head of 18 intelligence agencies, but the rumors about her exile from Maduro-focused meetings still swirl. The White House swats away stories of her ‘DNI’ nickname as pure fiction, but the chatter hasn’t stopped. As uncertainty hangs in the air, one thing’s clear: Tulsi Gabbard isn’t afraid to fight the Washington war machine—even when it puts her at odds with her own team.
