Tulsi Gabbard, President Trump’s nominee for the role of Director of National Intelligence, is appearing before senators for a confirmation hearing, where she is expected to face questions about her past statements on foreign affairs and her qualifications to oversee the nation’s intelligence agencies.

When Tulsi Gabbard clarified her nationality

Tulsi Gabbard’s mother, Carol Porter Gabbard, was raised in a multicultural household and developed an interest in Hinduism. All her children have Hindu names – Bhakti, Jai, Aryan, Tulsi, and Vrindavan. Tulsi herself practises Hinduism. Old videos of her chanting Hare Krishna have resurfaced online after she became the first Hindu to lead US intelligence agencies.
A four-term US Congresswoman, Gabbard has now been appointed Director of National Intelligence in Donald Trump’s new cabinet. The 43-year-old veteran was the first Hindu elected to the US Congress, and her religious affiliation has often led to mistaken assumptions about her ancestry. However, she was born in the US territory of American Samoa and raised in Hawaii and the Philippines.
Due to widespread misconceptions about her heritage, Gabbard publicly clarified in 2012 that she has no Indian roots. “I am not of Indian origin,” she stated in response to a message that had identified her as an Indian-American.
When Hillary called her a Russian agent
For most of her political career, Tulsi Gabbard was a member of the Democratic Party. However, in 2022, she announced her departure, arguing that the party had fallen under the “complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness”. Shortly before the election, she endorsed Donald Trump and continued to advocate her anti-war stance under a Republican administration.
During her 2019 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, Gabbard was accused by Hillary Clinton of being a Russian asset—though Clinton did not name her directly. “I’m not making any predictions, but I think they’ve got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate,” Clinton said, suggesting Gabbard was favoured by the Russians.
Gabbard fired back at Clinton, tweeting: “Thank you, @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain.”
She went on to claim that her reputation had been deliberately targeted. “From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation,” she said. “We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know—it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose.”