Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii) is emerging as a tough confirmation lift for President-elect Trump, even as other nominees such as Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for the Pentagon, run into serious hurdles.
Gabbard, Trump’s pick to become director of national intelligence (DNI), has received less attention in recent days compared to Hegseth, who has seen multiple bombshell reports pop up about his treatment of women, or Kash Patel, the president-elect’s controversial pick to lead the FBI.
But a number of aides and senators view her path as the most difficult of the three.
“I think Gabbard, out of the three, still has the toughest path,” one Senate GOP aide told The Hill, referring to Gabbard, Hegseth and Patel. “[She] is the most at risk.”
A number of GOP senators are skeptical about her foreign policy dealings and her trustworthiness in potentially heading the nation’s intelligence apparatus.
Although Gabbard is a favorite of Trump World, the Senate Republican Conference remains a different type of playing field, as it still contains a number of defense hawks and supporters of Ukraine in their ongoing war with Russia.
Some members of that crowd remain skeptical of Gabbard, especially due to her past remarks about the Ukraine war that were sympathetic to Moscow and echoed by Russian state media — which has also praised her selection as DNI.
She also has views on the Middle East that break........