Tulsi Gabbard to resign as US director of national intelligence

Tulsi Gabbard will resign from her position as the US director of national intelligence in the Trump administration, citing her husband's recent bone cancer diagnosis.

"His strength and love have sustained me through every challenge," she wrote in her resignation letter on Friday. "I cannot in good conscience ask him to face this fight alone while I continue in this demanding and time-consuming position."

President Donald Trump said in a social media post that Gabbard "has done an incredible job, and we will miss her".

Her resignation is effective 30 June. Aaron Lukas, the principal deputy director, will step in as acting director, Trump said.

Gabbard, a loyal supporter of Trump during his 2024 presidential campaign, was confirmed as one of the most powerful figures in US intelligence-gathering weeks after he returned to the White House in 2025. But this year, she has largely been out of public view even as the US took military action against Iran, put pressure on Cuba, and notably removed Venezuela's president.

Gabbard is the fourth Cabinet member to depart the Trump administration after Lori Chavez-DeRemer left her position as labor secretary in April. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi both left the administration earlier this year.

In her resignation letter, Gabbard said her husband, Abraham, "faces major challenges in the coming weeks and months."

Trump posted on social media that Gabbard "rightfully, wants to be with him, bringing him back to good health as they currently fight a tough battle together. I have no doubt he will soon be better than ever."

During her political career, she had positioned herself as an anti-interventionalist in foreign wars, creating tension after Trump decided to attack Iran. Following US-Israel strikes, she avoided endorsing the decision, carefully evading questions during a congressional hearing in March about whether the administration knew of the conflict's potential fallout.

She also faced scrutiny during questioning over what Democrats perceived as discrepancies between White House and intelligence community claims about Iran's nuclear enrichment capabilities.

Last year, Trump appeared to dismiss Gabbard's declaration before Congress that Iran was not seeking to build a nuclear weapon.

"I don't care what she said," Trump told reporters at the time. "I think they were very close to having a weapon." He has repeatedly cited Iran's nuclear capability as a reason for the US war with Iran.

Gabbard's departure comes two months after her top aide, former National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent, left the administration over the war in Iran, urging the president to "reverse course".

Following Kent's resignation, Gabbard publicly backed Trump's decision in Iran, saying that as commander-in-chief, the president was responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat.

A military veteran who served with a medical unit in Iraq, Gabbard has had a few political firsts in her career.

She was first elected to the Hawaii Legislature aged 21 in 2002, the youngest person ever elected in the state. She left after one term when her National Guard unit was deployed to Iraq.

Gabbard went on to represent Hawaii in Congress as a Democrat from 2013 until 2021 - becoming the first Hindu to serve in the House.

She ran an unsuccessful bid for president in 2020, positioning herself on an anti-interventionalist foreign policy platform.

In 2022, she left the Democratic Party and initially registered as an independent - accusing her former party of being an "elitist cabal of warmongers" driven by "cowardly wokeness".

As a contributor on Fox News, she was vocal on topics such as gender and freedom of speech, and became an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump before joining the Republican party.

She endorsed Trump in 2024, campaigned with him and served as a member of his transition team after the election.

Trump nominated her to be director of national intelligence shortly after he won the election. As head of the intelligence community, Gabbard coordinates among multiple intelligence agencies and advises the president.

Under her leadership, the size of the intelligence community has shrunk. When announcing plans to cut the agency's staff by almost 50% last year, she said the agency had become "bloated and inefficient" over the last two decades.