Tulsi Gabbard has resigned as US President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence, saying she needed to step away as her husband battles cancer.
She is the fourth cabinet official to depart during Mr Trump’s second term.
“Unfortunately, I must submit my resignation, effective June 30, 2026,” Ms Gabbard wrote in her resignation letter, which she posted on X. “My husband, Abraham, has recently been diagnosed with an extremely rare form of bone cancer.”
There had been rumblings that Ms Gabbard would split with Mr Trump after the president’s decision to strike Iran, which caused some division within his administration.
Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Centre, announced his resignation in March, saying he “cannot in good conscience” back the war.
Ms Gabbard, a veteran and former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, built her political name on her opposition to foreign wars. This put her in an awkward position when the US joined Israel in launching attacks on Iran on February 28.
During a congressional hearing in March, her measured comments were notable for their careful non-endorsement of Mr Trump’s decision to strike Iran. She repeatedly dodged questions about whether the White House had been warned of potential fallout from the conflict, including Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Ms Gabbard said in written remarks to the Senate Intelligence Committee that there had been no effort by Iran to rebuild its nuclear capability after US attacks last year “obliterated” its nuclear programme.
That statement contradicted Mr Trump, who has repeatedly asserted that the war was necessary to head off an imminent threat from the Islamic Republic.
This created several awkward exchanges with politicians who asked Ms Gabbard for her opinion on the threat posed by Iran as the nation’s top intelligence official. She repeatedly said it was Mr Trump’s decision to strike, not hers.
“It is not the intelligence community’s responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat,” she said.
Ms Gabbard’s departure follows Mr Trump having ousted homeland security secretary Kristi Noem in late March, in the midst of mounting criticism over her leadership of the department – including the handling of the administration’s immigration crackdown and disaster response.
The second cabinet member to leave was attorney general Pam Bondi, in response to growing frustration over the Justice Department’s handling of files related to Jeffrey Epstein. And labour secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned in April, after being the target of various misconduct investigations.
A veteran but without any intelligence experience, Ms Gabbard was a surprising choice to head the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which oversees the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies. She ran for president in 2020 on a progressive platform and her opposition to US involvement in foreign military conflicts.
Citing her military experience, she argued that US wars in the Middle East had destabilised the region, made the US less safe and cost thousands of American lives. Ms Gabbard later dropped out of the race and endorsed the ultimate winner, Joe Biden.
Two years later she left the Democratic Party to become an independent, saying her old party was dominated by an “elitist cabal of warmongers” and “woke” ideologues. She subsequently campaigned for several high-profile Republicans and became a contributor to Fox News.
She later endorsed Mr Trump, who also was a strong critic of past US wars in the Middle East and campaigned on a pledge to avoid unnecessary wars and nation-building overseas.
But friction with the president started soon after he began his second term and tapped Ms Gabbard to lead the ODNI, which was set up after the September 11 attacks to improve co-ordination between the nation’s intelligence agencies.
Shortly after taking on the job, Ms Gabbard gave evidence before politicians that there was no intelligence suggesting Iran was seeking to develop nuclear weapons. After Mr Trump launched attacks on Iranian nuclear sites in June he said Ms Gabbard was wrong and that he did not care what she said.
She appeared to be back in Mr Trump’s good graces when she took a lead role in his effort to relitigate his 2020 election loss to Mr Biden, whom Ms Gabbard had endorsed. She appeared at an FBI search of election offices in Fulton County, Georgia, even though her office was created to focus on foreign espionage, not state elections.
Earlier this week, however, she testified to politicians during an annual threats hearing that last year’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites had “obliterated” their nuclear programme and that there had been no subsequent effort to rebuild.
The statement seemed to complicate Mr Trump’s repeated assertions that Iran posed an imminent threat and created several awkward exchanges with politicians who asked Ms Gabbard for her opinion on Iran’s threat as the nation’s top intelligence official. She repeatedly said that it was Mr Trump’s decision to strike, not hers.
