Tulsi Gabbard is stepping down as Director of National Intelligence, a Cabinet-level role, NPR said in its “Week in Politics” segment. NPR’s Scott Simon asked Ron Elving to address what the conversation described as the key challenges Gabbard faced as she prepared to leave. Elving said Gabbard was an “outsider from the outset” because she previously served in Congress as a Democrat and did not have a deep intelligence-community background.
Elving said that even before any friction inside the intelligence role, Gabbard had gained attention from President Trump after praising his opposition to other presidents’ wars and his noninterventionist stance at the time. Elving also said Gabbard helped Trump prepare for his 2024 debate against Kamala Harris. He then pointed to testimony Gabbard gave to Congress last year that, Elving said, treated Iran as not building a nuclear weapon and not posing a nuclear threat, which Trump later rejected as being “simply wrong.”
Simon turned next to congressional resistance to President Trump’s proposal to create a $1.8 billion fund. NPR said the fund “could be used, among other things, to compensate” people connected to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Elving said the resistance included opposition “especially among Senate Republicans,” portraying the proposal as a transfer of tax dollars to “loyal allies” and noting, in particular, the case of the rioters who beat on police officers defending the Capitol.
Elving said that because of that focus, some of those police officers were already suing to stop what he described as the settlement. He cited criticism attributed to Mitch McConnell, who called the proposal a slush fund, and quoted McConnell saying: “utterly stupid or morally wrong. Take your pick.” Elving then added that North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis also criticized the idea, quoting Tillis as saying the fund was “stupid on stilts.” Elving linked the debate to broader legislative timing, saying resistance was enough to send the Senate home early for its Memorial Day recess.
In the same segment, Simon asked about the Democratic National Committee’s released report on the 2024 election and what it might mean for Democrats. Elving said the report was released after being withheld, adding to what he described as Democrats’ embarrassment, particularly for the party’s then-chairman Ken Martin. Elving said the report, which he described as written by a single campaign consultant, made some points but “leaves huge gaps” and “ducks big issues.”
Simon also asked about foreign policy and whether recent comments contradicted the administration’s public posture. NPR reported that an acting Navy secretary told senators that the U.S. had paused arms sales to Taiwan because it needed sufficient firepower for the war in Iran. Elving said that “certainly would appear to” conflict with earlier claims and, in his view, suggested the U.S. weapons supply had been “depleted” and not being restored as quickly as claimed. Elving also said the Taiwan-related pause raised additional concerns given what he described as a discussion of the aid package with the Chinese leader during a recent visit, noting that he said previous presidents had refused to do so.