Tulsi Gabbard resigned as President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence on Friday, saying she must step away because her husband, Abraham, has been diagnosed with an extremely rare form of bone cancer. She will leave the role effective June 30, 20
By Friday afternoon, the resignation letter was already out of the inbox.
Tulsi Gabbard. President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence. submitted her resignation saying she needed to step back as her husband battles cancer. In the letter. which she posted on X. Gabbard said. “Unfortunately. I must submit my resignation. effective June 30. 2026.” She added that her husband. Abraham. had been diagnosed with “an extremely rare form of bone cancer.”.
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I am deeply grateful for the trust President Trump placed in me and for the opportunity to lead @ODNIgov for the last year and a half. Unfortunately, I must submit my resignation, effective June 30, 2026. My husband. Abraham. has recently been diagnosed with an extremely rare… pic.twitter.com/PS0Dxp5zpd
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) May 22. 2026
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Gabbard’s exit lands amid a period of shake-ups in Trump’s second term. She is the fourth Cabinet official to depart, following other high-profile departures that reflected growing friction and internal strain.
Before Gabbard’s resignation. there had been rumblings she could split with Trump after the president’s decision to strike Iran. an action that triggered divisions within his administration. Joe Kent. the director of the National Counterterrorism Center. had announced his resignation in March. saying he “cannot in good conscience” back the war.
Gabbard’s own political history has long been tied to opposition to foreign conflicts. A veteran and former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, she built her public profile on resisting U.S. military action abroad. That stance put her on a collision course once the U.S. joined Israel in launching attacks on Iran on Feb. 28.
During a congressional hearing in March, lawmakers focused on what the White House may have known and when. Her comments were described as careful and measured, repeatedly avoiding a direct endorsement of Trump’s decision to strike Iran. She also dodged questions about whether the White House had been warned about potential fallout from the conflict. including Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
In written remarks to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Gabbard said there had been no effort by Iran to rebuild its nuclear capability after U.S. attacks last year “obliterated” its nuclear program. That position conflicted with Trump. who has repeatedly asserted the war was necessary to head off an imminent threat from the Islamic Republic.
Those contradictions—her intelligence-level view and Trump’s public assertions—set up repeated awkward moments with lawmakers. Gabbard, pressed to offer her view on Iran’s threat as the nation’s top intelligence official, repeatedly said it was 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.
Her departure comes after Trump ousted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in late March. drawing mounting criticism over her leadership of the department. including how the administration handled its immigration crackdown and disaster response. The earlier wave of departures also included Attorney General Pam Bondi leaving in response to growing frustration over the Justice Department’s handling of files related to Jeffrey Epstein. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned in April after misconduct investigations made her a target.
Gabbard’s resignation also marks a sharp turn for a job she had once been viewed as surprising. She is a veteran but without intelligence experience, chosen to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees 18 intelligence agencies.
She ran for president in 2020 on a progressive platform and built her case around her opposition to U.S. involvement in foreign military conflicts. Citing her military experience, she argued that U.S. wars in the Middle East had destabilized the region, made the U.S. less safe, and cost thousands of American lives. She later dropped out of the race and endorsed President Joe Biden.
Two years later. she left the Democratic Party and became an independent. saying her old party was dominated by an “elitist cabal of warmongers” and “woke” ideologues. She campaigned for several high-profile Republicans and became a contributor to Fox News. She later endorsed Trump, who has similarly criticized past U.S. wars in the Middle East and campaigned on avoiding unnecessary wars and nation-building overseas.
The friction with Trump, according to the record in her tenure, began early. Shortly after taking the ODNI role. Gabbard testified before lawmakers that there was no intelligence suggesting Iran was seeking nuclear weapons. After Trump launched attacks on Iranian nuclear sites in June. Trump said Gabbard was wrong and that he didn’t care what she said.
At other points, Gabbard appeared to be in Trump’s good graces. She took a lead role in Trump’s effort to relitigate his 2020 election loss to Biden, whom Gabbard had endorsed. She also 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.
Still, earlier this week, her testimony returned to the nuclear program question. During an annual threats hearing. Gabbard said that last year’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites had “obliterated” their nuclear program and that there had been no subsequent effort to rebuild. That statement complicated Trump’s repeated assertions that Iran posed an imminent threat and led to awkward exchanges with lawmakers asking her about Iran’s threat. Again, she said it was Trump’s decision to strike, not hers.
During her time in the job. Gabbard said she would eliminate what she viewed as politicization of intelligence by government insiders. But she also used her office to support some of Trump’s partisan arguments about the 2020 election. She also worked to undermine results of earlier investigations into Trump’s ties to Russia.
Within a year. her leadership oversaw a sharp reduction in the intelligence workforce and the creation of a new task force charged with considering big changes to the intelligence service. Earlier this year. an intelligence sector whistleblower filed a complaint that Gabbard was withholding intelligence for political reasons. prompting calls from Democrats for her resignation.
Gabbard, 44, was born in the U.S. territory of American Samoa and raised in Hawaii. She spent a year of her childhood in the Philippines. She was first elected as a 21-year-old to Hawaii’s House of Representatives, leaving after one term when her National Guard unit deployed to Iraq.
She was sworn into office with her hand on the Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu devotional work. She was also the first American Samoan elected to Congress. During her four House terms, she became known for speaking out against her party’s leadership. Her early support for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 Democratic presidential primary run helped make her a popular figure in progressive politics nationally.
Whether the end of her ODNI tenure is driven only by her husband’s illness is a private matter she has now made public in the form of a resignation letter. But the timing—after months of public tension over Iran. after a broader turnover inside the administration. and after a whistleblower complaint that set off calls for her exit—ensures her departure will be read on multiple levels by lawmakers. intelligence officials. and a White House watching every staffing change more closely than usual.
Tulsi Gabbard Director of National Intelligence ODNI Trump Iran strike Abraham Gabbard cancer diagnosis resignation June 30 2026 National Counterterrorism Center Joe Kent Kristi Noem Pam Bondi Lori Chavez-DeRemer