Tulsi Gabbard resigned as President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence on Friday, telling Trump she will leave office on June 30 after her husband was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer. Aaron Lukas will serve as acting director of nationa
Tulsi Gabbard’s resignation landed on a Friday and turned quickly into a personnel shift at the top of the U.S. intelligence system.
Gabbard, President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence, said she needed to step away from the job as her husband battles cancer. She posted her resignation letter on social media, writing that she told Trump she would leave office on June 30.
In the letter, Gabbard said her husband had recently been diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer and “faces major challenges in the coming weeks and months.” “At this time, I must step away from public service to be by his side and fully support him through this battle,” she wrote.
Trump announced her departure in a social media post, saying “Tulsi has done an incredible job, and we will miss her.” He named her principal deputy, Aaron Lukas, to serve as acting director of national intelligence.
The timing also lands in the middle of a broader reshuffling of Trump’s government. Gabbard is the fourth Cabinet official to leave during Trump’s second term.
Her exit comes as questions already linger around how the director of national intelligence navigates conflicts with a president who has repeatedly challenged her views on major issues—especially Iran—and how the job’s mandate overlaps with the politics of an administration in flux.
Trump’s Iran decision, and the intelligence role
Before she stepped down, Gabbard’s tenure was marked by repeated friction with Trump over whether Iran faced an imminent nuclear threat and how the intelligence community should be interpreted.
During a congressional hearing in March. Gabbard’s comments stood out for their careful non-endorsement of 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.
In written remarks to the Senate Intelligence Committee. she said there had been no effort by Iran to rebuild its nuclear capability after U.S. attacks last year “obliterated” its nuclear program. That statement contradicted Trump. who has repeatedly asserted that the war was necessary to head off an imminent threat from the Islamic Republic.
Those differing positions produced tense exchanges with lawmakers asking for her assessment as the nation’s top intelligence official. Gabbard said the decision-making responsibility belonged to the president, not the intelligence agencies.
“It is not the intelligence community’s responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat,” she said.
Earlier in the second term. lawmakers and observers had already seen signs that the relationship between Gabbard and Trump could be difficult. Shortly after taking on the ODNI role—an office created after the Sept. 11. 2001. attacks to improve coordination among the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies—Gabbard testified that there was no intelligence suggesting Iran was seeking to develop nuclear weapons. After Trump launched attacks on Iranian nuclear sites in June. he said Gabbard was wrong and that he didn’t care what she said.
At one point. Gabbard appeared to regain Trump’s favor when she took a lead role in Trump’s effort to relitigate his 2020 election loss to Biden. whom she endorsed. She appeared at an FBI search of election offices in Fulton County. Georgia. despite her office being created to focus on foreign espionage rather than state elections.
But earlier this week. Gabbard testified again during an annual threats hearing 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. Her statement complicated Trump’s repeated assertions that Iran posed an imminent threat and sparked more awkward exchanges with lawmakers seeking her views.
A role reshaped—and a career built elsewhere
Gabbard’s resignation also closes a chapter of rapid change inside the intelligence leadership structure that she arrived at largely without an intelligence background.
A veteran and former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, Gabbard built her political profile on opposing foreign wars. She was also a surprising choice to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees 18 intelligence agencies.
She had run for president in 2020 on a progressive platform and opposed U.S. involvement in foreign military conflicts. Citing her military experience, she argued that wars in the Middle East destabilized the region, made the U.S. less safe, and cost thousands of American lives. After dropping out, she endorsed President 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 campaigned for several high-profile Republicans and later became a contributor to Fox News. She then endorsed Trump, who had criticized past U.S. wars in the Middle East and campaigned on a pledge to avoid unnecessary wars and nation-building overseas.
In her first year leading ODNI. Gabbard pledged to eliminate politicization of intelligence by government insiders—but she also used her office in ways that backed some of Trump’s partisan arguments about the 2020 election. She also worked to undermine the results of earlier investigations into Trump’s ties to Russia.
Her tenure included 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 alleging that Gabbard was withholding intelligence for political reasons. That complaint prompted calls from Democrats for her resignation.
Who will take over
With Gabbard leaving effective June 30, Trump has put Aaron Lukas in the acting role.
Lukas is Gabbard’s principal deputy. During Trump’s first term. he had been an intelligence aide to the acting director of national intelligence. Ric Grenell. in 2020. He is also described as a former policy analyst at the Cato Institute. a libertarian think tank. and he served as deputy senior director for Europe and Russia at the National Security Council in the final year of Trump’s previous administration.
He will now be tasked with holding together a leadership structure during a period when the administration has already been forced to replace multiple top officials.
A second-term pattern of departures
Gabbard’s departure follows Trump having ousted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in late March, a step taken amid mounting criticism of her leadership of the department—including its 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. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned in April after being the target of various misconduct investigations.
Gabbard at a glance
Gabbard is 44. She was born in the U.S. territory of American Samoa, raised in Hawaii, and spent a year of her childhood in the Philippines.
She was first elected to Hawaii’s House of Representatives at age 21. then left after one term when her National Guard unit deployed to Iraq. As the first Hindu member of the House. 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 terms in the House, she became known for speaking out against her party’s leadership. Her early support for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s 2016 Democratic presidential primary made her a popular figure in progressive politics nationally.
In the end. the resignation letter and Trump’s announcement made the reason clear: personal necessity. driven by her husband’s cancer diagnosis. But the question of what happens next—inside ODNI and in the relationship between intelligence leadership and presidential decisions—may not be answered on June 30. even if the job changes hands then.
Tulsi Gabbard Director of National Intelligence ODNI Donald Trump Aaron Lukas Iraq Iran nuclear program June 30 resignation Cabinet resignations
June 30?? so like halfway through the year stuff changes again.
I mean, cancer is awful, so respect for stepping away. But also why is her husband being diagnosed now of all times and she resigns right after Trump posts about it.
Acting director Aaron Lukas… isn’t that one of those people who keeps saying “it’s classified” while everyone assumes the worst? Acting roles always feel temporary until they’re not. Either way the intelligence system can’t just do musical chairs every time someone’s family gets sick, right?
Wait so she’s resigning because of her husband’s rare bone cancer but she’s already been around politics for years, like she just realized now? Also “rare form” sounds like the kind of thing people mention when they don’t want to say the real reason, idk. Sad for her family though, truly, just seems like a lot all at once.