President Donald Trump has privately raised concerns about Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard's leadership and sought input from Cabinet members on whether to replace her, according to a Newsmax report citing a Guardian investigation published Thursday. The reported discussions have unfolded over recent weeks, driven by internal disputes over intelligence assessments tied to the administration's military actions against Iran.
No final decision has been made. Advisers cautioned that Trump has not settled on Gabbard's future, and no clear replacement has emerged. But the fact that a sitting president is polling his own Cabinet about removing his intelligence director signals real friction, not routine personnel management.
The tensions trace back to the administration's justification for military operations against Iran. Trump and his national security team argued that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States. Not everyone in the intelligence community agreed, and the disagreements spilled into public view when National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent resigned after publicly breaking with the administration's position on that threat.
Kent's departure was the first visible crack. The Associated Press reported that his resignation reflected divisions within the intelligence community over the Iran assessment. Trump sharply criticized Kent, calling his exit "a good thing." But the damage didn't stop there.
Sources cited by The Guardian indicated that Gabbard appeared to defend Kent or, at minimum, failed to strongly back the administration's justification for the Iran operation. That posture reportedly drew Trump's private frustration. For a president who expects loyalty on core national security decisions, a DNI who hedges on the central rationale for military action is a problem, regardless of how the disagreement is framed.
Whether Kent left voluntarily or was pushed out remains a matter of dispute. As previously reported, a former Trump aide suggested Kent was about to be fired before his resignation became official.
Gabbard, for her part, moved to align herself publicly with the president. In a March 17 post on X, she underscored that Trump was "overwhelmingly elected" and is responsible for determining threats and taking action to protect the nation.
"After carefully reviewing all the information before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent threat."
That statement read less like a DNI offering an independent intelligence judgment and more like a political appointee deferring to her boss. Whether that posture satisfies Trump or merely confirms his doubts about her effectiveness remains an open question.
The White House defended Gabbard's work and pointed to the administration's broader national security successes. Trump himself offered a measured public response, saying he has confidence in Gabbard while acknowledging differences in their views. The exact wording of those statements was not detailed in reporting.
That careful public posture, expressing confidence while privately canvassing the Cabinet, is a pattern familiar to anyone who has watched this administration manage personnel. Trump has shown a preference in his second term for reassigning officials rather than dismissing them outright, a softer approach than the blunt firings that marked his first term.
But reassignment and outright removal are different flavors of the same conclusion: the person in the job isn't getting it done. And the broader context makes clear that Gabbard is not the only Cabinet-level official whose position has come under scrutiny. Multiple recent reports indicate Trump has also considered replacing Attorney General Pam Bondi with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin.
The reported deliberations over Gabbard fit a larger pattern. Trump has already moved to replace Kristi Noem at the Department of Homeland Security with Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a decision that came as Republican frustration with DHS leadership boiled over. Kent's exit from the National Counterterrorism Center added another name to the list.
The common thread is not ideology. Kent, Gabbard, and Noem are all Trump loyalists who earned their appointments through demonstrated support for the president's agenda. The issue in each case has been execution, alignment on specific policy decisions, or both.
For Gabbard, the execution question is particularly pointed. The Director of National Intelligence sits atop a sprawling intelligence community that has spent years resisting political direction from both parties. Managing that bureaucracy requires a combination of institutional credibility and political skill. If Trump's private concerns are as described, he may have concluded that Gabbard lacks one or both.
Kent's resignation as counterterrorism director over the Iran strikes showed how quickly internal disagreements can become public embarrassments. A DNI who cannot prevent, or at least contain, those ruptures is a liability, not an asset.
Even as her own position reportedly came under review, Gabbard was making aggressive personnel moves of her own. AP News reported that Gabbard fired two senior National Intelligence Council officials, acting chair Mike Collins and deputy Maria Langan-Riekhof, both veteran intelligence professionals with more than 25 years of experience. Gabbard's office said the two were dismissed because of their opposition to President Trump, but did not provide specific examples.
The firings came roughly a week after a declassified National Intelligence Council memo found no coordination between Venezuela's government and the Tren de Aragua gang, a finding that contradicted a rationale the Trump administration had used for deportations of Venezuelan illegal immigrants.
Gabbard's office framed the dismissals as part of a broader effort to root out politicization. "The director is working alongside President Trump to end the weaponization and politicization of the intelligence community," her office said. Rep. Jim Himes offered a sharply different reading: "Absent evidence to justify the firings, the workforce can only conclude that their jobs are contingent on producing analysis that is aligned with the President's political agenda, rather than truthful and apolitical."
That tension, between a DNI who fires career officials for alleged disloyalty and a president who privately questions whether that same DNI is loyal enough, captures the dysfunction at the heart of this story.
No replacement for Gabbard has surfaced publicly. Advisers say no final decision has been made. Trump's public statements have stopped short of the kind of direct criticism that typically precedes a firing.
But the private canvassing of Cabinet members is not something a president does when he is satisfied with a subordinate's performance. It is the bureaucratic equivalent of measuring the drapes. The question is not whether Trump has concerns about Gabbard, the reporting makes that plain, but whether those concerns will translate into action, and when.
The transition at DHS offers a template. When Trump moved Mullin into the DHS role, the process moved quickly once the decision was made, with the new secretary sworn in shortly after.
Gabbard's situation is different in one important respect. The DNI oversees the entire intelligence community. Replacing that official mid-crisis, while the administration is managing military operations tied to Iran, carries risks that go beyond politics. A leadership vacuum at the top of the intelligence apparatus, even a temporary one, is something no president wants.
That practical reality may be the strongest argument for Gabbard's survival. Not that she has earned Trump's full confidence, but that the cost of removing her right now may outweigh the cost of keeping her.
In Washington, that kind of reprieve rarely lasts. A president who asks his Cabinet whether to fire you has already answered the question, he just hasn't picked the date.
