Trump's Disagreeing With Tulsi Gabbard and the Intel Community Isn't New or Shocking

Matt Vespa | June 20, 2025 7:00 PM

I’m sorry, I’d also be highly skeptical of any intelligence that suggests Iran wasn’t in the process of making nuclear weapons. It’s also total bunk that Iran would push ever so hard to create one if the US Air Force dropped a bunker buster on Fordow, the nuclear facility that’s a half-mile underground. We have a lot of fake news and unconfirmed garbage out there. Yet, there does appear to be a split between the president and the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, over this issue. Trump flat-out said that Gabbard was wrong (via CBS News):

🚨@POTUS clears things UP:

Reporter: "What evidence do you have that Iran's building a weapon? Your intelligence community said they have no evidence that they are."

Trump: "My intelligence community is wrong. Who said that?"

Reporter: "Tulsi Gabbard."

Trump: "She's wrong." pic.twitter.com/mml0cWP8AB
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) June 20, 2025

President Trump on Friday said his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was "wrong" when she testified in March that Iran wasn't building a nuclear weapon, marking the second time in a week the president has dismissed the assessment of the intelligence director he selected.
The White House this week said Iran has everything it needs to build a nuclear weapon and needs only the green light from Iran's supreme leader, with the ability to ready a nuclear weapon within weeks. Mr. Trump said Iran was "very close to having" a nuclear weapon.
In March, Gabbard testified on Capitol Hill that the U.S. "continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003." Gabbard later insisted she and the president are on the same page.
Mr. Trump dismissed his intelligence community's public assessment of Iran on Friday, and Gabbard specifically, as the White House says the president will decide whether to join Israel in its strikes on Iran within two weeks.

The Iranians, who played us with Obama’s nuclear deal, doesn’t want atomic weapons—please. Sorry, but you don’t need to be in the intelligence community to know that’s wrong. It’s an issue that is now bound to create a little drama, as some MAGA accounts might side with the intelligence community, which has lied before, over Trump vis-à-vis Iran. It’s nothing new, folks. The intelligence community can be wrong. Their abilities are forever suspect over the Russian collusion hoax and the serial leaks during the first Trump presidency. It’s the same group of spooks who thought the Bay of Pigs operation would be successful. They also said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and led us into a war that turned out to be a fool’s errand. The intelligence and the people drafting the reports can be wrong. It’s not a new story.