Tulsi Gabbard resigns as director of national intelligence, citing husband’s health

Tulsi Gabbard resigned as President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence on Friday (May 22, 2026), saying she needed to step away as her husband battles cancer. She is the fourth Cabinet official to depart during Mr. Trump’s second term. In her resignation letter, which she posted on social media, Ms. Gabbard said she told Mr. Trump she would leave office on June 30. She 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 in the letter, which was earlier reported by Fox News. Trump, in his own social media post announcing her resignation, said: “Tulsi has done an incredible job, and we will miss her.” He said her principal deputy, Aaron Lukas, will serve as acting director of national intelligence. During Mr. Trump’s first term, Mr. Lukas served as an intelligence aide to the acting director of national intelligence, Ric Grenell, in 2020. A former policy analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, he also served as deputy senior director for Europe and Russia at the Security Council in the final year of Mr. Trump’s previous administration. There had been rumblings that Ms. Gabbard would split with Mr. Trump after the President’s decision to strike Iran, which caused some division within his administration. Joe Kent, the director of the Counterterrorism Center, announced his resignation in March, saying he “cannot in good conscience” back the war. Today, with great humility and sincere appreciation, I shared the below letter with President Trump. It has been a profound honor to serve the American people as DNI. pic.twitter.com/p7AZ4wa9Yi — DNI Tulsi Gabbard (@DNIGabbard) May 22, 2026 Gabbard, a veteran and former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, built her political name on her opposition to foreign wars. This put her in an awkward position when the U.S. joined Israel in launching attacks on Iran on February 28. During a congressional hearing in March, her measured comments were notable for their careful non-endorsement of Mr. 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. Gabbard said in written remarks to the Senate Intelligence Committee that 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 Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly asserted that the war was necessary to head off an imminent threat from the Islamic Republic. This created several awkward exchanges with lawmakers who asked Ms. Gabbard for her opinion on the threat posed by Iran as the nation’s top intelligence official. She repeatedly said it was Mr. 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. Gabbard’s departure follows Mr. Trump having ousted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in late March, in the midst of mounting criticism over her leadership of the department, including the 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. And Labour Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned in April, after being the target of various misconduct investigations. A surprising choice for the job A veteran but without any intelligence experience, Ms. Gabbard was a surprising choice to head the Office of the Director of Intelligence, which oversees the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies. She ran for president in 2020 on a progressive platform and her opposition to U.S. involvement in foreign military conflicts. Citing her military experience, she argued that U.S. wars in West Asia had destabilised the region, made the U.S. less safe, and cost thousands of American lives. Ms. Gabbard later dropped out of the race and endorsed the ultimate winner, 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 subsequently campaigned for several high-profile Republicans and became a contributor to Fox News. She later endorsed Mr. Trump, who was also a strong critic of past U.S. wars in West Asia and campaigned on a pledge to avoid unnecessary wars and nation-building overseas. Iran caused early tensions But friction with the president started soon after he began his second term and tapped Ms. Gabbard to lead ODNI, which was set up after the September 11, 2001, attacks to improve coordination between the nation’s intelligence agen