This Cabinet Member Is in Trump's Crosshairs for Iran Leak: Author
Tulsi Gabbard is on thin ice.
Michael Wolff, the Trump biographer who has long studied the president, revealed on The Daily Beast Podcast this week that the Director of National Intelligence might become the next former Director of National Intelligence if she isn't careful.
On Saturday, the U.S. launched an attack on three nuclear enrichment sites in Iran. But despite Trump's declared victory, early intelligence assessments suggest that the strikes did not destroy the facilities at all.
'It's always important in the Trump script, the fallback is always who to blame, who to blame,' Wolff told The Daily Beast's Joanna Coles. 'Just have to have someone to blame. Tulsi is in the line of fire.'
To Trump, he added, she is a 'stooge' at this point.
Reports of the still-existent nuclear sites are at odds with Trump's repeated claims that the strikes 'completely and totally obliterated' the facilities.
The leaked report became a big PR nightmare for Trump, and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN: 'This alleged assessment is flat-out wrong and was classified as 'top secret' but was still leaked to CNN by an anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community.'
But now that the assessment is available for the public to judge for themselves, Wolff said that Trump is in search of someone to throw under the bus.
'There is an investigation that is going on,' said Wolff. 'They will try to find someone to blame. Within the White House, within the West Wing, what they are saying as of this morning, who this is being pinned on, is Tulsi.'
White House staff have confirmed that the leak is already being investigated.
'President Trump's Peace through Strength foreign policy is a tried-and-true approach that keeps America safe and deters global threats,' White House Communications Director Steven Cheung told the Daily Beast in a statement. 'Efforts by the legacy media to sow internal division are a distraction that will not work. President Trump has full confidence in his entire exceptional national security team. DNI Gabbard is an important member of the President's team and her work continues to serve him and this country well.'
On Tuesday Trump raged against anyone that questioned the rocky ceasefire between Israel and Iran for which he took credit. The 79-year-old president exploded in a tirade—complete with a dropped f-bomb—against the 'fake news.'
'These networks and these cable networks are real losers. You really are,' Trump said. 'You're gutless losers. I say that to CNN.'
Wolff said that Trump was upset because he could no longer claim 'bragging rights' for solving the problem.
'What we saw... with the f-bomb, was the fact that this truce that he claimed he put in place, [that] he was the peacemaker... was coming apart. And so he was p----d,' Wolff said.
He continued: 'Believe me, in private there are many, many, many f-bombs going off. The leak of this intelligence, and the intelligence is devastating. The intelligence basically says that this was all for nothing... It accomplishes nothing.'
Instead of being a few weeks away from assembling a working nuclear device, said Wolff, Iranians are now 'a few weeks plus.'
'So this contradicts the entire narrative that he's tried to establish,' he said.
And who's to blame? Gabbard, of course.
'Trump is not going to say, 'Oh yeah, this is a problem, we have to figure this out, how to continue this campaign if we truly want to end the Iranian nuclear ambition,'' said Wolff. 'He's not going to do that. He's going to instead blame someone for the fact that this alternative and probably correct version of reality is now in the public.'
Gabbard was awkwardly snubbed by President Donald Trump this week after he dismissed her Congressional testimony that countered the administration's justification for bombing Iran.
'The intelligence community continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khomeini has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003,' she said in March.
But this month, Trump publicly slammed Gabbard when her comments resurfaced.
'I don't care what she said,' Trump said of Gabbard's comments. 'I think they were very close to having them.'
Trump later doubled down, telling reporters that Gabbard was 'wrong' about the issue.
Gabbard bowed down to Trump's assertions, quickly posting on X that the 'dishonest media is intentionally taking my testimony out of context and spreading fake news as a way to manufacture division.'
White House sources suggested that although Gabbard has directly said that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon, other parts of what she has said, including in testimony to the House Intel Committee in March, pointed to the country being very close to building one.
Gabbard's recent statements are a blatant contradiction to a post she made in January 2020 while she competed for the Democratic presidential nomination.
'To all who voted for Trump bc of his antiwar rhetoric, it's time to realize he lied to u,' she wrote. 'Stand with me against Trump's Iran War!'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fox News
7 minutes ago
- Fox News
'Big, beautiful bill' vote-a-rama is going to 'go right up to the end,' top Republican vows
All times eastern FOX News Radio Live Channel Coverage WATCH LIVE: 'Vote-a-rama' begins as senators offer amendments to Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill'
Yahoo
8 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The most surprising victim of Trump's terrible tax agenda
The Republican Party's saving grace is supposed to be its commitment to economic growth and consumer abundance. Sure, the GOP may see unemployed cancer patients as shiftless mooches — and the Lorax as literature's greatest villain — but for precisely those reasons, Republicans are allegedly able stewards of industrial development: Unconstrained by concerns about inequality, the environment, or social justice, the GOP will unleash the private sector's productive potential. Republicans won't balance Americans' hunger for cheap gasoline against their enlightened interest in cleaner air or a cooler planet — they'll get you the cheap fuel now. And they won't weigh America's stake in technological supremacy against the risks of unregulated innovation — they'll give cutting-edge companies whatever they need to achieve global dominance. At least, this is the impression that Republicans have tried to cultivate, and which voters largely bought last November. According to polling by Democratic data firm Blue Rose Research, Americans in 2024 believed that the GOP would be better than Democrats on the economy and cost of living — but worse on income inequality and the environment — and considered the former issues more important. But the GOP's priorities aren't as advertised. President Donald Trump's agenda does not ask Americans to accept a dirtier atmosphere and more inegalitarian social order in exchange for cheaper goods, faster technological progress, and national industrial dominance. Rather, it asks us to accept not only greater inequality and environmental degradation, but also, higher prices, slower technological progress, and worse industrial performance for the sake of…I'm not sure what. Perhaps the conservative movement's cultural grievances? Or Trump's odd ideological fixations? In any case, Trump has long made his disregard for affordability and economic growth plain. As of mid-June, Trump's tariffs were still poised to increase Americans' annual cost of living by $2,000 on average, while knocking 0.6 percent off of economic growth. His administration's assault on funding for scientific research, meanwhile, has undermined US tech companies. And his crackdown on immigration is both chasing top-tier talent out of the US and exacerbating labor shortages in the construction industry, thereby slowing the pace of housing and infrastructure development. Now, with his inaptly named One Big Beautiful Bill (BBB) — which is poised to clear the Senate this week — Trump is rounding out his 'worst of both worlds' agenda. Predictably, his tax cut package would exacerbate inequality, taking health care and food assistance away from poor people in order to shower tax breaks on the wealthy. And the legislation also evinces contempt for the environment, offering new subsidies to American coal producers. More remarkably, however, BBB would also increase electricity prices for consumers while undermining America's competitiveness in a range of critical sectors. Specifically, the latest version of Trump's bill aims to throttle the production of renewable energy in the US. The legislation not only phases out federal subsidies for wind and solar power by 2027, but also imposes a new excise tax on renewable projects that use inputs made in China. Since Chinese firms dominate green energy supply chains, a very high percentage of all wind and solar development in the United States would be adversely impacted by the tax. What's more, Trump's legislation would actually reinforce American green energy companies' dependence on Chinese suppliers by curtailing subsidies to domestic manufacturers of solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries. (As of this writing, some Republican senators are pushing an amendment that would strike the excise tax from the bill. But that amendment's fate is unclear. And even if it is adopted, Trump's legislation would still curtail subsidies to the solar and wind industries.) Taken together, these measures could slash the amount of new clean energy capacity added to America's grid over the next 10 years by more than 72 percent, according to an analysis from the Rhodium Group. That scarcity will translate into higher electricity costs for consumers. According to a variety of recent studies, merely ending federal tax credits for wind and solar could push up the average family's energy bill by as much as $400 per year within a decade. While increasing US households' costs, Trump's bill also reduces American firms' competitiveness in some of the world's fastest-growing industries. On one level, this is obvious. Renewables accounted for more than 90 percent of all newly added electricity generation last year. Even if America clings tightly to fossil fuels, demand for wind and solar energy is going to surge worldwide in the coming decades. If the United States actively sabotages its clean power industry, it will cede a larger share of the global energy market to China and other rival nations. Less intuitively, the BBB also undermines America's artificial intelligence industry. AI companies need vast amounts of new electricity to power their data centers. And renewables are uniquely well-suited to provide such power. At present, utilities can build wind and solar much faster than new natural gas plants, as there is a years-long backlog in the global market for natural gas turbines. Likewise, nuclear energy takes an enormous amount of time and regulatory wrangling to expand. Thus, if the federal government makes building renewables slower and more expensive, then American AI firms' progress could also be stymied. This has led some in the tech industry to criticize the bill. 'We urge the Senate to prioritize a reliable and resilient energy mix that advances AI innovation and growth and reject provisions that will harm the U.S.'s ability to compete in the global race for AI and energy dominance,' Janae Washington, a spokesperson for the Information Technology Industry Council, told the Washington Post on Sunday. Elon Musk, meanwhile, declared Saturday that 'The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country! Utterly insane and destructive. It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future.' Even one of the bill's strongest proponents — the pro-fossil fuels advocate Alex Epstein — has lamented its new tax on renewables with Chinese inputs, as has the US Chamber of Commerce. Nevertheless, as of this writing, that tax remains in the legislation. It is therefore a mistake to see Trump's agenda as prioritizing innovation over equality or affordability over the environment. The BBB doesn't concentrate wealth or degrade the climate in pursuit of some higher objective. Rather, it treats increasing inequality and boosting carbon emissions as ends in themselves — goals that it is prepared to pursue even at great cost to America industrial competitiveness and living standards.
CBS News
8 minutes ago
- CBS News
U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether shutting down Michigan pipeline is a state or federal case
The U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday it will review whether Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel's lawsuit seeking to shut down a section of an aging pipeline beneath a Great Lakes channel belongs in state court. Nessel sued in state court in June 2019 seeking to void the easement that allows the Enbridge Energy Company to operate a 4.5-mile (6.4-kilometer) section of pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac, which link Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. She won a restraining order shutting down the pipeline from Ingham County Judge James Jamo in June 2020, although Enbridge was allowed to continue operations after meeting safety requirements. The company moved the lawsuit into federal court in 2021, arguing it affects U.S. and Canadian trade. But a three-judge panel from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to Jamo in June 2024, finding that Enbridge missed a 30-day deadline to change jurisdictions. On Monday, the Supreme Court did not explain its rationale for taking up the matter. Enbridge officials said in a statement that they were encouraged by the Supreme Court's choice, noting that exceptions to the 30-day deadline exist. Nessel spokesperson Kimberly Bush said the lawsuit belongs in a Michigan court. The attorney general's lawyers have argued that the case invokes the public trust doctrine, a concept in state law holding that natural resources belong to the public. The pipeline at issue, Line 5, has moved crude oil and natural gas liquids between Superior, Wisconsin, and Sarnia, Ontario, since 1953. Concerns over the section beneath the straits rupturing and causing a catastrophic spill have been growing since 2017, when Enbridge engineers revealed they had known about gaps in the section's protective coating since 2014. A boat anchor damaged the section in 2018, intensifying fears of a spill. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources under Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer revoked the straits easement for Line 5 in 2020. Enbridge has filed a separate federal lawsuit challenging the revocation. The company is seeking permits to encase the section of pipeline beneath the straits in a protective tunnel. The Michigan Public Service Commission granted the relevant permits in 2023, but Enbridge still needs approval from from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy. The pipeline is at the center of a legal dispute in Wisconsin as well. A federal judge in Madison last summer gave Enbridge three years to shut down part of Line 5 that runs across the Bad River Band of Lake Superior's reservation. The company has proposed rerouting the pipeline around the reservation and has appealed the shutdown order to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
