Latest news with #TulsiGabbard
Bloomberg
8 hours ago
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Trump Eyes Cuts to Top Spy Agency as He Downplays Iran Intel
President Donald Trump is pressing ahead with plans to slash staff at the top US spy agency, determined to act at a time when he's openly challenged its director and rejected intelligence findings that contradict his public statements. Trump has openly discussed dismantling the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, including when he nominated Tulsi Gabbard to lead it, according to people familiar with the situation, who asked not to be identified discussing private matters. He's floated the idea again more recently, they said.
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump Eyes Cuts to Top Spy Agency as He Sweeps Aside Iran Intel
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump is pressing ahead with plans to slash staff at the top US spy agency, determined to act at a time when he's openly challenged its director and rejected intelligence findings that contradict his public statements. Philadelphia Transit System Votes to Cut Service by 45%, Hike Fares US Renters Face Storm of Rising Costs Squeezed by Crowds, the Roads of Central Park Are Being Reimagined Mapping the Architectural History of New York's Chinatown Sao Paulo Pushes Out Favela Residents, Drug Users to Revive Its City Center Trump has openly discussed dismantling the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, including when he nominated Tulsi Gabbard to lead it, according to people familiar with the situation, who asked not to be identified discussing private matters. He's floated the idea again more recently, they said. Trump and members of his cabinet also appear to be pushing Gabbard to the sideline to work with Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe on intelligence matters instead, other people familiar with the matter said. The deliberations to cut ODNI were already in motion before Trump rejected Gabbard's assessment that Iran wasn't actively seeking a nuclear bomb and then clashed with the intelligence community this week over early findings that suggested his strike on the country's nuclear sites didn't fully destroy them. The White House denied Gabbard is being sidelined. 'President Trump has full confidence in his entire exceptional national security team,' White House spokesman Steven Cheung said. 'DNI Gabbard is an important member of the President's team and her work continues to serve him and this country well.' Gabbard has already reduced staff by about 25% and has been in discussions for months with Congress to map out deeper cuts, another one of the people said. The former Democratic Congresswoman won Senate backing for the job in February in part due to her pledges to slim down the organization. Many of those existing departures at ODNI were part of Elon Musk's cost-cutting efforts with staff opting into buyouts, two of the people said. The reduction includes both ODNI officers and detailees who will be returned to their home agencies. Officials from both parties concede that the ODNI has become too bloated over the years and that the agency often duplicates work carried out by the independent intelligence agencies it oversees. At Gabbard's confirmation hearing in January, Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas who leads the intelligence committee, said the agency's staff are 'measured in the thousands, when it should be measured in the dozens, maybe a few hundred.' On Friday, Cotton introduced legislation that would cap ODNI staff at 650. While exact staffing is classified, that's a third of the estimated 2,000 people it's believed to employ now. 'Created after the September 11th attacks, ODNI was intended to be a lean organization to align America's intelligence resources and authorities, not the overstaffed and bureaucratic behemoth that it is today, where coordinators coordinate with other coordinators,' Cotton said in a statement. Listen: Here's Why Iran's Unaccounted for Uranium Worries Experts In recent weeks, Trump has said Gabbard and the intelligence community were 'wrong' about the assessment that Iran wasn't seeking a nuclear weapon. She later said she and the president were on the same page, pointing to her previous comments that Iran's enriched uranium had reached unprecedented levels. Gabbard also didn't participate in an administration briefing to lawmakers on the Iran strikes this week, according to Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat. A senior administration official declined to comment on why she didn't attend the Iran briefing but said the media was turning the issue into something it wasn't. That briefing came about after the White House slammed the leak of a preliminary report from the Defense Intelligence Agency that said strikes on Iran's nuclear facility may not have been as extensive as Trump claimed. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted on X Tuesday that the intelligence finding of limited impact was 'flat-out wrong.' The confrontation with the intelligence community has echoes of Trump's first term when his antagonistic comments were largely driven by the agencies' warnings that Russia meddled in the 2016 election in his favor. He accused the 'deep state' of being 'weaponized' against him and his allies. In 2018, he sided with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his own agencies' assessments of Moscow's election interference. Gabbard has had her own clashes with the intelligence community and has sought to root out 'politicization' by referring intelligence officers for prosecution over alleged leaks of classified information. Two top officials from the National Intelligence Council were reportedly fired in May after the release of a declassified memo that contradicted Trump's basis for deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members. 'The contentious relationship never went away,' Larry Pfeiffer, a former senior CIA officer now leading the Michael V. Hayden Center at George Mason University, said of Trump. 'He just does not fundamentally trust people in the intel community. He thinks they're out to get him.' Unlike with the National Security Council — which the White House dramatically shrank overnight in May — Trump could face challenges in unilaterally closing down ODNI which was created by Congress after intelligence failures following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Jane Harman, a former Democratic congresswoman from California who helped lead the legislation that established ODNI in 2004, said she would welcome 'an intelligent effort' to reform the size of the staff, but warned that being able to coordinate across government was particularly important in the aftermath of Trump's strikes on Iran. 'We need the biggest lens we could have with different disciplines all working and coordinated together,' she said. 'Having a way to connect the dots is still valid.' America's Top Consumer-Sentiment Economist Is Worried How to Steal a House Inside Gap's Last-Ditch, Tariff-Addled Turnaround Push Apple Test-Drives Big-Screen Movie Strategy With F1 Luxury Counterfeiters Keep Outsmarting the Makers of $10,000 Handbags ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Melden Sie sich an, um Ihr Portfolio aufzurufen.
Bloomberg
20 hours ago
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Trump Eyes Cuts to Top Spy Agency as He Sweeps Aside Iran Intel
President Donald Trump is pressing ahead with plans to slash staff at the top US spy agency, determined to act at a time when he's openly challenged its director and rejected intelligence findings that contradict his public statements. Trump has openly discussed dismantling the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, including when he nominated Tulsi Gabbard to lead it, according to people familiar with the situation, who asked not to be identified discussing private matters. He's floated the idea again more recently, they said.
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Republican senators propose slashing size of Gabbard's intel office
Tulsi Gabbard is facing another blow after President Donald Trump sidelined her during the Iran nuclear strikes. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas , the Republican chairman of the Intelligence Committee, has proposed legislation to slash the size of her agency in half. 'ODNI was intended to be a lean organization to align America's intelligence resources and authorities, not the overstaffed and bureaucratic behemoth that it is today,' he said in a statement announcing his proposal. Cotton's bill - if passed - would provide a sweeping overhaul of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), including cutting its staff from 1,600 to 650. It would also shutter the National Intelligence University, a federally chartered research university dedicated to national security. There are indications Trump would sign it into law. He's privately mulled scrapping the ODNI because of his frustrations with Gabbard, The Atlantic reported . And that would hamper Gabbard's political ambitions. Her allies told the magazine that Gabbard sees the director of national intelligence role as a stepping stone to a second run for the presidency after her failed attempt as a Democrat in 2020. Trump has had an uneasy relationship with Gabbard, particularly after she posted a video to social media earlier this month describing her visit to Hiroshima, Japan , and warning of the dangerous threat of a nuclear war. The president berated her for the video, reported The New York Times, saying that a discussion of nuclear annihilation would scare people and she shouldn't discuss it. That meant Gabbard was already on thin ice when Trump began to look at striking Iran's nuclear sites. She had privately expressed concern about the fears of a wider war. And Trump flat out said 'she's wrong' when he was asked about Gabbard's testimony in March that Iran had not decided to build a nuclear weapon. While Gabbard was in the Situation Room during the strike, she became sidelined in the aftermath of the attack. And Gabbard didn't join the classified intelligence briefing for senators on Thursday nor did she join the one for House members on Friday. Her defenders say she is still doing important work for the administration. She has publicly supported the airstrike and she has defended Trump's declaration that Iran's nuclear capabilities were destroyed. 'New intelligence confirms what @POTUS has stated numerous times: Iran's nuclear facilities have been destroyed,' she wrote on X. But that doesn't mean the two are close. Her position in Trump's world was precarious from the start, given her position. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is a smaller agency with a short-lived history. It was created to improve coordination among U.S. spy agencies after the September 11 attacks.
Associated Press
a day ago
- Politics
- Associated Press
Dr. K. A. Paul, the World's Most Popular Evangelist and Nobel Peace Prize Nominee has called for the Impeachment of Trump and Netanyahu for War Crimes
The following is an open letter from Dr. K.A. Paul, a world-renowned evangelist and politician. He is the founder of the US-based organizations Global Peace Initiative (GPI) and Gospel to the Unreached Millions (GUM) and has operated orphanages, including Charity City in Hyderabad. NEW YORK, June 27, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- My dear friend in the Media and fellow citizens of the world, after much prayer I am coming before you. I just heard prime minister Netanyahu's speech which is most boastful and foolish speech ever given by any world leader, though I have met and counselled 155 of the 197. In his speech like a Savior as if he has accomplished a great mission by killing 3 Iranian chiefs dozens of scientists and experts, while starving a million poor people in Gaza to death. Is it not against God's law to kill? against the United Nations charter to wage a war against another country? For a powerful video message President Trump said last week that Tulsi Gabbard the Director of US intelligence is wrong about Iran not having the nuclear weapons but why did he did not fire her? Was not legendary Secretary of State Colin Powell used in 2002 by then US President George W. Bush to lie about Iraq weapons of mass destruction? So who is correct here? US intelligence or Trump or Netanyahu? as per the Washington Post Trump lied or misled 30573 times in 4 years. Netanyahu an ICC convicted war criminal acting like Hitler for which the 60% of the Israelis are not supporting his policies . Trump committed an impeachable offense as per the US Constitution to take the US to war without Congress approval therefore he will be the first in US history to be impeached for third time. While bombing Iran mistreating world leaders like Zelensky behaving like a baby for the Nobel Peace Prize. Let us pray for all 56 wars to be stopped and trillions of dollars not to be wasted killing millions of lives. All media reporters please share this message until we reach all the Peace lovers of the World. Blessed are the Peace Makers and cursed are the War Mongers. About Dr Paul: Please click the link below to read the Norway News story that explains in detail his global peace and humanitarian work around the world. Since 1981, he has travelled to 155 countries, conducted 2200 peace rallies, rescued 310 thousand orphans and street children, and counselled 155 world leaders. He has been credited for stopping several wars including Liberia in 2003 and the India and Pakistan war in 2002. His mission had been reported by many news media including AP, Reuters, BBC, CNN, Fox, NBC, CBS, and MSNBC. For more information call or text 3468126546 Email: [email protected] View original content: SOURCE Global Peace Initiative
