Leader Schumer Floor Remarks Condemning The Nomination Of Tulsi Gabbard As Director Of National Intelligence

Washington, D.C. – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor condemning the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to Director of National Intelligence, urging Senate Republicans to reconsider their support for the Trump nominee and warning that her confirmation would pose significant risks to U.S. national security. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

Every single Democrat, I am proud to say, will oppose the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard because we simply cannot, in good conscience, trust our most classified secrets to someone who echoes Russian propaganda and falls for conspiracy theories.

So, before my Republican colleagues cast their vote to confirm Ms. Gabbard, I hope they’re going to think very carefully one last time because America’s safety and America’s security is at stake.

Is Ms. Gabbard really who Republicans want leading intelligence agencies? I’ll bet not.

Is she the best person we could find for the important position of Director of National Intelligence? Of all the people who know the intelligence world, I know some will be conservative like Donald Trump would want. But they wouldn't have the huge question marks about them that Ms. Gabbard has.

Do Republicans truly believe – I say to my colleagues – that someone who has so carelessly and repeatedly echoed Russian propaganda and sympathized with the likes of Putin and Assad is the right person for this job?

I ask my Republican colleagues to think about the safety of the American people, and the concerns of our allies, and the threats posed by the likes of Vladimir Putin before casting this vote.

Objectively, I think most Senators would agree there are certainly better choices to lead our national intelligence.

You know what my guess is? If we had a secret ballot, Ms. Gabbard might get ten votes for and forty against her from the other side. People know, that's why they raise so many questions. But Donald Trump and Elon Musk evidently threaten them and they're changing their view.

The Director of National Intelligence must be strong against America’s adversaries.

This is an amazing one. How could we put someone in when you hear about this? After Assad used chemical weapons against his own people in 2017 and 2018, Tulsi Gabbard turned against U.S. intelligence – by the way, at that point Donald Trump was president – and sided with fringe conspiracy theorists to cast doubt on these two specific incidents.

I want to be clear about how strange and troubling this episode was. On one side, you had the entire U.S. intelligence ecosystem, the intelligence of the French government, and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons all saying the same thing: that Assad used chemical weapons against his own people in 2017 and 2018.

The findings were not speculation, they were based on satellite imagery, witness accounts, medical experts, in other words, the kind of intelligence data that Ms. Gabbard would be responsible for evaluating if she, God forbid, gets this job.

On the other side of all these experts and all this evidence, you had Tulsi Gabbard relying on the judgment of an individual who had appeared on Russian funded propaganda outlets questioning those findings, shielding Assad for his inhumane conduct. 

I have to say, I have never heard of a DNI nominee who was so ready and willing to question the findings of America’s own intelligence operations, and yet accept Russian disinformation so easily. 

And, of course, I am troubled by her long record showing weakness against Russia when it came to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

On the night Russia invaded Ukraine and launched the first full-scale invasion of a sovereign nation in Europe since World War II, what was Ms. Gabbard doing?

She was on twitter, at 11:30 p.m. blaming NATO and the U.S. for starting the war in Ukraine when Putin invaded Ukraine.

She said the war could have been avoided had NATO and the U.S. had just accommodated Putin. That's who we want as head of national intelligence?

By the way, Russian state TV aired these comments shortly thereafter.

And now Republicans want to make this person the top U.S. intelligence chief?

Can you believe it?

I really don't believe my Republican colleagues believe she's the right choice. I really don't. I know the pressures that have been placed upon them. There's word in the newspapers and other places that people were told their elections would be opposed, et cetera. Who knows. But we do know that there was tremendous pressure on Republican senators.

But sometimes my Republican colleagues, you have to buck, and stand up to the pressure and say: no, this is the wrong choice, definitely the wrong choice, for America.

Again I'd repeat, if there were secret ballot, I would bet that Gabbard would get no more than ten votes in the senate. Ten, maybe.

So, the nomination of Ms. Gabbard is one of those moments.

So again, before Republicans cast their vote to confirm Ms. Gabbard today, please, please, please answer one simple question: do you care more about doing the right thing for our national security, or doing whatever is necessary to keep Donald Trump happy?

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