Tulsi Gabbard Resigns as Director of National Intelligence

US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced Friday that she will resign from her post, citing her husband’s recent diagnosis with a rare form of bone cancer.

Gabbard said her resignation will take effect on June 30. President Donald Trump said her deputy, Aaron Lukas, will serve as acting director.

“My husband, Abraham, has recently been diagnosed with an extremely rare form of bone cancer,” Gabbard wrote in a resignation letter posted on X. “He 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.”

Trump praised Gabbard after the announcement, writing that she had “done an incredible job” and that she “rightfully” wanted to be with her husband during his treatment.

A source familiar with the matter told Reuters that Gabbard had been forced out by the White House. A White House spokesperson said she was leaving because of her husband’s diagnosis.

Gabbard’s departure ends a tense tenure at the top of the US intelligence community. A former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, Iraq war veteran and longtime critic of US foreign interventions, she was a surprising choice to lead the country’s intelligence apparatus after Trump returned to office in 2025.

Her anti-interventionist record created friction as Trump moved toward war with Iran. Gabbard was reportedly left out of key decision-making meetings before the US-Israeli strikes on Iran began on February 28, and later declined to fully endorse the administration’s claim that Iran posed an imminent threat.

During congressional testimony, she said the decision to determine what constituted an imminent threat was the president’s responsibility. She also said US intelligence had assessed that Iran was not rebuilding nuclear enrichment capabilities destroyed in earlier US and Israeli strikes, a position that appeared to conflict with some of the administration’s public arguments.

Trump publicly dismissed one of her assessments last year, telling reporters, “I don’t care what she said,” after Gabbard told Congress that Iran was not seeking to build a nuclear weapon.

Gabbard’s top aide, Joe Kent, also left the administration earlier this year over the Iran war, urging Trump to “reverse course.”

As director of national intelligence, Gabbard oversaw coordination among US intelligence agencies and advised the president. She also moved to shrink the intelligence community, saying it had become “bloated and inefficient.”

She is the fourth cabinet-level official to leave Trump’s second administration this year.