Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard speaks at a press conference at the White House on July 23, 2025 in Washington, DC, USA.
Kent Nishimura | Reuters
Tulsi Gabbard will resign as President Donald Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, the agency announced Friday, becoming the latest Cabinet member to leave the administration.
In her resignation letter to Trump, Gabbard said she had to step down to support her husband, Abraham Williams, who was “recently diagnosed with an extremely rare form of bone cancer.”
A letter from Tulsi Gabbard announcing her resignation.
Provided by: White House
“I cannot in good conscience ask him to fight this fight alone while I continue in this difficult and time-consuming position,” she said in a letter dated Friday.
Her resignation is effective June 30, she wrote.
President Trump acknowledged late Friday that Gabbard would be leaving office “unfortunately,” writing in a post on Truth Social that she “did a great job and we will miss her.”
In the post, Trump wrote that Aaron Lucas, deputy chief of staff for national intelligence, would serve as acting deputy to replace Gabbard.
Fox News first reported Gabbard’s resignation.
Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii who fell out with her party and later joined the Republican Party, was confirmed as director of national intelligence less than a month after President Trump’s second term began. As DNI, she led the U.S. Intelligence Community, a vast coalition of 18 agencies and organizations.
Her tenure was marked by reports of behind-the-scenes clashes with Trump and other administration officials, which at times appeared to spill into the public domain.
Gabbard, a military veteran who served in the Middle East, supported Trump on anti-interventionism grounds in 2024, praising him as a peace seeker while criticizing former Democratic President Joe Biden for conflicts that started during his term.
Last summer, as President Trump pursued a strike to disable Iran’s nuclear capabilities, Gabbard released an unusual video warning of “warmongers who inadvertently stoke fear and tension among nuclear-armed states.”
The video infuriated President Trump, Politico reported at the time. Later that month, when asked about Gabbard’s Senate testimony that Iran was not trying to build a nuclear bomb, Trump said, “I don’t care what she said,” then said, “She’s wrong.”
Gabbard also came under scrutiny for appearing in an FBI raid on Georgia election offices in late January that led to the seizure of 2020 election records. Mr. Trump has for years falsely claimed that the 2020 election he lost to Mr. Biden was fraudulent.
Gabbard’s resignation announcement expands the list of senior Trump administration officials who have resigned or been fired so far this year.
Just over a month ago, Lori Chavez Delemer resigned as Labor Secretary to take an unspecified job in the private sector.
In early April, President Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was under pressure over her handling of matters involving notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. She was replaced by Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer.
President Trump fired Kristi Noem, who heads the Department of Homeland Security, in March following a national controversy related to the handling of aggressive immigration enforcement policies in American cities.
