Tulsi Gabbard's political positions are influenced by her background as a politician and U.S. military officer. Gabbard served in the United States Congress from 2013 to 2021. She has been serving in the U.S. military since 2003, when she joined the Hawaii Army National Guard, and was deployed to Iraq. In 2020, she transferred to the U.S. Army Reserve and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel in 2021. Gabbard was a member of the Democratic Party until 2022, after which she became independent until joining the Republican Party in 2024.
Gabbard has made foreign policy an important part of her worldview. Previously, Gabbard advocated for a significantly reduced U.S. international presence that has been characterized as non-interventionism. Gabbard has been a five-year "term member" of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Gabbard has maintained a strong position against terrorism. She supported the military campaign to defeat Islamic extremism but opposed the U.S. intervention in the Syrian civil war. Gabbard has cautioned against American interventionism abroad in the long-term "regime change wars".
During her tenure in Congress, she served on the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. In her fourth term, Gabbard also served on the HASC Subcommittee on Intelligence, which oversaw military intelligence and counterterrorism. In 2022, Gabbard left the Democratic Party to become "Independent", and shifted several positions closer to the Republican party, including abortion; environmental policy, gun control and the participation of trans women in women's sports. In 2022, she was a featured speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
In 2024, Gabbard joined the Republican Party and endorsed Donald Trump for the 2024 United States presidential election. After Trump nominated Gabbard for director of national intelligence (DNI), her past statements on Syria, Russia and Ukraine drew scrutiny and concern. However, many veterans and Republicans defended her record, and she was confirmed by the Senate.
In 2026, Gabbard stated that Iran posed a long-term threat because it could enhance its ballistic missile program to develop an ICBM over the next decade. Gabbard asserted that adversarial countries, such as Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan have been developing advanced missile delivery systems that can pose a threat to the U.S. homeland.
Foreign policy Gabbard describes herself as both a hawk and a dove on the topic of foreign policy and foreign relations: She has said that such wars "undermine our national security and … actually increase the suffering of people in the countries where we wage them." Asked if there were any wars that justified the use of US military force, Gabbard said there are "very few examples", such as World War II. When asked about her coverage in the mainstream media, Gabbard has said: "We have seen for a long time how the mainstream media has been complicit in further pushing and pursuing the foreign policy establishment narrative."
Counterterrorism and Islamic extremism
Gabbard considers herself a hawk on war on terror. She favors a "very limited use of drones" in situations where the "military is not able to get in without creating an unacceptable level of risk."
Gabbard criticized the Obama administration for "refusing" to say that "Islamic extremists" are waging a war against the United States. She has said it was Al-Qaeda who "attacked us on 9/11" and it is they who "must be defeated." She continued: "Obama won't bomb them in Syria. Putin did."
In 2016, Gabbard spoke out against Islamism, stating "The ideology shared by ISIS, Al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist organizations is Islamism. Distinct from the religion of Islam, Islamism is a radical political ideology of violent jihad aimed at establishing a totalitarian society governed by laws based on a particular interpretation of Islam."
On December 20, 2019, the Stop Arming Terrorists Act that she introduced in 2017 became law as part of National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, § 1228 to prohibit the Department of Defense from "knowingly providing weapons or any other form of support to Al Qaeda, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, the Islamic State" or other terrorist groups or individual or groups affiliated with any such organization.
Gabbard's views on Islamic terrorism have distinguished her from many mainstream Democrats. In 2015 she met with U.S.-backed Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to discuss "the threat of ISIS and Islamic extremist groups". She has advocated increasing pressure on Pakistan to stop terrorist attacks and expressed "solidarity with India" in reference to the 2016 Uri attack. Gabbard has said she is mindful that most Muslims are not extremist, but has criticised Obama and Hillary Clinton for not acknowledging the threat posed by radical Islam.
Nuclear weapons and arms race Gabbard co-sponsored legislation that would prohibit the first-use of nuclear weapons.
Gabbard decries powerful politicians who "beat the drums of war and ratchet up tensions" between the U.S. and nuclear-armed countries", dragging the country toward a New Cold War arms race, thereby bringing "the front lines … to our doorstep, as we sit on the precipice of nuclear war." She notes that nuclear strategists say "we are at a greater risk of nuclear war than we ever have been before."
Gabbard has introduced legislation to prevent the use of taxpayer dollars for weapons that violate the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and has expressed disappointment no moderators at the Democratic presidential primary debates have "raised the issues or asked a question related to the most existential threat we face in this country."
Threats from missile programs In March 2026, the director of national intelligence, Gabbard, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee and noted that U.S. intelligence agencies aim to deter U.S. adversaries from developing nuclear-capable weapons and missile programs. She said that Iran "could" combine technology from its existing space program with its missile development capabilities to "begin to develop" an intercontinental ballistic missile "before 2035, should Tehran attempt to pursue that capability."
Gabbard noted that several adversarial countries are developing elaborate missile programs that may pose a threat to the U.S. homeland, stating, "The intelligence community assesses that Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and Pakistan have been researching and developing an array of novel, advanced or traditional missile delivery systems with nuclear and conventional payloads that put our homeland within range." Further, she cautioned that China and Russia had systems "capable of penetrating or bypassing U.S. missile defenses," while North Korea's missiles could already reach U.S. soil, and Pakistan's missiles "potentially" could as well.
Regime change interventions In a 2018 interview with The Intercept, Gabbard said U.S. efforts at regime change "have ended up worse off for the people of those countries and have been counterproductive to the interests of the American people." The Intercept described her as "an outspoken critic of U.S. involvement in the Middle East from the disastrous Iraq War to NATO's 2011 intervention in Libya that followed Arab Spring protests against the brutal regime of Moammar Gadhafi." She has also called for an end to the nearly two-decades-long U.S. war in Afghanistan. In her February 2, 2019 campaign launch, Gabbard called on everyone to take a stand against what she described as the "neolibs and neocons" from both parties promoting regime change.
According to Rolling Stone columnist Matt Taibbi, Gabbard's position is "not as has been represented in most press accounts. … She's not an isolationist. She's simply opposed to bombing the crap out of, and occupying, foreign countries for no apparent positive strategic objective, beyond enriching contractors".
Displacement of civilians On November 17, 2015, Gabbard, as one of the Hawaii legislators remarking on Gov. David Ige's support of President Obama's commitment to accept refugees from Syria, said "I'm currently … doing my due diligence on this vetting process … from the appropriate departments, from the Homeland Security, the intelligence community, and so on and so forth. The most humane thing we can do [regarding Syria] is stop creating new refugees."
On November 19, 2015, Gabbard sponsored with Austin Scott (R-GA) (also a member of the House Armed Services Committee), H.R. 4108, a bipartisan bill to end U.S. efforts to overthrow the Syrian Arab Republic led by President Bashar al-Assad. Gabbard said that "The war to overthrow Assad is counter-productive because it actually helps ISIS and other Islamic extremists achieve their goal of overthrowing the Syrian government of Assad and taking control of all of Syria—which will simply increase human suffering in the region, exacerbate the refugee crisis."
On January 26, 2017, in response to reports President Trump was expected to order a temporary ban on refugees, Gabbard commented "[W]e must address the root cause that is making people flee their homes— regime-change wars." In subsequent comments, she added that in Syria she had met with pastors who described intense suffering: "The reality of a genocide against religious minorities is very real".
In March 2017, in response to President Trump's announcement of a newly revised blanket ban of refugees, Gabbard said "[W]e must address the cause of this refugee crisis and end the destructive U.S. policy of counterproductive regime-change wars, as we've seen most recently in Iraq, Libya, and now in Syria."
Refugees In March, 2013, Gabbard joined with ten other Democratic and eight Republican representatives in a letter to President Obama asking that he "extend and reform visa programs for Iraqi and Afghan allies … who have risked their lives to aid our troops and protect America's security, … as federal agencies have issued only a fraction of the visas that Congress originally authorized."
In September, 2015, Gabbard sponsored with Duncan Hunter (R-CA), a bill "[r]ecognizing the persecution of religious and ethnic minorities, especially Christians and Yezidis by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), also known as Daesh, and calling for the immediate prioritization of accepting refugees from such communities." Gabbard noted these "and other minority groups in the Middle East are being targeted specifically because of their religious beliefs, and face forced conversions to Islam, mass abductions, sexual enslavements, and executions due to this ISIL-inflicted genocide."
In November, 2015, after the ISIS terrorist attacks on Paris, Gabbard and 46 other Democrats voted with congressional Republicans in favor of the American Security Against Foreign Enemies (SAFE) Act of 2015 to require "supplemental certifications and background investigations on refugees from Syria and Iraq". President Obama said he would veto the bill: "We are not well served when, in response to a terrorist attack, we descend into fear and panic." Gabbard, in explaining her vote, said "voting for this bill was not a vote against refugees" but about "the long term viability and continuation of our country serving as a place of refuge for those who are truly in need of shelter." "It would be a double disaster if someone who came to America as a refugee ended up engaging in a terrorist act … [as] happened before in 2009, when two al-Qaeda terrorists came to the U.S. as refugees from Iraq and were actively supporting al-Qaeda from the U.S. while also plotting an attack on U.S. soil. Following their discovery and arrest, … the refugee program for Iraqis was completely shut down for six months."