5 takeaways on Gabbard’s grilling in House worldwide threats hearing

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was grilled for a second day of hearings on Thursday on whether Iran was close to building nuclear weapons and if Tehran posed an “imminent threat” to the U.S. before President Trump started the ongoing Middle Eastern war. 

Gabbard was joined by CIA Director John Ratcliffe; FBI Director Kash Patel; Lt. Gen. William J. Hartman, the acting director of the National Security Agency; and Lt. Gen. James H. Adams, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, at the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on “Worldwide Threats.” The same lineup appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday. 

During Thursday’s hearing, Gabbard for the first time publicly broke with Joe Kent, her former aide who resigned in protest of the war with Iran, but remained coy about her own view toward the war, and she was evasive when questioned on what Trump was told about the threat Iran posed to America and how it would likely respond to U.S. and Israeli attacks.  

Here are the five takeaways from the hearing: 

Gabbard breaks with Kent 

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) pressed Gabbard on whether she agreed with Kent, the former counterterrorism director who, in his resignation letter this week, accused the U.S. of attacking Tehran under pressure from Israel. 

“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” Kent wrote. “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”

Stefanik said she “cannot say how much” she disagrees with Kent’s argument and asked Gabbard, who was critical of U.S. foreign interventions in the past, if she agreed with Kent. 

“He said a lot of things in that letter. Ultimately, we have provided the president with the intelligence assessments, and the president is elected by the American people and makes his own decisions based on the information that’s available to him,” Gabbard said in response. 

“But do you agree with — does that statement he made blaming Israel concern you?” Stefanik followed up.

“Yes,” Gabbard said.  

Ratcliffe said during a Wednesday Senate Intelligence Committee hearing that he disagreed with Kent, who argued that Tehran did not pose an imminent threat to the U.S. 

US, Israeli objectives diverge 

Gabbard said during the hearing that the U.S. and Israel have “different” objectives in their war against Iran. 

When asked by Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) about how Israel’s goals in the conflict line up with Washington’s, the intelligence chief said the “objectives that have been laid out by the president are different from the objectives that have been laid out” by the Israeli government. 

When Castro asked how they are different, Gabbard told lawmakers that Israel is focused on “disabling” the Iranian leadership, while pointing to Trump’s previous remarks that the U.S. goals are to destroy Iran’s ballistic missile launching capability, missile production capability, navy and mine-laying capability. 

Castro then asked Gabbard if she knew whether Israel is supportive of Trump’s openness to reach a deal with Iran as the conflict rages on in its third week. 

“I don’t know the answer to that,” Gabbard said. “I don’t know Israel’s position on that.” 

Gabbard doesn’t walk back past statements

Gabbard did not walk back her past comments warning against a war with Iran or her more recent assessments suggesting Iran had not restarted its nuclear program after the U.S. military strikes last summer. 

Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) grilled Gabbard on her testimony last year that Tehran was not building a nuclear weapon, which at the time prompted the president to say that his intel chief was “wrong.”

“Do you stand by that statement,” Gomez asked. “Yes or no.” 

“Context matters with that…Iran had all of the,” Gabbard said before being cut off. 

“It’s an easy answer. You either stand by what you said last year or not,” Gomez said. 

“It is a serious question that requires the totality of the information available,” she told Gomez. 

Gabbard said during her opening comments before both House and Senate hearings that her testimony to lawmakers “does not represent my personal views or opinions, but rather the assessments of the intelligence community” of the threats that “United States our homeland and our interests.”

Ratclifffe said that since the U.S. military’s strike on Iran’s three premier nuclear facilities in Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan, Tehran has not been able to enrich “a single kilogram” of uranium to 60 percent, but he noted that the U.S. intelligence indicates that Iran did not give up on its ambitions to build a nuclear weapon. 

Gabbard told lawmakers that the intelligence community has “high confidence” that they know where Iran’s enriched uranium is located.

Ratcliffe said Iran currently has at least 440 kilograms of 60 percent enriched weapons-grade uranium that would be “capable of putting together” 10 nuclear weapons.

New supreme leader more hardline than father

Gabbard concurred with Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) that Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is seen as more of a hardliner than his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the Israeli airstrikes on Feb. 28. 

“So hardline that even some of Iran’s leaders thought he was too aggressive,” Crow, who also sits on the House Armed Services Committee, asked Gabbard. “Isn’t that correct?” 

“That is the intelligence community assessment, yes,”  Gabbard told Crow, also confirming that the new supreme leader is close with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and their most “hard-line” commanders.

Gabbard said that Mojtaba Khamenei was injured “very severely” in one of the Israeli strikes. 

Crow then asked Gabbard if the U.S. IC community is less “certain of the positions of Iranian leadership and their intentions” than they were 60 days ago. 

“That’s an accurate assessment,” Gabbard said. 

Ratcliffe backs Rubio’s justification for strikes 

When asked by Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.) if there is any evidence that Iran intended to conduct a preemptive strike against the U.S. prior to the war breaking out, Ratcliffe pointed to a “body of intelligence” that U.S. would be attacked if a conflict with Israel and Iran kicked off. 

“There’s a body of intelligence that we’ll be able to cover in the classified portion of this hearing that does reflect that in the likely event of a conflict between Iran and Israel, that the U.S. would be immediately attacked, regardless of whether the United States stayed out of that conflict.” 

Ratcliffe’s remarks support one of the reasons Secretary of State Marco Rubio has provided when discussing what led to the U.S. launching strikes against Iran. 

“There absolutely was an imminent threat, and the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us,” Rubio told reporters earlier this month. 

Rubio’s remarks drew criticism from figures on both sides of the political spectrum for suggesting Israel forced the U.S. into the war, a claim that both Trump and Rubio have rejected. 

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

White House seeks to circumvent Schumer on potential DHS funding deal

GOP debate on SAVE America Act morphs into ‘circular firing squad’

Huckabee Sanders says she was asked to leave restaurant because employees felt ...

GOP Senate candidate on rising gas prices: ‘Maybe you take one less trip to ...

5 takeaways on Gabbard’s grilling in House worldwide threats hearing

Trump’s takeover of DC landmarks reaches legal apex

Judge dismisses Trump administration lawsuit over California egg prices

Costco CEO gives update on future of $1.50 hot dog and soda combo

US F-35 makes emergency landing after flying over Iran

The Memo: Trump fumes as foreign leaders show new willingness to defy him

House Democrat says there’s a ‘legitimate problem’ with US-NATO ...

Enabling this TSA feature could save you hours in airport security lines

6 governor races shift to Democrats: Election handicapper

Jim Jordan reverses long-held position on spy powers, says he will back Trump ...

Trump ribs Japanese prime minister on Pearl Harbor in Oval Office talk on Iran

GOP grapples with $200B Iran funding request from Trump, Hegseth

Selective Service rules: Who would be exempt in event of a draft?

Thune: Republicans will use SAVE Act in midterms if Democrats don’t get ‘on ...

© The Hill