Tulsi Gabbard Joins Trump In Situation Room Amid Reports Of Rift With President

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard joined President Donald Trump in the Situation Room on Tuesday following a report that she was not invited to attend a June 8 Camp David retreat, where the president “convened senior national security officials to discuss the Middle East.”

According to a report from Fox News White House Correspondent Peter Doocy, Gabbard “had a scheduling conflict with National Guard orders, but was never invited [to Camp David] in the first place.” A senior intelligence official told The Daily Wire that the Camp David retreat was not originally planned to be an intelligence meeting and that CIA Director John Ratcliffe also wasn’t initially invited to attend, but he ended up going at the last minute. The senior intelligence official added that Tuesday’s national security meeting with Trump in the Situation Room was moved to the afternoon so that Gabbard could attend.

Tulsi Gabbard is in the Situation Room with Trump and his team right now, according to a senior intelligence official.

The meeting was supposed to be earlier, but was shifted to 1 o'clock so that Tulsi could attend, the official says. She was testifying on the Hill.

— Brent Scher (@BrentScher) June 17, 2025

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump dismissed Gabbard’s March testimony before Congress, when she said Iran did not appear to be building a nuclear weapon.

“I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having one,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One while on his way back to the White House from the G7 summit in Canada.

Gabbard said in her opening statement before Congress in March that the intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.” She acknowledged that “in the past year, we’ve seen an erosion of a decades-long taboo in Iran on discussing nuclear weapons in public, likely emboldening nuclear weapons advocates within Iran’s decision-making apparatus.”

“Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons,” she added.

From March 26 House Intelligence Committee, DNI Tulsi Gabbard: "The IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme leader Khomeini has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003."

Full video here: https://t.co/5PRCofvScf pic.twitter.com/Mb5dj8zoAo

— CSPAN (@cspan) June 17, 2025

Asked to respond to Trump’s comments, Gabbard backed the president, saying there is no conflict between his stance on Iran and her prior statements to Congress.

“What President Trump is saying is the same thing I said in my annual threat assessment in March to Congress,” Gabbard said, according to The Hill.

A senior intelligence official told Axios that Gabbard’s testimony does not contradict Trump’s statement that Iran is close to building a nuclear weapon.

“There’s a distinction. Just because they don’t have one does not mean that they don’t want to build one,” the official said.

Israeli intelligence suggested that the radical Islamic regime was close to obtaining a nuclear weapon, while a U.S. intelligence official told CNN, “If Iran wanted one, they have all the things they need.”

Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman, joined the Republican Party after endorsing Trump during the 2024 presidential campaign last year. During her time in the Trump administration, Gabbard has hailed Trump as “the president of peace.”

This article has been updated with additional information.