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New York Post
a day ago
- Politics
- New York Post
Where's Tulsi Gabbard? Intelligence director missing from key moments as insiders say she's been ‘wrong on the big stuff'
WASHINGTON — President Trump's strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities were the result of 15 years of intel work, the Pentagon said Thursday — but Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard curiously was missing from key moments before and after the raid. The ex-Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii — an outspoken opponent of US military intervention in the Middle East — now faces the perception that she's being shunted to the side by the commander-in-chief, with CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who previously held her job, taking on a larger profile. Gabbard, 44, was missing from an intelligence briefing with Congress on Thursday, where Ratcliffe gave lawmakers classified details of the Saturday strike. She also was excluded from a June 8 national security pow-wow at Camp David, where Trump began to shape his plans for Iran with Ratcliffe and other key leaders, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Two days after that meeting — to which administration officials told Fox News Gabbard was not invited — she released what one person close to the administration described as a 'fear-mongering' video on the dangers of nuclear war, in what was seen as a swipe against a preemptive strike. 3 CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard meet in the Situation Room of the White House on June 21, 2025. via REUTERS 'That narrative played directly into the hands of those who did not support the president's then-upcoming bold decision to obliterate Tehran's nuclear program,' the source said. The sentiment exemplified what an administration official who told The Post this week: 'She's been wrong on the big stuff. Trump made headlines earlier this month when he twice split from his intelligence chief's assessment that Iran wasn't close to building nuclear bombs. 'I don't care what she said. I think they were very close to having one,' Trump said of Gabbard while aboard Air Force One on June 17. 3 President Trump disagreed with Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard's assessment that Iran had not yet decided to build a nuclear weapon. AP Gabbard endorsed Trump last year largely on foreign policy grounds after repeatedly slamming mainstream Democrats and pre-Trump Republicans for promoting regime change abroad. As a Democratic presidential primary candidate in 2020, she hawked T-shirts reading 'No War With Iran' — launching them two days after Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani. Still, multiple insiders said they don't believe Gabbard is in danger of getting fired — and a White House official who saw Gabbard Friday before she briefed Trump in the Oval Office detected no signs of tension, calling speculation that she's on the ropes 'bogus.' Gabbard was among the senior leaders who joined Trump in the situation room during the daring bombing mission on Saturday. And internal disagreements among his aides often are welcomed by Trump, particularly on foreign policy. Some sources, however, foresee her role being reduced as Ratcliffe, a former Texas Republican congressman, asserts more influence on intelligence strategy. It comes as Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) seeks to cut Gabbard's staff from roughly 1,600 to just 650, a senior Senate aide familiar with the proposed legislation told NBC News Friday. 3 The Pentagon released jaw-dropping footage showcasing a test of the 30,000-pound heavy-duty bunker buster bombs that were used against Iran. Department of Defense Trump has been more hesitant to oust leaders in his administration this year than he was in his first term. There have been no changes in his cabinet, aside from the rerouting of former National Security Adviser Mike Waltz to US ambassador to the United Nations, following his mistakenly adding a reporter to a Signal chat about air strikes in Yemen. Gabbard's office did not offer a comment for this story. Additional reporting by Steven Nelson
Yahoo
21-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Nadine Menendez, wife of disgraced NJ Sen. Bob Menendez, found guilty in sweeping bribery case
NEW YORK — Nadine Menendez was found guilty on Monday of acting as the partner in crime of her convicted husband, ex-Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, by brokering backdoor bribery deals that saw the couple showered in gold bullion bars, wads of cash, and a Mercedes-Benz convertible. Jurors, who got the case Friday, convicted Nadine of 18 counts, including conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, conspiracy to commit extortion, and obstruction of justice. The conviction carries a potential decades-long term. The 58-year-old, known as Nadine Arslanian before she wed the embattled former lawmaker in 2020, was indicted alongside her husband in September 2023 on charges alleging she arranged a series of deals between her husband and a trio of New Jersey businessmen from 2018 through 2023, putting a price on his power as a senator and as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Last July Menendez was found guilty of acting as a foreign agent, bribery, and other offenses and in January was sentenced to 11 years in prison, a term he's set to begin serving on June 6 after reporting to the Bureau of Prisons. The ex-senator raked in almost half a million dollars in cash, $150,000 worth of gold bars, a luxury convertible for Nadine, designer watches, and Formula 1 tickets from his corrupt benefactors in exchange for pulling strings for them behind the scenes, jurors at both trials heard. The couple's co-defendants, Wael Hana, 41, who ran a Halal certification business, and real estate developer Fred Daibes, 67, were also found guilty of related charges alongside Bob Menendez at his 2024 trial. The third co-conspirator, N.J. businessman Jose Uribe, cooperated in exchange for leniency. Among other actions, Menendez coerced the highest levels of New Jersey state law enforcement to squash a criminal probe into Uribe and an associate, took bribes from Daibes to meddle in a pending federal prosecution against him in the Garden State, and pocketed bribes from Hana to pressure the U.S. Department of Agriculture to let him maintain an exclusive monopoly over U.S. exports of Halal products to Egypt. The fraud came to light after FBI agents searched the couple's Englewood Cliffs, N.J., home in the summer of 2022 and turned up more than $100,000 worth of gold bars and over $480,000 in cash stashed away in closets, jackets embroidered with Menendez's name, and envelopes bearing Menendez and Daibes' fingerprints, according to trial evidence. At Nadine's trial, the feds argued she played a crucial role in the scheme, acting as a go-between by keeping him in the loop and urging him to carry out the businessmen's requests. Her case was delayed while she underwent treatment for breast cancer, undergoing a double mastectomy while her husband went on trial last year. _____
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Hillary Clinton Calls Out ‘Staggering' GOP Hypocrisy Over Signal Scandal
Hillary Clinton shredded Republicans on Wednesday for downplaying senior Trump officials' use of third-party messaging app Signal to text about national security matters — in a group chat that included a journalist. 'The hypocrisy is staggering,' said Clinton — the subject of intense GOP criticism over her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state — in a statement shared with Glamour magazine. The ex-Democratic presidential candidate continued, 'But worse, the arrogance and incompetence puts the lives of our military men and women in danger.' Her comments came as the Trump administration scrambles for answers to a scandal that's led to 'exploding' heads in the security and intelligence community. On Wednesday, the White House picked apart the choice of words in the headline by The Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who was inadvertently added to the Trump officials' group chat earlier this month. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — who shared U.S. plans to strike Yemen in the group chat — dismissed the publication sharing 'so-called 'war plans'' on Wednesday. President Donald Trump, in comments to reporters, suggested that continued coverage of the scandal was part of a 'witch hunt.' Clinton also took to social media on Wednesday to agree with controversial talk show host Piers Morgan after he ripped those downplaying the 'classified' nature of the plans shared by Hegseth. 'If this had happened on Biden's watch, Republicans would have rightly gone berserk,' wrote Morgan on X, formerly Twitter. Clinton added, 'Never thought I'd be retweeting Piers Morgan, but he's right!' On Monday, Clinton briefly summed up her thoughts with a post linking to Goldberg's initial report on the chat: '👀 You have got to be kidding me.' Critics have called out Trump administration officials for their hypocrisy in recent days, pointing to their past comments on Clinton's use of a private email server for official government business. 'If it was anyone other than Hillary Clinton, they would be in jail right now,' Hegseth once said in a 2016 segment during his time as a host on Fox News. Trump's national security adviser Mike Waltz, who Goldberg said added him to the chat, in 2023 suggested that Clinton and then-President Joe Biden should be criminally charged for mishandling classified documents. 'When you have the Clinton emails ... on top of the fact that the sitting President of the United States admitted he had documents in his garage ... But they didn't prosecute, they didn't go after these folks,' Waltz told CNN at the time. Republicans Threaten To Impeach Judges, Ax Courts That Rule Against Trump Signal Chat Caught Trump Officials Cheering Destruction Of Entire Building To Kill 1 Man Trump Uses Women's History Month To Push His Transphobic Policies
Yahoo
14-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
James Carville says Democrats broke his ‘first commandment of politics' with anti-Trump antics
Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville lamented that his party is not "meeting the moment" with their various antics aimed at President Trump. In an interview with Fox News Digital, Carville knocked Democrats' "counter-productive" display at Trump's address to Congress last week, mocking their "auction paddles" and Texas Rep. Al Green "beating a stick on the floor." "My first commandment of politics is, 'Thine shall not make an ass of thyself." And they didn't follow the Carville first commandment," Carville chuckled. James Carville: Too Many Democrats Are Losing Their Minds Over Trump. It Doesn't Have To Be This Way The famed Clinton operative questioned the Democrats' optics during Trump's speech, saying Americans who tuned in were likely not impressed with their behavior, but felt the opposite regarding Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., who gave the Democratic response. Carville praised her as "measured, reasonable, articulate" by comparison. He doubled down on his advice to Democrats in an op-ed published on calling for a "strategic political retreat" as Trump's tariff war with other countries fuels economic uncertainty, which has taken a steep toll on the stock market. Read On The Fox News App "I mean, it's an old military doctrine- when your opponent is destroying themselves, do not interfere. Don't get in the way of it right now," Carville said. Gavin Newsom Asks Charlie Kirk To Give His Party 'Advice' In One-on-one Podcast Interview Democrats have been plagued with viral blunders in recent weeks between the multiple senators who read from the same script ahead of Trump's speech to the widely-mocked "choose your fighter" video featuring Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jasmine Crockett. "I think we're at a very perilous moment in the country. I really do. I think it might go the wrong way. And what I think Democrats should do is act like it's a very grave situation," Carville said. "And, I know that they get donors that call them and demand something. And somebody, [a] late-night person said, you know, why don't they just pass something? Well, we can't pass gas." "I'll be honest with you, I'm not a fan of that," he said of the videos. "I think we should be deliberate and determined… I think that the Democrats have to meet the moment. And dance in videos. Auction paddles of cane banging does not meet the moment." Social Media Explodes After 'Cringe' Tiktok Video Of Aoc, House Dems Goes Viral: 'Couldn't Get Any Lamer' Last week, Minnesota governor and ex-Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz went viral when he struggled to answer the question of who was currently leading the Democratic Party, which he eventually responded "the voting public." When asked the same question about who the current leader of the Democratic Party is, Carville quickly answered, "There is none." "And until you have a presidential nominee, you're probably not going to have one," Carville said. "When people say the image of the Democratic Party has never been lower, A. they're pretty much correct. But the reason is Democrats don't like their own party now. Why is that? Because a political party exists to win elections, and when it doesn't win elections, the people in the party don't like it." While he says he's not worried about Democrats in the long term due to their "stunning field" of candidates he believes will emerge in the 2028 presidential race, Carville says "big personalities dominate politics" and that there's currently an absence of inspirational candidates like John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. But he remains hopeful. "I think we could do that. I think we're gonna do that," Carville said. Fox News' Nikolas Lanum contributed to this article source: James Carville says Democrats broke his 'first commandment of politics' with anti-Trump antics
Fox News
14-03-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
James Carville says Democrats broke his ‘first commandment of politics' with anti-Trump antics
Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville lamented that his party is not "meeting the moment" with their various antics aimed at President Trump. In an interview with Fox News Digital, Carville knocked Democrats' "counter-productive" display at Trump's address to Congress last week, mocking their "auction paddles" and Texas Rep. Al Green "beating a stick on the floor." "My first commandment of politics is, 'Thine shall not make an ass of thyself." And they didn't follow the Carville first commandment," Carville chuckled. The famed Clinton operative questioned the Democrats' optics during Trump's speech, saying Americans who tuned in were likely not impressed with their behavior, but felt the opposite regarding Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., who gave the Democratic response. Carville praised her as "measured, reasonable, articulate" by comparison. He doubled down on his advice to Democrats in an op-ed published on calling for a "strategic political retreat" as Trump's tariff war with other countries fuels economic uncertainty, which has taken a steep toll on the stock market. "I mean, it's an old military doctrine- when your opponent is destroying themselves, do not interfere. Don't get in the way of it right now," Carville said. Democrats have been plagued with viral blunders in recent weeks between the multiple senators who read from the same script ahead of Trump's speech to the widely-mocked "choose your fighter" video featuring Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jasmine Crockett. "I think we're at a very perilous moment in the country. I really do. I think it might go the wrong way. And what I think Democrats should do is act like it's a very grave situation," Carville said. "And, I know that they get donors that call them and demand something. And somebody, [a] late-night person said, you know, why don't they just pass something? Well, we can't pass gas." "I'll be honest with you, I'm not a fan of that," he said of the videos. "I think we should be deliberate and determined… I think that the Democrats have to meet the moment. And dance in videos. Auction paddles of cane banging does not meet the moment." Last week, Minnesota governor and ex-Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz went viral when he struggled to answer the question of who was currently leading the Democratic Party, which he eventually responded "the voting public." When asked the same question about who the current leader of the Democratic Party is, Carville quickly answered, "There is none." "And until you have a presidential nominee, you're probably not going to have one," Carville said. "When people say the image of the Democratic Party has never been lower, A. they're pretty much correct. But the reason is Democrats don't like their own party now. Why is that? Because a political party exists to win elections, and when it doesn't win elections, the people in the party don't like it." While he says he's not worried about Democrats in the long term due to their "stunning field" of candidates he believes will emerge in the 2028 presidential race, Carville says "big personalities dominate politics" and that there's currently an absence of inspirational candidates like John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. But he remains hopeful. "I think we could do that. I think we're gonna do that," Carville said.
