Tulsi Gabbard Gets Closer to Confirmation as Senior Republican Caves

Tulsi Gabbard’s bid for national director of intelligence has gained a key supporter, in the form of “serial disappointer” Maine Senator Susan Collins, flipping an essential Republican holdout on one of Donald Trump’s most dangerous nominees.

In a statement Monday, Collins said that Gabbard had eased some of her concerns about her nomination, such that she could now support Trump’s disastrous pick.

“After extensive consideration of her nomination, I will support Tulsi Gabbard to be the Director of National Intelligence,” Collins said.

“As one of the principal authors of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 that established this coordinating position, I understand the critical role the DNI plays in the Intelligence Community. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, however, has become far larger than it was designed to be, and Ms. Gabbard shares my vision of returning the agency to its intended size.”

Ahead of Gabbard’s hearing last week, Collins had expressed dissatisfaction with Gabbard’s critique of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows intelligence officials to conduct surveillance operations on foreign targets and Americans without a warrant.

During the open hearing, Collins had also appeared frustrated when Gabbard refused to call whistleblower Edward Snowden a traitor before the Senate committee. Suddenly, it seems, Collins had a change of heart, though it’s unclear if they spoke more extensively since Gabbard’s hearings on Thursday.

“In response to my questions during our discussion in my office and at the open hearing, as well as through her explanation at the closed hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Ms. Gabbard addressed my concerns regarding her views on Edward Snowden,” Collins said. “I look forward to working with Ms. Gabbard to strengthen our national security.”

While many are disappointed by Collins’s change of heart, few can be surprised.

“You know there’s an old saying in soccer, in English football: It’s the hope that kills you,” said Joe Scarborough of MSNBC’s Morning Joe Tuesday. “I suspect they have a similar saying in Maine about Susan Collins.”

“Susan Collins never misses an opportunity to disappoint. She’s a serial disappointer. And Tulsi Gabbard rarely misses an opportunity to get it wrong,” said Richard Haass, the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, on Morning Joe.

Representative Sean Casten, a Democrat from Illinois, went straight for the jugular.

“Why bother even being a senator if you think Tulsi Gabbard is fit for DNI? Just admit you’re a g-d rubber stamp for a felonious rapist,” Casten wrote in a post on X Monday.

A Department of Justice prosecutor is unhappy with the blowback Elon Musk’s fake “Department of Government Efficiency” is getting, and is threatening legal action. 

Interim D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin posted a letter to Musk on X Monday asking Musk to “utilize me and my staff to assist in protecting the DOGE work and the DOGE workers.

“Any threats, confrontations, or other actions in any way that impact their work may break numerous laws,” Martin wrote. “Let me assure you of this: we will pursue any and all legal action against anyone who impedes your work or threatens your people.” 

Martin is likely reacting to a Wired article published Sunday that named six young engineers whom Musk has brought with him to help take over government databases: Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Shaotran. Some of them are still in college or are recent graduates, and many have connections to Musk’s companies, including xAI and SpaceX. 

Martin may also have been alluding to protests against DOGE. On Sunday, protesters showed up at the Office of Personnel Management’s  Washington, D.C., headquarters, attempting to block the doors of the building to stop DOGE employees from getting in. More demonstrators gathered outside of OPM on Monday to protest Musk and DOGE’s efforts, chanting, “We don’t want your tech solutions, give us back our Constitution,” and “Elon, Elon, have you heard? You’re a nasty, fascist nerd.”

The DOGE takeover at federal agencies including the OPM and the General Services Administration has been met with a backlash from civil servants in those offices, as well as the federal workforce at large. DOGE employees have locked out career employees at OPM and used an illegal server to facilitate their takeover of the agency, which manages all three million federal employees. 

Martin’s threats may have teeth, as Musk isn’t likely to take any challenges to his efforts lightly. But the tech mogul’s actions have likely also broken several laws through DOGE, including improper use of federal funds, possible HIPAA violations, and even security breaches of employees’ personal data. Donald Trump’s Justice Department doesn’t care about any of that, though.

The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau stopped performing its oversight duties as soon as Trump appointed Scott Bessent as acting head, fulfilling the wishes of the country’s most powerful civilian, billionaire Elon Musk.

Bessent, who also serves as treasury secretary, sent a mass email to CFPB staff instructing them to stop all regulatory work, stop enforcing any rules, and stop conducting investigations, due to the need to “promote consistency” and align politically with the rest of the Trump administration, according to The Washington Post. The agency has also halted all public communications.

After Trump’s reelection, Musk called for lawmakers to “delete” the CFPB, stating that there were “too many duplicative regulatory agencies.” Republicans have long taken aim at the CFPB, with Texas Senator Ted Cruz recently introducing a bill to defund what he called an “unelected, unaccountable bureaucratic agency.”

The CFPB took initiative against predatory lending and hidden fees under its previous head, Rohit Chopra, and also increased its surveillance of large tech companies like Apple and Google. But with Chopra out and Bessent in, those days are over.

“Shutting down CFPB enforcement actions that are on the verge of delivering money into the pockets of working people is at odds with President Trump’s claim that he wants to lower costs for families—which he has done next to nothing on so far,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren, who played a key role in creating the CFPB in the aftermath of the Great Recession.

The actions Warren mentioned are now essentially null and void, as Trump’s mass deregulation efforts continue.

JD Vance tried to defend Donald Trump’s tariffs Monday with an X post claiming that Mexico gave in to Trump’s demands in order to stall economic harm. However, the post quickly backfired on him.

Aside from the glaring mistake of spelling the president’s last name as “Trunp,” the vice president’s post included a screenshot of Trump bragging about Mexico sending 10,000 soldiers to the southern U.S. border. But there’s one problem with that: Mexico also deployed 10,000 troops to the border in 2021, under President Biden.

Commentators on X quickly seized on Vance’s attempt to seek praise over something Biden had also achieved without heavy tariffs.

Vance’s talking point even made it to Fox News, with commentator Marie Harf, a Democratic commentator, telling the right-wing network’s audience that Mexico’s troop deployment was nothing new.

Trump’s tariffs have already caused stocks to plummet and are drawing criticism from his fellow Republicans as well as retaliatory tariffs from Canada, with China threatening to take action with the World Trade Organization. Even if Trump claims that his tariffs have achieved something with Mexico (they haven’t), their full effects will be felt in the coming weeks and months, and experts say they won’t be good. Vance and the MAGA right may soon be struggling to find any silver lining.

Trump is placing a new condition on aid to war-torn Ukraine: guaranteed access to Ukraine’s valuable rare minerals in exchange for military support against Russia.

“We’re telling Ukraine they have very valuable rare earth; we want what we put up to go in terms of a guarantee. We want a guarantee, we’re handing them money hand over fist, we’re giving them equipment, [the European Union is] not keeping up with us,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. “We have an ocean in between, they don’t. It’s more important for them than it is for us … so we’re looking to do a deal with Ukraine where they’re going to secure what we’re giving them with their rare earth and other things.”

“I want to have security of rare earth,” Trump added. “We’re putting in hundreds of billions of dollars. They have great rare earth. And I want security of the rare earth, and they’re willing to do it.”

Rare earths are minerals that go into making various technologies like phones and computers.

One of Trump’s biggest campaign promises was a swift and peaceful end to the war in Ukraine, even saying he’d end it “within 24 hours” of becoming president. Tacking on these conditions as soldiers on both sides suffer doesn’t seem to align very well with that promise.