DNI Tulsi Gabbard, Who Ran for President as Anti-‘Regime Change,’ Praises Trump's Venezuela Operation

If the “neocon war hawks” get their way and overthrow Maduro, it'll be “very, very costly” and cause “suffering and death and disaster,” she said in 2019.

After days of radio silence, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard — who previously ran for president as an outspoken opponent of “regime change wars” in general and in Venezuela in particular — has now publicly praised the U.S. attack on Venezuela and abduction of its president Nicolas Maduro.

“President Trump promised the American people he would secure our borders, confront narcoterrorism, dangerous drug cartels, and drug traffickers,” she wrote on X on Tuesday.

“Kudos to our servicemen and women and intelligence operators for their flawless execution of President Trump’s order to deliver on his promise thru Operation Absolute Resolve.”

Her last post on X prior to the January 3 military operation was two days earlier, on January 1, when she posted photos of herself stretching meditatively on a beach to her personal account.

“My heart is filled with gratitude, aloha and peace,” she wrote, adding a “prayer hands” emoji and “2026” hashtag. She also posted the same thing on Instagram.

“American politicians right before they start bombing other countries,” quipped a user named Sopo Japaridze while quoting Gabbard’s post a couple of days later, shortly after Trump’s middle-of-the-night Venezuela op began. The comment got over 76,000 likes.

‘The Height of Swamp Politics’

During her 2019-2020 presidential campaign, Gabbard — who was a sitting Democrat member of Congress at the time representing Hawaii’s 2nd congressional district — repeatedly denounced plans to meddle in countries like Venezuela and Iran and overthrow their leaders.

Here’s a sample of some of her posts on Twitter at the time:

• “The United States needs to stay out of Venezuela. Let the Venezuelan people determine their future. We don’t want other countries to choose our leaders--so we have to stop trying to choose theirs.” (Jan 24, 2019)

• “It’s about the oil … again. Bolton just exposed real motive for intervention in Venezuela: ‘We’re in conversation with major American companies now…It would make a difference if we could have American companies produce the oil in Venezuela. We both have a lot at stake here.’” (Jan 28, 2019)

• “Trump campaigned against regime change wars when he ran for President but now bows to the wishes of the neocons around him, clamoring for the regime change wars he claimed to oppose, this time in Venezuela and Iran. These powerful politicians dishonor the sacrifices made by every one of our service members, and their families - they are the ones who pay the price for these wars.” (Feb 2, 2019)

• “The root cause of mass immigration on our southern border is our history of US military intervention in Latin America that left countries destroyed. Before we talk about a wall, we need to end our ongoing threats of intervention - this time in Venezuela. #SOTU” (Feb 5, 2019)

• “The US must stay out of Venezuela & let the people determine their own future. US meddling in Latin America has been disastrous for the people of the countries where we intervene. Pence’s ‘demand’ is inappropriate and dangerous” (Feb 22, 2019)

• “Oil lobbyists have ‘unprecedented access’ to Trump’s administration—meanwhile Pence/Bolton continue their crusade for regime change in Venezuela, the world’s richest oil reserves. The height of swamp politics.” (April 4, 2019)

• “Trump is surrounded by neocon war hawks who supported regime change wars in Libya, Iraq, Syria…now they’re calling for overthrow the govts of Venezuela and Iran, and the result will be the same: thousands of lives lost, trillions wasted, more suffering” (April 16, 2019)

• “Neocons/Neolibs & MSM all sing from the same songsheet: War war war!!! Trump never gets positive media unless he’s threatening war/carrying out military action. Today, Venezuela. Tomorrow, Iran? Cuba? Who’s next? No wonder NK won’t give up their nukes” (May 2, 2019)

• Throughout history, every time the US topples a foreign country’s dictator/government, the outcome has been disastrous. Civil war/military intervention in Venezuela will wreak death & destruction to Venezuelan people, and increase tensions that threaten our national security. (May 13, 2019)

Gabbard said the same basic thing during TV interviews that year, warning that Trump was surrounded by “neocon war hawks” who were beating the war drums for "regime change efforts" in Venezuela and Iran that will be "very, very costly."

“President Trump is acting not with our interests in mind, not with the American people’s interest in mind,” she said during an April 2019 MSNBC interview with Chris Matthews.

Then-members of Trump’s cabinet have a “very well-known” history of “leading our country into one regime change war after the other,” Gabbard noted, costing a “great expense in American lives… trillions of [taxpayer] dollars… as well as the lives and the suffering and the devastation of the people in the countries where we’ve waged these wars.”

“When we look throughout history, every time the United States goes into another country and topples a dictator or topples a government, the outcome has been disastrous,” she said in a separate interview with Fox News the following month.

“Pushing for the use of military force will only end up with more suffering and death and disaster for the Venezuelan people,” she added — not to mention increasing “tensions” that “threaten our own national security.”

Gabbard's Role

As Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Gabbard serves as the head of the Intelligence Community (IC), which is comprised of 18 agencies and organizations within the Executive Branch.

This includes the CIA, which Trump authorized to carry out covert action inside of Venezuela months ago, and which was reportedly the agency that carried out a drone strike on a port facility on the country’s coast in early December.

The CIA also prepared an “intelligence assessment” on who was “best positioned to lead a temporary government in Caracas” if Maduro “lost power,” according to a report by the Wall Street Journal citing unnamed “people familiar with the matter.”

“Senior Trump administration officials commissioned the CIA to undertake the analytical assessment and debated it during discussions about day-after plans for Venezuela,” the Journal said, citing the same sources.

With Maduro now captive in America, Trump said over the weekend that the U.S. will now “run” Venezuela, and that “very large U.S. oil companies” will “go in“ to the country and “spend billions of dollars” to increase output and profits.

"They were pumping almost nothing by comparison to what they could have been pumping," he said, adding that they're "ready to stage a second and much larger attack" if needed.

On Tuesday, Trump said in a post on Truth Social that “the Interim Authorities in Venezuela” will be “turning over” between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil to the United States.

“This Oil will be sold at its Market Price,” he said, “and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!”

“I have asked Energy Secretary Chris Wright to execute this plan, immediately. It will be taken by storage ships, and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States.”

Farcical Proclamations

Barely over two months ago, Gabbard made worldwide news by claiming that Trump represented an end to business as usual in the sphere of foreign policy, including an end to the “endless cycle of regime change” and “nation building.”

While attending a conference in Bahrain, Gabbard delivered a speech on October 31 in which (per her office’s official website) she “highlighted President Trump’s historic record of peace,” stating in part:

As someone who serves under President Trump's leadership, I have experienced the promise of peace. His vision is about delivering real wins, not just for America, but for our collective cause of peace and prosperity, and doing so through a very principled realism, rooted in shared goals, interests, and values. The old Washington way of thinking is something we hope is in the rear-view mirror and something that has held us back for too long. For decades, our foreign policy has been trapped in a counterproductive and endless cycle of regime change or nation-building. It was a one-size-fits-all approach of toppling regimes, trying to impose our system of governance on others, intervening in conflicts that were barely understood, and walking away with more enemies than allies. The result: trillions spent, countless lives lost, and in many cases, a creation of greater security threats, the rise of Islamist terrorist groups like ISIS. President Trump was elected by the American people to put an end to this, and from day one, he has shown a very different way to conduct foreign policy.

Watch:

Some of the headlines at the time:

• US national intelligence director says former American strategy of ‘regime change’ is over (Associated Press)

• Gabbard: Trump Ended America’s Era of ‘Regime Change’ (The American Conservative)

• American strategy of ‘regime change’ is over — US national intelligence director (Turkey’s TRT World)

• US spy chief claims strategy of ‘regime change’ is over (China’s Global Times,)

In addition to supporting a livestreamed genocide in Gaza, Trump bombed seven different countries in 2025, and was already actively conducting deadly strikes off the coast of Venezuela and plotting regime change when she made those comments.

“Gabbard needs to resign now - or be unmasked as one of the biggest political frauds of our era,” journalist Patrick Henningsen wrote on January 3 while re-sharing the video clip.

“Today we see the bombs raining down on Venezuela, US troops deployed in another ‘regime change war’ based on 100% fake intelligence and fabricated evidence. Here’s the supposed ‘Director of National Intelligence’ on October 31, 2025 claiming Trump was putting an end to Washington’s endless ‘regime change’ and ‘nation-building.’… Not to mention [his] ‘nation-building’ holocaust in Gaza which Tulsi has supported from day one of the genocide.”

“It’s more than likely Tulsi has been promised funding for a Presidential run in 2028,” he added. “That’s how they buy ambitious careerists like her. This is beyond a joke.”

“At risk of stating the obvious, its clear that RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard were enrolled into MAGA to get the easily-duped anti-imperialist right/center to support a Zionist neoconservative imperium,” Bryce Greene opined. “The only question is whether this was always the plan or pure opportunism.”

“[I’ve] been telling people for years and years that Trump et al is the opposable thumb of the establishment,” journalist Sam Husseini wrote last month. “Gabbard was obvious con; she wouldn’t challenge Biden on his Iraq invasion lies on the debate stage. Why do people keep having to pretend some of these hyped figures have honor?”

“Everyone who thought this imperial Zionist tool Gabbard was some sort of peacenik needs to seriously reconsider how they do politics,” he said in another post months earlier.

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