How Tulsi Gabbard Won Over Skeptics with Help from Vance, Cotton, and a Lot of Phone Calls By Audrey Fahlberg
Ahead of her Thursday confirmation hearing, Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation math didn’t quite add up as a crucial pair of on-the-fence Republican senators continued to telegraph their concerns about her unorthodox national security views and fitness for the role of director of National Intelligence through the press. Gabbard’s prospects improved on Monday when Susan Collins (R., Maine) came out in support of her nomination, leaving just one major roadblock to her ability to clear the Senate Intelligence panel’s closed-door vote Tuesday afternoon – swing vote Todd Young (R., Ind.).
Enter Vice President JD Vance. The former Ohio senator made a critical decision to spend his weekend in constructive conversations with Young, a former Marine Corps Intelligence officer who left Gabbard’s confirmation hearing feeling uneasy about her views on national security leaker Edward Snowden.
In Young’s telling, the vice president was instrumental in helping the Indiana senator get written assurances from Gabbard – a former Hawaii congresswoman and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate — about her views on national security matters and whistleblowers. “Frankly, he seemed to be effective on his end in getting from me the sort of concessions that were required to get to a yes,” added Young. “He delivered for me, and I’m grateful for that.”
Vance’s role in Gabbard’s Senate confirmation process is an early sign that the vice president is emerging as a crucial liaison between the White House and his former Senate colleagues on matters of politics and policy. The White House was “very smart” to deploy Vance to Capitol Hill to serve as the administration’s liaison on confirmation votes and upcoming legislation, says Senator Eric Schmitt (R., Mo.), a “close personal friend” of Vance. “Members of the Senate trust him.”
The vice president’s behind-the-scenes efforts in recent days are just one small part of a weeks-long coordinated campaign on behalf of Gabbard, whose path to confirmation looks increasingly likely after the Senate Intelligence panel voted along party lines on Tuesday to recommend her for a full floor vote. Another key player in the Gabbard confirmation has of course been Intelligence Chairman Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), who spent recent weeks in close touch with the White House and counseling them on persuasive and effective outreach to members. Cotton’s team played a critical role in helping Gabbard draft her testimony, February 2 Newsweek op-ed, and response to senators’ post-hearing questions for the record.
The Arkansas senator spent hours reviewing Gabbard’s FBI background investigation alongside Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D., Va.), which allowed him to make assurances to committee members that it was “clean as a whistle,” as he emphasized in her confirmation hearing. As chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, Cotton also turned the conference’s X account into a war room account for her confirmation, consistently posting positive comments from GOP senators about Gabbard’s background and qualifications to the account’s 1.6 million followers. He also met privately with Senate Intelligence Committee members about their concerns.
“The effort from start to finish was cordial and calculated, focusing less on outside pressure and more on hard internal work of getting each individual member to yes,” said one person familiar with Cotton’s efforts.
In recent weeks, Trump allies leaned into Gabbard’s military service and overseas deployments, constantly emphasizing in interviews and in private meetings with senators that as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, Gabbard has undergone numerous military background checks.
Also helpful to Gabbard’s Senate lobbying and preparation effort were Robert C. O’Brien, Trump’s former national security adviser; John Ratcliffe, Trump’s former DNI recently confirmed to head the CIA; Senators Joni Ernst (R., Iowa), Mike Rounds (R., S.D.), and Markwayne Mullin (R., Okla.); and former Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr, who introduced her during her hearing. Not to mention the weeks Gabbard has spent personally calling senators, meeting with them on Capitol Hill, and answering written correspondences about her views.
Her confirmation hearing was quite the spectacle last Thursday, when senators grilled her about her views on warrantless wiretaps, her 2017 trip to Syria to meet with then-dictator Bashar Al-Assad, and her decision in Congress to co-author legislation that would drop charges against Snowden. She drew public pushback during her open hearing when she declined to call Snowden a “traitor,” opting instead to say he “broke the law” by divulging highly classified secrets and that if confirmed, she would do everything in her power to avoid a “Snowden-like leak” under her watch.
In private conversations with senators following her open hearing, Gabbard expanded why she declined to use the word “traitor” to describe Snowden. According to a source familiar with the matter, she told senators that as a soldier in the U.S. military she doesn’t throw the word “traitor” around lightly. She also told senators about how alarmed she was when Hillary Clinton suggested in 2019 she was a Kremlin asset by calling her a “favorite of the Russians,” and when former Senator Mitt Romney (R., Utah) wrote in a March 2022 social media post that she was spreading “treasonous lies” by “parroting false Russian propaganda.”
Her team saw a turning point in her nomination prospects after her confirmation hearing, when Senator Collins – who co-authored legislation in 2004 that created the office of DNI – said she was assured by Gabbard’s promises not to recommend nor support a pardon nor any type of clemency for Snowden.
For swing vote Todd Young, at least, the vice president ended up serving an especially crucial role advancing Gabbard’s nomination prospects.
“He’s been tasked with this role because of his preexisting relationship with us,” Young told reporters. “He was respectful. He listened a lot more than he talked.”
This week no doubt reminds Vance’s allies of the role he played on the 2024 campaign trail, where he eagerly sparred with adversarial news network hosts and functioned as an effective policy attack dog for the GOP ticket. “He’s such a clear thinker, he’s very articulate in how he expresses goals, and how we’re trying to proceed,” says Senator Ted Budd (R., N.C.). But perhaps most importantly, Budd added, Vance “doesn’t browbeat individuals.”
Beyond getting Young to a yes on Gabbard, Vance has also played a critical role in the confirmation fate of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
Senator Bill Cassidy (R., La.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) and a physician who has been unnerved about Kennedy’s views on vaccines, thanked Vance on Tuesday “specifically for his honest counsel” regarding the HHS nominee’s views. Cassidy’s yes vote in Kennedy’s committee of jurisdiction helped the HHS nominee – an environmental attorney and Democrat turned Independent 2024 presidential candidate — clear yet another important hurdle before his floor consideration by the full Senate.
For many Senate Republicans, Kennedy and Gabbard represent key components of this new, growing GOP coalition that helped deliver Trump the popular vote in the 2024 election.
“It’s a seminal moment” for the Republican Party, says Schmitt. The Missouri senator said this election was all about “disruptors versus the establishment,” and believes Kennedy and Gabbard – two former Democrats who endorsed Trump on the campaign trail – have a much clearer path to full confirmation by the U.S. Senate.
“This team that he’s assembled represents that broad coalition,” Schmitt said of Trump’s cabinet picks. “So the fact that you’ve got a Republican Senate that’s going to sign off on that now I do think is a big deal.”
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