GOP Sen­a­tors Who Could Block Tul­si Gabbard’s Con­fir­ma­tion Took Huge Checks From Defense Indus­try

Sen­ate GOP hawks who receive large sums from the defense indus­try could be mobi­liz­ing to tank one of Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump’s nation­al secu­ri­ty nom­i­nees.

For­mer Demo­c­ra­t­ic Hawaii Rep. Tul­si Gab­bard, nom­i­nat­ed by Trump to helm the Office of the Direc­tor of Nation­al Intel­li­gence, could face oppo­si­tion from Sen­ate Repub­li­cans with hawk­ish views on nation­al secu­ri­ty over her beliefs on Ukraine and gov­ern­ment sur­veil­lance pow­ers. Though a con­sid­er­able num­ber of Trump-aligned sen­a­tors have endorsed Gab­bard, cit­ing her decades-long mil­i­tary ser­vice and com­mit­ment to reform­ing the country’s intel­li­gence agen­cies that have been fre­quent­ly weaponized against the pres­i­dent-elect, GOP sen­a­tors whose nation­al secu­ri­ty views appear to sharply diverge from Gabbard’s have most­ly refrained from sup­port­ing her nom­i­na­tion. (RELATED: ‘About To Com­bust’: Repub­li­cans Have Gold­en Oppor­tu­ni­ty To End Spy­ing On Amer­i­cans — But It’s Tear­ing Them Apart)

The uproar from the Uni­par­ty over @TulsiGabbard’s nom­i­na­tion to be Direc­tor of Nation­al Intel­li­gence sim­ply proves she’s the per­fect choice.

I look for­ward to vot­ing in favor of her con­fir­ma­tion. https://t.co/PGfiBUa8gr

— Sen­a­tor Ron John­son (@SenRonJohnson) Decem­ber 3, 2024

Gab­bard will begin meet­ing with Repub­li­can law­mak­ers next week, Alexa Hen­ning, Trump-Vance tran­si­tion spokes­woman, told the Dai­ly Caller News Foun­da­tion. She can afford to lose the sup­port of just three Repub­li­can sen­a­tors, assum­ing all Democ­rats oppose her nom­i­na­tion and Vice Pres­i­dent-elect JD Vance casts a tie-break­ing vote to secure her con­fir­ma­tion.

Repub­li­can Arkansas Sen. Tom Cot­ton, the incom­ing chair of the Sen­ate Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee — the pan­el that will process Gabbard’s nom­i­na­tion — has not tak­en a pub­lic posi­tion on the for­mer 2020 Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, but promised to move quick­ly on Trump’s cab­i­net nom­i­nees dur­ing an inter­view with Fox News.

Repub­li­can South Car­oli­na Sen. Lind­sey Gra­ham, a notable Sen­ate GOP defense hawk, endorsed Gab­bard in an X post fol­low­ing Trump’s announce­ment of her nom­i­na­tion, call­ing her “extreme­ly bright and capa­ble.”

Gab­bard, who recent­ly joined the GOP and served as a sur­ro­gate for Trump’s 2024 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, is a vocal crit­ic of U.S. sup­port for Ukraine and the nation­al secu­ri­ty appa­ra­tus’ spy­ing pow­ers. She is also an avowed oppo­nent of the “mil­i­tary indus­tri­al com­plex,” which she has accused of prof­it­ing off the war in Ukraine.

Biden’s deci­sion to send clus­ter bombs to Ukraine shows they don’t care about the Ukrain­ian peo­ple; these muni­tions will lead to Ukrain­ian casu­al­ties caused by undet­o­nat­ed bomblets for decades to come. This is the same cold, cal­cu­lat­ing, cal­lous­ness we saw in Madeleine Albright… pic.twitter.com/BlWsuvf3sk

— Tul­si Gab­bard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) July 9, 2023

A sig­nif­i­cant cohort of Sen­ate Repub­li­cans, despite Gab­bard and the president-elect’s oppo­si­tion, sup­port the Unit­ed States con­tribut­ing addi­tion­al mil­i­tary aid to Ukraine and pre­serv­ing the government’s war­rant­less spy­ing author­i­ties.

On April 19, 30 GOP sen­a­tors backed the reau­tho­riza­tion of the government’s For­eign Intel­li­gence Sur­veil­lance Act’s (FISA) Sec­tion 702 author­i­ty, which allows for war­rant­less sur­veil­lance under cer­tain con­di­tions against Amer­i­cans. Four days lat­er, 29 Repub­li­can sen­a­tors vot­ed with their Demo­c­ra­t­ic coun­ter­parts to send more than $60 bil­lion in mil­i­tary aid to Ukraine.

Gab­bard has been sub­ject to per­son­al attacks from Demo­c­ra­t­ic law­mak­ers over her views on the Rus­sia-Ukraine war. Flori­da Rep. Deb­bie Wasser­man-Schultz dubbed Gab­bard, who is still serv­ing as a lieu­tenant colonel in the Army Reserve, a “Russ­ian asset” and Illi­nois Sen. Tam­my Duck­worth con­clud­ed Gab­bard is “com­pro­mised” and “couldn’t pass a back­ground check.” The New York Times pub­lished an arti­cle fol­low­ing Gabbard’s nom­i­na­tion with the title, “How Tul­si Gab­bard Became a Favorite of Russia’s State Media.” (RELATED: ‘Dis­gust­ing’: Nik­ki Haley Con­demns Two Trump Cab­i­net Picks)

Mem­bers of the Sen­ate GOP con­fer­ence have report­ed­ly bought into some of these alle­ga­tions, accord­ing to a report from The Hill. Wasser­man-Schultz and Duckworth’s offices did not respond to the DCNF’s inquiries about pro­vid­ing evi­dence to sup­port their claims ques­tion­ing Gabbard’s loy­al­ty to the Unit­ed States.

“Just as the Democ­rats and the Wash­ing­ton Elite see Pres­i­dent Trump as a threat to their unchecked pow­er, they see Con­gress­woman Lt. Col. Tul­si Gab­bard as a threat as well,” Hen­ning told the DCNF. “As DNI Direc­tor she will cham­pi­on our con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and put an end to using intel­li­gence agen­cies as weapons against the Amer­i­can peo­ple.”

The fol­low­ing GOP sen­a­tors with hawk­ish views on U.S. for­eign pol­i­cy could stand in the way of Gabbard’s con­fir­ma­tion, accord­ing to a DCNF review of Sen­ate Repub­li­cans’ state­ments on Gabbard’s nom­i­na­tion to serve as Trump’s chief intel­li­gence offi­cer and their past sup­port for Ukraine and FISA.

Sen. Mitch McConnell

Repub­li­can Ken­tucky Sen. Mitch McConnell could pose an obsta­cle to Gabbard’s con­fir­ma­tion giv­en the for­mer Sen­ate Repub­li­can leader’s inter­ven­tion­ist for­eign pol­i­cy views and report­ed oppo­si­tion to for­mer Flori­da Repub­li­can Rep. Matt Gaetz’s nom­i­na­tion to serve as Trump’s attor­ney gen­er­al.

“Pres­i­dent Trump’s got the right poli­cies. Clear­ly, the Amer­i­can peo­ple have his back. The thing that’s hold­ing us back on the right is the estab­lished order of the donor class Repub­li­cans that are man­i­fest­ed in the Sen­ate, “Steve Ban­non told Puck in an inter­view pub­lished on Nov. 26. “What’s going to hold us back is Mitch McConnell.”

“It’s pret­ty obvi­ous that McConnell has stay­ing pow­er, and we have to con­front that,” Ban­non added.

McConnell has been an influ­en­tial pro­po­nent of send­ing mil­i­tary aid to Ukraine and the reau­tho­riza­tion of FISA. The defense sec­tor con­tributed more than $150,000 to McConnell’s cam­paign com­mit­tee and lead­er­ship PAC between 2019 and 2024, accord­ing to OpenSe­crets.

McConnell will be the incom­ing chair of the Sen­ate Appro­pri­a­tions Defense sub­com­mit­tee, tasked with appro­pri­at­ing mon­ey for the Depart­ment of Defense and intel­li­gence agen­cies. He has promised to spend the remain­der of his time in the Sen­ate push­ing back against “iso­la­tion­ism,” an oblique ref­er­ence to Gab­bard and Trump’s “Amer­i­ca First” for­eign pol­i­cy world­view.

“Mem­bers of my own par­ty now con­tend that, some­how, the sta­bil­i­ty of mar­kets and the deter­rence of adver­saries are achiev­able with­out tend­ing to the require­ments of Amer­i­can hard pow­er,” McConnell said dur­ing a keynote speech at an Amer­i­can Enter­prise Insti­tute event that cel­e­brat­ed the Ken­tucky senator’s for­eign pol­i­cy views on Nov. 12. “Con­fronting this par­tic­u­lar chal­lenge is where I now place my focus. Shoring up Amer­i­can pri­ma­cy, com­bat­ting the dan­ger­ous ten­den­cy toward iso­la­tion­ism, and urgent­ly restor­ing America’s hard pow­er: this is how I will spend a great deal of the time I have left in pub­lic life.”

Sen. Thom Tillis

Repub­li­can North Car­oli­na Sen. Thom Tillis could also pose a chal­lenge for Gab­bard. He has pledged to not sup­port any Trump nation­al secu­ri­ty nom­i­nee that does not sup­port Ukraine.

“I’m going to have to have a very com­pelling sto­ry for any­body who’s going to influ­ence pol­i­cy in Ukraine,” Tillis told the Wall Street Jour­nal in response to an inquiry about whether he will sup­port Gabbard’s nom­i­na­tion. “At DNI, I don’t know if that’s her [Tul­si Gab­bard] or not, but when I get into the nom­i­na­tion process, I have no inten­tion of sup­port­ing any­body who equiv­o­cates on sup­port for Ukraine.”

Tillis has vot­ed to send mil­i­tary aid to Ukraine and reau­tho­rize FISA. His cam­paign com­mit­tee and lead­er­ship PAC received near­ly $75,000 from the defense sec­tor between 2019 and 2024, accord­ing to OpenSe­crets.

Vance crit­i­cized Tillis’ sup­port for pro­vid­ing mil­i­tary aid to Ukraine last year, stat­ing “With all due respect to Thom, he’s not liv­ing in real­i­ty.”

Tillis is up for reelec­tion in 2026 in what is like­ly to be a com­pet­i­tive con­test in a bat­tle­ground state against a Demo­c­ra­t­ic oppo­nent and could also face a pri­ma­ry chal­lenger from the right.

Sen. Susan Collins

Repub­li­can Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a con­sis­tent sup­port­er of Ukraine and the government’s war­rant­less sur­veil­lance pow­ers, is non­com­mit­tal on Gabbard’s con­fir­ma­tion, telling reporters that her nom­i­na­tion “illus­trates the impor­tance of a full back­ground check, a pub­lic hear­ing, and the con­sti­tu­tion­al role of the Sen­ate.”

The Maine Repub­li­can, who sits on the Sen­ate Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee, appeared to oppose Gaetz’s nom­i­na­tion and has also not tak­en a posi­tion on Pete Hegseth, Trump’s DoD pick, whose con­fir­ma­tion is also fac­ing con­sid­er­able head­winds.

Collins trav­eled to Ukraine to meet with Pres­i­dent Zelen­sky in May 2022 as part of a con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion led by McConnell. The defense indus­try has doled out more than $300,000 to Collins’ cam­paign com­mit­tee and lead­er­ship PAC between 2019 and 2024, accord­ing to Open Secrets.

Collins is up for reelec­tion in 2026 in her quest for a 6th Sen­ate term and is the only Repub­li­can sen­a­tor who rep­re­sents a state that 2024 Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Kamala Har­ris won.

Sen. Lisa Murkows­ki

Repub­li­can Alas­ka Sen. Lisa Murkows­ki, a fre­quent Trump crit­ic who opposed Gaetz’s nom­i­na­tion, could also vote against Gabbard’s con­fir­ma­tion to serve as DNI direc­tor.

Murkows­ki has vot­ed to send mil­i­tary aid to Ukraine and to reau­tho­rize FISA. She trav­eled to Ukraine to meet with Zelen­sky in April 2023 along­side Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Vir­ginia and Mark Kel­ly of Ari­zona.

The Alas­ka Repub­li­can has also voiced con­fi­dence in Zelensky’s lead­er­ship, a sig­nif­i­cant depar­ture from Gab­bard who has crit­i­cized the Ukrain­ian president’s alleged crack­down on Ukrain­ian civ­il soci­ety dur­ing the country’s war against Rus­sia. (RELATED: Zelen­skyy Announces Crack­down On Russ­ian-Aligned Ukrain­ian Ortho­dox Church)

Met with Pres­i­dent Zelen­sky this morn­ing with a bipar­ti­san group of sen­a­tors in the Capi­tol. Zelen­sky artic­u­lat­ed his plan to pre­vail in the war that Putin has waged against Ukraine. I have great admi­ra­tion for not only Pres­i­dent Zelen­sky, but the peo­ple of Ukraine as they… pic.twitter.com/MgftTgi0fZ

— Sen. Lisa Murkows­ki (@lisamurkowski) Sep­tem­ber 26, 2024

The defense sec­tor con­tributed more than $200,000 to Murkowski’s cam­paign com­mit­tee and lead­er­ship PAC between 2019–2024, accord­ing to OpenSe­crets.

Sen. John Cornyn

Repub­li­can Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a GOP defense hawk and pro­po­nent of pro­vid­ing mil­i­tary aid to Ukraine, notably omit­ted Gabbard’s name dur­ing a speech where he appeared to endorse four of Trump’s defense and nation­al secu­ri­ty nom­i­nees, includ­ing Hegseth.

Cornyn, who is a mem­ber of the Sen­ate Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee, told Punch­bowl News that he would like to ask Gab­bard about her views on Rus­sia while acknowl­edg­ing that she is a “patri­ot.” Cornyn’s office declined to pro­vide details about whether the Texas Repub­li­can is plan­ning to meet with Gab­bard before her con­fir­ma­tion hear­ing that has yet to be sched­uled.

Cornyn has char­ac­ter­ized a Ukrain­ian vic­to­ry as “a vic­to­ry for all who val­ue free­dom” and accused his crit­ics “push­ing Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da” fol­low­ing his vote in sup­port of send­ing addi­tion­al mil­i­tary aid to Ukraine in April.

The defense indus­try has con­tributed more than $260,000 to Cornyn’s cam­paign com­mit­tee and lead­er­ship PAC over the last five years, accord­ing to OpenSe­crets.

Cornyn is up for reelec­tion in 2026 and is like­ly to face a com­pet­i­tive pri­ma­ry chal­lenger from the right.

Sen. Mike Rounds

Repub­li­can South Dako­ta Sen. Mike Rounds, a mem­ber of the Sen­ate Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee, is also non­com­mit­tal on Gabbard’s nom­i­na­tion and appeared to ques­tion Trump’s deci­sion to nom­i­nate the for­mer Hawaii con­gress­woman dur­ing an inter­view with reporters.

“I start out say­ing, OK, this is an indi­vid­ual the pres­i­dent wants on his team,” Rounds told Punch­bowl News on Nov. 22. “But now let’s talk about infor­ma­tion that maybe the pres­i­dent didn’t have, or infor­ma­tion that comes up, and at that stage do we advise the pres­i­dent to look else­where or do we offer our con­sent?”

Rounds recent­ly defend­ed FBI Direc­tor Christo­pher Wray fol­low­ing Trump’s deci­sion to replace him with Kash Patel, who served in mul­ti­ple posi­tions dur­ing the first Trump admin­is­tra­tion. (RELATED: ‘Seri­ous Blow To Trust In Our Gov­ern­ment’: Law­mak­ers Torch Wray, May­orkas For Skip­ping Out On Hear­ing)

Rounds also crit­i­cized the idea of end­ing the Rus­sia-Ukraine war in a nego­ti­at­ed set­tle­ment dur­ing a speech in Sep­tem­ber at the Hal­i­fax Secu­ri­ty Forum, claim­ing, “As much as I would love to say that there is a path towards a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion to this by nego­ti­at­ing with this tyrant, I sus­pect that we may be deceiv­ing our­selves.”

The defense indus­try con­tributed near­ly $100,000 to the South Dako­ta Republican’s cam­paign com­mit­tee and lead­er­ship PAC between 2019–2024.

McConnell, Tillis, Collins, Murkows­ki and Rounds’ offices did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for com­ment about whether the sen­a­tors plan to meet with Gab­bard before her con­fir­ma­tion hear­ing that will like­ly be sched­uled for ear­ly Jan­u­ary once the new Con­gress is sworn in.

All con­tent cre­at­ed by the Dai­ly Caller News Foun­da­tion, an inde­pen­dent and non­par­ti­san newswire ser­vice, is avail­able with­out charge to any legit­i­mate news pub­lish­er that can pro­vide a large audi­ence. All repub­lished arti­cles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affil­i­a­tion. For any ques­tions about our guide­lines or part­ner­ing with us, please con­tact [email protected].