An uneasy rift within the Trump administration widened this week, as President Donald Trump publicly contradicted his Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, over assessments of Iran’s nuclear programme—only for Gabbard to later appear to walk back her earlier position in a bid to align with the President.
Gabbard, a former Democrat and now a key member of Trump’s intelligence team, had previously told the US Congress that American agencies had found 'no evidence' of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei 'reauthorising' the development of nuclear weapons.
This disclosure sparked tensions with Israeli intelligence, whose reports claim Iran is on the brink of completing a nuclear weapon, claims Gabbard reportedly resisted acknowledging, citing misrepresented data and questionable interpretations of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) observations.
The internal discord reached a flashpoint on Thursday, when Trump, addressing White House correspondents, reacted tersely to a question about the contradiction. “Then my intelligence community is wrong. Who in the intelligence community said that?” he snapped. When informed that it was Gabbard, he curtly declared, “She is wrong.”
Also read: Trump sidesteps Pentagon, Intel chiefs over anti-Iran war stance
Pressed on his reliance on Israeli intelligence over his own agencies, Trump offered no specific reasoning but reiterated his long-standing position that Iran is “in the late stages of developing a nuclear weapon.”
The matter escalated further on Friday when Gabbard took to social media, writing: “America has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months if they decide to finalise the assembly. President Trump has been clear that can’t happen, and I agree.”
While the statement marks a rhetorical pivot towards the White House line, analysts note that it does not entirely contradict her March briefing to Congress. In that appearance, she stated unequivocally that Iran had not taken steps to build a nuclear weapon and that evidence of weaponisation was lacking.
Later on Friday, Gabbard issued a clarification, accusing sections of the media of quoting her out of context. “I never said Iran had a weapon,” she maintained. “What I said was that they had not decided to build one.”
The episode projects an ongoing dissonance within the Trump administration’s security ranks and raises questions about the credibility of intelligence assessments of the US.
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