Trump's Loyalists Aren't So Loyal Anymore
At 9:59 AM this morning, one minute before its scheduled start, Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, sat before the Senate Intelligence Committee inside the Hart Senate Office Building for what was supposed to be the annual Worldwide Threats hearing. Instead, in two sentences, she destroyed everything the President of the United States has told the American people about why we are at war.
When Senator Jon Ossoff asked Gabbard whether the intelligence community had assessed that Iran posed an imminent nuclear threat before the president launched the war, she didn’t say yes. She didn’t say no. She said, “It is not the intelligence community’s responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat. That is up to the president, based on a volume of information that he receives.”
The Director of National Intelligence, sitting in a hearing literally called “Worldwide Threats,” told the United States Senate that determining threats is not her job. When in reality, it is her only job. It is the entire reason her office exists. But instead of answering the question, she handed the responsibility to Trump. She put it all on him. Either the intelligence community told him Iran was an imminent threat and she’s distancing herself from it now because she knows it wasn’t true, or they never said it was imminent and he lied to the American people to justify a war he started without Congress. Either way, she threw him under the bus to protect herself.
And then came the second sentence that changed everything. Also under questioning from Ossoff, Gabbard confirmed that Iran’s nuclear enrichment program had been “obliterated” by last summer’s strikes. She confirmed that Iran has made “no efforts” to rebuild it since. If their nuclear program was already destroyed before this war began, and they weren’t trying to restart it, then there was no imminent nuclear threat. The entire reason the president gave for taking this country to war, without a single vote from Congress, falls apart.
And here’s the part that tells you she knew exactly what she was doing. That line about Iran’s nuclear program being obliterated? It was in her written testimony. She submitted it to the committee in advance. But when she sat in that chair and read her opening statement out loud, she skipped it. She completely left it out. When Ossoff pressed her on why, she said she was “running long on time.” She had time to deliver every other talking point. She had time to praise the intelligence community. She had time to lay out the administration’s position on every other threat. But she didn’t have time for the one sentence that proves the president’s justification for war was built on a lie. She knew what those words meant. She put them in writing to protect herself, but she tried her hardest not to say them out loud.
This is what happens when you fill a government with loyalists instead of leaders. They’ll say whatever you need them to say, right up until the moment their own neck is on the line. And then even loyalty has its limits. Gabbard didn’t tell the truth today because she suddenly found her conscience. She told it because she was under oath, on camera, and she knew the lies were too big to carry without burying herself. Loyalty brought her to that chair. But self-preservation is what made her talk.
And she wasn’t the only one at that table who had no business being there. Sitting beside her were FBI Director Kash Patel, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Lt. Gen. James Adams III of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Lt. Gen. William Hartman, the acting director of the National Security Agency. Adams replaced a DIA director who was fired after his agency produced an assessment that contradicted Trump’s claims about Iran. Hartman got his role after Trump fired his predecessor on the recommendation of far-right activist Laura Loomer, who questioned the man’s loyalty. Every seat at that table tells the same story. If you told the truth, you were removed. If you were loyal, you were promoted.
Ratcliffe, the CIA Director, tried the same move Gabbard pulled. When asked about the imminent threat, he swapped the word out entirely, calling it an “immediate” threat instead, as if changing one word could close the gap between what the president told the public and what the intelligence actually showed.
It got worse from there. Senator Tom Cotton asked Ratcliffe if Iran could have had an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States in “as few as six months.” Ratcliffe’s answer: “If left unimpeded, yes.” But he offered no timeline of his own. Meanwhile, Gabbard’s own written testimony told a very different story. She wrote that Iran could potentially begin to develop a viable intercontinental ballistic missile “before 2035.” Six months and nine years are not the same thing. But at a table full of loyalists, no one was going to say that out loud.
When Senator Angus King asked Gabbard directly whether Russia is providing intelligence support to Iran, including satellite imagery, she wouldn’t answer. She said it was a matter for the classified session, even though the story had already been reported publicly by multiple news outlets. King’s response: “OK, that’s sort of a first cousin of a ‘yes.’” She wouldn’t confirm what journalists have already confirmed because confirming it would mean admitting that Russia is actively helping a country target and kill American service members while this administration does nothing about it.
And then Ratcliffe, of all people, cracked. When asked about Trump’s own Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, who recently said he took Vladimir Putin at his word that Russia wasn’t sharing intelligence with Iran, Ratcliffe said flatly that he did not take Putin at his word. The CIA Director publicly contradicted the president’s top negotiator. Even inside the loyalty structure, the weight of what they’re being asked to carry continues to break people.
And then there was Fulton County. Because today’s hearing wasn’t just about Iran. Senator Mark Warner pressed Gabbard on something that has nothing to do with foreign threats and everything to do with loyalty to one man. In late January, Gabbard was spotted at an FBI search of an elections office in Fulton County, Georgia, where agents seized materials related to the 2020 election. The Director of National Intelligence, whose entire job is focused on foreign threats, showed up at a domestic law enforcement operation targeting local election records. This matters because the intelligence community exists specifically to monitor threats from foreign adversaries. It is not authorized to conduct or participate in domestic law enforcement operations against American citizens on American soil. That boundary exists for a reason. It was put in place to prevent the government from turning its most powerful surveillance and intelligence tools against its own people. What Gabbard did in Fulton County wasn’t just unusual. An argument could be made that it was a direct violation of the very purpose of the office she holds. A former Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, who served under President Obama, put it plainly: “There are no Russian, Chinese, Iranian, North Korean secrets in Fulton County.”
When Warner asked her what authority she had to be there, she said she was there “at the request of the president” and was there “to work with the FBI to observe.” She said she was “not aware of what was in the warrant.” But when Warner pressed on why Trump would even be involved in or aware of an FBI search, Gabbard suggested it was possible Trump wasn’t even aware of the details. First Trump sent her. Then the White House said Bondi sent her. Now she’s suggesting maybe Trump didn’t even know. The story keeps changing because there is no version of the truth that makes this okay. Warner called it what it was: “an organized effort to misuse her national security powers to interfere in domestic politics and potentially provide a pretext for the president’s unconstitutional efforts to seize control of the upcoming elections.”
And then Warner pointed to something that should alarm every single American who understands how important the midterms are going to be this year. The 2026 annual threat assessment, the very document this hearing was supposed to be about, is the first since 2017 that doesn’t even mention foreign election interference. Warner asked Gabbard directly: “Are you saying there is no foreign threat to our elections in our midterms this year?” She wouldn’t answer. Warner responded: “I would draw the conclusion there must be no foreign threat to our elections in 2026.” He didn’t believe it. Neither should you.
For those of us who understand how critical these midterms are, this is deeply troubling. It’s not what was said in that hearing that should keep you up tonight. It’s what wasn’t said. They didn’t remove foreign election interference from the report because the threat disappeared. They removed it because acknowledging it would undermine everything this administration is trying to do: using federal agencies to raid election offices, pushing new voting restrictions through Congress with the SAVE Act, and laying the groundwork to challenge or control the results of the midterms. If your own intelligence community is on the record saying the real threat to our elections comes from foreign governments, it’s a lot harder to sell the lie that the real problem is American voters.
And while all of that was happening in one hearing room, down the hall in the Senate Homeland Security Committee, another loyalist was auditioning for another job he has no business holding.
Markwayne Mullin, Trump’s nominee to replace Kristi Noem as head of the Department of Homeland Security, sat before the committee and described his relationship with the President of the United States like this: he called Trump “a friend” and said he speaks with him “more from a friend level than a policy level.” That is the man being asked to run an agency of more than 260,000 employees. An agency that has been partially shut down for over a month. An agency whose officers killed American citizens in Minneapolis. An agency that is conducting raids across the country, warehousing children, and abandoned the constitutional right to due process. And his qualification isn’t experience, expertise, or even ideology. It’s friendship.
The hearing’s own Republican chairman, Rand Paul, opened not with pleasantries but with a confrontation. He referenced reports that Mullin had called him a “freaking snake” and said he understood why Paul’s neighbor attacked him in 2017, an assault that broke Paul’s ribs and hospitalized him for weeks. Paul looked at him and said: “I just wonder if someone who applauds violence against their political opponents is the right person to lead an agency that has struggled to accept limits to the proper use of force.” He asked Mullin to explain “why they should trust a man with anger issues to set the proper example for ICE and Border Patrol agents.” Mullin didn’t apologize. He said they just “don’t get along.” After the hearing, Paul told reporters he would vote against the nomination.
Then came the classified trip that wasn’t classified. When Peters asked about overseas travel that Mullin had failed to disclose in his paperwork to Congress, Mullin said it was “classified” and he could only discuss it in a secure setting. Senators from both parties pushed back. After the hearing, Mullin was taken to a SCIF for a classified briefing on the trip. And when it was over, his own ally, Senator James Lankford, told reporters it wasn’t classified at all. It was covered by a non-disclosure agreement. Lankford said, “I would use more the term of non-disclosure than classified.” The man who wants to run the Department of Homeland Security either doesn’t know the difference between classified information and an NDA, or he was hoping no one would check.
Two hearings. Two rooms. Same day. Same theme. Every chair filled with someone who was chosen not because they were the best person for the job, but because they were the most loyal to one man. And that single fact is what connects it all. It’s why the lies about Iran go unchallenged from within. It’s why the Epstein files stay buried. It’s why the economy is getting worse. And it’s what makes this moment so dangerous. Because when every person in power owes their position to one man’s approval, there is no one left to say no. There is no one left to tell the truth. And there is no one left to protect the rest of us.
So what do we do? We start by recognizing what today actually showed us. Gabbard contradicted the president under oath. Ratcliffe refused to take Putin at his word. Rand Paul, a Republican, said he would vote against Trump’s nominee. Joe Kent walked away the day before. The loyalty structure isn’t holding. It’s cracking. Not because these people suddenly found their conscience, but because the lies have gotten too big and too dangerous to carry without risk to themselves.
And we use that. Because the people who are going to decide the future of this country aren’t the loyalists. They’re not the people who are too far gone to reach. They’re the people in between. The ones who are just starting to feel it. The friend who noticed gas prices went up. The neighbor whose partner is asking questions about detention centers. The coworker who hasn’t been paying attention but is starting to sense that something is very wrong. Those are the people we need to focus on. And we reach them not by sending them everything, but by sending them the right thing. If they care about their kids, send them what’s happening to children at the border. If they care about the economy, send them the numbers. If they care about the military, send them Joe Kent’s resignation letter. Meet them where they are. Use sources they can’t dismiss: C-SPAN, PBS, NPR, the White House’s own YouTube channel. The videos are the videos. The facts are the facts. And the more this administration’s decisions hurt everyday Americans, the more people are going to come looking for answers. Be the one who has them ready.
This happened to me just today. I was talking to someone I don’t see often, and they brought up just how upset they and their partner are about everything that’s happening with the detention centers, gas prices, and a war that doesn’t feel justified. These were people who never bothered with “politics” before. And now they can’t stop talking about it. That’s who we need to be focused on right now. Not the loyalists, or the people who are too far gone. The people who are waking up because it finally hit them where they live. Find the thing that matters to them and share it. Meet them where they are. Because the more this administration hurts everyday Americans, the more people like them are going to come looking for the truth. Be the one who has it ready.
I know it’s easy to look at days like today and feel overwhelmed by how broken everything seems. But sometimes hope doesn’t come from one big moment or one dramatic turning point. Sometimes it lives in the cracks. And today, the cracks were everywhere. Inside the hearing rooms, where even the loyalists couldn’t hold the line. And outside them, where people who never cared about politics are starting to care because they have no choice. If we keep this pressure up through the midterms, if we show up for every single election between now and then, we can take back Congress. We can put people in those seats who will hold real hearings with real consequences. And from there, we start building toward the next presidential election, and we make sure this never happens again. The cracks are where the light gets in. And today, there was light everywhere. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.
I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather
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This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.
Picture of the Day: The sunrise (from a couple of days ago, because the pictures I took this morning had too much glare). A colorful sunrise still reminds me that some things are bigger than all of this.
Hearing Videos:
Senate Intelligence Committee, Worldwide Threats Hearing, March 18, 2026:
Senate Homeland Security Committee, Mullin Confirmation Hearing, March 18, 2026:
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/tulsi-gabbard-kash-patel-senate-intelligence-committee-hearing/
https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/18/politics/takeaways-intelligence-officials-worldwide-threats-war-iran
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5789941-iran-russia-china-intelligence-sharing/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rand-paul-markwayne-mullin-confirmation-hearing-dhs/
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-administration-news-senate-hearing-03-18-26
https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/2026/03/17/open-hearing-worldwide-threats-2/
Hi Heather,
Wonderfully clear essay on a wonderless (new word) day in US politics.
The dam is almost gone, the flood is ripping up trees with no roots. The rats are all a panic…save themselves or perish in the waters of truth, of facts. A tree’s knowledge and experience lies in it’s roots. They give stability by knowing which way to grow. They provide life giving water and essential nutrients. These rootless excuses of politicians, go where the wind blows, eventually they topple. The truth is the strongest wind!!
As with the MOB;
It is ALWAYS someone CLOSEST to the BETRAYED (trump) who is the BETRAYER (maga).
It's only a matter of time now...
Tick Tock Tick Tock Tick Tock 💣🤯