DNI = Do Not Invite: Tulsi Gabbard Sidelined From Venezuela Operation

India-West News Desk

WASHINGTON, DC – Tulsi Gabbard’s absence from the public and strategic spotlight during one of the most dramatic military operations of the year has ignited open speculation.

Reports that the Director of National Intelligence was not present for critical planning around the raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro have raised questions about whether her long-held anti-war positions have left her sidelined at the highest levels of national security decision-making.

For days after the January 3 operation, Gabbard was notably missing from White House announcements and official photos of senior advisers monitoring the mission. It was only on January 6 that she publicly acknowledged the raid, posting praise for U.S. troops and intelligence personnel – a marked contrast with other high-ranking officials who spoke openly about the mission as it unfolded.

According to multiple reports, Gabbard was excluded from months of planning. Sources told Bloomberg that her previous opposition to U.S. military involvement in Venezuela and other foreign interventions cast doubt among senior aides about her support for the mission, leading to her omission from key discussions.

Some White House staffers reportedly even joked that her title, Director of National Intelligence, or DNI, might as well stand for “Do Not Invite.”

Yet the administration has pushed back sharply on narratives about strain within the national security team. Vice President JD Vance told reporters that claims Gabbard was left out of planning are “completely false,” insisting that the operation’s secrecy was the reason for limited participation and that all senior officials, including Gabbard, were “part of the same team.”

Still, the reports have drawn attention to the broader tensions between Gabbard’s long-standing anti-interventionist philosophy and the Trump administration’s increasingly assertive foreign policy moves. Years before her appointment as DNI, Gabbard was a vocal critic of U.S. regime-change campaigns, including in Venezuela. In 2019, as a Democratic congresswoman, she warned that U.S. intervention in the country would be “disastrous,” underlining historical patterns of harm tied to American foreign policy in Latin America and arguing that Caracas posed no threat to U.S. security.

That skepticism toward military force has been a hallmark of her public persona since her 2020 presidential campaign, when she championed ending costly overseas engagements.