The new year has brought fresh odds for who will leave the Trump administration in 2026.
Prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket each list FBI Director Kash Patel as the favorite to depart this year, with Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard coming in a close second among major Trump appointees.
Patel, 45, has embarrassed the administration with his constant use of an FBI jet to visit his country music girlfriend, 27, and by botching initial arrests in high-profile cases like the Brown University mass shooter and the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Those gaffes have led Kalshi to list Patel’s chances of being canned or resigning by year’s end at 54 percent. His odds are similar on Polymarket, which says he has a 51 percent chance of exiting his role by Dec. 31.
Patel’s deputy for much of MAGA 2.0, Dan Bongino, announced his own resignation last month, with some reports describing him as the “fall guy” for the administration’s bizarre handling of the Epstein files.
While Patel has been a negative-headline machine for the administration, Gabbard, 44, has at times blindsided the White House, like reportedly revoking security clearances for 37 people without giving the administration a heads-up. Kalshi says she has a 47 percent chance of leaving office this year, while Polymarket estimates she has a 49 percent chance.
The former Democratic presidential candidate, who says she is an anti-interventionist, took three days to comment publicly on the operation to abduct Nicolás Maduro and his wife from their home in Venezuela.
Her first statement, posted to X on Tuesday afternoon, was not particularly notable on its own.
“President Trump promised the American people he would secure our borders, confront narcoterrorism, dangerous drug cartels, and drug traffickers,” she wrote. “Kudos to our servicemen and women and intelligence operators for their flawless execution of President Trump’s order to deliver on his promise thru Operation Absolute Resolve.”
That is a far cry from her position on Venezuela in January 2019, when she was weeks away from formally announcing her presidential candidacy.
“The United States needs to stay out of Venezuela,” she wrote then. “Let the Venezuelan people determine their future. We don’t want other countries to choose our leaders--so we have to stop trying to choose theirs.”
Gabbard has since been mocked for her 180 on Venezuela.
The markets suggest that Gabbard may eventually call it quits as the Trump administration amps up its threats to use force abroad in Greenland, Mexico, Panama, and Colombia—something Gabbard claims to be passionately against.
A source told The Washington Post that Gabbard was not involved in the operation in Venezuela and is not part of Trump’s inner circle.
“It seems pretty obvious that she was not part of this [Maduro mission] and has not been part of the inner circle for some time, if ever,” a former intelligence official told the paper. “She is an isolationist, and Trump is some kind of weird imperialist.”
Kalshi lists the next most likely departures from the Trump administration this year as Attorney General Pam Bondi (42 percent), Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem (41 percent), White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles (40 percent), and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt (40 percent).
Bondi, 60, has been harshly criticized for her handling of the Epstein files, and replacements for Noem, 54, have reportedly been considered because of an alleged romance between Noem and her top adviser. Wiles, 68, was shockingly candid in a series of Vanity Fair interviews that embarrassed the White House last month.
Leavitt, 28, has not been central to any scandals in the second Trump administration that may have prompted Trump to consider firing her. However, she announced in December that she is pregnant with a May due date.
