Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declined to condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview Sunday, reserving her ire for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders instead.
Gabbard—who has faced intense scrutiny for expressing sympathy for Russia and meeting with Putin ally and former Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad—repeatedly shifted the conversation away from Putin on Fox News Sunday as she was hammered on the Kremlin “celebrating” the fallout last week between Trump and Zelensky in the White House.
“[Zelensky] has said that he wants to end this war, but he will only accept an end, apparently, that leads to what he views as Ukraine’s victory—even if it comes at an incredibly high cost of potentially World War III or even a nuclear war,” Gabbard told host Shannon Bream.
Bream challenged Gabbard on Putin’s track record of breaking peace agreements, but the national intelligence chief dismissed the question.
“Of course, both sides are going to have their arguments and their interests that they are fighting for,” she said.
Gabbard again dodged Bream when the host pointed out that Russian officials, including former Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, responded triumphantly to Trump’s contentious meeting with Zelensky in the Oval Office Friday.
“What do you make of Russia celebrating and saying what the U.S. is doing lines up with their vision?” Bream asked.
“They’re going to say what their position is,” Gabbard replied. “What we should pay attention to here in the United States of America is the American people, so many people across the country, celebrating the strong leadership that President Trump and Vice President Vance demonstrated in the Oval Office.”
Gabbard lambasted European leaders who had condemned Trump’s meeting with Zelensky.
“I think those who are criticizing [Trump]’s efforts in this way are showing that they are not committed to peace,” she said.
“There’s something fundamentally deeper here that shows a huge difference in divergence between the values that President Trump and Vice President Vance are fighting for—the values that are enshrined in our Constitution, the interests of the American people in our peace and freedom and national security—versus those of many of these European countries who are coming to Zelensky side as he walked out of the White House,” she added.
Bream cut in, asking, “Certainly those [values] are not things that you would say that Russia or Putin celebrates or bestows on his own people?”
But Gabbard only spared two sentences to acknowledge the lack of freedom in Russia.
“That’s correct. I would not make that claim, and it’s clear that that’s not the case, nor does President Trump,” she said.
“But that’s not really what we’re talking about here,” she continued. “We’re talking about many of these European countries and Zelensky himself, who claim to be standing and fighting for the cause of freedom and democracy, when we actually look at what’s happening in reality in these countries, as well as with Zelensky government in Ukraine, is the exact opposite.”
