Last Updated:
In an interview on her YouTube channel, former UN ambassador Nikki Haley asked if the US was “comfortable” with someone who has “defended Iran, Syria, Russia and China”
Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley (L) slammed the appointment of Tulsi Gabbard (R) as the national intelligence chief. (Image: AFP/File)
Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley slammed the appointment of Tulsi Gabbard as the national intelligence chief, saying the US cannot have a “Russian, Syrian, Iranian, Chinese sympathiser” in such an important position.
In an interview to SiriusXM, which she added to her YouTube, Haley asked if the US was “comfortable” with someone like Gabbard, who she claimed has defended Iran, Syria, Russia and China and has never retracted her views.
“…She’s defended Russia, she’s defended Syria, she’s defended Iran, she’s defended China. Now, she has not denounced any of these views. None of them. She hasn’t taken one of them back. DNI (Department of National Intelligence) is not a place for a Russian, Syrian, Iranian and Chinese sympathiser. The DNI has to analyse real threats. Are we comfortable with someone like that at the top of our national intelligence agencies?” she asked in the video.
Watch the video here:
A strident opponent of US military interventionism, Gabbard is a former congresswoman from Hawaii who has roiled the intelligence community with past comments supportive of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his ally and Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. She switched sides from the Democrats to back Donald Trump’s re-election and is yet to be confirmed by the Senate.
‘OPPOSED ENDING IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL’
Haley said Gabbard, who is Trump’s pick to head the DNI, has only now turned Republican. It is always important to look at the past actions of such people, she said.
“This is a job for an honest broker, without any policy biases. What are the facts about Tulsi Gabbard? She opposed ending the Iran nuclear deal. She opposed sanctions on Iran. She opposed designating the Iran military as terrorists, who say death to America every single day,” she said.
She further said Gabbard once said Trump had turned the US into “Saudi Arabia’s prostitute”. She added that in Congress, Gabbard had criticised Trump’s authoritarian strike against Qasem Suleimani, who was considered the “master of death in Iran”.
“She said he had no justification whatsoever for killing him. She tried to limit Trump’s war powers against Iran. She tried to cut our annual defence budget so that we couldn’t punish Iran and hinder their influence. Reminder: Iran is our number 1 sponsor of terrorism and Tulsi Gabbard defended Iran,” she added.
‘DEFENCE OF AL-ASSAD DISGUSTING’
Haley said Gabbard went to Syria in 2017 for a “photo-op” with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad while he was “massacring his own people”. “She said she found it hard to believe he was behind the chemical attacks (on children). Now, this to me is disgusting… For her to say that Assad was not behind those attacks…everything she literally said about those attacks were Russian talking points, every bit of that. That was Russian propaganda,” she said.
She further said after Russia invaded Ukraine, Gabbard blamed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which is the “western alliance that’s responsible for countering Russia”.
“She blamed NATO for the attack on Ukraine. And the Russians and the Chinese echoed her talking points and her interviews on Russian and Chinese television,” she added.
Gabbard pushed for dropping charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and pardoning National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden, Haley said. “Both were accused of leaking highly sensitive US secrets that put Americans in danger,” she said.
- Location :
Washington D.C., United States of America (USA)
English