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DNI Tulsi Gabbard Excluded From Plot To Depose Nicolás Maduro

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by blueapples
Friday, Jan 09, 2026 - 12:00

blueapples on X | ashesofacacia.substack.com

The arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro marked a seminal moment for the Trump administration in which it crossed the Rubicon by embarking upon a neoconservative foreign policy antithetical to the America First political movement it has been posturing itself as leading. Operation Absolute Resolve has further fractured the right wing of the American electorate, alienating disenfranchised conservative voters even more ahead of a pivotal midterm election. That growing division appears to extend far beyond voters and into the highest echelons of the Trump administration, as evident from a Bloomberg report alleging that Director of National Intelligence (”DNI”) Tulsi Gabbard was excluded from the planning of Operation Absolute Resolve due to her previously outspoken views against expanding an interventionist U.S. foreign policy into South America by deposing Maduro.

According to the report, White House aides joked that the acronym of Gabbard’s title, DNI, stood for “do not invite” when organizing the plans to launch military intervention against Venezuela. Vice President JD Vance categorically denied the accusations made in the Bloomberg report, stating that they are “completely false.” “We’re all part of the same team,” he stated to reporters at the White House Thursday, adding, “We kept it very tight to the senior cabinet officials and related officials in our government, and we kept this operation secret for a very long time.” Vance also rejected similar reports that he was excluded from discussions surrounding the planning of the operation.

In 2020, Director Gabbard ran for the Democratic nomination for president on a non-interventionist platform that was in stark juxtaposition to that of her competitors. Ultimately, the philosophical rejection of that fundamental dimension of Gabbard’s political platform led to her leaving the Democratic Party in 2022. Gabbard became an independent candidate from 2022 until 2024, when she joined the Republican Party and endorsed Trump ahead of that year’s election against Vice President Kamala Harris, who Gabbard previously humiliated in the debates during the 2020 Democratic primaries for the party’s presidential nomination.

After joining the second Trump administration as its Director of National Intelligence, Gabbard found herself in a similarly humiliating position following statements she made commending the deposition of Maduro after his arrest. Gabbard applauded the Trump administration’s embrace of a neoconservative foreign policy, writing, “President Trump promised the American people he would secure our borders and confront narcoterrorism, dangerous drug cartels, and drug traffickers. 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” on her official DNI X account.

Gabbard’s tweet praising the Trump administration’s decision to engage in its own regime change war against Venezuela became inundated with replies exposing her as a hypocrite in light of a long track record of remarks she made disavowing that sort of interventionist foreign policy. X users excoriating Gabbard for selling out to the neoconservatives she once defied highlighted a tweet she posted in 2019 saying, “The United States needs to stay out of Venezuela. 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.” Other remarks made by Gabbard through the years leading up to the deposition of Maduro rejecting the idea of military intervention against Venezuela hinged on her belief that Venezuela posed no threat to the U.S., going as far as to claim that there was “no justification to violate the sovereignty of the Venezuelan people.”

Although those remarks against the looming threat of a return to neoconservatism were made years ago, Gabbard has continued to posture herself as an opponent of an interventionist U.S. foreign policy. In December, Gabbard spoke at a Turning Point USA (”TPUSA”) event in which she rallied its audience against the warmongers and military-industrial complex who profit from the bloodshed of the U.S.’s forever wars. Gabbard told the TPUSA audience that “those who seek to keep us in a persistent state of war deny the heavy costs that it takes in human lives, in taxpayer dollars, and in the erosion of our liberties—wars that have nothing to do with ensuring our security or our liberty.” Yet, only weeks after those remarks, Gabbard completely compromised the principles she extolled at the TPUSA rally by waxing poetic over Operation Absolute Resolve.

Although Vice President Vance and other White House officials denied the veracity of the Bloomberg report claiming that Gabbard was left out of the planning behind Operation Absolute Resolve, she has yet to make any definitive statement disavowing the allegation. If Gabbard was involved, that reflects a betrayal of her principles that is on par with that of others in the Trump administration who find themselves slowly morphing into the Washington establishment they campaigned on defying. If the Bloomberg report is indeed true, then it reveals a profound divergence of philosophy within the Trump administration that parallels the growing divide among its supporters. That divide, if not reconciled, could manifest in the 2026 midterm elections and deliver results that echo as the death knell of the Trump administration and future of the Republican Party.

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