Tulsi Gabbard made it abundantly clear that deep state agents within the intelligence community are working against President Trump, explaining that these “bad actors” are using their connections to major media outlets to push an anti-Trump agenda and distort the truth.
For background, in an appearance on Benny Johnson’s podcast on July 31, 2025, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard called out rogue intelligence agents who are still actively trying to subvert President Trump from within the CIA and FBI and are using their connections in the mainstream media to do so. However, DNI Gabbard explained that she is working against the sabotage by exposing it to President Trump’s supporters.
Speaking to Johnson, Director Gabbard confirmed that deep state bureaucrats are still abusing their positions of influence within the intelligence community to smear and subvert President Trump. She told Johnson, “It’s something that we’ve already had to deal with, Benny, within this administration, where there are people within the intelligence community who believe that their will is more important than the will of the American people.”
In addition, Director Gabbard told Johnson that rogue intelligence agents “will weaponize intelligence by leaking it to their friends within the mainstream media with the intent of undermining President Trump’s agenda.” Likewise, Johnson made the case that at the peak of the Russiagate scandal, “The Intel agencies were using media outlets as their mouthpieces, and that those mouthpieces would parrot the official narrative.”
Continuing, Gabbard said that President Trump is “enacting the very thing he promised the American people he would do in this election,” adding that members of the intelligence community “may agree, they may disagree,” clarifying, “That’s not That’s not the point here. As intelligence professionals, as people who work in the national security space in the intelligence community, they are required to fulfill their mandate, to their oath to the Constitution of the United States and to the President of the United States, who is duly elected by the American people.”
Doubling down, DNI Gabbard clarified that members of the intelligence community were leaking classified information “to their friends in the mainstream media with the intent of undermining the president who was elected by the American people.” She added, “None of these intelligence professionals were…they are subverting the will of the people and therefore undermining the Constitution.”
In response to Director Gabbard’s comments, Johnson remarked that it was “wild that you’re still having to deal with that,” going on to add, “They were using the media as government organs to push propaganda, and it’s still happening today.” Gabbard replied, “This is why what we’re doing is so important, Benny, and this is why President Trump’s mandate in this is really critical.”
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Building on her point, Director Gabbard said that the focus of her work is “exposing the truth” and “exposing the bad actors within the intelligence community and in the political space who are weaponizing intelligence to advance their own political interests,” adding that it is “so important to be able to turn the light on in places that have been dark for far too long, expose the truth and drive accountability. ”
Watch the interview:
Featured image credit: video screengrab