SPAIN PERSPECTIVE

Madrid, May 22, 2026. Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) under the Trump administration, notified her resignation during a meeting at the Oval Office on Friday. Her resignation letter, published by Fox News and later shared by Gabbard herself on social media, cites a strictly personal reason: her husband Abraham's diagnosis with an extremely rare form of bone cancer.

In the letter, Gabbard writes: 'Abraham has been my rock during our eleven years of marriage, supporting me unconditionally during my deployment in East Africa, several political campaigns, and now in my role.' Her resignation will take effect on June 30, 2026. Her deputy, Aaron Lukas, will assume the interim role at the agency.

Donald Trump reacted by praising 'exceptional work' and expressing confidence in Abraham's recovery. He announced that Lukas would assume 'the role of interim Director of National Intelligence.'

However, ElDiario.es, the only major Spanish media outlet to cover the event in detail, places the resignation in a context that official communication does not directly address. Just a few weeks before Gabbard, her second-in-command, Joe Kent, Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, had resigned in March. Kent had then stated in a letter to Trump: 'I cannot, in good conscience, support the war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we launched this war under pressure from Israel and its powerful lobby in the United States.'

Gabbard herself had, in the past, expressed strong opposition to any military intervention in the Middle East, and particularly against Iran. In January 2025, during a hearing at the Capitol, she denied that Tehran constituted a nuclear threat — in direct contradiction to Trump's position, who had ordered strikes against Iran in the summer of 2025 and again on February 28, 2026.

Spanish media also note that Gabbard's resignation fits into a broader reshuffling of the cabinet: Kristi Noem, Director of National Security, and Pam Bondi, Attorney General, have both left their positions and been replaced by men — respectively Senator Markwayne Mullin and lawyer Todd Blanche, a former Trump defender. This trend, highlighted by ElDiario.es, signals a reduction in the presence of women in security positions within the administration.