National Security & Defense

Eugene

(67,212 posts) Sat Apr 11, 2026, 11:23 PM Apr 11

Trump Was Going to Fire Tulsi Gabbard Last Week -- Until Roger Stone Stepped in to Save Her: Axios

Exclusive: How Roger Stone persuaded Trump not to fire Tulsi Gabbard (Axios)

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Source: Mediaite

Trump Was Going to Fire Tulsi Gabbard Last Week — Until This MAGA Legend Stepped in to Save Her: Axios

Isaac Schorr
Fri, April 10, 2026 at 11:01 AM EDT
2 min read

Axios’s Marc Caputo revealed that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was very nearly fired by President Donald Trump last week, but that her job was saved by a legendary GOP operative who vouched for her in a fascinating report that dropped on Friday morning.

According to Caputo, “Trump was displeased with Gabbard when she didn’t wholeheartedly endorse the Iran war during her recent testimony to Congress about threats to the U.S., according to five advisers and confidants who spoke with the president.” In addition Gabbard’s testimony, Trump was reportedly frustrated by the resignation of former National Counterterrorism Director Joe Kent, who left his post in protest of the war.

While some of Gabbard’s fellow Cabinet members supported Gabbard, one source assured Caputo that Roger Stone played a central role in protecting her. “Roger sealed the deal. He saved Tulsi,” said the source. Stone and Trump’s close relationship goes all the way back to 1979, and the president values his opinion. Her are the four arguments he reportedly made on Gabbard’s behalf:

1. Gabbard was loyal, gave congressional testimony in a professional manner and never disputed the president.

2 replies

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Highlight:

Trump Was Going to Fire Tulsi Gabbard Last Week -- Until Roger Stone Stepped in to Save Her: Axios (Original Post) Eugene Apr 11 OP

just keep her from coming back ot hawai'i msongs Apr 11 #1

MaddowBlog-Gabbard reaches new low, aids Trump campaign to 'expunge' his first impeachment LetMyPeopleVote Apr 15 #2

msongs

(74,039 posts)

1. just keep her from coming back ot hawai'i

Reply to Eugene (Original post)

Sat Apr 11, 2026, 11:26 PM

Apr 11

LetMyPeopleVote

(181,245 posts)

2. MaddowBlog-Gabbard reaches new low, aids Trump campaign to 'expunge' his first impeachment

Reply to Eugene (Original post)

Wed Apr 15, 2026, 06:37 PM

Apr 15

The president has spent years demanding his first impeachment be undone. His desperate DNI seems eager to help.

Gabbard reaches new low, aids Trump campaign to â€˜expungeâ€™ his first impeachment

www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...
— AnarchoTerran (@anarchoterran.bsky.social) 2026-04-15T08:54:59.068Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/gabbard-reaches-new-low-aids-trump-campaign-to-expunge-his-first-impeachment

Gabbard appears to recognize, however, what she has to do to stay in the White House’s good graces. The conservative Washington Times reported:

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard fired a broadside at congressional Democrats on Monday by saying their 2019 impeachment of President Trump over his dealings with Ukraine was based on biased evidence and slipshod work from within the intelligence community.

The CIA whistleblower whose complaint became the basis of the impeachment was an anti-Trump registered Democrat who misled investigators about collaborating with Democrats, Ms. Gabbard said.

In a statement, the DNI argued that “deep-state actors within the Intelligence Community” secretly conspired to “usurp the will of the American people and impeach the duly-elected president of the United States,” whom she characterized as a poor and unsuspecting victim.....

In November 2019, as congressional Democrats finalized their case in Trump’s impeachment, The Associated Press published a rather brutal analysis that highlighted the “mountain of evidence” that was uncontested and “beyond dispute.” From the AP’s article:

Trump explicitly ordered U.S. government officials to work with his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani on matters related to Ukraine, a country deeply dependent on Washington’s help to fend off Russian aggression. The Republican president pushed Ukraine to launch investigations into political rivals, leaning on a discredited conspiracy theory his own advisers disputed. And both American and Ukrainian officials feared that Trump froze a much-needed package of military aid until Kyiv announced it was launching those probes.

Those facts were confirmed by a dozen witnesses, mostly staid career government officials who served both Democratic and Republican administrations. They relied on emails, text messages and contemporaneous notes to back up their recollections from the past year.

Around the same time, Eugene Robinson added in a Washington Post column, “After this week’s impeachment testimony, if Republicans continue to insist that Dear Leader President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong — and they might do just that — then the GOP has surrendered any claim to being a political party. It would be a full-fledged cult of personality.”.....

Gabbard is apparently eager to play her part, helping Trump rewrite the story and concoct a satisfying counternarrative. The president will no doubt make a fresh push to get GOP lawmakers to wipe the slate clean.

But for those who care about accountability and the truth, the DNI’s efforts should be recognized as misguided nonsense.

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