How did the White House and DNI office explain Gabbard’s role in national‑security decisions after the Venezuela raid?
Executive summary
The White House publicly rejected characterizations that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was sidelined from the Venezuela operation, insisting she has the president’s confidence and played an analytical role, while the Office of the DNI highlighted Gabbard’s social‑media praise of U.S. forces; independent reporting, however, says senior aides excluded her from months of planning because of past anti‑intervention views and that some inside the West Wing even joked about her being “Do Not Invite.” [1] [2] [3]
1. White House line: confidence and “fantastic job”
After reporting that Gabbard was not part of sustained planning for the raid to seize Nicolás Maduro, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung pushed back publicly, saying President Trump “has full confidence in @DNIGabbard and she’s doing a fantastic job,” and administration spokespeople framed critical accounts as attempts to sow division inside the team [4] [1].
2. Vice President Vance: denial of exclusion from plans
Vice President JD Vance joined the rebuttal at a briefing, calling claims that he or Gabbard had been kept out of planning “false” and emphasizing that the operation was tightly held at senior‑Cabinet levels rather than an institutional snub; Vance’s remarks were presented as a direct refutation of reporting that suggested sidelining [1] [5].
3. DNI office: point to Gabbard’s public response and analytic support
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence reframed the narrative by pointing to a post Gabbard published praising U.S. service members and calling the capture’s execution “flawless,” and, according to reporting the DNI’s shop also provided intelligence analysis that contributed to the mission from the analytical side—an account the White House used to argue she was not excluded from providing intelligence even if not in the inner tactical circle [3] [1].
4. Reporting and former officials: a different picture of being sidelined
Multiple outlets, citing people familiar with White House deliberations, reported that Gabbard was kept out of months of operational planning because officials worried her well‑publicized anti‑intervention stance in Venezuela meant she might not back forceful action; that reporting said the exclusion was so widely known among staff that some aides joked the initials DNI stood for “Do Not Invite” [2] [6] [7].
5. Experts call the exclusion “highly unusual” — and why that matters
Retired intelligence officials and veterans told reporters it is “highly unusual” for the DNI to be sidelined in a major operation, because the office is supposed to coordinate across the intelligence community; their public comments have fueled skepticism about internal trust and the degree to which the DNI role is being respected inside this administration [8] [9].
6. Competing narratives and potential incentives behind them
The White House rebuttals emphasize unity and analytic contribution—messages useful for containing domestic political fallout and preserving the appearance of orderly command—while anonymous sources who described exclusion to Bloomberg and others underscore institutional distrust of Gabbard due to past positions, an account that serves critics worried about politicized intelligence; the claim that aides joked “DNI = Do Not Invite” was explicitly denied by a White House official who called the reports exaggerated, illustrating how leaks, denials, and internal jabs have been weaponized into competing public narratives [6] [2] [7].
7. What the available reporting cannot confirm
Open reporting establishes the competing public claims—White House confidence and analytical contribution versus journalists’ sourcing that she was cut out of planning—but lacks documentary proof of who attended every planning meeting or internal minutes that would definitively show the DNI’s presence or absence across the months leading up to the raid; therefore, while accounts converge that Gabbard was not pictured in the White House “war room” photos and that she responded publicly days later, precise details about the operational planning list remain based on anonymous sources and official denials [6] [10] [2].