Tulsi Gabbard Not Invited To Trump’s Camp David Retreat Focused On Iran

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was not invited to attend President Donald Trump’s June 8 Camp David retreat, where he “convened senior national security officials to discuss the Middle East,” Fox News White House Correspondent Peter Doocy reported on Tuesday.

According to Doocy’s report, Gabbard “had a scheduling conflict with National Guard orders, but was never invited in the first place.” The development was reported hours after Trump dismissed Gabbard’s March testimony before Congress, when she said Iran did not appear to be building a nuclear weapon.

“I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having one,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One while on his way back to the White House from the G7 summit in Canada.

Gabbard said in her opening statement before Congress in March that the intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.” She acknowledged that “in the past year, we’ve seen an erosion of a decades-long taboo in Iran on discussing nuclear weapons in public, likely emboldening nuclear weapons advocates within Iran’s decision-making apparatus.”

“Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons,” she added.

From March 26 House Intelligence Committee, DNI Tulsi Gabbard: "The IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme leader Khomeini has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003."

Full video here: https://t.co/5PRCofvScf pic.twitter.com/Mb5dj8zoAo

— CSPAN (@cspan) June 17, 2025

Asked to respond to Trump’s comments, Gabbard backed the president, saying there is no conflict between his stance on Iran and her prior statements to Congress.

“What President Trump is saying is the same thing I said in my annual threat assessment in March to Congress,” Gabbard said, according to The Hill.

The Daily Wire has reached out to Gabbard’s office for further comment.

A senior intelligence official told Axios that Gabbard’s testimony does not contradict Trump’s statement that Iran is close to building a nuclear weapon.

“There’s a distinction. Just because they don’t have one does not mean that they don’t want to build one,” the official said.

Israeli intelligence suggested that the radical Islamic regime was close to obtaining a nuclear weapon, while a U.S. intelligence official told CNN, “If Iran wanted one, they have all the things they need.”

Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman, joined the Republican Party after endorsing Trump during the 2024 presidential campaign last year. During her time in the Trump administration, Gabbard has hailed Trump as “the president of peace.”