GOP Senator Reveals One Condition That Will Get Tulsi Gabbard Confirmed

Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma said Tulsi Gabbard could be confirmed as President-elect Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence—if she meets one condition in particular.

Appearing on the Wall Street Journal’s opinion podcast, Lankford suggested that in order to garner enough Republican votes to be sworn in, Gabbard would need to flip her stance on the government’s 702 authority to gather intelligence on non-Americans determined to be national security threats.

As a congresswoman, Gabbard publicly advocated for reforms that would diminish Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and repeatedly voted against authorizing the law’s remit on Americans.

“Well, now she’s going to be the spokesman for 702 authority,” said Lankford.

He added, “It’s a legitimate question just to say, ‘OK, how are you going to handle this? What does that mean?’ Because if she comes out and says, ‘No, I want to oppose all 702 authority,’ that literally shuts down all of our national defense gathering.”

Given how much Gabbard has flipped on her previous Democratic positions to join the Republican party and Trump’s MAGA movement, Lankford said he doesn’t think Gabbard will have a problem changing her mind.

“I’ve had an opportunity to be able to sit down with her, but she’s going to get a fair hearing to be able to put those things out there and to say, ‘This is what I believe about these issues’ And I think it’s the right thing to do,” Lankford told host Kim Strassel.

Out of Trump’s 15 Cabinet nominees that must be confirmed by the Senate, Lankford wagered that all of them may be confirmed in a show of fealty to the incoming president.

“It’ll be interesting to see. I don’t hear anyone really coming up publicly and saying, ‘I’m adamantly opposed,’” said Lankford. “What I hear is a lot of people saying, ‘Hey, I want to give a fair hearing. I want people to be able to answer questions publicly.’”