Watch Live: Tulsi Gabbard, top intel officials testify at Senate hearing on threats to U.S.

Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, the Republican chairman of the committee, opened the hearing by praising the military operations in Iran and Venezuela that toppled the previous leadership. 

Cotton said Iran’s regime “is finally knocked on its back foot.” 

“After 47 years of indecision and timidity, America has finally put our foot down,” he said. 

He also pointed to the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January.  

“Let this be a warning to those who wish America harm, we leave no stone unturned, and there’s no one or no thing close to you that might not betray you.” 

Moments ahead of the hearing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked on Fox News whether the president has full confidence in Gabbard. 

“He does, yes, and we look forward to watching the director’s hearings today,” Leavitt said 

Gabbard had not spoken publicly about the war with Iran since it began until she posted her statement following Kent’s resignation. 

In the past, Gabbard voiced strong opposition to intervening militarily in Iran. 

“President Trump promised us during his campaign to get the United States out of ‘stupid wars,'” Gabbard said in a 2019 ad when she was running for president, featuring multiple statements from Mr. Trump about avoiding wars in the Middle East. “… But he’s on the brink of launching a very stupid and costly war with Iran. We have to stop President Trump from starting a war with Iran.” 

She never took down that X post, which was one of multiple comments Gabbard made voicing her opposition to conflict with the Islamic Republic. “No War With Iran,” Gabbard wrote on Jan. 7, 2020. She also advertised t-shirts that said, “No War With Iran.” 

Gabbard’s precisely worded statement in the wake of Kent’s resignation Tuesday did not express personal support for the war. She said it’s up to the president to determine what constitutes an “imminent threat,” and the president made that determination.

Joe Kent, who led the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned Tuesday, saying he “cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran.” 

“Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” Kent wrote in his resignation letter to Mr. Trump. 

Kent accused high-ranking Israeli officials and some in the media of waging a “misinformation campaign” that was “used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory.” 

“This was a lie,” he said, urging Mr. Trump to “reflect upon what we are doing in Iran, and who we are doing it for.” 

In a post on X, Gabbard appeared to respond to Kent’s letter, saying the president “is responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat.” 

“After carefully reviewing all the information before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent threat and he took action based on that conclusion,” she said. 

Nearly a year before the U.S. launched the current war against Iran, the intelligence community said in its annual assessment that it continued “to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon” and that then-Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had not reauthorized the program, “though pressure has probably built on him to do so.” 

“Khamenei continues to desire to avoid embroiling Iran in an expanded, direct conflict with the United States and its allies,” the March 2025 report said. 

A few months later, the U.S. became involved in the 12-day war between Iran and Israel, bombing three Iranian nuclear sites, which Mr. Trump claimed had “obliterated” its nuclear program. 

Since the latest bombing campaign against Iran began on Feb. 28, which killed Khamenei, Mr. Trump and other administration officials have claimed that the regime posed an “imminent” threat to the U.S. 

The 2025 assessment also warned that Iran had fielded a large number of ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as unmanned drones, that had the ability to strike throughout the region. 

“Iran’s large conventional forces are capable of inflicting substantial damage to an attacker, executing regional strikes, and disrupting shipping, particularly energy supplies, through the Strait of Hormuz,” the report said. 

Mr. Trump’s spy chiefs will testify to the Senate Intelligence Committee at its annual hearing on global security threats facing the U.S. 

Their appearance comes as Democratic lawmakers call for Trump administration officials — specifically Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — to answer questions in public about the rationale for the war with Iran and the administration’s endgame. 

Instead, it will be Gabbard, Ratcliffe, Patel, Hartman and Adams in the hot seat as the timeline for the end of the war remains unclear, justifications for the military operation have shifted and U.S. allies are reluctant to get involved. 

The annual hearing typically focuses on threats from China, Russia and Iran, though last year’s hearing was dominated by a Signal chat in which Trump officials discussed sensitive details about military strikes in Yemen.