Tammy Duckworth: Tulsi Gabbard Is ‘Compromised’

BASH: “Let’s turn to the Democratic Congresswoman — former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who the president-elect tapped to serve as director of national intelligence. She’s a critic of U.S. intelligence operations. She has promoted Russian propaganda. Your fellow Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz called her ‘likely a Russian asset.’ You and Tulsi Gabbard are both veterans. You served with her in the House. What do you think of her?”
DUCKWORTH: “Well, I think she’s compromised. I think by going to Syria and basically backing a brutal dictator there — I mean, Russian-controlled media called her a Russian asset. So I do think that we have a real deep concern whether or not she’s a compromised person. And, frankly, the U.S. Intelligence Committee — I’m sorry — the U.S. intelligence community has identified her as having troubling relationships with America’s foes. And so my worry is that she couldn’t pass a background check.”
BASH: “So, you are a Democrat. You are in the minority now in the United States Senate. If she can find the votes among Republicans, likely, to get confirmed, it sounds like that would worry you to have her in that job.”
DUCKWORTH: “Very much so. She has no intelligence background whatsoever. When she was in Iraq, she was a medical records clerk E4, below the rank of sergeant. Her second deployment was actually to Kuwait, Kuwaiti naval base, where she only spent three months training the Kuwaiti military. So — and I don’t know of any intelligence work that she has done. So she is, in terms of the intelligence community, very unqualified. Plus, she is potentially compromised and could be and has — there are questions about whether or not she is now a Russian asset.”
BASH: “Do you believe that she could be a Russian asset?”
DUCKWORTH: “I think that she is someone who is wholly backing and supportive of Putin, and I worry that she will not have America’s best interests at heart.”