DW Phillips

Producer and Film Director @ Ukraine Story | Documentary Filmmaker | Attorney | Journalist | Covering Paris 2024 Olympics

Nov 14, 2024

Tulsi Gabbard and I share one thing in common. We are both surfers. That is where our similarities end. A critical difference, however, is our approach to waves. I believe riding waves should be left to Hawaiin beaches, not conspiracy drenched policy trends.

Over the last nine years, Gabbard had tried to ride the waves of anti-establishment populism from her advocacy for the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders and vehement opposition to Donald Trump, to her sharp criticism of Trump foreign policy, to her over-the-top parroting of QAnon-adjacent Kremlin talking points on Ukraine. She has excellent stage presence which she uses to present herself as an anti-establishment top gun to sympathetic groups, or to sidestep her own statements when speaking to others. She is a woman with lots of camera appeal, and little grounding. She is Marjorie Taylor Green on a surfboard. She is one of the most ignorant political figures in America on Russian disinformation, but in January of this year she will oversee 70 intelligence agencies of the most powerful nation in the World. If there is a ray of hope in the nomination, it is the fact she has an unbroken history of morphing and flip flopping on things that matters.

I will be preparing my list of questions to forward to the Senate committee overseeing her confirmation process.

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NATIONAL SECURITY

Trump’s pick for top intel job has been accused of ‘traitorous’ parroting of Russian propaganda

Tulsi Gabbard, who has never worked in the intelligence world, has denied accusations that she promoted Kremlin disinformation.

https://www-nbcnews-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna180073

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Trump Appoints Tulsi Gabbard to Lead the NIA

President Trump announced his intention to appoint Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence. She will become the first Hindu and overtly anti-Ukrainian activist to serve as the top tiered cabinet post of Director of National Intelligence. An aggressive opponent of Ukraine, Gabbard has been one of the more influential purveyors of QAnon-adjacent conspiracy theories and Kremlin- talking points in the United States.

in 2022 Gabbard pushed Russian-backed conspiracies including Russian justifications for invasion based on threats of US biological labs in Ukraine. She has falsely alleged that Ukrainian President Zelensky is shutting down Christianity, that he shut down 100% of freedom of the press, jails political opposition, threatens to punish Christians for worship, and numerous false charges about political dissent and elections in Ukraine. She has opposed supporting Ukraine on many grounds including the belief that they can not defend themselves properly and should concede defeat to Russia.

As DNI, Gabbart will produce the President’s Daily Brief (PDB), a classified document including intelligence from all intelligence agencies, handed each morning to the president of the United States.

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The Landscape of American Political Views on Ukraine
In Light of the Presidential Nomination Process

A simplified overview of American political views on Ukraine might look something like this.

1. The Objective is Victory
   The views acknowledges the criminality of Vladimir Putin’s invasion on multiple grounds including (1) treaty and agreement violation, (2) mass murder, torture, rape, human trafficking, and acts of genocide, and (3) violation of national sovereignty of a neighbor state. Further, it rests on the belief that Ukraine’s defense of its territorial integrity is just and heroic, and that the West has a moral, legal and geo-strategic interest ensuring that Russia is defeated and Ukraine restored to freedom. It further rests on the proposition that the Russian invasion of Ukraine (as part of a broader growing axis of evil between Russia, Iran, China and North Korea) is symbolically and practically a fundamental threat to the post-WWII order and world peace.
2. The Objective is to Stop the Fighting
   This is the perspective advanced by President-elect Trump. It’s a “stop the killing” approach, – and allow America to move on to other business. They support Ukraine making land concessions to Russia. Advocates range from those who vehemently oppose the Russian invasion and consider themselves friends of Ukraine, to others who take a more hands-off approach. Some argue that “the war is at a stalemate,” express doubts that Ukraine can win, oppose the indecision of the Biden Administration and talk about greater fiscal responsibility and burden sharing with NATO. Notably, many are hawkish encouraging Israel to take their fight with Hamas to the end at all costs, while dovish on the Ukrainian cause for freedom.
3. There is No Clear Objective
   This view was embodied first by the Obama Administration and more recently by President Joe Biden and the policies of Jake Sullivan. Under this approach Russia is verbally castigated and Ukraine supported, but without correct necessary resources, while continuing to cut deals with Russian bankers, and bootstrap Ukraines defense. The policy is a long, slow-drip, never ending approach to the conflict, without any commitment to victory.
4. The Objective is to Vilify Ukraine
   Practitioners of this approach include Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Tulsi Gabbard, Marjorie Taylor Green, and a host of conspiracy-minded activists and commentators who generate sympathy for Putin, disparage the Ukrainian defense of their homeland, and repeat demonstrably false Russian talking points and far reaching conspiracy theories in the hope of spreading contempt for the Ukrainian cause of freedom.

Of the four significant foreign policy appointments (NSA, Ambassador to UN, Secretary of State and Secretary of Army) made by President Trump, at least three have been advocates for Ukraine in the past, but presently appear to fall into category 2 – “Stop the Fighting.”

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