Tulsi Gabbard was appointed as director of national intelligence at the start of Trump’s second term as US president.
US director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced her resignation on Friday, citing her husband’s ill health in a post on social media site X.
Gabbard said in a letter to US President Donald Trump posted on X that she was resigning in order to look after her husband following his diagnosis of “an extremely rare form of bone cancer”, and would leave the administration on 30 June.
In a social media post of his own, Trump said Gabbard had done “an incredible job”, adding that her principal deputy Aaron Lukas would serve as acting director of national intelligence.
Formerly a member of the Democratic Party, Gabbard ran as a presidential candidate in the party’s primaries in 2020 on an anti-interventionist platform. She later dropped out before endorsing eventual winner Joe Biden.
Gabbard left the Democratic Party in 2022, and endorsed Donald Trump ahead of the 2024 presidential election before joining the Republican Party later that year.
Tulsi Gabbard is the fourth cabinet departure of Trump’s second term as president.