Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard sidestepped a pointed question about whether or not, as the White House suggested, there was an “imminent nuclear threat” from Iran during a Senate hearing on worldwide threats.

Instead, she underscored the threat of Iran’s intent to obtain nuclear weapons, something she previously doubted, and argued that it is President Trump’s decision to determine the imminence of a given threat.

“The intelligence community assessed that Iran maintained the intention to rebuild and to continue to grow their nuclear enrichment capability,” Gabbard told Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), who grilled her on the White House’s statements.

Ossoff had quoted the Intelligence Community’s conclusion that Iran’s nuclear program had been “obliterated,” something with which Gabbard concurred. He then repeatedly pressed her on whether Iran posed an imminent nuclear threat, but she consistently dodged.

“Senator, the only person who can determine what is and is not an imminent threat is the president,” she said.

The Peach State Democrat quickly shot back, “False.”

“This is the worldwide threats hearing where you present to Congress national intelligence, timely, objective, and independent of political considerations,” he fired back. “You’ve stated today that the intelligence community’s assessment is that Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was obliterated and ‘there had been no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability.'”

Gabbard reiterated that it’s not the “intelligence community’s responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat.”

But Ossoff, widely seen as the most vulnerable incumbent Democratic senator heading into the 2026 midterms, countered that it’s “precisely your responsibility to determine what constitutes a threat” to the US.

The questioning underscored a major theme of the hearing, pitting Gabbard’s intelligence community’s assessments of the threat Iran posed to the US before President Trump launched Operation Epic Fury on Feb. 28.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) indicated that he found it suspicious that Gabbard in her opening remarks failed to include a key claim about Iran’s nuclear program that she had in her written testimony. 

In her oral testimony, Gabbard dropped a portion of the written remarks that declared Iran’s nuclear enrichment program had been “obliterated” following Operation Midnight Hammer — and that there had been no efforts by Iran to rebuild it.

“Was that because the president said there was an ‘imminent threat’ two weeks ago?” Warner asked.

But Gabbard claimed the omission was made out of deference to time limits.

“I recognized that the time was running long and I skipped the portion you chose,” she explained.

Looming large behind the questioning was the Tuesday resignation of Gabbard’s now-former counterterrorism chief, Joe Kent, because he could not “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.

While Gabbard did not directly address whether Iran posed an imminent threat, CIA Director John Ratcliffe testified at the hearing that he disagreed with Kent’s assessment.

“I think Iran has been a constant threat to the United States for an extended period of time, and posed an immediate threat at this time,” he said.

Regardless, Gabbard said that the current state of Iran was set back following the start of the war, noting that the theocratic regime “appears to be intact but largely degraded.”

Gabbard said Iran’s conventional military power projection has been “largely destroyed,” leaving Tehran with “limited options” to exert influence abroad.

Still, the intelligence community believes the regime is still holding together — though under mounting strain.

“US-led maximum pressure campaigns and snapback of European sanctions added additional pressure to an already bleak Iranian economy, resulting in mass protests earlier this year that Tehran suppressed by killing thousands of protesters,” she said.

“Even if the regime remains intact, the IC assesses that internal tensions are likely to increase as Iran’s economy worsens.”

She further stressed Wednesday that her warnings about the threats facing the US reflected “the intelligence community’s assessment of the threats facing US citizens, our homeland and our interests  —  not my personal views or opinions.”

Gabbard said the annual threat assessment “conveys the intelligence community’s assessment of the threats facing US citizens, our homeland and our interests — not my personal views or opinions.”