Cabinet member's 'blazing red flag' blunder 'wildly worse' than Signalgate: expert

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is at the storm of what a former GOP strategist has called a worse moment for Donald Trump's administration than the Yemen leak.

Highly sensitive military information had been leaked inadvertently in March 2025 when a group chat including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance also featured The Atlantic's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. It marked an embarrassing moment for the administration, but there are fears of even bigger new leak problems involving Gabbard, according to political analyst Rick Wilson.

The National Security Agency flagged a phone call between two foreign intelligence members, with highly sensitive communication — reportedly involving somebody close to Trump — brought to Gabbard's attention.

The director, rather than allowing the NSA's investigation to continue, took a paper copy to Susie Wiles, the president's chief of staff, according to The Guardian.

This move could be damaging to the administration, according to Wilson, who appeared on political commentator Molly Jong-Fast's podcast to discuss the problem Gabbard has caused.

Wilson said, "She is in some deep, deep, deep, deep s--t. The intelligence community people who are still around give a damn about their job. They give a damn about the country and the security and she has put us in danger.

"This is at a level that is so above and beyond because of both the nature of the target, whoever this foreign intelligence person was, and the collection system from the NSA that got the information. This is something incredibly sensitive, crown-jewel-level stuff.

"This is a blazing red flag about Gabbard's inability and lack of temperament to do this job."

Fast Politics host Jong-Fast then asked if this situation is "worse or better" than the Yemen strike leak from Hegseth last year.

"This is wildly worse," Wilson replied. "That foreign intelligence person almost certainly will become aware that they are targeting them in a certain way, they will communicate differently.

"The other part of this is what it implicates in the Trump administration. We have seen in what we know of the complaint so far is that the person they were talking to is 'close to Trump,' this does not mean it is a government official.

"Given Donald Trump's propensity for using outside actors, Steve Whitkoff, Jared Kushner, who are not government officials, to conduct diplomacy and foreign policy, I'm deeply concerned that somebody inside the Trump government... gets on the phone and calls another person and says 'did you hear about this thing that we're doing?'"