Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told senators Wednesday that Iran's regime "appears to be intact but largely degraded," using the Senate Intelligence Committee's annual open threats hearing to deliver the Trump administration’s first public, high-level intelligence assessment of the war that began in late February.
The hearing was held as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released its 2026 Annual Threat Assessment.
Broadcast live on Newsmax and Newsmax2, Gabbard appeared with the heads of the CIA, DIA, FBI, and NSA and opened by casting the new threat assessment as a sweeping warning about dangers facing the United States at home and abroad.
Her prepared remarks moved from border security and drug cartels to cyberattacks, missile threats, China, Russia, and Islamist terrorism, but senators quickly pulled the hearing toward the question hanging over Washington: whether the administration's public account of Iran matches the intelligence record.
Gabbard said the administration's military campaign had damaged Tehran while insisting the threat had not been eliminated.
"The regime in Iran appears to be intact but largely degraded by Operation Epic Fury," she said in her opening statement.
She also told lawmakers that Iran and its proxies "remain capable of and continue to attack U.S. and allied interests in the Middle East."
That message drew sharper scrutiny because of events beyond the hearing room.
Her appearance came one day after Joe Kent, a senior political appointee overseeing the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned after publicly disputing the administration's claim that Iran posed an imminent threat.
Reuters reported that Kent's departure intensified questions from lawmakers preparing to challenge the administration over the rationale for the war, its objectives, and what intelligence President Donald Trump had before the fighting began.
The most pointed exchange came when Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., focused on a gap between Gabbard's written remarks and what she said aloud.
In the prepared version released ahead of the hearing, she had been set to say that after U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, there had been "no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability."
In her spoken testimony, she instead said Tehran was "trying to recover" from the "severe damage" caused by the operation.
Pressed by Warner on why she left that line out, Gabbard said she had skipped portions because "the time was running long."
Warner accused her of choosing "to omit the parts that contradict the president," turning what is normally a broad annual review of threats into a direct confrontation over credibility, war powers and whether the administration's public case has shifted as the conflict has deepened, The Washington Post reported.
Even as Democrats pressed her on that discrepancy, Gabbard's written testimony pointed to the question likely to shape the next phase of the conflict: "We continue to monitor for any early indicators on what position the current or any new leadership in Iran will take with regard to authorizing a nuclear weapons program."
Jim Thomas ✉
Jim Thomas is a writer based in Indiana. He holds a bachelor's degree in Political Science, a law degree from U.I.C. Law School, and has practiced law for more than 20 years.
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