Tulsi Gabbard – Nuclear War Warning

“Closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation than ever before,” Tulsi Gabbard

On a recent evening, Tulsi Gabbard appeared in a self-produced video with a grave warning for the world. Speaking directly into the camera, President Trump’s director of national intelligence said that we are “closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation than ever before,”. In the ominous clip, Gabbard blamed unnamed “political elite warmongers” for stoking conflicts between superpowers, suggesting they do so perhaps because “they will have access to nuclear shelters for themselves and their families that regular people won’t”. It was a dramatic message, punctuated by images of mushroom clouds and apocalyptic rhetoric. And it immediately set off a firestorm of reactions in American media and political circles, with one MSNBC segment deeming the video “just plain weird,”. Is she “just plain weird” or an important politician on a mission to protect the World from a “brink of nuclear annihilation”? At 3 Narratives News, we will cover her story of public service and her critics’ view that she’s an opportunistic fear monger, but the most important narrative is your own, based on learning both views – you decide for yourself.

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An Ominous Video and a “Nuclear Holocaust” Warning

The video in question, released across Gabbard’s social media channels and titled with the chilling phrase “nuclear holocaust,” unfolds like a mini doomsday address. Gabbard, clad in a sober business suit, delivers her message in a calm but urgent tone. “It’s up to us, the people, to speak up and demand an end to this madness,” she implores viewers. “We must reject this path to nuclear war and work toward a world where no one has to live in fear of a nuclear holocaust,”. Behind her, the backdrop is simple and dark, keeping all focus on her words. The imagery and language evoke Cold War-era fears, albeit updated to the age of Twitter and YouTube.

In her monologue, Gabbard paints a picture of an elite cabal irresponsibly inching the world toward catastrophe. The “political elite warmongers are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers,” she says, positing that these powerful figures might feel safe from the consequences of a nuclear war due to exclusive access to bunkers and shelters. She does not name names in the video, but the implication is clear – in Gabbard’s view, a clique of insulated leaders and profiteers is willing to risk a nuclear exchange knowing they might survive it. It’s a harrowing accusation, one that positions ordinary people as potential victims of a future Armageddon orchestrated by out-of-touch elites.

Gabbard’s alarm did not come out of nowhere. Just weeks earlier, she travelled to Hiroshima, Japan – ground zero of the first atomic bombing – and stood face to face with the human toll of nuclear war. In the video, she explicitly reflects on that visit. Over archival footage of the obliterated city, Gabbard recalls how one bomb “killed over 300,000 people, many dying instantly, while others died from severe burns, injuries, radiation sickness and cancer” in the months and years that followed. “Nagasaki suffered the same fate: homes, schools, families – all gone in a flash,” she says, voice measured but somber. It’s a graphic history lesson meant to drive home her point: that the horror of 1945 could be unleashed again if today’s leaders are not careful. The world’s current trajectory, she argues, is toward another Hiroshima – or worse.

The timing of Gabbard’s warning also coincides with Worldwide conflicts. In South Asia, a sudden military escalation between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan had observers on edge. The Russia-Ukraine war continues to grind on while the USA administration has removed staff members from the Baghdad embassy due to fears about the Iran/USA negotiations, as the World attempts to block Iran from having nuclear power.

The Messenger and Her Mission

To understand Tulsi Gabbard’s fervour on this issue, it helps to recall her unusual journey through American politics. A U.S. Army veteran who served in Iraq, Gabbard brought an up-close experience of war into her political career. She was elected to Congress from Hawaii in 2012 at age 31, hailed as a rising Democratic star and the first Hindu member of Congress. From early on, however, Gabbard defied easy categorization. She bucked her party’s hawkish wing, becoming an outspoken critic of “regime change wars” in the Middle East. Her worldview was shaped by witnessing the costs of combat firsthand and by a deep skepticism of Washington’s foreign-policy establishment.

These views propelled her 2020 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, in which she castigated both parties’ leaders for engaging in “forever wars.” Gabbard often lambasted what she called the “military-industrial warmongering establishment,” language that foreshadowed the phrasing in her new video. Even as she struggled in that primary race, she developed a devoted following among anti-war progressives, libertarians, and others tired of bipartisan interventionism. Gabbard’s critics, however, saw darker currents in her politics, noting her frequent appearances on Fox News to bash the Obama administration’s foreign policy, or her controversial 2017 meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

By late 2022, Gabbard formally left the Democratic Party, declaring it “controlled by an elitist cabal of warmongers” in contrast to her values. When Donald Trump staged his political comeback and recaptured the White House in the 2024 election, he found a spot for Gabbard in his administration despite her onetime affiliation with Bernie Sanders’ wing of the left. In a move that stunned Washington’s old guard, Trump appointed Tulsi Gabbard as the Director of National Intelligence – placing the once-maverick congresswoman in charge of America’s 18 intelligence agencies. Mr. Trump’s intelligence director posted a video warning of global “elites” pushing towards a “nuclear holocaust” on Tuesday,

Yet holding high office has not moderated Gabbard’s rhetorical style. If anything, she has grown more passionate. Her recent “nuclear holocaust” video is a case in point: it’s highly unusual for a sitting intelligence chief to issue a public warning so dire it borders on a Jeremiad. Past Directors of National Intelligence have typically offered sober, carefully worded assessments of threats, not viral-ready videos lambasting “political elites” and invoking World War III. In releasing such an atypical message, Gabbard seemed to be harking back to her days as an anti-establishment firebrand rather than conforming to the buttoned-down norms of her office. It underscores the singular role she occupies: both a government insider with top-secret clearances and an anti-war gadfly speaking to a populist base. Gabbard appears determined to have it both ways, leveraging her insider knowledge to lend weight to her outsider warnings.

Her supporters cheer this approach. To them, Gabbard is using her perch responsibly – perhaps even heroically – by telling the public the uncomfortable truth that others in power won’t. In corners of social media and alternative news where Gabbard has a loyal following, fans praised the video for “finally saying what no one else in Washington will say” about the risks of the current path. They noted that she has little to gain by rocking the boat from inside, and thus must genuinely fear that nuclear war is on the horizon. Gabbard’s character, they argue, has always been to speak bluntly about military overreach, and her message now is a natural extension of that mission, albeit delivered from a higher pulpit.

Media Blowback and Suspicions of Motive

Not everyone saw Gabbard’s video as a public service. Mainstream commentators reacted with a mix of puzzlement, alarm, and scorn. On cable news, MSNBC anchors openly mocked the presentation, with a headline on one segment summarizing it as “Just plain weird”. Pundits questioned why the nation’s top intelligence official felt the need to take her case to YouTube of all places, rather than through official channels. The incongruity of a DNI behaving more like a YouTuber led some to speculate that Gabbard was “performing” for a particular audience – perhaps Trump’s political base or her own online faithful – rather than actually alerting the public to a bona fide emergency. “The purpose of Tulsi Gabbard’s video and its grim theme was unclear,” one analysis in The Independent observed, noting that it “appeared aimed at driving fears among her 3.7 million followers on X concerning a supposed cabal of powerful people”. In other words, skeptics saw the video less as a genuine warning and more as a propaganda piece designed to stoke outrage and keep followers engaged.

On social media, where Gabbard’s clip quickly went viral, many commenters were taken aback by its dire tone and uncharacteristically apocalyptic flavour. Some called the video “unhinged,”the-independent.com, and prominent watchdogs of disinformation accused Gabbard of parroting Kremlin talking points. “DNI Tulsi Gabbard repeats Putin’s talking points today, releasing an unhinged video,” tweeted one analyst, pointing out that Russia’s state media has long warned of nuclear war to undermine Western support for Ukraine. “Warmongering” is to blame for the confrontation in Ukraine, and it’s the West that risks provoking nuclear conflict with Russia. Gabbard, to be clear, did not mention Ukraine directly in her video. But her broadside against those “inciting conflict between superpowers” was widely interpreted as a swipe at U.S. and NATO policy against Russia and possibly China. To her detractors, this was more evidence that Gabbard has strayed into the role of useful idiot, wittingly or unwittingly amplifying the propaganda of America’s adversaries under the guise of seeking peace.

Gabbard’s defenders reject such critiques as character assassination. They note that she has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on multiple occasions (albeit while also faulting U.S. leaders for not doing more to avert war through diplomacy). The attempt to label her a “Russian asset” is an old attack – one elevated by Hillary Clinton in 2019, when Clinton infamously insinuated that Gabbard was Moscow’s favourite U.S. politician. Gabbard even sued Clinton for defamation over that episode, though she eventually dropped the case. In the recent video, Gabbard never praises Russia or any other adversary; she focuses on American leaders and what she perceives as their lust for power and profit. Still, given Gabbard’s history of appearing on Russian state TV and her past skepticism about U.S. intelligence findings (for instance, in Syria), critics find it hard to grant her the benefit of the doubt. The Independent’s profile of Gabbard tartly noted that she “is known for her embrace of conspiracy theories” and listed her insinuations about “shadowy wealthy people” pulling strings as in line with a broader Trump-aligned anti-globalist narrative. In this view, Gabbard’s video wasn’t a non-partisan plea for peace – it was a partisan broadside, reinforcing the idea of a nefarious “deep state” thwarting Trump and endangering the world.

From the other side of the aisle, national security traditionalists also voiced concern, not so much about hidden bunkers for elites, but about the impact of Gabbard’s rhetoric on U.S. deterrence. For a senior U.S. official to publicly suggest America is on the verge of nuclear Armageddon could project weakness, they argued. It might signal to rivals like Russia, China, or North Korea that U.S. leaders are afraid of escalation, potentially emboldening those adversaries. “It’s bizarre and irresponsible,” one former Pentagon official opined on a Sunday talk show, “for the DNI to say our enemies have us on the run of nuclear brinksmanship.” Others countered that raising public awareness of nuclear dangers is hardly unpatriotic – President John F. Kennedy did much the same during the Cuban Missile Crisis, after all. But the breach of protocol by Gabbard and the lack of coordination with the White House press office before publishing the video reportedly irritated some of her Trump administration colleagues. Unnamed officials told NBC News that the video caught them off guard and that “conversations would be had” with Gabbard about sticking to internal channels for such warnings in the future.

All of this leaves Tulsi Gabbard in a familiar position: at the center of a political storm. She has spent her career drawing fire from the Washington establishment, and she seems undeterred now that she is part of that establishment. In response to the media furor, Gabbard did not apologize or backtrack. Instead, she doubled down. In a short radio interview a day after the video’s release, she reiterated her key points, insisting that the threat of nuclear war “is not conjecture, it’s fact – the Doomsday Clock is nearly at midnight.” (The Doomsday Clock, maintained by atomic scientists, did indeed tick to 90 seconds to midnight recently, the closest ever to the symbolic apocalypse, due largely to the Ukraine war.) Gabbard argued that if her tone was “grave,” it was only because the situation is grave. “I wish my warning sounded crazy,” she told the host. “Unfortunately, it’s the reality we’re faced with, given the actions of people in our government and others.” To her mind, the real problem was not her rhetoric but a media more upset by her breaking decorum than by the prospect of nuclear war itself.

A Parallel Crisis: Diplomats Pull Back in Baghdad

In Baghdad, Iraq, U.S. diplomats began quietly packing their bags. The State Department had ordered a partial evacuation of the American embassy there, citing “heightened regional tensions” and security risks amid a deepening standoff with Iran. Throughout the spring, U.S. and Iranian negotiators had been trying – and failing – to revive a deal limiting Iran’s nuclear program. Now those talks appeared deadlocked, and both Tehran and Washington were bracing for the worst. President Trump, fresh off proclaiming that he would never let Iran obtain a nuclear weapon, told reporters that the Middle East “could be a dangerous place” in the coming days. “As a precaution, he said, non-essential U.S. personnel were being moved out of the region, and we’ll see what happens,”reuters.com.

An aerial view of Baghdad. In June, the U.S. ordered non-essential staff to leave its embassy in Iraq amid surging tensions with Iran – a real-world crisis echoing Gabbard’s warnings about escalating conflicts with nuclear implications.theguardian.comtheguardian.com

A Public Servant or a Messenger of Misinformation?

As Tulsi Gabbard’s video made waves online, events in the real world were unfolding that lent unexpected weight to her warning. On the same week her message went viral, the U.S. State Department announced a partial evacuation of its embassy in Baghdad.

“The State Department ordered a partial evacuation of non-essential personnel from Baghdad over heightened regional tensions,” Reuters reported, citing security concerns tied to faltering nuclear negotiations with Iran.

This move, while limited in scale, signalled rising anxiety inside the U.S. government about the possibility of regional conflict, one that could draw in multiple nuclear powers. Iran’s leadership, frustrated by the stalled diplomatic process, issued veiled threats toward U.S. bases in the region. In response, American military families were given the option to leave facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait.

For Gabbard, these developments may have appeared to confirm her fears: that diplomacy is failing and conflict is once again becoming the default. To her critics, the embassy withdrawal was routine caution. But to supporters, it served as real-time validation of her message—an unsettling echo of what happens when “political warmongers” push the world too close to the brink.

A dutyful controversial public servant or a Trump Government messenger of misinformation, let us know what your thoughts are?

Sources:

• Tulsi Gabbard video and commentary, The Independent (John Bowden)the-independent.comthe-independent.comthe-independent.comthe-independent.com
• MSNBC News segment, June 11, 2025modernghana.com
• Reuters report on U.S. embassy draw-down in Iraq and Iran tensionsreuters.comreuters.com
• Guardian report on nuclear talks deadlock and regional tensionstheguardian.comtheguardian.com
• Politico report on Clinton-Gabbard feud (2020)politico.compolitico.com
• Washington Post via The Independent on Gabbard’s Syria controversythe-independent.com