Prayers poured in for the family of Tulsi Gabbard on Friday after the former Hawaii political office holder announced her resignation as director of national intelligence in Washington, D.C., to support her husband battling bone cancer.
Gabbard’s father, state Sen. Mike Gabbard, said in a statement with wife Carol that their daughter and son-in-law Abraham Williams, along with the whole family, have been receiving overwhelming messages of support and love, and that people are praying for Williams as he fights a rare form of cancer.
“Tulsi and Abraham are loved by so many across our country, and it’s very heartwarming for us as parents,” the Gabbards said. “They’re so grateful for all the aloha and prayers of support they’re receiving, and send their aloha and thanks to everyone back home in Hawaii.”
Gov. Josh Green, an emergency room physician, conveyed well-wishes for Gabbard and her husband.
“The Governor respects her decision to step down to care for her husband and wishes them the strength and comfort they both will need,” Makana McClellan, the governor’s director of communications, said in a statement.
Gabbard, a former Honolulu City Council member who later also represented parts of Hawaii as a Democrat in the state Legislature and in Congress before heaping criticism on and leaving the party in 2022 after a failed 2020 presidential bid, was picked by Republican President Donald Trump in November 2024 to head the Office of the Director of National Intelligence after she helped him achieve victory in his bid to return to the White House.
Among social media messages Gabbard reposted on her X account from others Friday were expressions of love and support for Gabbard and her husband from people including Vice President JD Vance.
U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda (D-Hawaii) said in a statement, “Public service is a calling, but family always comes first. I respect the difficult decision Tulsi had to make, and send my prayers and aloha to Abraham and his ohana as they focus on his recovery.”
Bob McDermott, vice chair of the Hawaii Republican Party, acknowledged that Gabbard may not be too popular from a political standpoint in Hawaii where government is dominated by Democrats, but said she still has strong local roots and is a person not only defined by politics.
“We often forget that these people (in political office) are real people,” he said. “I mean Tulsi is na keiki o ka aina. She grew up here. She went to school here. She served our National Guard. Now, she’s not real popular back here, I guess, but she’s still a real person. … I will pray for her.”
McDermott, a former state lawmaker, said Gabbard in his view did a good job in the Cabinet-level position delivering intelligence assessments to the president as the leader of a coalition of 18 federal organizations that include the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Other observers have a different take, but acknowledge that Trump makes it hard for appointees to find lasting success in their jobs.
University of Hawaii political scientist Colin Moore considers Gabbard’s record to be mixed at best, and probably not particularly successful by normal standards of the DNI role.
“Since most of the DNI’s work is classified, it’s hard to judge her success, but her tenure seemed rather turbulent to me,” Moore said in an email. “Given the chaotic nature of Trump’s foreign policy decision-making, it probably would have been impossible for anyone to succeed in this position. But her lack of experience and the general hostility of the intelligence community to her appointment and views, made it even more difficult.”
Moore said Gabbard’s non-interventionist views, which include opposing regime-change wars, helped Gabbard stand apart from the foreign policy establishment but as ODNI director seemed to create trust problems with the intelligence community and more hawkish members of the Trump administration.
Gabbard’s position was established to be an honest broker of intelligence and not primarily an ideological voice in foreign policy debates, according to Moore.
“That was always going to be a difficult transition for her and I don’t think she succeeded,” he said. “Again, much of this was due to Trump’s own mercurial temperament. If he had truly embraced a non-interventionist foreign policy, Gabbard may have had a more successful tenure.”
Gabbard, in a letter to Trump announcing her decision to resign effective June 30 to help support her husband after he was recently diagnosed with what she said is an extremely rare form of bone cancer, expressed deep gratitude the trust the president put in her to lead ODNI.
“Abraham has been my rock throughout our eleven years of marriage — standing steadfast through my deployment to East Africa on a Joint Special Operations mission, multiple political campaigns, and now my service in this role,” Gabbard wrote. “His strength and love have sustained me through every challenge. I cannot in good conscience ask him to face this fight alone while I continue in this demanding and time-consuming position.”
Gabbard signed off the letter with “love and aloha.”
Born in American Samoa, Gabbard moved to Hawaii with her family in 1983 at age 2. She was first elected to office in 2002 when she successfully ran to represent parts of Leeward Oahu including Waipahu, Honouliuli and Ewa in the state House of Representatives.
Gabbard, a 21-year-old martial arts instructor at the time, became the youngest person elected to Hawaii’s Legislature.
Prior to becoming a state lawmaker, Gabbard had supported a campaign against same-sex marriage in the 1990s by the advocacy group Alliance for Traditional Marriage, which was founded by her father, a former Republican lawmaker who became a Democrat in 2007. Currently, he represents the Kapolei-Makakilo-Kalaeloa district.
In 2004, Gabbard was prohibited from continuing to serve as a lawmaker because of Hawai’i National Guard rules that said an active-duty member can’t hold office. Gabbard had enlisted in the Guard in 2003 and a year later volunteered for active-duty deployment in a unit providing medical support for the 29th Separate Infantry Brigade.
Gabbard deployed to Iraq in 2004 and to Kuwait in 2008.
After serving as a legislative aide to U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), Gabbard was elected in 2011 to the Honolulu City Council representing downtown Honolulu, Alewa Heights, Kalihi Valley, and portions of Makiki and Kalihi. She resigned in 2012 to run for a U.S. House seat, which she won. She served four terms in Congress representing rural Oahu and the neighbor islands from 2013 to 2021.
During her campaign for Congress, Gabbard met Williams, a cinematographer. In 2015, the then-33-year-old Gabbard married the then-26-year-old Williams next to a historic fishpond in Kahaluu.
In 2020, after opting not to run for a fifth term in Congress, Gabbard contended for the Democratic Party’s nomination to be president.
During her presidential bid that failed to get much traction, Gabbard apologized for her past work with the Alliance for Traditional Marriage.
Moore said that Gabbard’s stepping away from political office due to family health conditions doesn’t mean she can’t return to the national political stage.
“She has a clear identity in conservative politics, a national following, and military credentials,” he said. “She is far better positioned in national conservative politics than in Hawaii — and she almost certainly could return to her previous role as a political commentator if she wants to.”
