Tulsi Gabbard goes on offense

With Matt Gaetz and Pete Hegseth serving as lightning rods, Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination as director of national intelligence has so far mostly avoided the Washington storm clouds.

The winds are now shifting.

The shocking collapse this weekend of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has reinvigorated scrutiny about Gabbard’s past sympathies for the brutal dictator. Her 2017 visit to Damascus to meet with Assad — years after he gassed his own people — and her comments defending his rule have long exemplified the former Democratic congresswoman’s unconventional foreign policy views.