I bet 20k against Tulsi Gabbard
Tulsi will be the spy chief but I still bet against it
Imagine you have sensitive job openings in your company and these are your applicants:
A serial adulterer with a brainworm, whose numerous skeletons in the closet could elect him as “king of the world” if they could vote.
A boozing axe-thrower, who likes to join strippers on stage.
A surfer woman who grew up in a cult.
I don’t know about you, but I’d definitely pick the two horndogs and leave out the cult woman.
And I’m betting the US Senate will do the same when it comes to confirming Donald Trump’s cabinet picks over the next few weeks.
Here’s what we’ll cover today:
What you need to know about Tulsi Gabbard’s background
Why Tulsi Gabbard’s bearish fundamentals could be a problem
What we know about how her confirmation process is going so far
Why I heavily bet against this
Who is Tulsi Gabbard?
In a nutshell, Ms. Gabbard is a Hawaii-born, home-schooled “independent thinker” that’s not afraid to mix opinions that usually don’t go together:
The ‘cult’ people refer to when describing her background is the religious movement that influenced Ms. Gabbard early in her life (a Hare Krishna branch of sorts):
Not one to shy away from ‘unconventional takes,’ she infamously visited Syria’s former dictator Bashar Al-Assad in 2017. She also had an ‘idiosyncratic view’ of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022:
Gabbard is also a Democrat-turned-Republican, a Reserve lieutenant colonel and was a member of the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees.
But some things she is not. Such as experienced with matters of national intelligence or heading large organizations. Which does matter when you’re applying for the job that oversees 18 intelligence organizations, including the CIA and NSA.
Why Tulsi Gabbard’s (lack of) experience matters for her confirmation chances
This purpose post isn’t to convince you that Tulsi Gabbard is woefully unqualified for the role she’s supposed to fill (which I think she is).
I’m merely relaying what relevant sources have said about her and her chances to get confirmed. Based on this, I have built a thesis. Don’t shoot the messenger.
But what is the role of Director of National Intelligence?
In short, it is to protect and lead the US spy apparatus:
Unfortunately, for Ms. Gabbard, there’s a not insignificant amount of people that think she’s the wrong person for this job.
In short:
She has no managerial or intelligence experience: Adam Kinzinger, whose time in Congress overlapped with Tulsi’s, said she “showed little evidence that she understands the complexities of the intelligence world.”
Her ‘judgment and alignment with U.S. intelligence priorities’ and her source selection is questionable at best:
She has a thing for dictators, having visited Syria in 2017. The Economist published new information about her trip to Syria this week and without boring you with the details, it’s some good but plenty of bad:
Source: The Economist Russia backs her. Like seriously, they’re a fan of her and call her ‘our girl Tulsi’ on Russian state TV. That may have something to do with Ms. Gabbard dropping a video after Russia’s invasion talking about US-funded biolabs. Which is pretty close to Russia’s narrative of the US developing bioweapons in Ukraine. No wonder Russian newspapers think she “supports Russia”
It’s not all bad. As The Economist writes, “if Ms. Gabbard’s inexperience were the only worry, she would be all but certain to be confirmed” and “a DNI with unconventional foreign-policy views could be an asset.”
Still, I believe for the reasons cited above that she is the only person whose confirmation is not a virtual lock. I think Congress and the establishment care far more about national intelligence and being ahead of foreign adversaries than the health of their population (RFK’s role) or ‘de-woking’ the military (Hegseth’s role). Plus, the other candidates have some redeeming qualities in the eyes of senators. Hegseth has significant experience in the military (although he’s never managed a large organization either). Some Democrats are on board with RFK’s crusade against ‘big pharma.’
But Tulsi has neither of these. She’s also a former Democrat but unlike with RFK, no Dems have even been vaguely open to her. The easiest way for non-MAGA senators to make a stand against Trump is opposing someone who’s a) not qualified and b) not from their own party.
That’s all well and good. But it doesn’t matter what I think. The senators are voting, so let’s see how her confirmation process has been going so far.
How the confirmation process has been going so far
Well, it’s complicated.
There have been numerous reports saying a significant amount of GOP senators are on the fence. In December, Reuters wrote about eight. Susan Collins, one of the senators that voted against a Trump nominee in 2017, said she had a “broad and wide-ranging conversation” with Ms. Gabbard. Doesn’t sound bullish if you ask me. And Susan Collins happens to be on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
One unnamed GOP senator said she won’t get any Dem votes, which means four Republican senators would have to oppose her. The key players to watch in order of likelihood of doing so:
Susan Collins (Maine)
Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)
Mitch McConnell (Kentucky)
John Curtis (Utah)
From the trickle of reporting that has been leaked over the past weeks, it didn’t sound like Tulsi made inroads with more moderate senators. It’s almost as if her knowledge is shallow because she doesn’t have any relevant experience. But what do I know:
Michael McCaul, the Republican House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair thinks she’s going down. Or at least he thought so in December:
John Bolton, a Trump I alumni said “Gabbard, like Gaetz, is like a hand grenade ready to explode.” But then again, he doesn’t get to vote. And to be perfectly fair, she already has the support of all conservative GOP senators, as well as the support of the MAGA base that wants to rattle the establishment’s cage.
To frontrun at least some opposition, Tulsi recently also flipflopped on spying on the US population a sensitive surveillance bill that kept some senators on the fence. For instance, senator Lankford and senator Rounds, who were unsure about her earlier (as you can see below) are now safe Yes votes from what I gathered.
Mitch McConnell, one of the key votes she has to win (or lose) seems to be a Tulsi bear. He said he’d support nominees to "senior national security roles whose record and experience will make them immediate assets, not liabilities, in the pursuit of peace through strength." Considering McConnell is a well-known Trump hater, he seems to be a safe(-ish) No.
Probably the key senator is the incoming John Curtis, a first-time senator from Utah that seems to be on the moderate side on not opposed to standing up to MAGA because that’s “not going against the president — in my view, that's actually helping the president." Here’s what he said about Ms. Gabbard’s chances:
Lo and behold, the chances of Curtis voting to confirm Tulsi have dropped to 54%.
Bottom line, we have MAGA and conservative senators going up against moderate senators. But how do we get this thing over the line?
My take and how I plan to trade this
I already made my case that Tulsi Gabbard is utterly unqualified for the job.
I also pointed out that I’m opposing her because I consider her role the most sensitive and most realistic for GOP moderates to take a stand against MAGA.
But that alone doesn’t make a trading plan.
Unfortunately, as I prepared this story over the last few weeks, the position steadily trended against me. Most of the bearish reporting was in December but since, it had been dying down. I bought a terrible entry at the start of this, speculating that Tulsi may drop out, as Hegseth seemed likely at some point. That didn’t happen, so I started averaging down my entry based on the fundamentals I stand by.
But until a week ago or so, the FUD on Tulsi almost entirely disappeared and I was overinvested by a lot. So I had to unwind some of my risk and did so at the pico top of 80c — just before the news about Curtis and McConnell having doubts broke. Ugh!
Long story short, my position size now is reasonable and I can let it ride as I planned to.
How to flip 4 GOP senators
Democrats did not have a good start with Hegseth’s hearing and he seems now a lock to get confirmed. But Hegseth is also a media person and was well-prepared. Tulsi isn’t the former and the latter seems questionable considering the reporting on her meetings. There’s a real opening for Dems to hammer her on tangible issues like her lack of experience and how she would handle intelligence about America’s adversaries.
The game theory is clear: they need to win over John Curtis because the other three senators are fairly easy to flip. McConnell dislikes Trump, Collins already voted against a Trump nominee and often aligns with Murkowski. Curtis could be the fourth and deciding moderate vote in the senate. No doubt MAGA will threaten to primary him but from what I have seen he does not seem fazed by that.
I expect this to train in either direction — either her hearing is good and we hear through the grapevine that she gets enough moderates on board. Or the opposite happens and her chances trend to 0 fairly quickly. But I remain open to taking profit earlier if I think it makes sense.
An entry below 25c is still good but that might not happen unless we get fundamentally good news for Tulsi.
By and large, I expect GOP senators to be too spineless and/or Dems to be too incompetent to capitalize on the opportunity. But prices below 30c on No were too good to pass up. Fingers crossed.
Gotcha, what do I do now?
Subscribe to my Substack, of course:
In the next one, we’re looking at Trump’s inauguration. Thanks for reading and stay tuned!
