DNI Tulsi Gabbard reorienting 2025 Annual Threat Assessment on “direct threats to American safety,” not climate change

Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard made a critical point during her congressional testimony about the threats facing America in 2025: climate change is no longer one of the “direct threats to American safety” her office is focused on.

Gabbard’s first briefing in this role differed from those of her predecessors in both parties in “its very direct focus on threats most critical to U.S. citizens and U.S. national security, not broad, millennium-away threats,” a national security expert explained to the Washington Reporter. Gabbard’s reprioritization puts the DNI firmly in line with Trump’s policies, and continues the organization’s shift away from the radical DEI policies of the Biden administration, which Gabbard and her team are systematically working to uproot.

Gabbard’s update came following questioning from Sen. Angus King (I., Maine), who was shocked that all threat reports for over a decade have “mentioned global climate change as a significant national security threat, except this one.”

In answering King, Gabbard did not dismiss impacts of climate change, telling the lawmaker that “obviously, we're aware of occurrences within the environment and how they may impact operations, but we're focused on the direct threats to American safety.”

Gabbard explained why she changed the tune from even the previous Trump administration.

“I gave direction to our team at ODNI to focus on the most extreme and critical national security threats that we face,” she told King, taking ownership of the change.

Every year, the president’s top intelligence officials deliver a Threat Assessment to both chambers of Congress.