At a campaign rally in Virginia in June, Donald Trump hinted at the new kind of relationship America might have with Russia, China and North Korea if he were to be re-elected. “If you have a smart president, they’re not enemies,” Mr. Trump said. “You’ll make them do great.”
Mr. Trump has made no secret of his admiration for the governance style of dictators. He recently called Xi Jinping of China “a brilliant guy” for controlling “1.4 billion people with an iron fist.” He has signaled his sympathies with the new international order that Mr. Xi and other autocrats are seeking to create — in which to “do great” all too often means engaging in violence, transnational repression, foreign disinformation, espionage, sabotage and propaganda.
Perhaps none of Mr. Trump’s picks for his new cabinet embody this worldview better than former Representative Tulsi Gabbard, his choice for director of national intelligence. Her nomination encapsulates Mr. Trump’s apparent intent to reshape America’s global profile by cooperating with autocrats and facilitating the spread of their anti-democratic worldviews.
If democracy protection and preserving trust with foreign allies were the priorities of the Trump administration, Ms. Gabbard would not be set to appear before Congress. The director of national intelligence, who sits at the head of all American clandestine agencies, not only has access to classified materials from 18 U.S. intelligence agencies but also can decide what materials remain classified or become declassified. The director chooses what information to include in the president’s daily briefing and has a say on what should be shared with allies.
Ms. Gabbard is a singular choice in this regard. Her apparent affinity for the virulent strain of Hindu nationalism that has fueled Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s assaults on Indian democracy, her off-the-books meeting with then-President Bashar al-Assad of Syria in 2017 and her repetition of Russian and Syrian government propaganda immediately raised alarms about her judgment and suitability for the job when Mr. Trump announced his choice in November. Since then, nearly 100 former U.S. diplomatic, intelligence and national security officials have signed an open letter accusing Ms. Gabbard of having a “sympathy for dictators,” among many other worrying allegations.
Russia experts and intelligence experts have frequently remarked on Ms. Gabbard’s history of taking positions that defend Russian interests or cast the United States as a villain. She blamed NATO and the Biden administration for provoking Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago by failing to respect “Russia’s legitimate security concerns” and suggested that the United States covertly worked with Ukraine on dangerous biological pathogens. Whether regarding Syria or Russia, she has consistently portrayed “America as the problem and the dictators as misunderstood,” observed Tom Nichols, a national security analyst.
Mr. Trump appears to share some of these views. Many of his statements on foreign affairs suggest a similar internalization of an autocratic view of geopolitics that blames democracies for creating international conflict. When Mr. Trump suggests that President Joe Biden’s support of Ukraine’s bid to join NATO provoked Russia’s invasion, for instance, he too justifies the Kremlin’s autocratic aggression as a legitimate response to the hostile actions of a democracy.
It’s not just Ms. Gabbard’s views on foreign affairs that are indicative of how Mr. Trump envisions the aims of his second administration. If one thinks like an autocrat, the foremost quality that would seem to disqualify her from service — a simple lack of experience — is an asset, not a liability. Authoritarian-minded leaders value loyalty far more than expertise or competency. They hollow out democratic institutions by replacing nonpartisan civil servants and career professionals with individuals who will repeat their talking points and do their bidding, no matter what that entails. That’s what has happened in the Hungary of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, where opposition figures and nonpolitical professionals have been removed from public institutions such as election commissions and the judiciary.
For sensitive or weighty positions, autocrats may choose an outsider who lacks relationships with trusted experts in the field or an individual who seems unprepared to lead a large organization. Inexperienced individuals may be doubly dependent on the leader and vulnerable to the influence of the leader’s allies, and can be blamed for any mistakes or scandals that may surface. Ms. Gabbard could master the director’s job. But Mr. Trump’s choice of someone so unqualified at the start is telling.
All of this, of course, carries distinct national security risks. Intelligence experts have predicted a proliferation of chaos in their sphere if Ms. Gabbard is confirmed. They worry that her lack of personal connections with foreign intelligence professionals and the distrust engendered by her pro-autocratic sentiments are likely to affect foreign intelligence-sharing with the United States, including from our closest allies.
Spreading false information among enemy countries has been a staple of espionage and malign influence campaigns around the world. As someone who deployed to Iraq and Kuwait with the Army National Guard, Ms. Gabbard must know this well and should have been particularly alert to such misinformation. Yet she reportedly continued to rely on Russia Today for news, even after her aides told her it was Kremlin propaganda, and to circulate Syrian conspiracy theories, questioning, for instance, whether Mr. al-Assad’s 2013 and 2017 chemical weapons attacks might have been false-flag operations by Syrian rebels.
These national security risks will be redoubled if Mr. Trump chooses to follow the authoritarian playbook and use the intelligence community for personal gain. As nations edge toward autocracy, the spy agencies can be redirected toward a leader’s retribution schemes. The autocrat’s eternal quest to feel safe means there are always more internal enemies to be investigated and tracked, and more dissidents abroad to target. Under Mr. Modi, for instance, India’s Research and Analysis Wing has become more active in transnational repression of his critics in the Indian diaspora.
Six years ago, Mr. Trump suggested he was open to closer relationships with the world’s dictators. “I meet them all,” he declared. “Come on in. Whatever’s good for the United States.” His nomination of Ms. Gabbard for director of national intelligence suggests that he intends to renew the invitation. Autocrats may well find an even warmer reception in America during the second Trump administration. Our democracy will pay the price.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a historian and a professor of history at New York University. She is the author of “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present” and publishes Lucid, a newsletter about authoritarianism and democracy.
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