Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard fits President-elect Donald Trump's reform agenda, and will serve well as his director of national intelligence, despite the scrutiny she's facing over her meeting in 2017 with former Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, Sen. Eric Schmitt said Sunday.
"I know Tulsi Gabbard. She's a patriot," the Missouri Republican told ABC News "This Week" anchor George Stephanopoulos. "She served our country honorably."
Trump, he added, campaigned on disrupting Washington and about having people in his administration who will "view things differently."
"There's a lot of reform, George, that needs to happen in those agencies," said Schmitt. "Tulsi Gabbard is somebody who I think can execute on that."
Gabbard's meeting with the then-Syrian president occurred after he ordered the use of chemical weapons on protesters, and she later said that he was "not the enemy of the United States."
"I don't think it's unusual for members of Congress to visit foreign countries and talk to foreign leaders," he commented about Gabbard, a former Democrat congresswoman. President Trump, I think, believes in engaging in diplomacy, solving these things."
Trump has called on the United States to stay out of the events in Syria and has not said what his plans are for the troops that remain there.
"I think that's a longer discussion and a discussion that President Trump had in his first term," Schmitt said Sunday. "I do think we're entering a new phase, though, of realism in this country. President Trump would be less interventionist, and we get back to our core national interests, principally defending the homeland, the Indo-Pacific and China."
The congressman also commented on other Trump picks such as Kash Patel to replace FBI Director Christopher Wray.
"That agency is in desperate need of reform," said Schmitt. " Kash Patel is very qualified, and I think he's going to get the support in the Senate."
He also dismissed claims that Patel would have an "enemies list," which the nominee has described in his book "Government Gangsters," saying that the list was a "footnote" in the book.
Schmitt also on Sunday discussed Trump's promise to pardon Jan. 6 defendants, saying that the president-elect will consider each case individually and also on the basis if the protesters were violent or nonviolent offenders.
"I think you do separate violent acts from nonviolent acts, but I think he's been pretty clear he's going to view these individually," he said, adding that Trump is making the right approach.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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