Thursday morning on CNN Newsroom, rule of experts aficionado and Atlantic writer Tom Nichols found himself flustered given the ultra-rare occasion of having faced direct pushback for his views. This time, it came from CNN conservative political commentator Shermichael Singleton over whether former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) should be allowed to make her case to the Senate as President-Elect Trump’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence.
Nichols was first able to make his argument that Gabbard is a threat from a domestic and international standpoint “given her political leanings, which is to say that she’s an admirer both of Bashar Assad of Syria and an apologist for Vladimir Putin of Russia.”
He explained that not only would her own employees hide things from her, but “our allies certainly wouldn’t want to work with her as someone they would trust sharing their secrets with[.]” He even knocked her brain power, claiming “she wouldn’t know what she’s doing” given its size overseeing the various intelligence agencies.
Singleton finally got to speak and started from the premise of every appointee having to undergo a thorough FBI background check and that her service record in the military and various deployments would lead one to believe that she’s not a mindless individual.
CNN’s @MrShermichael Singleton on the @TulsiGabbard pick to be DNI: “[E]veryone has to go through a Federal Bureau of Investigations background check, a pretty extensive one. I was a presidential appointee. They go back for a very long time. Let's go over Tulsi Gabbard's record.… pic.twitter.com/hIPyFgok8e
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) November 14, 2024
“Now, she has been very skeptical of wanting to involve U.S. troops in foreign wars and there’s a ton of data that would suggest the vast majority of the American people in both political parties actually would agree with that,” he added.
Asked by Brown to respond to Gabbard’s favoring views toward dictators like Putin, Singleton put the focus back on “her background as a military officer prepar[ing] her to do the job and do the job well.”
Singleton also framed interventionism as something she’d know personally given how those who experience loss and fighting in deployment are greatly affected by what they witness:
One of the things that I found, Pamela, spending a lot of time with people in the military, owning a firearms company, when you serve and you’ve seen men and women and your friends die around you, you are very, very skeptical to get involved in conflicts that may send troops to various parts of the world. And so, I would — I would argue that her background and her experience would certainly bode well.
Nichols was incensed anyone would dare try to put the brakes on the histronics and lashed out at Singleton for “know[ing] better than this” and touting his career teaching at the Naval War College as giving himself ground to browbeat the public into submission:
WATCH: The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols MELTS DOWN at @MrShermichael Singleton for the crime of saying @TulsiGabbard should have her day in court per se and go through the nominating process:
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) November 14, 2024
Nichols: “First, to Shermichael, I'll say, you know better than this. I'm glad you owned a… pic.twitter.com/3Rh0JoqgFw
Once Nichols flushed his rant about Singleton making “ridiculous” claims, Singleton only had a few seconds left to respond, so he called out what he argued was a disrespectful “diminish[ing]” of Gabbard’s service to the country:
I do think if she can be the first woman to graduate at the top of her class for office Qcandidate school at the Alabama Military Academy, I damn surely believe she can learn what’s necessary to run DNI. And so, I think we have to be careful about diminishing someone’s record merely because we may have ideological or political differences there. She is going to be vetted like everyone else. Republicans in the Senate and Democrats will have an opportunity to ask her very tough and challenging questions. And, if she gets through those questions, which I believe she has the capability of doing so, then she will be confirmed. I respect Tom’s ability for teaching, but teaching and wearing a uniform are two very disparate things.
