In a bizarre video this week, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard claimed the U.S. was "closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation than ever before" because of "political elites" with bomb shelters.
Gabbard made the claims in a post to X on Tuesday after she said she recently visited the site where the U.S. dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.
The Trump official said she saw "the unimaginable horror caused by a single nuclear bomb."
"A single nuclear weapon today could kill millions," she warned. "Just one of these nuclear bombs would vaporize everything at its core. People, buildings, life itself."
Gabbard used the story to suggest leaders should not provoke Russian President Vladimir Putin over his war in Ukraine.
"This is the reality of what's at stake, what we are facing now," she said. "Because as we stand here today, closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation than ever before, political elites and war mongers are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers."
"Perhaps it's because they are confident that they will have access to nuclear shelters for themselves and for their families that regular people won't have access to," she added. "So it's up to us, the people, to speak up and demand an end to this madness. We must reject this path to nuclear war and work toward a world where no one has to live in fear of a nuclear holocaust."
