CNN’s Kasie Hunt Asks Ex-Trump Official Point Blank If He’d Trust Gabbard as DNI If He Were Still a SEAL Team Commander

CNN anchor Kasie Hunt asked former Trump cabinet secretary Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) if he’d be comfortable with former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, filling that role if he were still commanding a SEAL team.

Gabbard has faced criticism from Democrats for being an apologist and even an “asset” for the Russian Government. She’s also expressed sympathy for now-overthrown Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. This week, NBC reported that congressional staffers worried that Gabbard might leak the identity of a Syrian defector — and had him wear a mask in a closed-door session to give testimony.

On Tuesday’s edition of CNN This Morning, Hunt came out and asked Zinke if he’d trust Gabbard if it was his team on the line:

HUNT: So you overlapped in the House with Tulsi Gabbard. You have also been responsible for troops in combat. You know what it means when intelligence officials are making decisions that really affect the lives of the people around you.

Do you think Tulsi Gabbard is the right person for this job, or do you have concerns based on what you understand our interests in this region to be?

ZINKE: Well, you know, I served – we served in the House Armed Services together and no doubt she has talent. What I like about Tulsi is, she has a military background. She’s certainly talented. And she understands the dynamics. She also understands President Trump.

President Trump has his own set of ideas. He works – or Tulsi will work at the pleasure of the president. And so, she’ll tighten up where we’re going as a country and in the administration.

So, I’m confident that she will get confirmed. There’s some – there’s some issues that we probably disagree on. But, ultimately, she’ll be working for the commander in chief. And I think she’ll serve well.

HUNT: So, if you were commanding a SEAL team, you’d be comfortable with her as your Director of National Intelligence.

ZINKE: I would. I would. Now, remember, the Director of Intelligence also is a coordinating body. There’s a lot of intelligence, both in the field and at the headquarters. So, she’s going to have to sort through. And there’s a prevailing thought, and I think in – justified in some reasons, that the intelligence agencies themselves have not been totally honest. They are driven with internal objectives and agendas sometimes that are different from the administration. So, she’s going to have a task on her hand going through and making sure that our intelligence agencies are true to – to this administration and also true to the public.

HUNT: There were – there’s a report from NBC that Democrats and Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, they were worried about Gabbard coming to a hearing with a Syrian defector, right? They – they wanted the defector to cover his face before she got into the hearing because they were concerned that she may leak his identity to Bashar al-Assad.

What’s your reaction to that?

ZINKE: I think it’s overrated on this. At the end of the – at the end of the day, you know, she works for the president. And she had some views on – on Ukraine that are – that – on Ukraine, as an example, as it perhaps, you know, Putin’s relationship with Ukraine and Putin’s relationship with the U.S. can be — can be improved. Some of it, of course, had to do with – with Ukraine going into NATO. There’s a lot of us that – that look at – you know, we’re going to need to slow down on this. And the Crimean peninsula.

So, she had some – she articulated some views that maybe were not uniformly popular, but I think they’re – they’re worthy of debate.

Watch above via CNN This Morning.