Read the full transcript of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s speech “Deep State ‘Exists Within Every Single Federal Agency’ And Is ‘Fighting’ Trump Admin”, at Turning Point USA’s “Student Action Summit” in Tampa, Florida, Jul 13, 2025.
Energized by Young Leaders
TULSI GABBARD: I love you too, man, wherever you are. Thank you. Thank you. It is truly awesome and energizing to be here with all of you. I hope that you are feeling energized and inspired by all of the incredible speakers, Brett Cooper, Riley Gaines, everyone coming through here. But I just want to tell you that you inspire me, seriously.
You know, D.C., there are some good days and there are some dark days, but what keeps me going are people like you. People like you who made it possible for President Trump to get elected and create this truly transformational and historic moment that we are living in here today. We are here because thousands of young leaders like you, great Americans all across the country, they put partisan politics aside and recognize the opportunity to bring in a president who would fight for every single American. And that’s exactly what we’re doing in Washington every day.
The Deep State’s War Against Trump
When we look back, and I feel like, you know, it’s been, what, six months-ish since President Trump has been in office, not even six months hardly. What happened in that year leading up to the election, it feels like such a long time ago, but I want to spend just a moment on this because it’s important for us to recognize what Steve Bannon was just talking about, the deep state.
We go back and look at all of those days that President Trump had to spend in a courtroom because of the constant lawfare that was being waged against him by his political opponents and the deep state who were terrified that the American people might choose to elect him once again.
All of their attempts to take him off the ballot, as we were going through that, I often reflected at really what was behind it. They were there thinking, “okay, we have all this power, we need to silence him,” undermining our democratic republic as they claim to be doing so to save democracy, but when we really take a step back, we recognize that they were acting out of fear.
They were terrified of losing their perceived power, they were terrified of their own personal position or fame or profit or whatever the thing was. They were terrified, ultimately afraid of us. Terrified that in the United States of America, that was built on the foundation of these ideals of freedom and liberty for every single American, terrified that we may actually use our freedom, that we may lift up our voices and stand up for and work hard to bring about the vision that our founding fathers had for us, a government that is truly of, by, and for the people.
America First: A Government of the People
To me, that is what President Trump’s America First agenda is all about. That’s why the deep state fought so hard to try to stop us from even having the freedom to choose who we wanted as our president and commander-in-chief. And despite their best efforts, we, the people, prevailed.
And this memory of this, which every one of us played our own role in bringing about, is so important to keep at the forefront because the deep state has not gone away. They exist within every single agency of the federal government, in the national security state, in the propaganda media. They are continuing to fight hard every single day, in spite of the fact that the voices of the people delivered this resounding victory for President Trump and to our country, saying unequivocally, we are coming together, Americans from all different backgrounds and different walks of life, saying we choose freedom. We choose peace. We choose to come together for truth. Not my truth or your truth or their truth, but fundamental, objective truth. We come together for common sense.
And with President Trump’s election, we, the people, have brought about this revolution that brings us back to our founding principles, that brings us back to our founding documents, our Constitution. This is the oath that we all swore, the oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And by the way, it is the same oath that every person who goes and works within the intelligence community takes. Every employee swears this oath. It’s important for us to keep it front and center, because it is foundational to who we are, that we remember what we are fighting for.
Biden Administration’s Targeting of Americans
When we talk about freedom, we are talking about freedom of speech, remembering that it wasn’t that long ago that we had parents speaking up for the safety and well-being of their children at Board of Education meetings, who, under the Biden administration, were then targeted as domestic violent extremists.
We have to remember how – and these are documents that we will be declassifying and releasing very soon – about how on day one, day one of the Biden administration, meaning January 21st of 2021, his National Security Advisor issued a memo essentially laying the groundwork for who they would be targeting as domestic violent extremists. And one of the documents that was ordered, one of the directives that was given in this memo, was to the Director of National Intelligence to come up with a document that went into very specific descriptions of what to look out for when we are looking for domestic violent extremists.
So what you’ll see there are detailed descriptions of what we would later see the Biden administration target. Those who were complaining about or unhappy with COVID-19 mandates and policies. Parents who were afraid that their children might be forced to get the vaccine when they went to school against their parents’ wishes. People who were expressing anti-authority views. I could go on in this list of people, groups, thoughts, free speech, they were labeled as domestic violent extremists.
And then use that label to go and then force these tech companies, some of them were willing, some unwilling, to censor Americans’ free speech in the name of going after domestic violent extremists. We have to expose their tactics and the playbook of the deep state so that we the people can make sure we never allow this to happen again.
Choosing the Constitution and Freedom
By electing President Trump, we chose our Constitution. We chose freedom of speech. We chose freedom to worship so that we can know that as we go to our place of worship, or if we worship in the privacy of our own homes, that we won’t have to worry about the FBI thinking that we were suspicious or had to be surveilled as they did to those they labeled as radical traditionalist Catholics simply for attending Latin Mass.
By electing President Trump, we chose freedom. Freedom to exercise our right to bear arms. There’s already work being done and there’s more to come there to undo the damage that has been done for so long that has undermined that fundamental right.
By electing President Trump, we chose our right to privacy and the protection of our civil liberties as guaranteed under the Fourth Amendment. Under President Trump, we chose our Declaration of Independence. I’m smiling because I think it was on Thursday. I was there and delivering the intelligence brief to the President and towards the end of it, he had a couple of guests who were coming in to join him for lunch, and just seeing the pride and excitement that he shared as he wanted to show them the Declaration of Independence that he put on the wall right next to the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.
That Declaration that reminds us all that all men are created equal endowed by our Creator. Not by anyone in government, but our Creator with certain inalienable rights among those our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The Fight Continues
So the historic moment that we live in, it’s important sometimes to step away from the noise to recognize what happened in order to create this opportunity that we have and therefore to inform the great work that we have ahead of us. You think the campaign was hard, you think what President Trump went through was hard, and it was. The road ahead will not be easy.
I can attest personally that in my work as the Director of National Intelligence, the Deep State is fighting us every step of the way, and it exists within every single federal agency and so I feel the same frustration that I see many of you expressing on X or in different platforms about why aren’t things going faster, why aren’t we getting results more quickly? I feel this
frustration every single day. We are pushing hard, know that they are pushing hard back. It’s okay, we’re not going anywhere. We’re here to fight for you and to fight for the red, white, and blue that’s behind you. We can’t do this alone. It will take all of us who love our country and who deeply cherish our freedoms to stand united in this fight. It’s going to come with hardship and sacrifice. As you know, it comes with name-calling and smears and lies and attacks.
But here’s the beautiful thing, is the harder they push back, the more smears and lies that are published in the Washington Post and the New York Times and the Atlantic and many others, the more we know that we are exactly on the target. And on those days where you might feel a little tired and you might feel a little discouraged and we all get there at some point in time, I go back and think about what President Trump has been through. He has sacrificed more than anyone else. He has been attacked and targeted more than anyone else and most significantly, one year ago tomorrow was the day in Butler, Pennsylvania when a gunman tried to take his life missing by just a hair.
And so on those days when you feel like you’re not quite sure if you have any more fight left in you, think back to that day when he popped right up. He was not cowed. He was not afraid. He was not running away. What did he do? He raised his fist and looked at all of the people who were there just as you are here today and he said, “fight, fight, fight.” And that’s exactly what we have to continue to do.
Motivated by Love, Not Hate
Not motivated by hate for those who are trying to take our freedoms away, but by love. I know President Trump is motivated deeply by his love for our country. This is where his strength and his resilience comes from. He is motivated deeply by his care for every one of you, every one of us, the American people and his commitment to make the most of every single day that he has in the White House to bring about this reality of a country where we can live in peace with prosperity and security and freedom for all Americans.
This is why I’m so grateful to be able to, to have earned President Trump’s trust and confidence to be able to serve as a member of his cabinet and the role that I am in because we have a lot of work to do. So the thing I want you to go home with is the knowledge that you, not a single one of you should underestimate the power of your voice and your energy and your work and your role in bringing about this historic change that we have all embarked on together.
The Time is Now
Don’t let anyone ever tell you that this is not your time or that you’re too young or maybe you’ll go and do something in a few years or five or ten years or twenty years. The time is now. Electing President Trump was just the first step to be able to get to work, to do this important work. It is tough, but it is our purpose that drives us. I am grateful to have experienced from a young age that I found I was happiest when I was doing things for others. When I was trying to be of service to others, trying my best to be pleasing to God with my life by making a positive impact and being of service to God’s children.
And that’s really what motivated me to choose service as a path for my life. I didn’t know what form it would take or where it would take me, but I knew that this is what I wanted to do. And it’s taken me through elected office in different arenas and through the military now for over 20 years and now as director of national intelligence. But I first started when I was 21 years old.
Personal Journey of Service
And so for any of you who are thinking of running for office, maybe you’re being told some of the things I was told. I was 21 and people said, “oh, okay, you have a bright future, but you’re too young. Maybe you should go and take some more college classes.” And I don’t know, wait around until somebody feels like you’re qualified to go. But I knew that the most important qualification was my desire to serve, to have that positive impact in my community. So I didn’t listen to any of them. And I ran and got elected at 21.
They told me the same thing when I ran for Congress at 31, “Tulsi, you’re great. You got a bright future. It’s not your time. Come back in 20 years.” I had come back from multiple deployments at that point in time, understanding and feeling to my core, the cost of war and knowing that I needed to be in a place to make a greater impact where better than at that time in Congress, where I could help to influence some of these decisions about peace and war and share the experiences of my brothers and sisters who I served alongside my experience and honor the memories every single day.
As I continue to do as secretary Hegseth does, I know president Trump has the lives and wellbeing of our service members on his heart every day, knowing the sacrifice that’s made. We must remain undeterred.
Faith as Foundation
For me, I have always turned to my faith in God in those difficult moments and these challenging times and finding that strength and that confidence and that peace and that shelter and that courage that can only come from having faith in God’s unconditional love for me and knowing that all I have to do is do my very best every day to be pleasing to him and have faith that whatever the outcome, it will be his will that is done.
So as we forge ahead together, I encourage you to stand strong, to be joyful warriors, to always remember that with God, all things are possible. And knowing that we can change our mindset. Somebody brings me a problem happens on a daily basis. I say, “thank you. Good. Now I can solve it.” Hard challenge comes my way, or maybe I am having a difficult day. “Awesome. It’s my opportunity to say, yes, Lord, here I am. Send me.”
It is inspired by God’s unconditional love that we are charged to live and lead and serve in a reflection of his love for all of us with this eternal gratitude in our hearts for the blessings and the freedoms that he has and continues to bestow upon every one of us.
Lessons from Iraq: Is Today the Day?
When I was deployed to Iraq in 2005, I served in a medical unit where there was a sign at one of the main gates where our security patrols, infantry patrols went in and out of every day. And the first day that I saw it and many days thereafter, I was stopped in my tracks because that sign said in big block letters “is today the day.” And it was this ever present reminder, certainly there in a war zone in 2005, during one of the height of that war in Iraq, that any day could be our last. And it was an opportunity to reflect and to pray and to know that I needed to do my best to make every single day count.
We look to the tragedy that just happened in Texas. We’re at a camp where girls were going, families who were camping over a long holiday weekend in a moment. They lost their lives in this tragedy. Is today the day? Every single day that we wake up with breath in our bodies, we are blessed with the opportunity to take advantage and make the very most of that day.
Conclusion: Today is the Day
Today is the day. Today is the day for us to stand up for all that we believe in, stand up for each other, stand up for our country, stand up for our freedom and a future that truly realizes the vision that our founders had for this great country. I’m grateful to stand alongside you in this honorable and just fight. We will make this happen together.
Thank you so much, everybody. It’s great to see you. God bless you. God bless America. Aloha. Thank you so much. God bless you.
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