On August 27, 2025, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard addressed the American Legion National Convention. The transcript of her remarks is below.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard

Transcript of Remarks

American Legion National Convention

Tampa, FL

August 27, 2025

Aloha. Good morning. It is so good to be here to join all of you. It's great to get out of DC. And what better place to be than here with my brothers and sisters in service? So thank you all for your service, for your service in uniform, and the service that you continue to provide as you stand up for our brothers and sisters. When we think about the values and principles of our country, I think about people like you, you represent truly who we are as Americans and the very best of us, and I'm humbled to stand among you. Generation after generation represented in halls like this, we have Americans who have raised our right hand and taken that oath to the Constitution, swearing our lives to a singular purpose, defending our Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and ensuring the safety, security and freedom of the American people. The beauty of this is that it's a constant reminder, not only to those of us who have served or who continue to serve, but it's a reminder to the American people about our identity as a country, and our identity as Americans, that transcends partisan politics and speaks to those fundamental values and principles that are enshrined in our Constitution and Bill of Rights. We wear our nation's cloth, we serve in uniform, both in times of peace and in the crucible of war, understanding and seeing and experiencing firsthand that cost of war, and who pays the price. This organization, the American Legion, truly stands as a testament to those who understand and have lived this truth, those who honor the warrior ethos that are inscribed in our hearts, that whether we wear the uniform or after we have laid it down, we will always place the mission first. Never accept defeat, never quit and never leave a fallen comrade.

One of the things that I really appreciated and enjoyed most about the eight years that I served in Congress representing Hawaii's Second District, was the opportunity to be in a position where I could take immediate action to solve problems for veterans in need. I want to give a quick shout out to our Hawaii folks who are here in the crowd today. I saw them backstage. There they are! It's great to see you again, and I know we worked together for many years around some of the challenges that we face. But like many members of Congress, the vast majority of calls and requests that we had for assistance from across the state of Hawaii came from veterans, which is a pretty heartbreaking state of the Veterans Affairs Administration during that time. Again, I was grateful to get those calls. I was grateful to get to work with my team to resolve those issues, whether it had to do with veterans' benefits, veterans' housing, veterans' health care. I'm looking forward to hearing my friend Doug Collin's comments, because I got to tell you, he's been on the job for a few days. As you know, he is a veteran as well, and he is working hard, and he has already made truly historic change.

I want to share a couple of stories, though, because it was- These were impactful for me. And one day that I got a call and a request from a Vietnam veteran who had served in combat, been wounded in combat, thankfully came home, was discharged honorably, was now, at that time, serving as a judge in Hawaii, but he called in humbly and respectfully asked for assistance to get his Purple Heart award. And I asked him, over all of these decades that had gone passed since he came home from Vietnam, what happened? Why hadn't he received it? What was the issue? And he said, 'Well, they're claiming that I don't have the appropriate medical paperwork.' And I gotta believe, like a lot of folks, when you've been injured in combat and you're being sent home, medical paperwork is probably the last thing that's on your mind. The thing was, he had a piece of shrapnel in his thigh all of these years from Vietnam. But for the bureaucrats, that wasn't enough. I was grateful to be able to help cut through the red tape of bureaucracy and to join him and his family in front of his old unit, the Gimlet battalion at 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii at Schofield Barracks, and honor him for his service and present him with that Purple Heart.

There was another weekend that I was home from DC in Hawaii when I got a message on my phone from a veteran from Waimanalo, Andy Jamila. You guys remember probably Andy. He was the de facto mayor of this little country town. His voice sounded desperate, and he said, Tulsi, please call me. I called him back as soon as I got the message. When I called him, he said, 'Tulsi, I'm in the hospital. I've had a minor heart attack, and they're telling me, if I don't get surgery today, I might not make it.' 'Okay. Well, I'm glad you're in the hospital. What's the issue? What's the problem?' Well, this was after President Trump had passed the Choice Act, which allowed veterans like Andy to get care they needed in their community. But he said, 'the VA is saying that I've got to get into an ambulance and drive 40 minutes to go to the VA hospital to get my heart surgery. My doctor here in the ER is telling me I might not survive the trip. What do I do?' It broke my heart that this was something he had to think about in a life and death situation. Once again, bureaucracy getting in the way of the mission that, yes, the VA has, but that our country has, to serve and care for those who have borne the battle. I was glad that I was able to pick up the phone and make some calls and Andy got the surgery that he needed there in his local hospital, and thankfully survived and went on to live for many more years. But why is it that a veteran has to be able to call a member of Congress directly to get life saving surgery?

These are the things that I remember and I think of every time Veterans Day comes around and we hear words of gratitude. Gratitude and saying 'thank you' is nice, but in my mind, it's meaningless unless it's followed by action. And so, a grateful nation, under this Administration is taking action. We were in a historically long Cabinet meeting yesterday with President Trump. I think it went three and a half hours. His energy is something that I cannot explain. He went straight from that meeting into many others. His scheduler came in. She said, 'you're two hours behind schedule, we gotta go.' But what we heard from Secretary Collins in that meeting, what we heard from President Trump, and hear from him consistently is his care for you. You're on his heart and his mind, and he wants results delivered quickly, problems to be solved. Big changes that have been needed for so long are being made in a truly historic way And that's where I'm grateful to serve under this president for a number of reasons, but his care and his heart for our service, men and women and those who've worn the uniform, is refreshing and goes beyond anything I've ever really seen before.

On Monday this week, he welcomed into the Oval Office the family members and loved ones of the 13 service members who were killed in that Islamist bombing at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan four years ago. They couldn't get an appointment with the White House under the previous Administration, and not only did the President invite them into the Oval Office on the fourth anniversary of the death of their loved ones, last year, on the third anniversary, I had the privilege of joining President Trump at Arlington Cemetery with these loved ones and with their friends who were there with them and who survived, even coming home with extreme loss of limbs and extreme injuries. That wasn't enough. President Trump invited these families into his home and served them dinner and took care of them. This is coming from the heart of a president who truly cares, and that singular quality is the most important one, and it's the answer to how we collectively as a country, come together to be able to solve the long standing challenges too many veterans have faced, and actually bring around real and lasting solutions.

One of the ways that President Trump is honoring your service, our service, generation after generation after generation, is fundamentally and first and foremost, repeating over and over again and showing through his actions and his leadership that he wants his legacy as President to be one of a peacemaker. He wants to be the president who makes sure that our brothers and sisters in uniform are no longer sent to fight in stupid wars that do not serve the interests of the American people and our nation's security, And in wars and conflicts in different parts of the world where we don't have US troops serving, he is still already made historic progress negotiating peace deals, sometimes between countries who have been at war or in conflict with each other for decades. President Trump understands what our military is for, the sacrifices that not only our service men and women make, but the sacrifices that their families make alongside them, their spouses and their children. He understands and applies through his policies, what it means to put the American people's interests first and foremost and expresses that care.

I'm grateful and honored to be able to serve in his administration as the Director of National Intelligence, where we are tasked with a core national security mission, first and foremost of finding the truth and telling the truth and making sure that the intelligence that the President is getting, for him to be able to make some of the most critical decisions about our nation's security, is accurate, unbiased, not politicized, and relevant to the task at hand. We face many challenges and threats across this country. President Trump is working hard to make America safe again and to bring about real and lasting reform. These are challenges and issues that affect us all, not just one party or another party, or one group or another group, real solutions and real change centered around a heart of caring for one another and rooted in our fundamental and foundational principles in the Constitution, is what we are focused on, and what has the power to bind us together as Americans. This is the heart and soul of who we are. We can overcome these challenges. We can face these threats when we stand together as one, and there are no better leaders and examples of that bond than you, than those who have worn the cloth of this country, those who have borne the battle. We are the greatest nation in the world because of our people rooted in the principles of freedom and liberty that are enshrined in our Constitution, and it's both our opportunity, our challenge, and our responsibility to carry that oath that every one of us took, that we swore when we enlisted in the military, to continue that mission for as long as we live.

Thank you all for your service. Thank you to the American Legion all across this country for your continued service. The Mission Continues. Thank you. Aloha.

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