Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday struggled to explain why Canada was left off a list of countries that pose a major drug threat to the United States.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly blasted Canada as a national security threat for the amount of fentanyl that comes over its border, which he used as one of reasons he sparked a tariff war with Ottawa.
Gabbard, Trump’s director of national intelligence, was testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee on the Annual Threat Assessment (ATA) when she was asked about the omission of Canada from that portion of the threat list.
‘The focus in my opening and the ATA was really to focus on the most extreme threats in that area. And our assessment is that the most extreme threat related to fentanyl continues to come from and through Mexico,’ she said.
Democratic Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico said he was surprised by the omission of Canada ‘given some of the rhetoric’ from officials in the Trump administration.
Hellbound and Down 