On January 31, 2026, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard addressed the 2026 National Sheriffs’ Association Winter Conference in Washington, D.C. The transcript of her remarks is below.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard

Transcript of Remarks

2026 National Sheriffs’ Association Winter Conference

Washington, D.C.

January 31, 2026

Thank you very much. Thank you, Chris, for your kind, kind words and introduction. And, as you mentioned, back when I was going through the confirmation process after the President nominated me for this position, we were in a senator's conference room somewhere, where I had the opportunity to have a Zoom call with you and some of your colleagues from around the country.

And I’ll just tell you, from me to you, it was a personal morale boost being able to connect with people who are leaders on the ground, who understand and live every day what it means to put service above self, an attribute, unfortunately, that is too rare in this town. So I just want to say thank you, because earning your trust and support from those days, and a lot of the work that we’ve already started doing together, I’m truly grateful for. It’s an honor to be here to speak with you for a few moments.

For that reason, you have my total respect and heartfelt gratitude for the great work that goes on in each of your communities, counties, towns, cities, and states across the country. And too often, that work goes without the kind of thanks that you deserve. So accept my gratitude, and accept my gratitude on behalf of President Trump, who you know very well is a great champion of our law enforcement all across the country at every level. With his unwavering support, you’re the backbone of our efforts.

The President made it very clear throughout his campaign that his priority and promise to the American people was to make America safe again, and the interagency coordination is essential to make that happen. But our law enforcement at the state and local level, you are the front lines in that effort.

We look throughout history, and we see what the Sheriff’s badge has always represented something profound and important. Something that represents great patriots committed to upholding and enforcing the law, protecting the innocent, and upholding the fair scales of justice. And each and every one of you here continue to take that responsibility on and continue that legacy. You see the real impact of the threats that we face in this country up close. And Chris, I had the chance to meet your wife today. Your loved ones understand and know this sacrifice alongside you, never knowing if any day may be the last day that you kiss your loved ones goodbye as you walk out the door in the morning, whether a routine traffic stop or a hostage crisis, in all of these circumstances and the many others that you face, you’re putting your lives on the line.

My younger sister, the youngest of five in our family, was a deputy U.S. Marshal. Yes, she served with Gadyaces Serralta somewhere along the way. But one of her early assignments was on a fugitive task force in New York City. And in our own way, we felt the kind of anxiety that your loved ones feel in never knowing which assignment or which day could put your loved one at great risk.

As the Director of National Intelligence, I’m grateful to be in a role to help support the great work that all of you are doing. As Chris mentioned, my foremost responsibility in an organization that was created after 9/11 was recognizing the silos that existed across the Intelligence Community and law enforcement that blocked the essential sharing of intelligence and information that could have made a difference to secure our country.

My organization was created to address that, to break down those silos and to make sure that all of these different elements are talking to each other, sharing information, and coordinating efforts. So we understand and see directly on a daily basis the complexities of the threat environment that we face.

The world is very small, and the threats that in the past may have been seen as, "well, that’s a threat on the other side of the world, this is someone else’s problem," many of those threats now are intricately woven into networks that are far-reaching and that are reaching us right here at home, in communities across our country.

You know these threats very well and how they’ve come about, how we got here to where we are. Over the last four years, of course, we saw under the Biden Administration, open borders and tens of millions of people illegally entering our country. Among those, many with ties to organized crime, different terrorist groups, Islamist terrorists, drug, child, and human traffickers.

We’ve seen how these challenges that for a long time existed along border states have extended to almost every town in America, families and communities shattered by the reality and the effects of those policies, kidnapping, violent crime, rape, drug-trafficking, and more.

The threat of Islamist terrorism and the ideology that fuels it continues to grow here in the United States and around the world. We’ve seen the effects of fentanyl and other dangerous drugs killing Americans across the country, rising to become the leading cause of death among younger Americans.

We’ve seen the amounts of fentanyl and other dangerous drugs, thanks to President Trump, radically reduced to historic lows, once again showing what happens when we have the right president in office who takes decisive action and brings together all of those arms of action to be able to save American lives.

The most transformative change that our nation has seen, in very quick order, was President Trump taking action to secure our border. It’s almost hard to believe. And I remember one of the first trips that I took in this job, just a few weeks in, was with the Vice President down to Texas to visit the border there, and seeing the contrast in places, border crossings, illegal border crossings, where there were tens, twenty, thirty thousand people trying to get across the border, to now none. To see that radical drop to the point where we have no illegal border crossings at this time is truly incredible to see.

Within my organization, ODNI, we have our National Counterterrorism Center that is very focused on being that integrating element with foreign and domestic intelligence and information, working to make sure that those threats and that threat environment, the screening and vetting capabilities that we have, are being used and maximized.

So far, over the last year, more than 10,000 terrorist-linked individuals have been denied access to our country. The President has revoked the cartels’ free pass into our nation that they had under the Biden Administration. We’ve expanded our TIDE database and other tools to provide vetting for over 30 million travel immigration applications and reviewed over 150 million applications that inform the decisions and actions that are occurring in the Department of Homeland Security and State Department.

All of these actions have a direct impact on you, your teammates, and your responsibilities in helping to narrow and drastically reduce the scope of local terror threats.

As we continue to remain vigilant and block those who are seeking to do harm in our country from accessing our country, we’re constantly working on continuing to find ways to cover our intelligence gaps, to increase our intelligence capabilities, to improve our intelligence on the existing cartel threats that exist across the country. Once again, to support your efforts to disrupt those drug networks, to disrupt those human trafficking rings, and the violence that comes along with that.

Just a few months ago, I was there when President Trump launched his newly-created Homeland Security Task Force, an interagency group that is intended to work with you in every state across the country, very specifically focused on dismantling those terrorist and cartel gang and transnational criminal threats.

Here at our National Counterterrorism Center, we’ve established a fusion cell to streamline two-way sharing of actionable intelligence and information within the Intelligence Community, within federal law enforcement, DHS, DEA, FBI, and local partners like all of you.

So today, I want to announce something for the first time that we are working on and are close to launching, a powerful new tool that we’re building specifically for our increased connectivity from here to state and local law enforcement and other first responders.

The goal of this really is to increase our coordination and to get information into the hands of those of you who are on the ground, get information into the hands of our screening and vetting teams faster.

We are close to being able to release an unclassified mobile app. It will allow you, men and women of law enforcement who are doing the hard work on the ground, working the streets, working in the field every day, to send information directly to us, to provide us with tips, to provide us that real-time picture of the threat environment, so that it feeds into the national picture that we are integrating across the interagency here.

Likewise, our National Counterterrorism Ops Center will be able to push unclassified information from across the federal enterprise out to our law enforcement partners through this app that will make it easily accessible to those working in every town and city across the country.

We’ve been working very hard on this. We’re close to completing it. I want to give special thanks to the National Sheriffs’ Association, specifically Jonathan Thompson, for providing us with necessary feedback to make sure that this is actually something that will be usable in a practical way and bringing value to the work that you’re doing.

Highlighting the importance of being able to share that timely information in both directions has given us the critical insight, once again, to make sure that what we are building is something that will actually be useful and used.

That’s the most important feature, making sure that we have seamless two-way push communications with our law enforcement partners to facilitate that bi-directional sharing of information.

As you know, there’s a lot of talk and a lot of ideas that are generated from Washington, D.C., but they may or may not be directly connected to the demand signal or the needs that you know are very real on the ground.

There are a multitude of task forces. There are a multitude of ideas, maybe laws and policies, but unless they are grounded in meeting the real need on the ground and allowing the benefit of your experience to inform the decisions and actions that are being made here, they can result in a lot of wasted time, money, and resources.

So we very much appreciate and value the feedback that we have gotten through your association here so that we can continue to improve our ability to be good partners toward that collective mission of keeping the American people safe.

And that’s exactly what we’re trying to do under President Trump’s leadership, continue to push the envelope and lead the Intelligence Community toward developing cutting-edge innovations, innovative solutions, at a faster pace that will improve our capabilities to ensure the safety and security of the American people.

The work never ends. I met with a friend this morning. He said, “Oh, hey, how’s it going?” I was like, “It’s crazy.” And he said, “Isn’t it always crazy?” I said, “Yeah, it is.”

We live in a constantly dynamic and moving environment, and we need to outpace the threats that we face. We can’t afford a moment of complacency.

We have great teammates here, great teammates in every single one of you, so that we can remain that tip of the spear, standing ready to serve and protect.

So on behalf of the President, on behalf of the Intelligence Community across all of the 18 elements that we have, please accept my gratitude for the work that you all do every single day and the sacrifices that you make, the sacrifices that your loved ones make, in order for you to be able to take action to put service above self.

May God bless you. May God bless the United States of America. Thank you so much. Please be safe."

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