Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard delivered a stark warning Saturday at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest, declaring that Islamist ideology represents the single greatest threat to freedom and liberty, both abroad and increasingly at home in the United States.
Addressing the crowd, Gabbard said the danger posed by Islamist ideology has not received enough attention, despite its far-reaching consequences wherever it takes hold. She argued that the ideology is fundamentally incompatible with the principles on which the United States was founded and warned that its spread poses both immediate and long-term risks to national security and individual liberty.
“There is a threat to our freedom that hasn’t been talked about enough,” Gabbard said. “And it is the greatest near and long term threat to both our freedom and our security, and that is the threat of Islamist ideology.” She described it as an ideology advanced by people who reject the concept of individual freedom and whose beliefs stand in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Gabbard said the American system is rooted in the idea that rights come from a Creator, not from government, including the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. She warned that Islamist ideology directly contradicts that foundation, making it uniquely dangerous to a free society.
She noted that Charlie Kirk, the Turning Point USA founder who was assassinated, frequently spoke about this threat because he understood its seriousness. Gabbard pointed to the September 11 terrorist attacks as proof of how far adherents of Islamist ideology are willing to go to impose their vision on others.
“It is a political ideology that seeks to create a global caliphate that governs us here in America,” she said. Gabbard warned that compliance is not optional under such a system, and that those who resist face severe consequences. “If you fail to comply, if you fail to adhere to this ideology, if you dare to exercise your God-given right to free speech, censorship is not what we face,” she said. “They will use violence or any means that they deem as necessary to silence us.”
Gabbard also warned that the threat is not hypothetical, pointing to developments in Europe as evidence of how quickly freedom can erode. She cited Germany as an example, noting that Christmas markets are being canceled due to security concerns tied to Islamist threats. For Gabbard, this demonstrated how cultural traditions and basic freedoms can be curtailed when governments are unable or unwilling to confront the ideology head-on.
As the Christmas season approaches, she said, those developments should serve as a warning to Americans about what happens when such threats are ignored or downplayed. Gabbard emphasized that understanding where rights come from is essential to recognizing the danger.
She argued that because American freedoms are God-given, any ideology that rejects those principles poses an existential threat. A society that does not defend its foundational beliefs, she warned, risks losing them altogether.
Gabbard concluded by urging Americans to remain vigilant and to be willing to defend freedom and liberty against ideologies that seek to destroy them. A truly free society, she said, cannot survive unless its people are prepared to recognize threats and stand firmly against them.
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