Dan Caldwell, a vocal GOP critic of the administration’s Middle East strategy who hails from the isolationist wing of the party, has been hired for a job at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence under DNI Tulsi Gabbard.

Caldwell, once a top advisor and ally to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, was dismissed last spring, accused of leaking to the press, and publicly criticized by Hegseth. Caldwell blamed his firing on opposition from the “foreign policy establishment.”

“In his new position, Mr. Caldwell will serve as an adviser to senior intelligence officials who are responsible for coordinating the work of 18 federal intelligence agencies and drafting the president’s daily intelligence briefing,” The New York Times reported.

A spokesperson for the ODNI said in a statement, “Any individual who is hired by ODNI goes through an extensive background review, including record checks and personal interviews, with a trained official to ensure the individual is trustworthy and does not pose a threat to national security.”  

An administration official said that there “was no evidence released to suggest Mr. Caldwell had, in fact, leaked information from the Pentagon. The matter was investigated, and he was cleared” and that he has not yet started in his role but that it “would be an administrative role.”

Caldwell joins the administration amid ongoing operations in the Middle East — after having adamantly opposed the more limited U.S. strikes on Iran last June, maintaining his view that preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon should not be a top U.S. priority.

The isolationist wing of the party has established an apparent power base inside ODNI under officials including Gabbard, National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent and Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Mission Integration Will Ruger, who like Caldwell worked for the isolationist Koch-backed Defense Priorities think tank before joining the Trump administration.

Prior to Ruger, Gabbard sought to hire Daniel Davis — also a Defense Priorities affiliate and a strident critic of Israel and opponent of U.S. action against Iran — for the role but reversed course amid public scrutiny.

Donald Trump Jr. praised Caldwell on Monday as a “true loyalist to my father and the entire MAGA movement” and an “America First Patriot.”

One former administration official told JI they see the hire as part of an ongoing effort by Ruger to “undermine the president on Iran,” “bring down” the U.S. operations against the Islamic Republic and attack CIA Director John Ratcliffe. “The sooner the president gets rid of Gabbard the better. He needs someone loyal at DNI, not leakers with political agendas,” the former official said.

Right-wing commentator Laura Loomer also lamented Calwell’s rehiring, alleging that Caldwell threatened to kill Hegseth when he was fired and that “to be hired to work at ODNI, you have to be an anti-Semite, a Trump hater, a Never Trump, funded by Koch, or a Democrat,” adding, “Their whole purpose is to undermine Trump and amplify the Tucker Carlson shadow government network.”

Caldwell’s first stop after his firing last April was an interview with Tucker Carlson, on whose show he has made subsequent appearances. He said in his initial appearance on the program that his dismissal was instigated by individuals who objected to his restrained approach to foreign policy matters. 

“I have some views about the role of America in the world [that], as we’ve discussed, are a little controversial. All of us in our own ways threatened really established interests,” Caldwell told Carlson in April of himself and the other accused Pentagon leakers. “We threatened a lot of established interests inside the building and outside the building, and we had people who had personal vendettas against us.” 

In between his two roles in the second Trump administration, Caldwell served as a senior fellow for foreign policy at American Moment, an organization aimed at staffing Republican political offices with young conservatives that advocates for a restrained foreign policy. He was also a frequent online commentator on Middle East policy issues.

Ahead of the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities last year, Caldwell argued adamantly against them, warning that they would turn into an extended nation-building effort and accusing Israel of trying to drag the U.S. into a war and undermine U.S. diplomatic efforts. He also dismissed a report suggesting that Iran had resumed its nuclear weapons program.

“The costs of a conventional strike against Iran’s nuclear program are potentially catastrophic in lives, dollars, and instability,” he said. “Yet, the long-term impact on the effectiveness of Iran’s nuclear program is likely to be limited.”

Throughout the war, he repeatedly warned that the U.S. and Israel lacked the air defense stockpiles to defend against sustained and ongoing Iranian attacks.

When the U.S. attacked Iran, Caldwell co-wrote an op-ed lamenting the U.S. decision and stating that the “move carries immense risks, potentially plunging the United States into yet another costly, dangerous quagmire in a region that is less important to Washington than foreign-policy elites would have you believe.”

The op-ed continued, “If Trump’s military operation isn’t tightly defined or properly managed, or if actors in the US government or outside of it are allowed to willfully expand the scope of the operation, the second outcome is the most likely — and the most disastrous,” referring to an extended war aimed at regime change.

After the strikes he said, in a co-written report, that no military approach other than a full occupation of Iran would permanently stop its progress toward a nuclear weapon and that U.S. strikes “may set the program back without destroying it, allowing Iran to reconstitute and even speed up its program over time.”

In the wake of the operation, Caldwell argued in a co-written analysis piece that the U.S. force posture in the region is “more of a burden than a benefit” and that around two-thirds of U.S. forces deployed to the Middle East as of July 2025 be withdrawn. 

He said that there is no “existential military threat to the U.S. homeland” in the Middle East, therefore additional assets deployed after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks should be removed, U.S, air defenses should be pulled back, carrier strike groups should be removed from the region and all U.S. forces should be removed from Iraq, Syria, Kuwait and Qatar, as well as some of the U.S. forces in Jordan.

“While a nuclear-armed Iran is not ideal, it does not pose an existential threat to the United States, as Tehran has no delivery vehicles capable of reaching the U.S. homeland,” Caldwell wrote. “Israel might view the threat posed by a nuclear Iran differently, but the interests of a U.S. partner — one that itself has nuclear weapons and receives significant U.S. military aid — should not solely drive the U.S. posture in the region.”

He additionally claimed that the U.S. military presence in the Middle East has no impact on the Iranian regime’s calculations “when it comes to the country’s nuclear program or its wider regional military strategy.”

And he said that the U.S.’s military presence “encourages risk taking by Israel” and that Israel might not have launched strikes on Iran last year if not for the U.S. presence.

Caldwell argued last November that conservatives shouldn’t rule out opposing U.S. aid to Israel.

He also dismissed the “freak out” among conservatives about a reported plan to establish a Qatari air force training facility in the United States.

And he warned that ongoing U.S. strikes against the Houthis could have dragged the U.S. into “another forever war in the Middle East.”

The conservative Caldwell additionally defended progressive Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner when Platner first disclosed that he had a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol, claiming that Nazi tattoos were “fairly common” in the Marines during the war on terror.