Presented by BP.

Good morning, everyone. I'm playbook co-author Rachel Bade. It's Monday, December 9th.

And here's what's driving the day. Tulsi Gabbard, she is going on offense.

With Matt Gates and Pete Hagseth sucking up all the oxygen here in Washington, Tulsi Gabbard's nomination to lead

DNI has basically flown under the radar recently, but that's all going to change this week.

News that Syrian dictator Al-Assad has fled Damascus, which fell over the weekend to the rebels,

has reinvigorated chatter and even jokes about Gabbard's alleged sympathies for El-Assad.

Just consider what Trump critic and ex-concrasman Adam Kinsinger tweeted over the weekend,

quote,

wonder if Tulsi Gabbard will offer Assad safe harbor at her house.

Now, Gabbard, after all, visited Assad several years after he gassed his own people,

and she claimed the country isn't the enemy of the

United States, even though it's been considered a state sponsor of terrorism for decades.

That little reminder of Gabbard's unorthodox foreign policy views comes at perhaps the most

inopportune moment for her. Yes, as the Democrat and one-time Bernie Sanders supporter

just left Army training in Oklahoma and is headed to Capitol Hill this week.

In fact, today I'm told she's going to be huddling with my grounds, Lindsay Graham, and James Langford.

But despite the criticisms of her views, Gabbard and her allies remain cautiously optimistic about her prospects.

They say she's locked in loaded with explanations to take on her critics. And unlike Gates

and even Heggseth, she has a built-in Senate posse of longtime allies who are prepared to help her

along the way. Now, already Trump's former national security advisor, John Bolton, is coming out

swinging, and he's not going to be the only one. Bolton told me on the phone last night that

...