President Donald Trump’s outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is quitting his cabinet to take care of her cancer-stricken husband. 

Gabbard’s husband, Abraham Williams, 37, was recently diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer. 

She cited his illness in a resignation letter she delivered to Trump on Friday. She will officially depart as Director of National Intelligence on June 30.

Gabbard, 45, is the fourth member of Trump’s Cabinet to resign in the past three months, after Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, an extraordinary attrition rate among the women serving under the President.

Her departure follows months of growing friction over the President’s decision to launch a war against Iran.

Trump called her departure ‘unfortunate’ as she’s done a ‘great job’ and sent his well wishes to Williams, whom he said will be brought back to ‘good health.’

Gabbard’s husband has been kept largely out of the political spotlight and spends most of his time in their shared Texas home. 

He’s a camera operator and cinematographer with four IMDB credits.

Over the years, the couple has sparked intrigue over their ties to what some describe as an ‘alt-right’ cult offshoot of the Hindu Hare Krishna movement.

Gabbard recently pulled back the curtain on her typically hush-hush relationship with her cinematographer husband in a rare public post.

Gabbard’s husband, Abraham Williams, 37, was recently diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer

Tulsi Gabbard and husband Abraham Williams pose for a mirror selfie 

Tulsi Gabbard is greeted by husband Abraham Williams at the Senate Intel Committee hearing on Thursday, January 30 as she testifies before the panel in relation to her nomination to be Donald Trump’s Director of National Intelligence

In February, she posted a romantic tribute to Williams accompanied by 10 images of them trailblazing the world together.

‘You are my forever valentine,’ she continued. ‘I love you with all my heart and am endlessly grateful for you.’

The Director of National Intelligence and her partner, who is eight years her junior, moved from their shared home state of Hawaii to a suburb of Austin, Texas, in 2024.

How did Tulsi and Abe meet?

Gabbard’s first husband was Eduardo Tamayo, whom she married in 2002 and divorced in 2006.

Williams, a part-Māori, part-Samoan from Auckland, New Zealand, originally met Gabbard in 2012 while he was working as a volunteer on his future wife’s campaign.

At the time she was running to be a Hawaii congresswoman in the U.S. House of Representatives. Her campaign was successful and she served four terms as a Democrat.

Williams worked as a freelance photographer at the time and took images and shot commercials that were used by Gabbard’s campaign.

His mother Anya Anthony also managed Gabbard’s district office in Honolulu, Hawaii.

A year-and-a-half after working on the 2012 campaign, Williams got the chance at love when one of their mutual friends threw a birthday party for Gabbard and they met again.

At the party, Williams asked Gabbard out.

The two bonded over their love for water sports and their shared Hindu religion.

Williams proposed to Gabbard while they were surfing together and the two married in 2015 in a traditional Hindu Vedic ceremony on the shoree of Kahaluu, Hawaii.

How old is Abe Williams?

At 37-years-old, Williams is eight years younger than his politician wife. 

They met in 2012, when Williams was in his early 20s and Gabbard was in her early 30s. 

Do they have kids?

No. Gabbard and Williams do not share any children – and neither have kids outside of their marriage, either.  

The couple went through several in-vitro fertilization (IVF) processes as they struggled to conceive children. 

Gabbard opened up about the IVF treatments during an interview with Meghan McCain on her podcast Citizen McCain. 

‘As hard as this was for me, it was extremely hard for Abraham to just watch this heartbreak over and over again,’ she detailed.  

Gabbard and Williams were married by a Hindu priest in a Vedic ceremony in 2015

What does Gabbard’s husband do for work?

Williams has a very different career than his politician wife who spent years as an elected official before Trump chose her as his DNI.

He is a cinematographer and, more specifically, a camera operator.

The filmmaker has IMDB credits on some lower-budget projects like Decade of the Dead (2023), Angel by Thursday (2021), Down on the Sidewalk in Waikiki (2019) and Go For Broke (2018).

But he has also worked on other independent projects that he promotes on his Instagram – and on commercials and music videos.

Williams’ website says he works across ‘diverse and challenging environments, from cities across America to warzones in the Middle East.’

It appears that much of his more recent work involves trailing Gabbard with a camera, producing adverts, promotional material and a steady stream of social media content for her flourishing political career.

Abe Williams is a cinematographer, videographer and steadicam operator who has credits on IMDB for four more lower-budget films

Williams is also a surfer with a love for water sports – something he and Tulsi Gabbard bonded over in their early days of dating

Williams proposed to Gabbard while the two were surfing together. They got married in 2015

Extracurricular activities 

The surfer and steadicam operator has many other enjoyments, according to social media.

He plays multiple musical instruments, is a sharpshooter and enjoys high intensity workouts.

There are videos posted to Instagram of Williams deadlifting hundreds of pounds and doing pull-ups. One shows him using cinder blocks and a pole to lift weight when there were ‘limited options’ for a workout.

Williams also posted a series of professional images from competing in The Tactical Games in November.

In a caption, he wrote of the competition: ‘[I]t was as hard and rewarding as I thought it would be. I definitely found new horizons of how hard I can push my mind and my body. It was an incredible learning experience surrounded by an amazing community of people. This is just the beginning.’

His beach-bum good looks have earned Williams attention from fashion magazine Marie Claire, which called him the ‘coolest political spouse.’

The Oprah magazine dubbed him a ‘low profile’ sidekick to Gabbard, but admitted he was well worth a follow on Instagram.

What religion does Williams practice?

Williams and Gabbard are both Hindu. 

Gabbard started practicing the religion in her teen years. She followed in her mother’s footsteps, who is a convert to Hinduism. 

She made history as the first practicing Hindu to be elected to Congress. 

The couple are believed to belong to an offshoot of the Hare Krishna movement called the Science of Identity Foundation (SIF). 

Suspected cult ties

Gabbard became the first American Samoan elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2012. 

Critics say the secretive ‘cult’ of SIF, which Gabbard and Williams allegedly have ties to, has intolerant views towards women, gay people and Muslims and seeks to gain access to a back door of mainstream politics.

Meanwhile, they say that the followers of this religion treat its reclusive leader Chris Butler as some kind of all-powerful deity.

It’s unclear where the couple stands on SIF as they have said little publicly about the group.

But their murky ties are enough to raise eyebrows as Gabbard barrels toward one of Trump’s top national security positions.

The Hare Krishna movement, best known for chanting mantras, vegetarianism, and yoga, exploded across America in the 1960s and 1970s. Butler, a surfer in Hawaii, was part of that growth.

Gbbard and Williams got married in a traditional Hindu Vedic ceremony. They are both Hindu and allegedly have ties to what some call an ‘alt-right cult’ offshoot of Hare Krishna movement called the Science of Identity Foundation (SIF)

But he splintered from the group in the late 1970s and formed SIF.

A tight-knit community of roughly one thousand followers developed across Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia.

It reportedly includes members of the Gabbard and Williams families.

Gabbard has called Butler a ‘guru’ and says his message is positive and uplifting.

But some former members of his group have described themselves as survivors of a cult and say Butler was an all-powerful and unquestionable leader.

In an interview with The Independent in 2022, Gabbard’s aunt Dr. Caroline Sinavaiana Gabbard accused her niece’s career of being all about the pursuit of power.

She claimed her bid for the White House in 2020 was the culmination of four decades of Butler’s efforts to seek political influence.

‘Once again I find my niece’s apparent penchant for parroting extremist toadies such as Tucker Carlson and vile strongmen such as Vladimir Putin, to be problematic and deeply troubling,’ the retired University of Hawaii professor said at the time.

‘​It gives me no pleasure to ​note that Tulsi’s single governing principle seems to be expedience, which is in effect no principle at all.’