Trump picks Bill Pulte to succeed Tulsi Gabbard, as acting director of national intelligence

U.S. President Donald Trump has tapped Bill Pulte to be the acting director of national intelligence, putting a real estate scion and fierce Trump loyalist in a key national security post as the U.S. remains at war with Iran.

Trump made the surprise announcement Tuesday on social media that Pulte would be replacing Tulsi Gabbard, the former Hawaii congresswoman who had served as the director of national intelligence (DNI). Trump said Pulte will keep his other position as head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA).

The Republican president cited Pulte’s work at the FHFA and his role as chair of the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as indicating that his real estate work would overlap with the skills needed to co-ordinate 18 federal agencies tasked with foreign and domestic security.

“William has deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America, the safety and soundness of the Markets,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

Gabbard said she would leave the job on June 30. She said her husband had recently been diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer and “faces major challenges in the coming weeks and months.”

Originally a Democrat, Gabbard has opposed foreign wars throughout her political career, and has not figured prominently as the Trump administration planned and executed a seizure of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, or launched its war on Iran on Feb. 28.

Schumer slams ‘partisan thug’

It’s unclear what national security expertise Pulte brings to bear as the U.S. faces conflict in the Middle East, has tried to mediate an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine and manages the emergence of artificial intelligence as a military tool.

As the grandson of the founder of PulteGroup, one of the country’s largest homebuilders, Pulte has cut a combative streak on social media and used his post at the FHFA to attack perceived opponents of the Trump administration.

His time overseeing mortgage finance has been linked with criminal referrals for mortgage fraud by public officials Trump sought to punish, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat; Sen. Adam Schiff of California; and Lisa Cook, a board member of the U.S. Federal Reserve, who was nominated by a Democratic president, Joe Biden.

“Bill Pulte is a partisan thug with no experience in intelligence,” Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a social media post. “He is another unqualified Trump appointee that will make our country less safe.”

The prosecution against James was dismissed in November after a judge concluded that the prosecutor who filed the charges was illegally appointed. Other referrals made by Pulte, including against Schiff and Cook, have not yielded any criminal charges. Lawyers for both have denied any claims of wrongdoing. But Trump did try to use the possibility of mortgage fraud as grounds for removing Cook from the Fed.

Pulte told reporters at the White House several months ago that he had also made criminal referrals regarding at least one Republican official, but he declined to provide the name.

Pulte has famously gone after then-Fed chair Jerome Powell for not cutting the central bank’s benchmark interest rates as aggressively as the president wanted. He has also been linked to ideas such as the 50-year mortgage and efforts to lower mortgage rates through the purchase of home loan debt that have not paid off as promised, as mortgage rates began to climb after the Iran war began.

Pulte’s role as an attack dog for Trump could raise Democratic worries that Trump will sow confusion ahead of the November midterms. Gabbard appeared took a lead role in Trump’s effort to relitigate his 2020 election loss by appearing early this year at an FBI search of election offices near Atlanta, even though the DNI position was created to focus on foreign espionage, not domestic elections.

“Pulte’s only qualification is that he is willing to abuse his authority to destroy Trump’s political enemies,” said Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut. “He has zero national security experience. He’s going to DNI to spy on Trump’s opponents ahead of the election.”

Because Pulte is being appointed in an acting capacity, and was confirmed by the Senate in his housing role, he won’t face an imminent confirmation hearing in that chamber. Trump has been accused by his critics of abusing the rules surrounding the appointment of acting officials in both his first and second administrations, with some remaining in their roles beyond a mandated 210 days.