Trump says Pulte won’t be his nominee for director of national
intelligence
[June 05, 2026]
By JOSH BOAK
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that federal
housing finance regulator Bill Pulte, his pick for acting director of
national intelligence, would not be his “permanent” choice for the
critical security post.
The Republican president's disclosure that he was ruling out installing
Pulte in the position full-time came after bipartisan pushback on
Capitol Hill in recent days over Pulte's lack of national security
experience. The position requires Senate confirmation, something that
lawmakers indicated was unlikely if Pulte were the nominee.
“He’s not going to be permanent because, you know, I don’t think he’d
want to be permanent,” Trump said while taking questions in the Oval
Office after an event on coal. He called Pulte a “very smart guy” and
said he may look at past elections that Trump claims, without credible
evidence, were “rigged” against him.
Trump said other candidates were under consideration for nomination to
the post. “We’re interviewing people right now,” he said.
Pulte, a grandson of the founder of PulteGroup, has been a source of
controversy within the administration for his work as director of the
Federal Housing Finance Agency and his oversight of the mortgage
companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Pulte has used his position to pursue Trump’s perceived political rivals
for alleged mortgage fraud and has verbally attacked Jerome Powell,
whose term as the Federal Reserve chairman recently ended after months
of Trump and Pulte attacking him for not slashing the central bank’s
benchmark rates. The federal housing finance regulator has also pitched
a 50-year mortgage, an idea that backfired as it meant that the process
of building wealth through home ownership would be slowed.
Both Republican and Democratic senators expressed concerns about Pulte
and his lack of national security credentials in occupying a role
coordinating 18 federal agencies involved in domestic and foreign
security issues. Trump's initial director of national intelligence,
Tulsi Gabbard, resigned last month, citing her husband's recent cancer
diagnosis.
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Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency Bill Pulte walks
outside the White House, Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025, in Washington. (AP
Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota,
said the national intelligence director job shouldn't be
“weaponized” and should be led by “professionals.”
Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of
Louisiana and John Cornyn of Texas, who are each leaving the chamber
after this year’s elections, also expressed concerns about Pulte.
Democratic senators view Pulte as a risk even if he is only
temporarily serving as the director of national intelligence while
keeping his position at the FHFA.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., sent Trump a letter on Thursday
calling on him to rescind Pulte's national security appointment.
“Americans cannot trust him to protect our nation and refrain from
misusing the sensitive information he will have access to,” Warren
wrote, saying that giving Pulte the job on an acting basis was a
risk because Trump's own words suggested the federal agency could be
used “to promote election denial theories.”
At a hearing on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent
confirmed reports that he had threatened to fight Pulte in September
of 2025, a sign of the friction that the federal housing finance
director had generated inside the administration.
But as a frequent traveler on Air Force One, Pulte has a close
relationship with Trump.
“He’s a person who’s got high integrity,” Trump said Thursday about
Pulte.
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