![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2026\/05\/TRUMP-2.webp\")
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump said on Friday that he wants his new acting director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte, to cut the office, which has already been significantly scaled back during his second term.<\/p>\nABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump said on Friday that he wants his new acting director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte, to cut the office, which has already been significantly scaled back during his second term.<\/p>\n
Trump noted that the size of the office has been \u201cway too high for way too long\u201d and that \u201cif he cut, I wouldn\u2019t mind that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019ll do a very good job,\u201d Trump told reporters on Air Force One as he traveled to Wisconsin for an event on agriculture. \u201cHe\u2019ll watch it closely, but Bill Pulte is very good, he\u2019s very talented.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Republican president said in an earlier interview with The Wall Street Journal that he has asked Pulte to start the process of firing employees. In the interview, Trump said he has already conveyed his view to Pulte, who has served as head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency but has no apparent national security expertise.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to see it smaller. I think there are a lot of people in there that shouldn\u2019t be there,\u201d Trump said, which the Journal said was in reference to intelligence community officials who had served in the Democratic administrations of Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama.<\/p>\n
Trump told the Journal that he wants Pulte to \u201cstart the process\u201d of firing personnel and that the eventual permanent director of national intelligence should continue it. The president has indicated that he would not formally nominate Pulte for the position.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrankly, it might be good for him to shake it up before people come,\u201d Trump said. \u201cBecause, if he (Pulte) reduced the size, in conjunction with me \u2026 and in conjunction with possibly the person coming in \u2026 he can do a lot of the hard work and we wouldn\u2019t have to saddle somebody that goes in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pulte was tapped by the president earlier this week in a surprising move that has been met with bipartisan resistance in the Senate, which confirms presidential nominations. The temporary appointment has now snarled the renewal of a critical national security surveillance program on Capitol Hill, with Democrats key to the vote pointing out that they did not trust Pulte \u2014 whose office oversees 18 intelligence agencies \u2014 to help administer the surveillance program.<\/p>\n
Trump told reporters on Air Force One that Pulte will stay in the position depending on how long it takes to get his successor confirmed. The president also said he was considering five people who were \u201call very good, all people that you know very well, all people that do that kind of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re very respected people,\u201d Trump said of his intelligence candidates, without naming them.<\/p>\n
Under Pulte\u2019s predecessor, Tulsi Gabbard, the DNI office had already taken steps to scale back its size. In August, the Trump administration said that the office\u2019s budget would be cut by more than $700 million per year, while slashing the size of its workforce.<\/p>\n
At the time, Gabbard said the office had become \u201cbloated and inefficient\u201d while she announced the roughly 40% workforce reduction.<\/p>\n
Gabbard resigned last month after revealing her husband\u2019s cancer diagnosis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump said on Friday that he wants his new acting director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte, to cut the office, which has already been significantly scaled back during his second term. Trump noted that the size of the office has been \u201cway too high for way too … Continue reading Trump says he wants his new acting director of national intelligence to cut the office<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":1510282,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1449],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1512853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abc-political-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":true,"date":"2026-06-07 13:59:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[0],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1512853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1512853"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1512853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1512854,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1512853\/revisions\/1512854"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1510282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1512853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1512853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1512853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}