President Donald Trump has appointed businessman and federal housing regulator Bill Pruitt as acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI).
President Trump made a surprise announcement on social media on Tuesday that Pulte would replace former Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who most recently served as director of national intelligence.
President Trump said Pruitt would succeed Gabbard, who resigned last month after disclosing her husband’s cancer diagnosis, and would continue in other roles.
Who is Bill Pulte?
Pulte, a 38-year-old Northwestern University graduate, has been director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) since March 2025.
He is the heir to his family’s housing development company, Pulte Group, one of the largest homebuilding companies in the United States. Pulte Group was founded by my grandfather in the 1950s. He previously founded the private equity firm Pulte Capital and is involved in large-scale philanthropy.
Mr. Pulte is considered a staunch Trump supporter who has accused New York Attorney General Letitia James, California Sen. Adam Schiff (both Democrats), and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, an appointee of Democratic former President Joe Biden, of mortgage fraud, and encouraged the prosecution of people he considers the president’s political opponents.
A federal grand jury in December 2025 declined to indict Mr. James in a Justice Department indictment alleging that Mr. Pulte wrote a criminal referral to the Justice Department alleging that Mr. Pulte listed his Virginia home as his primary residence to secure more favorable loan terms. Authorities have not filed charges against Mr. Schiff, who denies the charges.
President Trump tried to fire Cook, citing Mr. Pulte’s baseless accusations, but Mr. Pulte was allowed to continue in his role. This is an unprecedented action by a president against a US central bank official. She also denied the charges. The Supreme Court is expected to rule on her case in the coming weeks.
In response to Prut’s actions, Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer on Tuesday called the newly appointed director of national intelligence a “partisan thug.”
“We cannot entrust the task of keeping our country safe to someone who can bring such baseless, politically charged and outrageous accusations against political officeholders he doesn’t like,” Schumer said.
Pruitt’s views on whether the 2020 election was rigged against Trump (a claim supported by many of his appointees despite a lack of evidence) were not immediately clear. Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren said during the vetting process for the post that Trump is believed to have deleted 25,000 social media posts before President Trump nominated him to head the FHFA in January 2025.
President Trump said Pulte will continue to serve on the FHFA board and as chairman of federally backed mortgage banks Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
“William has extensive experience managing America’s most sensitive issues, market safety and integrity, and over $10 trillion in transactions at Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, a significant increase from just 12 months ago,” Trump said on his platform, Truth Social.
Pruitt, who has no intelligence experience, will oversee 18 intelligence divisions, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA), which monitors foreign communications and protects the United States from cyberattacks.
Could Mr. Pulte become Permanent Director of Intelligence?
Pulte can hold the job for up to 210 days without Senate confirmation. That deadline would allow him to remain in post until November’s midterm elections, when Trump’s fellow Republicans seek to maintain control of Congress.
Significantly, Republican Sen. John Thune said that if President Trump decides to nominate Mr. Pulte to the post beyond his current temporary appointment, Mr. Pulte may have a difficult time gaining approval in a close chamber.
“If he is someone we want to be in that position permanently, he has a long road ahead of him,” Thun told news agency Semaphore.
What was the reaction to Mr. Pulte’s appointment?
Pulte’s appointment has been met with skepticism from lawmakers and intelligence officials.
“We don’t need a weaponized DNI. We need experts there,” Senate Minority Leader Thune told reporters Tuesday. “I’m trying to get more information about the current state of their thinking about that position. And again, if he’s someone who wants to be in that position permanently, you know he’s got a long road ahead of him.”
“I see no evidence that he is qualified for the job,” Republican Sen. John Cornyn told reporters. Cornyn, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, lost last week’s primary to a Trump-backed challenger.
“I have no opinion on this matter,” Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in response to a question about Mr. Pulte’s national security credentials.
Republican senators Thom Tillis (North Carolina), Bill Cassidy (Louisiana), and Cornyn (Texas), who are scheduled to leave the chamber after this year’s election, also joined the chorus of anti-Pult voices.
“I don’t think I qualify,” Cassidy said.
“When I looked at his background for this endorsement, I thought most of his experience was in the construction industry,” Tillis said. “I didn’t know he had national security experience.”
Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement Tuesday: “What is concerning is not only that Mr. Pelt lacks the ‘extensive national security experience’ required by the mandate statute enacted in the wake of the intelligence failures that killed thousands of Americans on 9/11, but that he appears to have been selected because the White House believes he will provide us with the information we want.” It is necessary. ”
Sen. Warren, D-Mass., said in a written statement Tuesday that President Trump is now “rewarding a lackey with no national security experience to the top of our intelligence community. What could be wrong with that?”
