Trump suggests firing intelligence staff, stokes backlash over Pulte appointment

Donald Trump is pressing his latest intelligence chief to begin firing employees and shrink the spy apparatus, a move that turns personnel policy into a test of political allegiance and deepens the fight over whether the intelligence bureaucracy is being bent to fit the White House.

In a June 5 Wall Street Journal interview, Trump said he wanted the intelligence community “smaller” and told Bill Pulte to “start the process” of removing personnel. He said some of the employees he wanted gone had worked under Joe Biden and Barack Obama. Trump also said he would not formally nominate Pulte for the permanent director of national intelligence job, casting the acting assignment as a way to let Pulte “shake it up” first.

Trump named Pulte acting director of national intelligence on June 2 after Tulsi Gabbard said she would leave the post on June 30. Pulte already runs the Federal Housing Finance Agency and serves as chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but he has no known intelligence or national security experience. That has sharpened concern that the administration is treating the DNI office less as a coordinating hub for independent analysis than as another venue for political management.

The central question is how far a president can actually go. Trump can set priorities and install loyal political leadership, but sweeping removals of career staff would run into civil-service rules, security procedures and internal personnel processes that limit abrupt purges. That matters because intelligence work depends on analysts and officers who can assess threats without wondering whether an inconvenient judgment will be punished as disloyalty.

Capitol Hill reacted quickly. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the country did not need a “weaponized DNI,” while Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called Pulte unqualified and said he would make the country less safe. The backlash spilled into surveillance policy on June 5, when the Senate blocked a procedural vote on renewing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by 47-52. Democrats warned that Pulte’s appointment could complicate renewal of the government’s foreign intelligence authority.

The dispute lands on top of a broader downsizing already underway at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Under Gabbard, the office announced a workforce reduction of roughly 40 percent, and the Trump administration said in 2025 that DNI spending would be cut by more than $700 million a year. Trump’s latest remarks tie that earlier shrinkage to a more explicit effort to purge intelligence employees he views as politically hostile, widening the clash between executive power and the independence Washington expects from its intelligence agencies.