President Trump announced Tuesday that he’s named 38-year-old Florida businessman Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence, replacing Tulsi Gabbard, who will leave her post on June 30. Pulte currently serves as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and is the chairman of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
According to The New York Times, Pulte, an heir to the family home construction company PulteGroup, “has no known experience for a national security role.”
[NOTE: Below is Trump’s HUD Secretary Scott Turner praising Pulte as a seasoned expert and dedicated leader in the housing industry, when he was nominated as FHFA director in February 2025.]
Throughout his career, Bill Pulte has proven himself to be a seasoned expert and a dedicated leader in his field. His experience in the housing industry and his passion for philanthropy are testaments to his expertise and dedication to the American people, and I am fully in… pic.twitter.com/E6pJDCkIJt
— Scott Turner (@SecretaryTurner) February 24, 2025
U.S. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a statement: “Rather than selecting a respected national security professional capable of delivering independent judgments, the president has chosen an official who has demonstrated not just willingness but eagerness to use the authorities of government to pursue political retribution. Americans have already seen Mr. Pulte use the powers of his office at the Federal Housing Finance Agency to pursue the president’s grievances and lend credibility to dubious prosecutions of President Trump’s perceived political opponents.”
My statement on President Trump’s appointment of Bill Pulte as Acting Director of National Intelligence:
“This appointment speaks volumes about what this president expects from the nation’s top intelligence official. Rather than selecting a respected national security…
— Mark Warner (@MarkWarner) June 2, 2026
Warner added: “The concern is not only that Mr. Pulte lacks the ‘extensive national security experience’ required by statute for the job, which was created after intelligence failures led to the deaths of thousands of Americans on 9/11. It is that he appears to have been selected precisely because the White House believes he will provide the narrative it wants, not the intelligence we need.”
Warner continued his criticism: “Americans have every reason to worry about what happens when the official charged with overseeing everything from counterterrorism to foreign election threats is chosen for his willingness to advance the president’s political agenda rather than his experience. That is how intelligence becomes politicized, how inconvenient facts disappear, how agencies charged with protecting our democracy instead become tools to manipulate it, and how Americans are left more vulnerable to a terrorist attack.”
[NOTE: MAGA-aligned U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who voted in favor of confirming Pulte as the Director of FHFA in March 2025, has yet to comment on Pulte’s new job.]