Trump appoints housing official as acting director of national intelligence
Bill Pulte has shown a willingness to go after the president's perceived enemies.

President Donald Trump's administration has become "all-consumed" by one pressing issue, according to a new Politico report, distracting them from vital legislative wins and causing allies to fret about "the end of MAGA."On Tuesday morning, Politico released an extensive new report on the massive political headwinds buffeting Trump. Not so long after his earth-shaking return to power, he is now struggling to get anything done at a time when the GOP desperately needs a win to sell in the midterms."A year and a half into his second term, Trump’s legislative agenda is stalled in a Congress he has undermined," the report explained. "He has yet to end the war he started in Iran, let alone the one he’s spent months trying to end between Russia and Ukraine. A series of court rulings has stopped the administration in its tracks on everything from an 'Anti-Weaponization Fund' that could have been used to compensate the president’s political allies to renaming the Kennedy Center."Allies close to Trump described the White House as being in a state of "burnout," now driven largely by its "nearly all-encompassing focus on ending the Iran war." As Politico noted, the conflict has now lasted over twice as long as Trump once predicted, and shows no signs of a clean resolution anytime soon.“The administration is all-consumed by this conflict. They’re pretty much in a funk with it — or fatigue — in that there’s nothing happening,” one anonymous source close to the situation told Politico. “Even if there are wins, no one’s communicating them. There’s just no other play outside of — we are stuck in this quicksand of Iran.”In turn, Trump is also failing to see any gains from Congress, with his much-demanded SAVE Act voting reform stalled out and the funding for his White House ballroom becoming mired in controversy. As Politico noted, many MAGA allies insist that Trump is being failed by those around him, as opposed to failing because of his own inadequacies, with some demanding new GOP leadership in Congress.“Is this how MAGA ends — with a whimper not a bang?” Steve Bannon, Trump’s former White House chief strategist, said. “Texas shows that the President still has all the juice — it needs to be applied starting with [Senate Majority Leader John] Thune’s removal.”Meanwhile, others are worried "that the administration is spending more time huddling behind closed doors trying to end a war than passing — and selling — the president’s agenda."“This is the first time that I’m even questioning, maybe he doesn’t have as much political capital as I thought he did, or they’re just not using it right in the right way,” the anonymous source added.A second anonymous source close to the White House added that the impending 250th anniversary festivities might be "among the last of the good days for the administration," amid fears that Democrats will regain power in the midterms and make life miserable for Trump in the remainder of his term.“Members of Congress that have never been in the minority don’t know how s—— it is — and staff hasn’t been through this, which none of them have… not in the proctological exam kind of way. You can only defy a subpoena for so long,” the source said. “I think there’s a rude awakening that will come if that happens.”
Bill Pulte has shown a willingness to go after the president's perceived enemies.
The Trump administration is pushing deep into new territory in its immigration crackdown, moving beyond deportations to target the citizenship of naturalized Americans in a campaign that legal experts warn could ultimately be weaponized against political opponents.The Justice Department has filed more denaturalization cases in the last 16 months than were filed across all four years of the Biden administration, according to federal data, and attorneys general offices across the country have been tasked with identifying hundreds of additional targets, reported NPR. Department leaders pressuring lawyers to generate cases quickly — sometimes by scanning news stories and social media posts – and while the cases filed so far largely involve serious criminal conduct like drug trafficking, child sexual abuse, terrorism-related activity and war crimes, legal scholars say the infrastructure being built around this effort is far more alarming than any individual case."Once it becomes easy to take somebody's citizenship away — it becomes easy to take anybody's citizenship away," warned Cassandra Robertson, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University who has studied denaturalization.What makes the program particularly troubling to civil liberties advocates is how little protection defendants have. In civil denaturalization proceedings, Americans are not entitled to appointed counsel if they cannot afford it. There is no statute of limitations, meaning the government can reach back decades for evidence, and several cases reviewed by NPR were resolved with little or no court appearance by the defendant.The administration has also signaled the program could expand beyond criminals. Trump and administration officials have publicly threatened the citizenship of political figures including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar — comments Robertson calls evidence of a real risk of "political retribution."A former DOJ attorney who spent nearly a decade in the office that handles these cases said the mandate under Trump has shifted dramatically. Where lawyers once had discretion to pursue only strong cases, they are now directed to go after anyone potentially eligible — including those with minor paperwork errors or immaterial discrepancies."The retaliatory nature of this administration and using the law in any type of legal maneuvering to go after its enemies — that is a serious concern of mine," the former DOJ attorney said, speaking anonymously for fear of government retaliation.Legal experts note that federal judges — not administration-controlled immigration courts — still oversee these cases, providing some check on potential abuse, but with hundreds of cases now in the pipeline, that guardrail may soon face its first serious test.
Donald Trump has announced who will replace Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard following her planned resignation.
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Donald Trump’s decision to appoint Bill Pulte, a businessman currently serving as the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHA), to replace departing DNI director Tulsi Gabbard set off a wave of surprise and consternation on MS NOW Tuesday morning.On Truth Social , Trump made the announcement that Pulte would serve as acting director despite having zero experience in intelligence gathering and analysis, having spent his life working in his family's home construction business.MS NOW’s Jonathan Lemire read the breaking news, which led his colleague Eugene Daniels to point out that Pulte's only seeming ally in the White House is the president himself.Pulte has been involved in making wild accusations of mortgage fraud aimed at some of Donald Trump enemies that have gone nowhere when the Department of Justice later investigated.According to Daniels, because of that, the appointment may not sit well within the White House.“This would seem to be a an escalation in Trump's efforts to relitigate 2020,” Lemire suggested. “Those investigations, which Gabbard was already doing, but also potentially trying to build more acts of retribution against folks.”"It's all loyalty, right?” Daniels replied. “Because Bill Pulte, who is a businessman, does not have experience in foreign policy in the way that you would probably want the DNI to actually have. Their job is to be the go-between all of the intel agencies and typically give the presentation to the president about what the intel agencies are saying or doing. He is also someone who folks in the white house have been a little bit frustrated with, not Donald Trump, obviously.”“Remember that Jesus meme?, He is the one that Donald Trump talked with before he posted it,” Daniels recalled. “And so that caused a whole kerfuffle for folks when that was reported out at the time. I will say this is, once again, just Donald Trump finding folks who have no experience. It doesn't matter to him, trying to figure out how do I get the things that I want?”Lemire closed with, "Tulsi Gabbard sort of sidelined herself because she disagreed with trump in the Iran war. So she was left out of a lot of key decisions. That's still a really important job and Pulte comes in here with zero experience in the intelligence community is a remarkable moment." - YouTube youtu.be
President Donald Trump said he is tapping Bill Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, as the acting Director of National Intelligence. Pulte will keep running the FHFA as well. Bloomberg's Tyler Kendall reports. (Source: Bloomberg)
US president says head of Federal Housing Finance Agency will serve as acting director days after Gabbard exits roleDonald Trump has tapped a close ally to serve as the country’s top intelligence official, days after Tulsi Gabbard announced her exit from the role.The US president said that Bill Pulte, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), and heir to a home construction company fortune, will serve as acting director of national intelligence. Continue reading...