What Happened

President Trump told The Wall Street Journal he wants Bill Pulte to "start the process" of firing large numbers of employees at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Pulte replaced Tulsi Gabbard as acting DNI earlier this week.

Trump's framing was blunt. He told the Journal the DNI's office is "unnecessary and or too big," and singled out holdovers from the Biden and Obama administrations as people who "shouldn't be there."

Pulte currently runs the Federal Housing Finance Agency. That's the office that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Mortgages. Not spy satellites. Not signals intelligence. Mortgages.

The Numbers

When Trump started his second term in January 2025, the DNI's office had roughly 1,800 employees, according to Federal News Network.

Tulsi Gabbard — before she was pushed out — already cut nearly 30% of that staff. So Pulte is walking into an office that's already been trimmed by hundreds of people.

Now Trump wants more cuts. How many more? No specific number has been given publicly. Vague purges without defined targets can wreck institutions by accident.

What the DNI Actually Does

The Director of National Intelligence oversees 18 U.S. intelligence agencies — including the CIA and the National Security Agency. The DNI coordinates intelligence across the entire U.S. government. It's the connective tissue between agencies that, famously, didn't talk to each other before September 11, 2001. Congress created the DNI role specifically to fix that.

The DNI's office got larger after 9/11. You can argue it became bloated. That's a legitimate position. But the argument needs a specific answer: which functions are being cut, and who absorbs them?

That answer hasn't been given.

The Pulte Problem

Trump himself said Thursday that Pulte is "not going to be permanent" in the role. He told reporters Friday, while flying to Wisconsin on Air Force One, that he has "five interviews" lined up for permanent DNI candidates.

So by Trump's own admission, Pulte is a caretaker. A temporary placeholder with no intelligence background, tasked with initiating mass layoffs at one of the most sensitive offices in the federal government — before a permanent leader is even named.

That sequence is backwards. You don't gut an organization before the permanent leader arrives to assess what it needs. You don't let the interim guy torch the place.

Republican senators have already pushed back on the Pulte appointment, according to CNBC. These aren't liberals protecting Biden holdovers — these are GOP members of Congress who understand what the intelligence community does and are uncomfortable with this move.

What the Media Is Getting Wrong

Left-leaning outlets are framing this almost entirely as a political power grab — Trump purging the "deep state" to protect himself. The DNI's office does have a legitimate bloat problem. After 9/11, the intelligence community expanded dramatically and has never really been audited seriously. There are real arguments for restructuring it.

But conservative media cheerleading this as bold leadership is equally sloppy. Appointing a housing finance regulator to run intelligence reform — temporarily — while firing people in bulk before a permanent director is in place is NOT a sign of strategic clarity. It's improvisation dressed up as decisiveness.

This looks like an administration that wants results faster than it has a plan.

The Intelligence Risk

Intelligence agencies don't recover quickly from personnel chaos. When experienced analysts and operators leave — voluntarily or otherwise — they take institutional knowledge that takes years to rebuild.

China is watching this. Russia is watching this. A publicized purge of U.S. intelligence staff gives adversaries who are actively trying to map American capabilities and vulnerabilities an opportunity to assess the disruption.

Firing Biden holdovers is one thing. Some of them probably should go. But doing it loudly, quickly, and without a confirmed permanent director in place creates real exposure.

What's Next

Trump wants to shrink the DNI's office. That's not inherently wrong. But the execution — a temporary appointee with zero intelligence experience ordered to start mass firings before a permanent director is named — is sloppy governance. The intelligence community is not the place to figure things out as you go. National security isn't a department you can restructure without consequences. Five interviews for a permanent DNI should have happened before Pulte walked in the door.