Bill Pulte, Trump's choice to temporarily lead the intelligence community, called Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday and told her to pack up immediately. She pushed back hard.
"Today is your last day," Pulte said during the call, according to two officials briefed on the conversation. Gabbard had publicly announced her departure for June 30, not this week. She rejected the directive and demanded to hear any resignation demand directly from the president.
Trump was next. When Gabbard reached him, the president didn't insist on her removal. Instead, he asked a simple question: "What day works best for you?" Gabbard settled on June 19. Trump then posted the new timeline on Truth Social and reconfirmed Pulte would run the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in an interim capacity.
The phone call reveals the turmoil rippling through the intelligence community and Capitol Hill since Trump named Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, as Gabbard's stand-in. Pulte has no intelligence background and lacks even a security clearance to access classified materials, which has ignited bipartisan concern in Congress.
On the same day as the call to Gabbard, Trump's advisers gathered in the White House Situation Room to salvage negotiations over renewing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Congress had been close to reauthorizing the critical surveillance tool before Pulte's appointment derailed the talks. Intelligence hawks and Democrats alike viewed the appointment as reckless.
Pulte's selection wasn't random. A senior administration official said Pulte won Trump's confidence by promising to purge the ODNI staff, particularly officials deemed insufficiently loyal or labeled part of the "deep state." Pulte, whose family owns a major Florida real estate business, has long ties to Trump through Mar-a-Lago and maintains regular access to the White House.
The move caught even some Trump allies off guard. "We were so close to FISA passing, and then this Pulte thing blew it up," one Congressional supporter told officials. Inside the administration itself, confusion reigned. "Nobody seems to know what the f**k is going on," one official said, prompting a sharp retort from a colleague accusing them of being out of the loop.
Gabbard had initially planned to depart at month's end while helping her husband with a cancer battle. The accelerated timeline gives Pulte a partial victory, though Trump did clarify that Pulte's role is temporary and that he remains committed to finding a permanent successor the Senate will confirm.
The standoff illustrates the friction between Trump's preference for loyalty and Congress's demands for basic competence in sensitive positions. Pulte's appointment threatened to torpedo must-pass legislation, a price some advisers believed too high.
Author James Rodriguez: "Pulte's move reveals how Trump rewards cronies even when it costs him legislative wins, and Gabbard's capitulation shows he's willing to cave when pressed directly by his own people."
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