\n<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON — <\/span>President Donald Trump said Thursday that federal housing finance regulator Bill Pulte, his pick for acting director of national intelligence<\/a>, would not be his \u201cpermanent\u201d choice for the critical security post.<\/p>\n The Republican president’s disclosure that he was ruling out installing Pulte in the position full-time came after bipartisan pushback on Capitol Hill in recent days over Pulte’s lack of national security experience. The position requires Senate confirmation, something that lawmakers indicated was unlikely if Pulte were the nominee.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s not going to be permanent because, you know, I don\u2019t think he\u2019d want to be permanent,\u201d Trump said while taking questions in the Oval Office after an event on coal.<\/a> He called Pulte a \u201cvery smart guy\u201d and said he may look at past elections that Trump claims, without credible evidence, were \u201crigged\u201d<\/a> against him.<\/p>\n Trump said other candidates were under consideration for nomination to the post. \u201cWe\u2019re interviewing people right now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Pulte, a grandson of the founder of PulteGroup, has been a source of controversy<\/a> within the administration for his work as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and his oversight of the mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.<\/p>\n Pulte has used his position to pursue Trump\u2019s perceived political rivals for alleged mortgage fraud and has verbally attacked Jerome Powell, whose term as the Federal Reserve chairman recently ended after months of Trump and Pulte attacking him for not slashing the central bank\u2019s benchmark rates. The federal housing finance regulator has also pitched a 50-year mortgage<\/a>, an idea that backfired as it meant that the process of building wealth through home ownership would be slowed.<\/p>\n Both Republican and Democratic senators expressed concerns about Pulte and his lack of national security credentials in occupying a role coordinating 18 federal agencies involved in domestic and foreign security issues. Trump’s initial director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, resigned last month<\/a>, citing her husband’s recent cancer diagnosis.<\/p>\n Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, said the national intelligence director job shouldn’t be \u201cweaponized\u201d and should be led by \u201cprofessionals.\u201d <\/p>\n Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and John Cornyn of Texas, who are each leaving the chamber after this year\u2019s elections, also expressed concerns about Pulte.<\/p>\n Democratic senators view Pulte as a risk even if he is only temporarily serving as the director of national intelligence while keeping his position at the FHFA.<\/p>\n Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., sent Trump a letter on Thursday calling on him to rescind Pulte’s national security appointment.<\/p>\n \u201cAmericans cannot trust him to protect our nation and refrain from misusing the sensitive information he will have access to,\u201d Warren wrote, saying that giving Pulte the job on an acting basis was a risk because Trump’s own words suggested the federal agency could be used \u201cto promote election denial theories.\u201d<\/p>\n At a hearing on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed reports that he had threatened to fight Pulte in September of 2025, a sign of the friction that the federal housing finance director had generated inside the administration.<\/p>\n But as a frequent traveler on Air Force One, Pulte has a close relationship with Trump.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s a person who\u2019s got high integrity,\u201d Trump said Thursday about Pulte.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n