Tulsi Gabbard got a phone call from her own successor telling her she was done—even though she hadn’t heard a word of it from the president.
The elevation of Bill Pulte, 38, the nepo baby Trump appointee tapped to replace Gabbard as acting director of national intelligence, sparked a bipartisan revolt in Congress. It also stalled the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, with lawmakers balking at handing expanded surveillance powers to a man who, at the time of his appointment, didn’t even have a security clearance to handle classified information, as CNN reported.
It has now emerged that Pulte had called Gabbard, 45, on Tuesday to inform the outgoing spy chief that her time was up—that very same day.
Gabbard, who had announced she was departing at the end of June to care for her husband, who is battling bone cancer, was caught off guard. “I need to hear it from the president or the White House,” she told Pulte, two officials briefed on the conversation told Axios.
She then called Trump directly. Rather than backing his man, the president asked her: “What day works best for you?” As the outlet reported, she named June 19. Trump promptly announced that date on Truth Social, as the Daily Beast reported on Tuesday.
Gabbard’s earlier-than-planned exit is a partial win for Pulte, who had pushed Trump to appoint him by promising to fire swaths of ODNI staff—career officials and alleged “deep state” bureaucrats. But Pulte’s elevation has been a disaster for the administration in virtually every other respect.
On Tuesday—the same day Pulte was telling Gabbard her services were no longer required—senior Trump advisers were huddled in the White House Situation Room scrambling for a way out of the FISA standoff the appointment had created.
The mood, reported Axios, was not exactly serene. “Nobody seems to know what the f--k is going on,” one administration official said. A senior official fired back: “This admin official is a dumb f--k and clearly is not in the loop.”
Trump allies on Capitol Hill were equally blindsided. “We were so close to FISA passing, and then this Pulte thing blew it up,” one told the outlet.
Pulte—the grandson of William J. Pulte, billionaire founder of homebuilding giant PulteGroup and a Mar-a-Lago member—has no intelligence background whatsoever. He currently serves as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, roles Trump confirmed he will keep while moonlighting as the nation’s spy chief.
Trump walked back his rhetoric somewhat on Tuesday, confirming Pulte’s appointment is temporary. One adviser told Axios that “the FISA-for-Pulte hostage deal isn’t one the president will buckle to.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for comment.
