The following is a lightly edited transcript of the June 3 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.
Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
By most indications, Donald Trump has dropped his demand for a corrupt $1.8 billion slush fund to dole out to allies and insurrectionists. This came after Republicans made it clear that they can’t support something quite that openly corrupt. And yet, Trump has responded to this with another extraordinary show of corruption. He just appointed William Pulte as his acting director of national intelligence.
Pulte is best known in Washington right now for hatching bogus ways for Trump to criminally investigate his enemies. Indeed, Senate Majority Leader John Thune all but admitted that Pulte will be used to “weaponize” the Office of the DNI. Some MAGA voices in fact are openly cheering for that, rooting for him to be turned loose on the left. That’s pretty unnerving stuff.
So we’re working through all of it with one of our go-to people on these matters, University of Michigan law professor Leah Litman. Leah, nice to have you on.
Leah Litman: Great to be here.
Sargent: So let’s talk about Bill Pulte. As director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, he took it upon himself to ransack the mortgages of Trump’s enemies to find fake things to refer to the Justice Department for criminal investigations. He did this with Senator Adam Schiff, with New York Attorney General Letitia James, with Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. Leah, what’s your reaction to the pick of Pulte here?
Litman: It is so absurd as to be ridiculous. It was always going to be hard to find a worse, more ridiculous DNI than Tulsi Gabbard, and Trump just might have done that. Bill Pulte has zero national security experience. He spent, as you were suggesting, the last 18 or so months just digging up dirt on Donald Trump’s political enemies and made these criminal referrals in what I’ve been calling the mortgage fraud fraud—accusing people of conducting mortgage fraud by misrepresenting some house as their primary residence when, as various outlets have reported, a lot of people do this, it can be accidental. And also these criminal cases have gone nowhere.
And so the idea that we will have a director of national intelligence who is inclined toward basically ginning up accusations and targeting the president’s political enemies is terrifying when you think about the vast powers that are part of our national security apparatus.
Sargent: The director of national intelligence is a really important office. It oversees the nation’s intel agencies and it’s a really senior advisory role. It seems to me the obvious conclusion to draw is that Trump wants to do with the director of national intelligence office what he did with that obscure mortgage office.
In other words, Pulte’s willingness to engage in extraordinary corruption to target Trump’s enemies made Trump look at him and say, I want him in a more powerful role and I want him to have more dangerous weapons at his disposal. Is that basically what’s going on here, Leah?
Litman: I mean, that’s how I read it. I think it’s a similar story as happened with acting—or auditioning—Attorney General Todd Blanche. Donald Trump wants the people who are willing to be subservient to him and are completely willing to cross every single legal guardrail in the name of loyalty.
And so yes, you’re right. He wants to give someone like that more power. We have a vast federal apparatus—law enforcement powers are sweeping—but they pale in comparison to what the national security state has.
Sargent: Well, the reaction by Republican senators to Trump’s pick of Pulte was really remarkable. Senate Majority Leader John Thune was asked if he’s worried that Pulte will weaponize the DNI position. And Thune said this: “Well, we don’t need a weaponized DNI. We need professionals there.”
Thune also said that if Pulte is going to go for confirmation before the Senate, he has a “lengthy road” before him. Leah, that is something else. I think Thune basically confirmed there that there is an actual danger that Trump will weaponize the DNI position. What do you think of that?
Litman: So I think that that is a real danger. If you saw or heard some of the right-wing universe that was actually excited about this pick—like Steve Bannon, for example, talking with Jack Posobiec—they were talking about how maybe this would allow Bill Pulte to go after domestic terrorism in addition to foreign terrorism.
And by that, they really meant the anti-ICE protesters. And so, yes, I think that the people who are excited about this pick are excited about it precisely because they are envisioning weaponizing the national security apparatus. And the people who are concerned or hesitant about it are hesitant or concerned for the exact same reason.
Sargent: You mentioned Steve Bannon, so we’re going to listen to that audio. The first voice here is prominent MAGA personality Jack Posobiec. The second is Bannon. Listen to this.
Jack Posobiec (voiceover): Wouldn’t surprise me, by the way, if the appointment—and I certainly hope that the appointment of Bill Pulte over there—while Bill is there, is a time where the DNI can actually start digging in on the domestic side of terrorism as well as the international.
Steve Bannon (voiceover): Oh, it has to. I think that’s one of the reasons Pulte is selected, because Pulte will go there.
Sargent: Leah, I think that’s really, really important, because Bannon is sort of the tip of the spear when it comes to the MAGA movement’s search for ways to corruptly target Trump’s enemies, don’t you?
Litman: Front and center. I think this was always kind of the plan. During Trump 1.0, Bannon declared that their goal was the deconstruction of the administrative state. So he has always had in his sights the targeting of institutions or individuals perceived as hostile to Donald Trump. And yes, I think that Bill Pulte is appealing for that reason.
Sargent: I want to add some more context here as well. We’re at a moment where I think there’s a fair amount of disappointment in MAGA world about Trump’s success in prosecuting his enemies and jailing Democrats and liberals.
You mentioned that a little earlier, that every one of these efforts that Bill Pulte undertook by ransacking people’s mortgages has gone belly up, has been another flop. We’ve seen Kash Patel struggle to come up with ways to go after the liberal groups in ways that he has been threatening to. None of that stuff seems to be really bearing fruit.
And that’s even more reason to be alarmed by this pick, because it sure shows that what Trump’s trying to do here is find a way to satisfy MAGA’s demand for more arrests of liberals, more arrests of Democrats, more weaponization against his enemies. Don’t you think?
Litman: Yes, I think that is definitely a driving force and a motivating force. I take some small hope in the fact that what stopped these people was not a lack of will. It’s not like Pam Bondi didn’t want to go after the president’s political enemies. It’s not like Bill Pulte didn’t want to.
It just turns out we still have protections like grand juries, or juries, or the Constitution, and some courts willing to enforce the law. And so all of that is just going to make it hard to impose their personal vindictiveness and win.
Sargent: Well, the firing of Pam Bondi actually fits into this narrative, right? Because Pam Bondi was fired as attorney general precisely because she wasn’t corrupt enough, precisely because she wasn’t succeeding at prosecuting Trump’s enemies. And that’s exactly why Todd Blanche is in the acting AG role, because he appears willing to do what even Pam Bondi would not do.
So I guess we’re kind of backsliding here even more, aren’t we? Because what’s happening is—it’s like a split screen in a way. We’re seeing some encouraging stuff, which is grand juries are holding the line, lower court judges—something you and I have talked about before—are doing incredible fact-finding to essentially hold the line for the rule of law.
And yet Trump’s response in every one of these cases is to just try harder to be more corrupt and bring in even more corrupt people who will do even more corrupt things, right?
Litman: I think that that’s right. And we shouldn’t underestimate the continued risk of this authoritarian, autocratic, fascist takeover and impulse. I just think it was not for want of trying that Pam Bondi, in many cases, failed to secure these convictions and indictments. She tried to get Lindsay Halligan to find someone to criminally prosecute James Comey and Letitia James, but those indictments were thrown out.
Sargent: Well, what would a fully weaponized DNI look like? In other words, if Pulte does with the DNI what he did with the mortgage agency, what happens? I want to underscore, we know Pulte is willing to do this. He’s done it for the last year and a half. What’s the nightmare scenario here with Pulte in this slot?
Litman: I mean, the nightmare scenario is the DNI and the security state have surveillance powers that ordinary law enforcement does not. So whereas it might not have been possible to get a criminal warrant for someone’s cell phone information or location information, it’s possible they could get that under national security powers.
It’s also possible they would be able to detain someone and hold someone, even if ordinary law enforcement, police officers, FBI officers wouldn’t be able to. And so giving him access to these additional powers is just allowing him to further push the envelope and target individuals using powers that are just subject to fewer constraints and fewer limitations.
Sargent: One other funny thing about this, Leah, is that a lot of people in Trump world absolutely hate Bill Pulte. Politico has this quote from a former Trump administration official who says the following: “The president has so many smart people at the White House, trusted people that he could be listening to. And he listens to Pulte, who just continually fucks things up.”
I mean, that’s the thing. It’s not just that Pulte is corrupt, although he clearly is, as we talked about with the mortgage stuff. He can’t even get the job done. And somehow Trump has decided—maybe purely because Pulte is so eager to please him—that he wants him in that role. It’s the pliability in a way that’s the thing here. Don’t you think?
Litman: I think that that’s definitely part of it. When you look at, for example, authoritarian autocratic regimes, they often fill important positions with people who don’t have competence or expertise precisely because they don’t have the wherewithal, the backbone, the actual background to stand up for principles or for expertise.
And instead, they’re just completely beholden in their political careers to the leader. And Bill Pulte is absolutely someone like that. He’s a nepo baby. His grandfather started a home construction company. That was always part of his story and the reason why he was even in these circles.
Sargent: Well, I will say that a number of Republican senators are saying he’s not qualified. Senator John Cornyn said, “I see no evidence of any qualifications for that job.” Senator Bill Cassidy said, “The best I can tell you is he’s not qualified.”
You know, Leah, something tells me that this guy isn’t going to be getting a confirmation hearing anytime soon. So there’s yet another layer to all this. Todd Blanche is acting attorney general. Bill Pulte is going to be the acting DNI.
I think we’re going to now head into this new period where the corruption kind of gets worse in that sense, where Trump is just searching for whoever he can find to try and carry out corrupt designs that he hasn’t been able to carry out. And he’s just going to essentially tell the Senate to kind of screw off for a while, don’t you think?
Litman: I think that that is a definite possibility. And he is always willing to ignore institutions and people that attempt to impose any kind of constraint on him, whether that is the courts, whether it is actually the Senate here, you name it.
Sargent: It’s funny, though—the big picture here, we had some good news because Trump’s corrupt $1.8 billion slush fund appears to be on hold indefinitely. For once, Republican senators found that what Trump was doing was too corrupt for them to stomach—a rarity, it happens occasionally, apparently.
And the White House essentially sent signals that it’s killing the plan for now. We don’t really know whether that’s a permanent state of affairs, but it has to count as a success in a way, because Republican senators really did hold the line.
And it’s kind of interesting that Trump’s response to that is immediately to do something 10 times more corrupt, arguably. It’s almost as if the signal is, don’t get too comfortable, Republicans, in reining in my corruption. The message is, I’m really going for it. No matter what you say.
Litman: Yes, completely. And this is always part of his strategy, right? Flood the zone with shit. Throw a bunch of stuff at the wall. Make them fight everything. And if some stuff gets through, that’s going to be a win.
Sargent: Well, you’ve been an optimist on this show before because you’ve pointed out that the lower courts are holding the line. You pointed out that the grand juries are holding the line. What’s your overall sense of things right now?
It seems to me that Trump’s most corrupt designs are largely failing. He’s kind of not winning when it comes to his efforts to pressure law firms and universities, although getting some successes here and there. It seems like the big picture, though, is mostly one of failure. Is that too optimistic?
Litman: I mean, I think that that is true in important respects. It’s not like he’s been able to get a bunch of laws passed that would institutionalize some of what he wants to do. And he has been stopped in important respects.
But as you were saying earlier, this is still a split screen. He is failing in big ways. But we can’t underestimate the danger of his continued impulse and in some way doubling down. He sees these losses and so that only makes him more desperate and want to seize those powers that he can to try to make himself look more powerful than he actually is.
And so I don’t want to say we’ve kind of crossed the bridge and are in the downhill part now where it’s easy. But I do think this is another sign at least that continuing to fight and putting up a fight can do things, even when your audience is the Republicans in Congress.
Sargent: Right. And it does seem as if Republicans in Congress have crossed some sort of line here. That’s my sense anyway. There’s a critical mass of things that he’s asking them to do that they seem unwilling to accept. It really does look to me like their frustration is boiling over.
Now, a big part of this is self-interest, because he essentially screwed them by endorsing Ken Paxton in the Texas primary. But that plus essentially treating them like doormats and lapdogs almost daily seems to have finally got us to a point where—I don’t want to say that they’re showing backbone, but something different is happening here. Is that your feeling?
Litman: Yes. It does feel like something different is happening here. And it could be that when they stand up to him and there aren’t hugely negative consequences and fallout, that makes standing up to him easier. That’s at least one optimistic take.
Sargent: Yeah, his declining approval is a big part of it. So ultimately, I think the one thing that we can do to really try and save the system—among other things, one of the big things we can do—is to drive Trump’s approval down. Because in a way that’s almost like the coin of the realm here, isn’t it?
The lower Trump’s approval gets, the less likely Republicans are to go along with his corrupt schemes, because they start to actually worry about voters who aren’t Trump voters. They start to worry about the rest of us—voters outside the MAGA universe.
And it’s a little hard to get Republicans to take the rest of the electorate seriously. But when Trump gets to polls showing him at 34, 35 percent, then all of a sudden, especially with midterms looming, the rest of the electorate suddenly matters to Republicans. And that’s almost our best hope in a way.
Litman: Yes, that could be. So fingers crossed.
Sargent: What’s your big-picture take right now? Where do you see it all going? Do you feel like we’re going to muddle through or not?
Litman: I really don’t know. On one hand, we have the plummeting public approval ratings and Republicans standing up. On the other hand, we have an electoral landscape that is heavily skewed toward Republicans and that Republicans are, in my view, corruptly engineering to try to make it really hard for Democrats to obtain political power.
So I think these are two competing forces that could offset one another. And it’s hard to say which one might win out. But at a minimum, recent events suggest the fight is worth fighting. I am making my homemade “don’t pay insurrectionists” T-shirt, because the more we can do to lower Donald Trump’s approval ratings, the better, even if it’s just by wearing T-shirts to remind people what he is doing.
Sargent: Well, it’s a little bit like one step forward, 10 steps back. I don’t know, but I think that’s a little too pessimistic. I think we’ve got a shot here, Leah. I really do.
Litman: I agree. Yeah.
Sargent: Always great to talk to you, Leah Litman. Thanks so much for coming on.
Litman: Thanks for having me.