Trump Taps Housing Chief Behind Revenge Quests as Top Intel Official

President Trump has appointed Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence following Tulsi Gabbard’s resignation last week. 

Trump announced the move in a Truth Social post Tuesday morning, and said Pulte would keep his existing jobs as chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as head of the Federal Housing and Finance Agency. 

“William has deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America, the safety and soundness of the Markets, and over 10 Trillion Dollars at Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, a substantial increase from where it was just 12 months ago,” Trump posted. 

It’s an odd choice for the sensitive position, which concerns foreign intelligence and would appear to require a military or intelligence background, which Pulte doesn’t have. Instead, he has built up a reputation of targeting Trump’s political enemies using his authority at the housing agency, and has become unpopular among Republican lawmakers for working his way into Trump’s inner circle. 

Last month, Pulte drew the attention of Democrats in Congress for a suspicious charity donation that may have funneled money into Trump’s pockets, and for sharing an AI image with the president depicting Trump as Jesus Christ. Trump then posted the image on his Truth Social platform, causing a backlash from across the political spectrum, particularly from Trump’s supporters on the Christian right.

Pulte will now be holding a sensitive intelligence position while juggling  his other positions. It’s more evidence that Trump prizes loyalty above competence and experience, but could also indicate that Trump is planning a more sinister use of Pulte’s authority. Gabbard was involved in investigating election fraud conspiracies during her tenure as Director of National Intelligence, and Pulte could pick up where she left off. 

This story has been updated.

President Trump went on a long Truth Social rant at 1 a.m. Tuesday morning after Michael Cohen—Trump’s former lawyer, who went to jail for his role in a hush-money payment to adult actress Stormy Daniels—said he was coerced into testifying against Trump on Michael Smerconish’s podcast.

“When a Star Witness totally recants, and in every way reveals that he was pressured and coerced to give testimony, and when the Prosecutor admits that this Witness was the single reason that the case was brought, there was no other, how can that Case not be immediately dismissed,” Trump asked, suggesting that he should be retroactively forgiven for the 34 counts he was convicted of in 2024.

“Michael Cohen has come out and unequivocally stated that the Radical Left Prosecutors, Tish James and Alvin Bragg, pressured and coerced him to testify against your favorite President, ME, when they made him the key player in their Political Witch Hunts,” Trump continued. “Now that his testimony is wiped away, and the unAmerican, Political Charade ‘Cases’ are even further discredited, they should be put out of their misery, and dismissed, once and for all.”

It’s unclear how much begging and how many Truth Social tantrums it’ll take for anything Trump’s talking about here to actually happen. Cohen’s testimony—and the massive civil and criminal court losses that made Trump the very first felon in office—don’t just get “wiped away” because of a podcast.

Republican Representative Ashley Hinson was caught on tape last week saying that President Trump’s Iran war will be a “political liability” if it continues any longer.

Politico reports that Hinson, who will be the likely Republican nominee in Iowa’s Senate race after Tuesday’s primary, told voters in a private meet and greet in the state on Thursday that she hopes a peace deal in the war can be “done by the next couple of weeks.

“If it drags on beyond that, it’s a political liability for us too, because we’ve lost Iowa soldiers. I’ve been to four funerals since December, it’s awful,” Hinson said in Webster County, responding to a question about a timeline for the war.

Hinson has been a staunch supporter of the president and the war, voting against war powers resolutions to limit Trump’s military authority. In her Thursday remarks, she stressed that “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon” and that the families of fallen Iowa soldiers “all said that we need to finish the job.”

Her remarks are a clear admission that Trump’s war is not helping Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections, and is contributing to his, as well as the party’s, flagging poll numbers. Trump endorsed Hinson last year, and repeated his support for her in a Truth Social post on Monday.

“I know Ashley well, and she is a WINNER! A Loving Wife and Proud Mother of two sons, Ashley is a wonderful person, has ALWAYS delivered for Iowa, and will continue doing so in the United States Senate,” Trump posted.

Hinson is expected to handily win Tuesday’s primary election, but early general election polls show only a couple of percentage points between her and a Democratic challenger, which will be either state Senator Zach Wahls or state Representative Josh Turek. If the Iran war stretches longer or produces a peace deal disliked by Trump’s MAGA base, not only could Hinson lose her race, but Republicans could lose control of Congress.

The fight inside 60 Minutes is tearing CBS News’s venerated broadcast to shreds.

A staff editorial meeting reportedly flew off the rails Monday morning when longtime host Scott Pelley tore into Bari Weiss’s new pick to run the news magazine as its new executive producer: Nick Bilton, a former Vanity Fair writer with next to no formal experience in broadcast journalism.

Weiss announced Bilton’s hire the same day that she fired a large swath of the show’s crew, which some at 60 Minutes are referring to as “Black Thursday.” The axed staff include correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi (who criticized Weiss’s decision to delay Alfonsi’s report on a notoriously brutal CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador), correspondent Cecilia Vega, executive producer Tanya Simon, and executive editor Draggan Mihailovich.

The meeting was intended to introduce Bilton to the show’s team, though Weiss herself was conspicuously absent. With the chief of CBS News missing, the meeting devolved into hostilities, including one particularly heated moment in which Pelley accused Weiss of “murdering” the show, according to audio of the meeting obtained by Status News.

“Bari loves this institution,” Bilton told staffers during the meeting. “She loves 60 Minutes.”

“She’s murdering 60 Minutes,” Pelley countered. “She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it—and she’s doing exactly that.”

“You come into our house and expect to be welcome?” Pelley asked Bilton. “Why was Tanya Simon fired? Why was Sharyn fired? Why was Cecilia fired? Why Draggan? Do you know the names of the people that were fired?” He openly questioned Bilton’s credentials and said, “We don’t trust you.”

CBS News managing editor Charles Forelle attempted to intervene in the exchange to no avail. The exchange reportedly left staffers wondering whether Pelley would resign from his post, reported Status.

Bilton, nonetheless, did not have satisfactory answers for the producers and crew, according to two staffers who spoke on the condition of anonymity to The Washington Post. At one point, he unintentionally made staffers laugh out loud when he claimed he would bring in people who are already capable of doing the work of a 60 Minutes correspondent, one of the most revered jobs in the industry.

When asked if the show could expect more layoffs, Bilton said, “Not right now.”

Weiss has only been in charge of CBS News for seven months, but her business decisions have already cratered its legendary reputation. Once the “gold standard” of broadcasting, and home to some of journalism’s most venerable names, such as Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow, the outlet is now making news for all of the wrong reasons.

This year, the first day of June doesn’t just mark the beginning of Pride Month in Tennessee, it marks the start of a new holiday: In April, Governor Bill Lee signed a House joint resolution designating June as “Nuclear Family Month.” The bill was first introduced in February 2025 by state Representative Bud Hulsey, of Kingsport, who claimed that the traditional family structure was “under attack.”

According to the bill, “the nuclear family is God’s perfect design for humanity and is aligned with the long-held traditional values of Tennessee.” It consists of “one husband, one wife, and any biological, adopted, or fostered children.”

The bill’s a clear jab at Pride Month. Though it does not explicitly mention same-sex couples, it’s a reactionary effort against the month-long holiday that celebrates people who identify as members of the LGBTQ+ community. Tennessee was ranked as one of the least safe states for LGBTQ+ people to live. Of course, many in Tennessee will still celebrate Pride Month, with major events planned in Nashville, Knoxville, and Memphis.

But in addition to sidelining the LGBTQ+ community, fixating on the nuclear family like this erases the roles of extended family members: aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents.

One can scarcely imagine what a Nuclear Family Month event would look like. Luckily, there don’t seem to be any planned. The holiday is a cheap trick to score culture-war points, courtesy of a party taken over by pronatalism and phony economic populism.