Trump’s new acting intel chief Bill Pulte arrives early, eyes firing hundreds

CNN Lite ^ | June 19, 2026 | Kristen Holmes, Sean Lyngaas, Zachary Cohen, Manu Raju, Annie Grayer

[Red Badger]

President Donald Trump’s pick for acting director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte, showed up at his new job a day early on Thursday after asking for a list of every employee in the office so he could assess whether to fire them, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

The sources said Pulte is eyeing to cut hundreds of jobs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).

Pulte’s appearance at ODNI on Thursday caught staff off-guard, including the outgoing director, Tulsi Gabbard, who was given a brief heads up on the visit. Trump himself has said that Pulte, who is a Trump loyalist with no intelligence experience, would start his job on Friday.

Pulte met with lawyers and staffers during his visit, the sources told CNN.

In his only other briefing with ODNI last week, Pulte asked staff if he could bring the President’s Daily Brief to his house, raising alarm bells among intelligence officials, according to one of the sources. That briefing is a highly classified set of intelligence on key national security matters of the day. The second source pushed back on this characterization, noting that the PDB is provided electronically. The PDB is generally offered to select officials via tablet or hard copy.

Pulte also asked about his level of security clearance — whether it was a top-secret — and if he had access to a government plane, the first source said, even though the briefing was meant to explain the core mission of ODNI to Pulte.

CNN has reached out to the White House and ODNI for comment.

[Red Badger]

At the time of the movie's release, Swingline didn't make a Red Stapler. The one used in the movie was painted by the prop department. But after the movie came out the demand was overwhelming!................

[bobbo666]

Just go thru every public memo (e.g., the 51 security TWOT’s ) and internal memo that got political. Match to list of presently employed — eliminate with prejudice.

[oil_dude]

ALL of the intelligence agencies are corrupt, and have been since before JFK.

[Red Badger]

IIRC, Truman said his only regret was creating the CIA...............

[simpson96]

"...arrives early, eyes firing hundreds"

His eyes firing hundreds of what?

[Fledermaus]

Are we there yet? Are we there yet?

[Red Badger]

Tracer rounds!....................

[wally_bert]

Office Space is a true classic movie.

I didn’t see it until many years later on cable.

Gary Cole was so funny as Bill Lundbergh.

[hal ogen]

Likely corrupt even longer because you must also consider the time they took planning the JFK assassination and so on.

[combat_boots]

POSOBIEC: It's time for the BULLDOG to root out the bureaucracy across the intelligence community like CIA, NSA, FBI, cut the dead weight, and refocus national security on actual threats—not political games

“Lighter. Smarter. More agile.”pic.twitter.com/yKysSLpHC6— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) June 19, 2026