Trump orders acting intelligence chief to start shrinking ODNI before permanent director arrives

President Donald Trump wants his incoming acting Director of National Intelligence to begin cutting the Office of the Director of National Intelligence down to size, before a permanent nominee even walks through the door. Trump told The Wall Street Journal he privately instructed Bill Pulte to launch a broader effort to streamline the sprawling intelligence coordination office, calling it "unnecessary and/or too big."

The directive lands as Tulsi Gabbard prepares to leave the post she held since the start of the second Trump term. Gabbard announced her resignation on May 22, citing her husband's bone cancer diagnosis, with an effective date of June 30. Trump named Pulte, currently chair of Freddie Mac and director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to the acting role in early June.

The move sets up an unusual arrangement: a housing finance regulator with no intelligence or national security background will oversee the office responsible for coordinating 18 U.S. intelligence agencies and components. And Trump made clear he sees that as a feature, not a bug. The president wants the hard, unpopular work of downsizing done before a Senate-confirmed director inherits the office.

Trump's case for shrinking the intelligence bureaucracy

Trump didn't hold back about why he wants ODNI reduced. As Fox News reported, the president said plainly:

"I'd like to see it smaller. I think there are a lot of people in there that shouldn't be there."

He pointed to holdovers from the Obama and Biden administrations as part of the problem. And he was blunt about the tactical advantage of using an acting director, someone who serves without Senate confirmation, to do the trimming.

"You're less shackled. It sort of gives you more power, you know, for a somewhat limited period of time."

Pulte can serve in the acting role for up to 210 days without going through the confirmation process. Trump framed that window as an opportunity, not a limitation.

"Frankly, it might be good for him to shake it up before people come. Because, if he reduced the size, in conjunction with me... and in conjunction with possibly the person coming in... he can do a lot of the hard work and we wouldn't have to saddle somebody that goes in."

The logic is straightforward: let the temporary man take the political heat for layoffs and restructuring so the permanent director can start clean. It is the kind of calculation that drives Washington's permanent class to distraction, but it reflects a clear-eyed understanding of how bureaucratic inertia works. Once a confirmed director arrives and settles in, the institutional resistance to cuts only grows.

ODNI's growth, and the push to reverse it

ODNI was established in 2004 following recommendations from the 9/11 Commission. The office was designed to fix a specific problem: U.S. intelligence agencies had failed to share critical information ahead of the September 11 attacks. A central coordinating body, the theory went, would prevent those deadly silos from forming again.

Two decades later, the office has ballooned. At the start of Trump's second term, ODNI employed roughly 1,800 people. Gabbard said she reduced that workforce by about 25 percent during her tenure. But Trump clearly views those cuts as insufficient.

The administration's broader push to trim the federal workforce has touched nearly every corner of government. ODNI is now squarely in the crosshairs.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton endorsed the effort in a post on X, making clear this is not a fringe position within the Republican conference:

"President Trump is right: the ODNI has grown far beyond its original mandate. I've long advocated for downsizing, if not outright eliminating, this bureaucracy."

Cotton went further, calling for intelligence officers to be sent back to their home agencies "to focus on actual intelligence work." Earlier in 2026, he introduced legislation that would cap ODNI at just 650 employees, roughly a third of the office's pre-Gabbard headcount.

That bill puts a hard number on a debate that has simmered for years. The question is whether ODNI, built to coordinate, has instead become another layer of bureaucracy sitting on top of agencies that already have their own leadership, budgets, and missions.

Pulte's credentials, and the critics circling

The choice of Pulte has drawn fire from both sides of the aisle, though for different reasons. The most pointed Republican objection came from former Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who raised concerns shortly after the appointment was announced:

"Anyone performing this role of such immense public trust must have the extensive national security experience required by statute, and no nominee who falls short of this requirement will earn my vote."

McConnell's statement carries weight, and a warning. If Trump eventually puts Pulte up for confirmation as permanent DNI, the former leader signaled he would vote no absent a national security résumé. The White House did not respond to Fox News Digital's questions on whether Pulte would be nominated for the permanent post.

The personnel decisions Trump has made across national security agencies reflect a consistent pattern of prioritizing loyalty and a willingness to execute his agenda over traditional credentials. His recent selection of Jay Hurst for Pentagon comptroller followed a similar logic of choosing people who will carry out the president's vision rather than manage the status quo.

Democrats, predictably, went further. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner posted a video to X objecting to the dual-role arrangement:

"Trump thinks that Bill Pulte can be both director of the mortgage regulators and director of national intelligence. You can't do both jobs... this is outrageous."

Warner's complaint highlights a genuine structural question. Pulte would simultaneously lead the Federal Housing Finance Agency and serve as acting DNI, two positions with no obvious overlap in mission, expertise, or daily demands. Whether that arrangement is workable for 210 days is a fair question, even for those who support the downsizing mission itself.

The Gabbard exit and what it signals

Gabbard's departure adds another layer to the story. She announced her resignation citing her husband's health, and there is no reason to doubt that explanation on its face. But the timing, with midterm elections on the horizon, has fueled speculation about whether the White House was ready for a change at ODNI regardless.

Whatever the internal dynamics, Gabbard's claim that she cut 25 percent of ODNI's workforce suggests the downsizing effort is not starting from scratch. Trump's comments indicate he wants Pulte to accelerate what Gabbard began, and go further.

The president has consistently used his executive authority to reshape the federal government, from election-related executive orders to sweeping personnel moves across departments. The ODNI directive fits that pattern. Trump sees a bloated office, staffed in part by people he believes are hostile to his agenda, and he wants it fixed before institutional gravity makes reform impossible.

The open questions

Several things remain unclear. Will Pulte be nominated as permanent DNI, or is Trump shopping for someone else? What specific positions or departments within ODNI are on the chopping block? Has Pulte already taken any concrete steps to reduce personnel?

Cotton's 650-employee cap legislation provides a legislative benchmark, but whether Congress acts on it, or whether the downsizing proceeds purely through executive action, is an open question. The 210-day clock on Pulte's acting tenure means the administration has roughly seven months to make structural changes before the confirmation question becomes unavoidable.

For taxpayers and the intelligence professionals doing actual collection and analysis work at agencies like the CIA and NSA, the core question is simple: does ODNI make them better at their jobs, or does it just add meetings, reports, and overhead? Twenty years after its creation, that question deserves an honest answer, not a reflexive defense of headcount.

Washington built ODNI to fix a problem. If the office has become a problem of its own, the people who pay for it deserve a government willing to say so out loud.