Bill Pulte Jr.
President Donald Trump typically muscles through his unqualified selections with the help of Fox News. But early signs suggest that the propaganda network isn’t on board with Trump’s bid to install Bill Pulte, the administration’s director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, as acting director of national intelligence.
Fox devoted only 8 minutes of airtime to Pulte’s appointment in the first 24 hours following the president’s Truth Social post heralding it, almost all of which occurred on its “news side” programs. The network’s influential evening hosts and Fox & Friends co-hosts did not weigh in on the story at all, a conspicuous signal that they aren’t currently willing to disgrace themselves by claiming that the scion of a real estate construction empire with no national security experience whatsoever should be overseeing the nation’s intelligence agencies.
Indeed, contributor Byron York — the epitome of the replacement-level conservative pundit — went so far as to criticize the pick on Tuesday evening’s Special Report. “The only thing you can say for it is it's an acting appointment,” York said. Noting Pulte’s lack of qualifications for the post, he added: “It seems like a pretty poor choice here. So, I'm not sure exactly what explains it.”
Trump’s announcement is also drawing fire from Senate Republicans, several of whom expressed skepticism on Tuesday about Pulte’s obvious lack of relevant experience.
But Pulte’s selection is not entirely without support on the right — and the character of that support hammers home the purpose of installing someone like Pulte in that post.
War Room host Steve Bannon praised the Pulte pick on his show as a “wake up call” in which Trump is “signaling you what he feels he needs to execute on his plan for his second term” which is “action, action, action.”
And his guest, right-wing influencer Jack Posobiec, claimed that Pulte could “start digging in on the domestic side of terrorism” by using his authority over the intelligence community to target leftist groups and to “start pulling records” on Trump foes like Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), New York State Attorney General Letitia James, and Georgia prosecutor Fani Wills.
As Bannon and Posobiec indicated, what Pulte lacks in national security qualifications he makes up for in willingness to creatively deploy his authority to go after the president’s enemies. Pulte’s raison d'être at FHFA has been sifting through the mortgage records of officials Trump dislikes, like Schiff, James, and Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, and pushing for their prosecutions on trumped-up charges.
As director of national intelligence, Pulte would likely oversee the same right-wing media chum cycle as his predecessor, former Fox contributor Tulsi Gabbard. In that role, Gabbard ginned up what she termed a “treasonous conspiracy” against Trump, allegedly overseen by former President Barack Obama, that she referred to the Justice Department for prosecution. She also oversaw the FBI seizure of 2020 election ballots from Fulton County, Georgia, as part of the administration’s “effort to re-examine the election and look for potential crimes.”
Pulte’s efforts at FHFA to criminalize the president’s enemies initially drew support from Fox and the rest of MAGA media — though even its dumbest and most sycophantic pundits could tell that the allegations he pushed were pretextual.
But the FHFA chair fell out of favor with the network as the Cook case fizzled last September. A regular presence on Fox in 2025, Pulte has appeared only once on the network’s weekday programming since mid-October, according to a Media Matters database tracking guest appearances on Fox.
Pulte’s pursuit of legal charges against then-Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell, who received Justice Department subpoenas threatening a criminal indictment amid Trump’s demands that Powell lower interest rates, drew harsh criticism from right-wing commentators in January.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board, in pinning the blame for the Powell probe on Pulte, described him as “an especially eager toady” and urged Trump to fire him. But “an especially eager toady” is apparently the type of person Trump wants running the intelligence community, and so instead, he’s promoting him.
Reprinted with permission from Media Matters
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