Trump's Hatchet Man Atop US Intelligence

A mess at the top of U.S. intelligence, you might say.

At least statutorily, the, the, uh, the leadership of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is in play.

Today, Bill Pulte, the housing guy who has made a career in the second Trump administration of going after Trump's perceived enemies and looking into their mortgage deals, is now the acting head of National Intelligence.

Karen, this is sad, isn't it? Sad, sad, sad.

Well, it's just such disrespect for the job itself and for what the intelligence community does.

And in, in a way, it's, it, it, depending on how long it goes on, but it makes you wonder what is thought of, of the job to start with.

I mean, this is a job that was created after 9/11, after the idea that the intelligence, um, the, the United States had was not being shared across agencies.

And so they created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to help administer and make sure information was shared, et cetera.

So what does it mean to essentially say, we don't need anybody who knows what the job is in the post, no matter how short the time it is?

And actually is, uh, statutory again, uh, uh-

Correct

... prohibited from taking the job, although it's on an acting basis.

That's the end run that Trump is doing.

You ha-- the law says you have to have extensive national security experience, and he has zero.

This is happening, of course, uh, while we're still kind of at war with Iran, despite this memorandum, this vague memorandum of understanding and vague talks down the line.

We don't know where that's gonna go.

Trump is threatening to bomb them again if we, if he, if he, he's not happy with them.

It just so misunderstands the idea of the profession of intelligence, which you learn over years and years.

You learn what are-

For sure

...

the signals of a threat, what, what doesn't amount to a threat, how you should think about it, who needs to talk to who, what countries are involved.

And the idea that there's nobody home, we're in, we're in a precarious situation, um, MOU aside, um, in a number of places, including most obviously Iran, is very disconcerting.

Yeah, and, and, you know, the job of the-- one of the principal jobs of the DNI if, if the DNI is, is, is effective, is to referee disputes between the intelligence agencies, not just strategically on their budgets and their missions and so on, but on a particular take on, say, what's going on in Iran today.

The NSA may have a different take than the CIA or the Geospatial, uh, Intelligence Agency.