House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday raged at Democrats’ likely opposition to confirming President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the next Director of National Intelligence.
Trump announced this week that he would nominate Bill Pulte to replace Tulsi Gabbard as DNI after she announced that she was resigning due to her husband’s cancer diagnosis.
Democrats immediately criticized the nomination of Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, because of his lack of national security qualifications and his reputation as a pitbull MAGA supporter whom Trump could potentially use to go after enemies.
Pulte has used his current position to open investigations into Trump foes, including New York Attorney General Letitia James and Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
“Democrats wouldn’t trust Jesus,” Johnson told reporters in response to a question about the hard road to confirmation for Pulte.
“The Democrats are not willing to do anything, even the most simple, basic, important responsibility to keep the American people safe, because they want to make life hard for the president,” the speaker said.
Johnson’s Jesus crack came during his weekly press conference when Jake Sherman of PunchBowl News asked about whether he could pass an extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act since Democrats did not trust Gabbard nor did they trust Pulte.
He accused Democrats of having “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” also known as “TDS.” FISA expires later this month and many Democrats as well as some Republicans have reservations about reauthorizing the legislation which allows for surveillance of foreign intelligence.
“When you have a party whose sole objective every day is to stop the president, wreck the administration, make his life miserable, not go along with any of his appointments or any of his agenda, it creates a real crisis for the American people,” he said.
Indeed, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is Jewish, slammed the nomination of Pulte.
“From what I can tell, no one in the administration consulted the law – which requires the DNI to have ‘extensive’ national security experience,” he said. “The timing of this announcement could not be worse, with just over a week until FISA 702 authorities expire.”
Like many other pieces of legislation, FISA would need to clear the 60-vote hurdle to avoid a filibuster, meaning Republicans, who have only 53 Senate seats, would need buy-in from some Democrats to reauthorize the legislation.
“At a time when our nation is at war and our troops are in harm’s way, we need someone serious to lead the intelligence community – not another unqualified, inexperienced partisan,” Scumer said.
And he wasn’t alone. Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), a former CIA officer, scoffed at Johnson’s comments.
“No serious person who gives a crap about national security would ever think that Bill Pulte is qualified to be in that seat,” Slotkin told The Independent. “And if Mr. Johnson is willing to leave his security and the security of American citizens to him, then he’s more of a joke than I thought.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, also criticized Johnson’s comments and Pulte’s nomination.
“Bill Pulte is completely unqualified and completely disqualified,” she told The Independent. “This is a man who is under active investigation for improper use of government information used on behalf of the president of the United States against his perceived enemies. That’s not a person that we need in charge of all of our national secrets.”
It’s not clear that Trump would nominate Pulte to be the full-time director of National Intelligence and submit his nomination to the Senate to be confirmed.
But even some Republicans had some reservations about Pulte’s nomination. During a testimony, Sen. Tillis (R-N.C.) asked Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent about a news report about him wanting to fight Pulte, to which Bessent said “I said I was going to kick his ass.”
Tillis later told The Independent he “shared a similar” sentiment after Pulte targeted outgoing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
“ I was not happy with Pulte when he weighed in,” he said. “He needed to stay in his lane.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) questioned his qualifications for the job.
“I’m familiar with his background that he brings on the housing side,” she told The Independent. “I’m not familiar at all with any background that he may have when it comes to to intelligence, and it seems to me that this is a pretty important role for you to have that level of expertise to bring to the table.”
