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But we begin this hour with the only criteria that appear to matter most to Donald Trump when it comes to rising in the ranks of his administration, a blinding, unwavering loyalty to him. It outweighs experience, competence or any other principles, especially as Trump pursues his dual obsessions, retribution against his perceived enemies and bolstering his big lie that the 2020 election was stolen. That has been on display this week with two of Trump's cabinet picks. First, there is Trump's announcement that he plans to nominate Todd Blanche to be the permanent head of the Justice Department following a two-month audition period where Blanche acted more like Trump's personal attorney again
than the nation's top chief law enforcement officer. And now he's appointing Bill Pulte, his director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency to serve as the acting director of national intelligence. Never mind that Pulte has no known national security experience in a role that would oversee the nation's 18 intelligence agencies or that numerous senators are questioning whether he even has a security clearance considering he will be given access to all of the nation's most classified information. None of that matters to Trump, because he has voiced one main priority for Pulte during his tenure. And it's an acting position.
It's not a permanent. He's not going to be permanent because, you know, I don't think he'd want to be permanent. But he's a very smart guy, and you may find out some things about the rigged elections. And in an interview with The Wall Street Journal yesterday, Trump said he also wants Pulte to begin the process of FIRING EMPLOYEES IN THE ODNI SAYING IT IS QUOTE UNNECESSARY AND OR TOO BIG QUOTE I'D LIKE TO SEE IT SMALLER I THINK THERE ARE A LOT OF PEOPLE IN THERE THAT SHOULDN'T BE THERE TRUMP SAID POINTING TO HOLD OVERS FROM THE BIDEN AND OBAMA ADMINISTRATIONS. JOINING US NOW JOHN BRENNAN, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR AND MSNOW SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY INTELLIGENCE ANALYST AND MARK CAPUTO, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER FOR AXIOS.
GENTLEMEN, WELCOME BACK TO THE WEEKEND. DIRECTOR BRENNAN, OF COURSE I'M GOING TO COME TO YOU FIRST. LISTEN TO LEGALLY THE DNI IS SUPPOSED TO BE SOMEONE FROM THE NATIONAL SECURITY, THE INTELLIGENCE APPARATUS, RIGHT? LISTEN TO WHAT PRESIDENT TRUMP HAD TO SAY ON THURSDAY ABOUT WHETHER BILL PULTY HAS THE NECESSARY SKILLS FOR THIS I WOULD SAY THAT BILL IS A GUY THAT WILL BE ABLE TO FIGURE IT OUT VERY QUICKLY. AGAIN, IT'S SHORT-TERM, BUT HE MAY BE VERY EFFECTIVE FOR A SHORT PERIOD OF TEMS. DIRECTOR BRENNAN? Is the DNI a job where someone should just be able to figure it out very quickly?
No. And it's very clear that Bill Pulte has no intelligence of national security experience he has not had any type of security clearances in the past in fact I would argue that he is disqualified from having a security clearance because how he abused his authority and his position in the federal housing and finance authority when he accessed personal records to bring these spurious claims against Lisa Cook and Letitia James. So he clearly does not have any of the qualifications necessary from a substantive perspective. I think his qualification, as far as Donald Trump is concerned, is that he's willing to do Donald Trump's bidding. As Donald Trump said, maybe he'll go in there
and find things in terms of rigged elections because the director of national intelligence has access to all this country's secrets. I mean, overseeing the 18 intelligence agencies, you know, he can do a lot of damage and he can be there for 210 days. That's an awfully long time. And so he has the ability, in fact, to misuse his authority here as well. He can push things out that are going to be selectively redacted and misrepresenting the facts just the way previous DNIs have done.
Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe, when he served as DNI in the first Trump administration. So it's a very, very worrisome development. And I think it sends a very worrisome signal to the workforce. It's already demoralized because of what's going on in this administration, but also the signal it sends to our adversaries like Russia and CHINA, CLEARLY DONALD TRUMP DOES NOT CARE ABOUT INTELLIGENCE. IT SENDS A BAD SIGNAL TO OUR ALLIES AND PARTNERS AS WELL BECAUSE HE'S NOT GIVING THE ATTENTION AND THE CARE THAT IS NEEDED IN ORDER TO MAKE SURE THAT OUR NATION SECURITY APPARATUS IS HEALTHY AND STRONG AND IS ABLE TO PROTECT THIS COUNTRY.
I'M GOING TO READ FROM THE LAW THAT CREATED THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE JOB, QUOTE, ANY INDIVIDUAL NOMINATED FOR APPOINTMENT AS DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE SHALL HAVE EXTENSIVE NATIONAL SECURITY EXPERTISE, EXTENSIVE NATIONAL SECURITY EXPERTISE. I DON'T KNOW IF TULSEY HAD THAT EITHER BUT HERE WE ARE. MR. CAPUTO, ONE OF THE THINGS THAT IS, I THINK THE D.N.I. WOULD BE FOCUSED ON EITHER THE 2020 ELECTION, THE 2024 ELECTION OR THE 2026 ELECTION. THEY ACTUALLY DON'T HAVE A LOT to do that, but this White House is doing it differently. Because this White House is a top-down reflection of the president
and what the president wants, he gets. And what does the president want out of D &I? Number one, he doesn't think D &I SHOULD EXIST IN THE TRANSITION, HE WAS OPENLY ASKING, WHY DO I EVEN NEED THIS AGENCY? WE'VE GOT THE CIA. THERE'S A REASON JOHN BRENNAN, OR BETTER SAID, JOHN THE D.N.I. DIRECTOR UNDER TRUMP ONE, DECIDED TO BECOME C.I.A. DIRECTOR UNDER TRUMP TWO, BECAUSE TRUMP DOESN'T LIKE THE POSITION. AND SO WHAT HE HAS IN Pulte is a guy who's willing to go in there and fire people.
They have two beliefs. One is that there's a deep state, and the other is that there's a lot of dead wood in the agency that other agencies had offloaded into them, other IT'S GOING TO TAKE AN AXE TO THE BUDGET. TO DOGE IT. YEAH, TO DOGE IT. DOGE THE HELL OUT OF IT. I DO, DIRECTOR BRENNAN, ONE to ask you about the FISA of this all, but just because this is a topic that we've actually talked about with you before, is there any merit to Trump's desire to consolidate the office? Well I think this legislation was passed over 20 years ago when it created the Office of Director of National Intelligence and I do think that there's a need to have somebody to help orchestrate the 18 intelligence agencies from a budgetary standpoint
from a technological collaboration standpoint from a number of reasons you want to make sure the Intel's community is working together and in harmony and I think the DNI is the person to do that now does the legislation need to be tweaked a bit I would argue yes can there be some changes inside of the office it are there some redundancies there you know and I think any organization can go through some of those reforms but having a bill pulte come in without any experience or understanding it tells community to come in and as you say doge it right i mean i don't see that he's going to have the capability and the insight and the experience to be able to do this effectively and not hurt our national security.
And quickly, it seems like Republicans who are upset with the Pulte appointment even in the acting position, are going to potentially hold up the reauthorization of Section 702, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. How much of a problem is that going to be for President Trump? I mean, in terms of actually being able to execute and act on U.S. national security agenda? I mean, is this something that he can be forced into backtracking on because of how important the reauthorization is? Well, in order to get the reauthorization, there are going to have to be Democrats and Republicans that are going to have
to work together on this. And it's clear that there's upsetment on both sides of the aisle. And they're going to be holding out that reauthorization unless there's going to be some type of adjustment there. So I think we're going to be seeing in the next several weeks this jockeying and whether or not the White House is going to pull back. But Donald Trump is somebody who I think enjoys the CONFRONTATION AND I DON'T SEE HIM SAYING THAT BILL PULTY IS NOT GOING TO DO THIS, IT COULD, BUT IT DOES PUT THE REAUTHORIZATION IN SOME JEOPARDY. MARK, YOU'RE NOT ALONG HERE. I AM, BUT REMEMBER IS THAT TRUMP IS just a brinksman. And when he decides to do something, he's going to do it. And if the Senate decides not to go along
with FISA, yeah, sure, he'll fight for it. But once he's made this Pulsey appointment, I would be shocked if they leveraged him in such a way saying we won't do FISA unless you get rid of Pulte, and he gets rid of Pulte. I just don't see that with him. Mark, on Jackie's point about Republican resistance on FISA, that's all really good because last week we were talking about the YOLO caucus and how Republicans are finding their spine. And yet, yesterday MSNOW had this headline, Senate Republicans Fall in Line with Trump and Past Reconciliation And they passed billions of dollars in funding for ICE and the CPB, and that outweighed their complaints about the $1.776 billion dollar thug fund. So the YOLO caucus that we were talking
about last week, is that still a thing? Or are they really falling in line and that is the beginning of I THINK IT'S A LITTLE BIT OF MORE FALLING IN LINE. BREAKING NEWS, REPUBLICANS ARE STILL REPUBLICAN. THEY STILL VOTE FOR IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN LEGISLATION. AND BY AND LARGE EXCEPT FOR THIS ONE CASE IN IOWA DONALD TRUMP MATTERS IN THE PARTY, HE GOT RID OF A SENATOR, CASSIDY IN LOUISIANA, HE GOT RID OF A HOUSE MEMBER, MASSEY IN KENTUCKY AND OTHERS IN BETWEEN. He forgot he got rid of two senators, Cassidy and Cornyn. Oh, that's true. How could I forget?
Big John and Cornyn. Sitting senator. If I had been here last weekend, I would not have joined the YOLO caucus I THINK, AND MARK, YOU TOLD ME IF I'M WRONG, I FEEL LIKE DEMOCRATS AND EVEN FOLKS, SOME FOLKS THAT ARE ON TELEVISION I DON'T THINK THEY ARE. I THINK WAITING TO DO THAT AND HAVING, LIKE HOLDING YOUR BREATH YOU'RE GOING TO PASS OUT BECAUSE IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. SOME OF THEM ARE A LITTLE UPSETT, OBVIOUSLY CORNAN AND TAKE A LOOK AT THIS. ONE OF THE REASONS THOSE GUYS DIDN'T WIN THEIR ELECTIONS IS THEY'RE KIND OF NOT GOOD AT THIS AND DONALD TRUMP knows this, and Donald Trump is better at this than they are.
And this being politics? Yeah. Director, I'm going to actually try again on this question because I don't think I quite articulated it accurately the first time around, but how important is the reauthorization of FISA to being able to be the DNI? Well, I think the FISA reauthorization is important for our national security. I don't know if Bill Pulte has even any familiarity with it and i'm sure also that donald trump probably does not understand it either but there is a consensus within the congress on democrats republicans that see the
from this fight he's going to push it and he's going to put pressure on sufficient number of republican senators to be able to get it through john bryan mark caputo thank
