WASHINGTON — Few members of the United States Senate are better positioned to evaluate who belongs at the top of the American intelligence community than Mark Kelly of Arizona — a decorated Navy combat pilot, retired NASA astronaut, and sitting member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. On Tuesday, he made his assessment of President Donald Trump’s latest intelligence pick unmistakably clear.
Kelly posted his condemnation of Bill Pulte’s appointment as acting director of national intelligence on X at 2:53 p.m. on June 2nd, 2026, and he did not limit himself to questioning Pulte’s credentials. He went a step further, charging that the appointment was never about credentials at all — and that the White House had made no effort to pretend otherwise.
“The Director of National Intelligence is a critical job to keeping Americans safe,” Kelly wrote. “Bill Pulte wasn’t chosen for his qualifications. He was chosen for his loyalty to the President, which he’s demonstrated by using his position at the Federal Housing Finance Agency to target the President’s political opponents. As a real estate developer, Pulte has no relevant national security experience — which is a requirement for the job. Putting someone this unqualified in charge of U.S. intelligence isn’t just absurd. It’s reckless.”
Trump announced the appointment earlier Tuesday morning on Truth Social, writing that Pulte — who leads the Federal Housing Finance Agency and serves as chairman of government-backed mortgage enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — had “deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America, the safety and soundness of the Markets, and over 10 Trillion Dollars at Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac.” Trump made no mention of intelligence, national security, or any relevant qualification for the post, and said Pulte would retain his housing finance roles simultaneously.
Kelly’s charge that loyalty, not qualification, drove the selection is one that finds significant support in the documented record of Pulte’s tenure at the FHFA. As the NYT reported Tuesday, Pulte’s “aggressive use of social media to go after those Mr. Trump perceives as political enemies has made him a favorite of the president’s.” Pulte made criminal referrals against New York Attorney General Letitia James — a case a federal grand jury ultimately declined to pursue — and accused Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook of mortgage fraud. None of those accusations have resulted in criminal charges. The NYT further reported that Pulte’s tactics “frustrated officials at the White House, as well as prosecutors and the leaders of the Justice Department, who believed that Mr. Pulte was creating a false expectation that his accusations could be successfully brought to court” — yet that his actions simultaneously “earned Mr. Trump’s deep appreciation and admiration.”
Kelly’s note that national security experience is not merely preferable but a legal requirement for the DNI post carries additional weight. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created by Congress following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks — specifically to prevent the kind of intelligence coordination failures that allowed the attacks to succeed. The Senate Intelligence Committee, on which Kelly sits, is responsible for overseeing and setting the budget for U.S. government intelligence programs, and evaluates nominees to serve in senior intelligence positions. That Kelly is calling this appointment reckless from his seat on that very committee, rather than from the outside, underscores the severity of the rebuke.
Kelly served 25 years in the United States Navy, flying 39 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm off the aircraft carrier USS Midway. He logged more than 5,000 flight hours in more than 50 different aircraft, completed 375 carrier landings, and retired from the Navy with the rank of Captain. He is a recipient of the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, and multiple Air Medals — a career in uniform that gives him not only personal credibility on matters of national security but also firsthand understanding of what it means to operate within and depend upon a functioning intelligence apparatus in a combat environment.
In 1996, Kelly was selected as a NASA astronaut and went on to command Space Shuttle Endeavour on its final flight in 2011, retiring after four missions to space. He was elected to the U.S. Senate from Arizona in 2020, taking the seat once held by the late Sen. John McCain, and was re-elected in 2022. He currently serves as a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence alongside Republican members including Chairman Tom Cotton, Susan Collins, and John Cornyn.
It is precisely that committee which will be most directly involved in any oversight of Pulte’s tenure — and whose members, across party lines, have expressed serious reservations about the appointment. Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, also a member of the Intelligence Committee, said she was not even sure whether Pulte had ever held a security clearance. “I do not know his background or whether he has any intelligence experience,” Collins said. “I truly know nothing about him.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who has signaled that a permanent Pulte nomination would face a difficult path through the narrowly divided chamber, told reporters bluntly: “We don’t need a weaponized D.N.I. We need professionals there.” The fact that Pulte is serving in an acting capacity — allowing him to operate for up to 210 days without Senate confirmation under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act — means the committee that Kelly sits on has no immediate vote to cast to block the appointment.
Javed Ali, a former senior director at the National Security Council, warned that naming an individual with no formal national security or intelligence experience could further diminish the standing of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, noting that “on the eve of the 25-year anniversary of 9/11 this September,” the appointment “suggests the administration believes ODNI’s role and the DNI position may be less important than in previous years.”
Pulte will oversee 18 intelligence agencies including the CIA and the National Security Agency at a moment of acute national security pressure — an ongoing war with Iran, Russia’s continued war in Ukraine, and a sustained strategic competition with China. Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the panel, said the appointment was more about retribution than intelligence: “This president is not looking for an intelligence leader who will follow the facts or speak truth to power, but rather someone who will be willing to shape intelligence around the president’s wishes, regardless of the cost to the American people.”
Kelly’s assessment, distilled to a single word — reckless — was shared, in substance if not always in language, by a striking cross-section of the Senate. The announcement also surprised many senior officials at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence itself, where Trump began calling allies about the appointment over the weekend before making it official Tuesday morning. Pulte did not respond to requests for comment.