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<\/figure>\n\nTulsi Gabbard<\/b> made deep cuts to the intelligence community during her time as director of national intelligence. Her replacement has decided she didn\u2019t go far enough.<\/p>\n
Acting director of national intelligence Bill Pulte<\/b> started firing and reshuffling intelligence staff this week<\/a>, our colleagues Ellen Nakashima <\/b>and Warren P. Strobel <\/b>reported Thursday. Gabbard had already cut the staff of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence by 40 percent before she left, and Pulte is carrying out President Donald Trump<\/b>\u2019s request to cut back even further.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s administration also has plans to sharply reduce the size of the CIA, NSA and other intelligence agencies<\/a> over several years.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to tell exactly what the impact of these cuts will be, given the intelligence community\u2019s opacity. But experts are concerned that the layoffs are indicative of a broader politicization of America\u2019s intelligence agencies \u2014 and pose a threat to lawmakers\u2019 ability to make informed decisions on national security matters.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s absolutely critical that [lawmakers] have good intelligence and understand what they\u2019re seeing,\u201d said Elaine Kamarck<\/b>, the director of the Center for Effective Public Management at the Brookings Institution. \u201cThey need this to determine budgets, they need this to determine force structures.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you don\u2019t have people who can interpret the massive amounts of data that our intelligence community gathers, it\u2019s useless,\u201d Kamarck said.<\/p>\n Gabbard\u2019s tenure at ODNI was marked by accusations she had politicized the agency, using her platform to pursue Trump bugaboos, like 2020 election fraud claims<\/a> and suggesting the 2016 federal investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign was a \u201ctreasonous conspiracy.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n Pulte was arguably an even more controversial pick to run ODNI, given his lack of an intelligence background and reputation as an even stauncher Trump ally. The president appointed Pulte to serve as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency in March 2025, and Pulte quickly garnered attention for his willingness to accuse Trump\u2019s political opponents of mortgage fraud.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you put people like that in charge, you don\u2019t get better intelligence if you get scared analysts and confused allies and a president surrounded by people telling him what he wants to hear,\u201d said John Sipher<\/b>, a former CIA officer and nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.<\/p>\n Trump has long clashed with the intelligence agencies<\/a> \u2014 particularly when their analysis is at odds with his aims<\/a> \u2014 and he hasn\u2019t allayed concerns that Pulte was brought in to be a political hatchet man, telling the Wall Street Journal earlier this month<\/a> that ODNI officials who served in the Biden and Obama administrations \u201cshouldn\u2019t be there.\u201d<\/p>\n Pulte\u2019s critics say the perception that he is there to settle scores for Trump could discourage other countries from sharing intelligence and undermine American intelligence officers\u2019 ability to cultivate sources abroad.<\/p>\n Sipher says America\u2019s reputation as the shining city on the hill has historically attracted sources and spies frustrated with their own nations\u2019 corruption and brutality.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we start to look like we\u2019re just like other countries, you know we\u2019re corrupt, we only take care of ourselves, we only use information to help ourselves \u2026 if it\u2019s not a values-bred country, then people aren\u2019t going to want to spy for us,\u201d Sipher said. \u201cThe reason we are good is because we represent something good.\u201d<\/p>\n The Supreme Court gave Donald Trump a string of wins Thursday \u2014 rulings that will reverberate throughout American society for years.<\/p> Read more After busy week of trades, Capitals enter draft with No. 18 overall pick<\/a><\/p>\n The first, and possibly most consequential, is a wholesale change to the way the United States offers temporary humanitarian protections to people from war-torn, environmentally devastated or otherwise unsafe nations. The Court, our colleagues Julian Mark<\/b> and Maria Sacchetti<\/b> reported, ruled that the Trump administration<\/a> \u201ccan cancel temporary humanitarian protections for Haitian and Syrian immigrants living legally in the United States.\u201d The ruling could allow the government to deport hundreds of thousands of people starting this year, but could impact the 1.3 million immigrants with protected status from 17 countries<\/a>.<\/p>\n That wasn\u2019t the only immigration ruling<\/a> in Trump\u2019s favor. The court also ruled that migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border are not entitled to asylum until they are physically in the U.S.<\/a>, allowing immigration officials to turn back asylum seekers before they enter the country.<\/p>\n Then the court delivered a big win for gun rights advocates, striking down a law in Hawaii that sharply restricts where people can carry guns in public<\/a>. The law, our colleague Justin Jouvenal<\/b> reported, barred people from carrying firearms on private property open to the public without the owner\u2019s consent. States like New York, New Jersey, California, and Maryland have similar laws, all of which will now be subject to legal scrutiny.<\/p>\n Taken together, it\u2019s a string of wins for Trump from a legal body that he has been unafraid to criticize.<\/p>\n It could be a brief reprieve. Supreme Court watchers believe the court will rule against Trump\u2019s desires on the future of birthright citizenship and in his bid to reshape the Federal Reserve<\/a>.<\/p>\n San Antonio Current<\/b>: San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones<\/b> wants to cancel an upcoming show by Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West. But because of a lack of votes on the city council, the mayor wants to amend Ye\u2019s contract to bar him from performing a song titled \u201cHeil Hitler\u201d and from selling swastika merchandise<\/a>.<\/p>\n San Jose Spotlight<\/b>: Lawmakers in the heart of Silicon Valley know where artificial intelligence is headed \u2014 and are demanding schools begin to prepare students for a future dominated by AI<\/a>.<\/p>\n Miami Herald<\/b>: The death toll after back-to-back earthquakes rocked Venezuela continues to climb<\/a>. South Florida is home to the largest Venezuelan population in the U.S.<\/p>\n It appears that many of you use AI chatbots<\/a>, but few use the products for political questions.<\/p>\n \u201cI would never use an AI chatbot to ask a political question. It can be difficult enough just dealing with stuff that matters more. Like help finding a job in your situation or how to sell something or checking something out,\u201d wrote Rick Prescott<\/b>. \u201cYou can get statistical answers or scientific ones, but political stuff is just too, being nice here, smarmy.\u201d<\/p>\n Desiree Bryant<\/b> wrote about how she asked Copilot if Rep. Jasmine Crockett<\/b> (D-Texas) has endorsed Texas Senate candidate James Talarico<\/b>. She has not, but Desiree wrote she \u201cgot a firm yes with a wild list of links to \u2018news\u2019 articles, including one reporting Kamala Harris endorsing him.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI admonished AI for not answering an unambiguous question accurately. Then, it replied that I was right \u2014 I had asked a straightforward question, and it had answered in error,\u201d Desiree added. \u201cAI just makes stuff up and if you don\u2019t bother to read the linked articles to reliable news sources, you\u2019d be misled or given a completely wrong answer.\u201d<\/p>\n If you haven\u2019t read Clara Ence Morse, Leslie Shapiro, Praveena Somasundaram <\/b>and Eric Lau<\/b>\u2019s story on the megadonors pouring more than $1.3 billion into the 2026 election<\/a>, you really should. But we wanted to ask you: Do you worry about the amount of money in politics? How would you fix it? And if you donate to campaigns, how do you feel about the money you give compared to that of these megadonors? Let us and your fellow Early Brief readers know at earlytips@washpost.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n Thanks for reading. You can follow Dan and Matthew on X: @merica<\/a> and @matthewichoi<\/a>.<\/p>