Insiders outraged after Trump makes his 'worst appointment' ever: expert

Insiders outraged after Trump makes his 'worst appointment' ever: expert
A reporter films with her phone as U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte speaks at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 9, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

National security professionals inside the Trump administration are outraged after President Donald Trump made one of the worst appointments in his political tenure, according to one expert.

David Rothkopf, a columnist for The Daily Beast, said on a new episode of "The Daily Beast Podcast" on Monday that insiders he's spoken with were shocked when Trump appointed Bill Pulte, the administration's former mortgage chief, as the next Director of National Intelligence. Rothkopf said his sources were outraged by Pulte's willingness to do what Trump tells him and his lack of experience in the role, which is defined by federal law.

"When I talk to people in the national security community or when you see the petitions that have been circulated, there is a consensus that Bill [Pulte] is the worst appointment Trump has ever made because he has absolutely zero experience in intelligence, something even Marco Rubio, the butt-kisser of all time, acknowledged he has no intelligence experience," Rothkopf said.

Trump appointed Pulte to replace former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who resigned from the administration over her husband's health. Pulte, the former director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, was a homebuilder before joining the Trump administration and has never held an intelligence job.

Federal law requires anyone appointed to the Director of National Intelligence role to have "extensive" intelligence experience.

"He is purely being picked because he will do exactly what Trump says," Rothkopf added, noting Pulte's willingness to cook up investigations against Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook for mortgage fraud. "Trump wants him there because he thinks that the intel community can help him invalidate upcoming elections, which is his main job. And he also thinks he can help him go after his adversaries, possibly even help him shred information that might be incriminating to Trump."

"But when I talk to people at the CIA, when I talk to people who are formerly national intelligence people, I spoke to somebody from the [Defense Intelligence Agency] over the weekend — they are outraged," he continued.

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Ana Navarro, a senior political commentator on CNN, snapped at a former Trump campaign official on Monday night after the official defended the president's attacks against NBC News's Kristen Welker during an interview over the weekend.

Welker traveled to Wisconsin to interview President Donald Trump for her Sunday show, "Meet the Press." The interview became combative after Welker challenged Trump to provide evidence for his claim that the 2020 general election was stolen from him. Trump abruptly ended the interview after that, and made some disturbing comments about Welker as he stormed off set.

Trump called Welker stupid and crooked, and questioned her integrity, attacks he's levied against other female journalists like CNN's Kaitlan Collins who have asked him tough questions.

"You’re a one-sided crooked network,” Trump said to Welker as he stormed off. “Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good time."

Navarro argued on CNN's "NewsNight" with host Abby Phillip that Trump's comments were part of a "horrible" pattern of behavior toward women. Caroline Sunshine, former deputy communications director for Trump's 2024 campaign, attempted to rebut those claims by arguing that she never witnessed Trump mistreat women while she worked with him.

Sunshine also told Navarro to "give [her] a break," which sent Navarro over the edge.

"Have you no shame as a woman that we hear him call [women] ugly and piggy and crooked and liars and stupid and bad journalists?" Navarro seethed. "Have you absolutely no solidarity with women? Oh my god, I can't believe you sit here and tell me to give you a break. When in this network, we hear him tell our journalist that she's not fit to be a journalist because she doesn't smile. How dare you tell me to give you a break? Have some shame."


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Justice Sonia Sotomayor rebuked the Mississippi Supreme Court for applying a problematic standard in the case of Tony Terrell Clark, a Black death row inmate convicted by a jury of 11 white people and one Black juror.

The all-conservative Mississippi Supreme Court denied Clark's latest appeal, which Justice Sotomayor agreed with. However, she wrote this revealed, "A double standard where the State struck Black jurors who took anything but the most hardline pro-death penalty position, but not white jurors who expressed serious doubts about the death penalty."

Prosecutors struck Black prospective jurors at more than five times the rate of white jurors and conducted background investigations on qualified Black candidates, while ignoring similarly situated white jurors.

Mississippi's standard states, defendants are required to prove prosecutors illegally excluded jurors based on race, thus impacting trial outcomes — a burden Sotomayor said forces courts to conclude jurors' race affects voting.

Quoting the 2019 Flowers v. Mississippi ruling, she wrote, "one racially discriminatory peremptory strike is one too many."

This marks Justice Sotomayor's second warning about Clark's case since 2023.

Watch the video below.


President Donald Trump's supporters are spreading a flurry of conspiracy theories about mail ballots after MAGA-aligned reality star Spencer Pratt was eliminated from the Los Angeles mayoral primary race — but he never had a chance, election data analyst Harry Enten told CNN's Kaitlan Collins on Monday evening.

"Harry, can you tell us what the numbers actually are and what we are looking at in places like L.A.?" asked Collins.

Enten started off by acknowledging "we would rather the system be that the votes were counted faster in California." But the fact remains, he continued, "this is ... the dumbest conspiracy theory I've ever heard."

For starters, he said, this wasn't even the outcome the Democratic establishment in L.A. wanted. Incumbent mayor Karen Bass "wanted to face Spencer Pratt, for the simple reason that she would easily beat him. You could look at the runoff polls, right? [City Councilwoman] Nithya Raman actually is ahead of Karen Bass. Spencer Pratt was nearly 20 points behind Karen Bass."

Indeed, he noted, net favorability polls show Bass "is greatly unpopular," but that Pratt "might be the one person in the [entirety of] Los Angeles who is running for mayor, who is less popular than she was. He would have been a God-given gift to her if she, in fact, faced him in the runoff." This is further underscored, he said, by the fact that Trump, whom Pratt heavily attached himself to, is down around 55 points in the city.

"What a surprise ... that a Republican is struggling in a city in which just 15 percent of the registered voters in that city are Republican," concluded Enten. "This isn't a conspiracy. It's simple math."

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