Trump’s B-Team
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 9 June 2026
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why would Trump choose Bill Pulte to be the new acting Director of National Intelligence? Pulte may not have a background in national security, but since he was already Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, you have to admit it was convenient to hire from the batch of people who were already around.
Guest: Andrew Egger, White House correspondent for the Bulwark.
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Podcast production by Evan Campbell, Madeline Ducharme, Patrick Fort, Rob Gunther and Paige Osburn.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I want to ask you a question. |
| 0:07.7 | Is Donald J. Trump running out of guys? |
| 0:13.0 | That is the best question, and it is a question that we have had a lot of cause to contemplate. |
| 0:19.1 | Andrew Edgar is the White House correspondent over at the bulwark. |
| 0:23.4 | Usually you do not see, you do not see presidents stacking up people with quite this many |
| 0:30.6 | different responsibilities. |
| 0:32.5 | Like the joke guys, Marco Rubio, right? |
| 0:34.0 | I mean, like, that was, you know, historically, it's the meme. |
| 0:36.5 | Anytime that a job opens up, Marco Rubio is going to get the job. Then you had Sean Duffy, who was, you know, historically, it's the meme. Anytime that a job opens up, |
| 0:37.7 | Marco Rubio is going to get the job. Then you had Sean Duffy, who was like in charge of the Department |
| 0:41.7 | of Transportation, but then also for a little while in charge of NASA, just because I see this |
| 0:46.8 | people with multiple jobs things a couple of ways. They're the people who have a lot of hats that |
| 0:52.1 | they're wearing. And then there's this new crop of people. |
| 0:55.3 | The new crop of people are the folks who I would say were on like the JV team until recently |
| 1:00.6 | and have just now been inducted into varsity. |
| 1:04.2 | I'm talking about Bill Pulte, who's been running the Federal Housing Finance Agency |
| 1:07.7 | and was just given the temporary director of national intelligence |
| 1:11.7 | role. I'm talking about Todd Blanche, who was Trump's personal attorney and we're wandering |
| 1:15.7 | around the Department of Justice now like acting attorney general, possibly permanent attorney |
| 1:20.1 | general. Like there's a few of these guys where it's like, wow, you're just real, |
| 1:25.0 | um, your performers. You're around. Yeah, yeah. And they, |
| 1:29.9 | they haven't all made it, right? There are, there are a couple who have been sort of left by the wayside, |
... |
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