MAGA-Friendly Senator Trashes Trump’s New Director of National Intelligence: ‘A Funny Pick, to Say the Least’

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) is the latest lawmaker to cast doubt on President Donald Trump’s “odd” pick for Director of National Intelligence, Bill Pulte.

Cramer was asked for his thoughts on Pulte, who would replace the outgoing Tulsi Gabbard, during a Wednesday appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box.

Cramer said:

Well, I think it’s a funny pick, to say the least. Of course, here we are in the banking room where we actually deal with housing and urban affairs issues. It seems like a funny pick. It’s interim for now, I guess. We’ll see. But I think it is an odd pick. But remember, he’s replacing Tulsi Gabbard, who was a Democrat not very long ago. And her and I were House members together and classmates. So we could have said that was a bit of a funny pick as well.

Pulte has received bipartisan pushback with some critics believing he could “weaponize” his new role. Pulte serves as the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, where he’s faced accusations of targeting Trump’s political enemies with allegations like mortgage fraud. Pulte has no military or intelligence background.

When Joe Kernen asked Cramer “how long” he thinks Pulte could actually stay in the DNI position, Cramer said:

That’s a good question. I don’t know. I was thinking about that just this morning. I’m not sure what the rules say about that or the law say about it, in the interim role is what I’m saying, before you have to get approval by the Senate through a confirmation process. Generally, I think what it is is if we adjourn and come back, then that term ends. That’s my understanding, but I don’t t know for sure that there’s not another way to do it because a full confirmation would be unlikely. A full confirmation of him would, I’d think in this environment, would be pretty unlikely but I don’t know him well enough to know whether he has the credentials to do the job but that’s a problem.

Watch above via CNBC.

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