Trump Derails His Own DNI Nominee to Force Congress Vote on SAVE America Act

A midnight post upends Capitol Hill

President Trump blindsided Senate Republicans early Wednesday with a pre-dawn Truth Social post announcing he was "cancelling" the confirmation hearing for Jay Clayton, his nominee to lead the nation's intelligence agencies, less than 12 hours before Clayton was set to testify.npr Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., initially said the panel would proceed with the hearing "unless the president directs him not to appear" — then confirmed two hours later that it was "unfortunately postponed."cnbc Clayton, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York who prosecuted former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, had appeared likely to win bipartisan support and be confirmed within days.npr

Trump issued a cascade of conditions in the post: Clayton's hearing could not advance until his replacement at the Southern District, Jamie McDonald, was confirmed — a nominee whose paperwork the White House has not yet sent to the Senate — and he demanded that reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act be bundled with the SAVE America Act, a voter-ID bill that already failed in the Senate this month.cnbc

Pulte stays; FISA lapses

The cancellation leaves Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, as acting Director of National Intelligence.cnbc Trump tapped Pulte earlier this month after forcing out Tulsi Gabbard, drawing immediate condemnation from both parties over his lack of any intelligence background and his history of using his housing-regulator platform to accuse Trump adversaries — including Fed officials and Democratic state attorneys general — of mortgage fraud.npr Senate Democrats had vowed to block FISA reauthorization so long as Pulte held the post; Section 702, which authorizes warrantless surveillance of foreign targets, has now lapsed.cnbc

Senator Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking Intelligence Committee member, called Trump's reversal "an extraordinary display of dysfunction," saying the biggest obstacle had been "chaos and confusion coming from the White House itself."cnbc Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., a reliable Trump ally, was blunter: "Frankly, I was disappointed again that while Sen. Thune has very meticulously and skillfully managed a process that ends up with another Trump victory, [it] gets upended by an impulsive post."cnbc

A widening rift with Senate Republicans

The episode is the latest in a pattern of Trump torpedoing Republican-managed legislation. Senate Majority Leader John Thune had publicly rejected attaching the SAVE America Act to the FISA bill, telling reporters it was "not realistic."reuters Republican Senator Thom Tillis said Trump "made a colossal mistake" and was "undermining our ability to produce the very results he wants."reuters

The confrontation arrives as Trump's job-approval rating has slid to 36% this month — slightly above his all-time first-term low of 33% — according to Reuters/Ipsos polling, with the drop most pronounced among Republicans.reuters With competitive midterm races looming in November and Trump having already ousted incumbent Senator John Cornyn in a primary, senators are increasingly willing to tell the president no. "I think we're in for a bumpy seven months or so," Cornyn predicted.reuters