(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he’s appointing Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte as the acting director of national intelligence, with Tulsi Gabbard set to leave her post on June 30. 

Trump said that Pulte will remain the director of Federal Housing Finance Agency and also continue as a chairman of the mortgage groups Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

“William has deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America, the safety and soundness of the Markets, and over 10 Trillion Dollars at Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, a substantial increase from where it was just 12 months ago,” Trump posted to his social media platform.

Pulte does not appear to have a clear national intelligence background.

He is best known in the Trump administration for launching probes into several of the president’s perceived political enemies over allegations of mortgage fraud and possible misuse of authority. Targets of the investigations include Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff and former Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell. They’ve all denied wrongdoing.

The Department of Justice had at one point investigated whether Pulte and his team were interfering in ongoing investigations. Pulte has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Gabbard announced her resignation last month because of her husband’s battle with bone cancer.

Trump praised Gabbard for having done an “incredible job” and adding that the administration will “miss her.” He said at the time that Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Aaron Lukas would serve as acting DNI.

But in his announcement on Tuesday, Trump said he was tapping Pulte for the temporary role. Pulte would need Senate confirmation if nominated to serve in the role full time.

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(LOS ANGELES) — During Tuesday’s midterm primary election in California, all eyes are on the crowded field of gubernatorial candidates looking to succeed current Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has termed out, in what has become the most expensive governor’s race on record.

California hosts “jungle” primaries, also known as non-partisan primaries, which means all candidates are listed on one primary ballot and the top two candidates advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation. There are 61 candidates running for governor in the state.

Most expensive governor’s race on record

The gubernatorial primary has surpassed $315 million in ad spending and reservations, according to AdImpact, making this the most expensive governor’s race on record.

The crowded race features many Democratic candidates: former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, billionaire Tom Steyer, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, former Rep. Katie Porter, and California Superintendent Tony Thurmond. Republicans running include Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and former Fox News contributor Steve Hilton.

Although Rep. Eric Swalwell suspended his campaign for governor — and resigned from Congress — in April amid sexual misconduct allegations, he will still remain on the ballot as he missed the deadline to withdraw his name. Swalwell said in April that he “will fight the serious, false allegations that have been made — but that’s my fight, not a campaign’s.”

Democratic candidates have remained locked in a tight race without a clear frontrunner.

According to a Public Policy Institute of California poll conducted in mid-May, Becerra and Hilton were leading the pack with 23% and 20%, respectively. They were followed by Steyer at 15%, Bianco at 13% and Porter at 12%.

While Democrats have been worried that the significant number of Democratic candidates could split up the vote, resulting in Republicans advancing to the general election, President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Hilton has also presented some concern among those who were hoping for the two Republican candidates to advance to the November election.

Under California’s top-two primary system, the prospect of two Republicans advancing to November has relied on Hilton and Bianco remaining closely matched in the polls. However, Trump’s endorsement could mean increased support for Hilton might come from those who previously backed Bianco. If Hilton gains while Bianco’s support holds steady or declines, a Democrat could overtake Bianco and acquire the second spot in the general election, strategists say.

Attention on LA’s mayoral race

Another California race that has captivated national headlines is the Los Angeles’ mayoral election, following the sudden rise of reality TV star Spencer Pratt and his media-forward campaign which has exploded across social media.

Pratt, who is a registered Republican running an independent campaign, is challenging the incumbent, Karen Bass, who is endorsed by Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris. She faces sharp scrutiny from critics for her leadership, especially for her initial absence during and response to Los Angeles’ devastating wildfires last year. Bass, who was away from the city on a planned diplomatic trip to Ghana when the Palisades Fire first erupted, has pushed back on criticism over her management of the fire, saying earlier this year that her focus “is on the lives and on the homes.”

Progressive city councilmember Nithya Raman, who has been compared to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, is also in the running in the tight three-way race.

A candidate wins the nonpartisan mayoral race outright if they get more than 50% of the vote; otherwise, the race goes to a runoff in November between the top two vote-getters.

House races in the balance after redistricting

Following the passage of Prop. 50 last year, a ballot initiative championed by Newsom in retaliation to Texas redistricting, five districts in California are now redrawn in favor of Democrats. As Democrats eye new victories, some incumbent Republicans are consequently facing an uphill battle.

In California’s 11th Congressional District, voters get their first opportunity to weigh in on a representative to succeed Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, who is retiring after almost 40 years in Congress.

San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan, who was endorsed by Pelosi earlier this month, faces off against state Sen. Scott Wiener and Saikat Chakrabarti, a former software engineer who was once chief of staff to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Another key race, California’s 22nd Congressional District, has become a proxy battle within the Democratic Party, as moderate state Rep. Jasmeet Bains, backed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, is facing off against progressive Randy Villegas, who has the support of Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Both Democrats have argued they are the stronger candidate to flip the Latino-majority swing district by ousting incumbent Republican Rep. David Valadao over his vote in support of Trump’s cuts to Medicaid.

Polls close at 8 p.m. local time

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(WASHINGTON) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth blocked the promotions to one-star admirals of several senior Navy officers who had already been selected for promotion by a board of senior Navy admirals, three sources familiar with the move told ABC News.

Secretaries of Defense have the authority to intervene in promotion lists for reasons of cause, but it is unusual to see Hegseth now having intervened in both the Army and Navy’s most recent promotions to the one-star rank.

The Navy officers removed from the Navy’s promotion list included African Americans, women, and white males who were removed for a variety of reasons, including their participation or involvement in military Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, sources said.

The official promotion list was released by the Pentagon on May 22.

Separately, Hegseth also made efforts to get one of his senior military aides on the promotion list or to get him promoted, sources added. However, Capt. William Francis Jr., a Navy SEAL serving as Hegseth’s assistant, could not be reviewed by the promotion board because he did not meet certain criteria, such as heading a major command, according to sources.

The New York Times was first to report Hegseth’s block of the promotions and the effort to promote Capt. Francis.  

Hegseth’s tenure as defense secretary has been marked by his stated intent to remove policies he has framed as creating a “woke” military under previous administrations.

His critique of the military’s culture comes as minorities are quickly making up more of the ranks and as women have started to expand their footprint in the senior ranks.

Though Hegseth’s string of unexplained firings and promotion blocking has severely curtailed those gains for women.

The Pentagon’s chief spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement to ABC News, “As we’ve said before, military promotions are given to those who have earned them. The Department will never consider the color of a service member’s skin or their gender as a factor in promotions. Under President Trump and Secretary Hegseth, meritocracy reigns supreme at the War Department.”  

Since Hegseth became defense secretary, 19 senior generals or flag officers have been fired or sidelined, with several of them being women or minorities.

Hegseth’s intervention in the Navy promotion list is similar to his intervention in the Army’s promotion list to brigadier generals, where four colonels were removed from the list. Those four colonels included two African Americans and two women.

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(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge said Friday that President Donald Trump can’t close or rename the Kennedy Center, ruling that it cannot be officially named for anyone else unless Congress approves it.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that the rebranding of the Kennedy Center as the “Trump Kennedy Center” violates the law, and ordered that Trump’s name be removed from the building within two weeks.

Cooper wrote that the administration “violated the Kennedy Center’s organic statute in purporting to rename the Center for President Trump, and in taking steps to effectuate that official renaming, such as installing signage with Donald J. Trump’s name on the front portico of the Center, altering the Center’s website to name the Center for President Trump, and in issuing official materials naming the Center for President Trump.”

Cooper also wrote “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”

Congress created the famed cultural institution in a federal statute, designating it as a living memorial in 1964 shortly after President John F. Kennedy’s death.

Trump announced in December that the Kennedy Center’s Board of Trustees, which the president himself now chairs and filled with his hand-picked appointees, had voted “unanimously” to rename the building. Workers added signage with his name shortly after.

Trump also announced earlier this year that the Kennedy Center would be closed for two years starting in July for major renovations.

Cooper blasted the board for making an “ill-informed” and “seemingly preordained” decision to close the center.

“Finally, the Court is preliminarily persuaded that the Board’s March 16 vote to close the Kennedy Center pending a years-long renovation represents a dereliction of its common-law- derived duty of prudence,” Cooper wrote. “The current record reveals that the Board rendered this ill-informed and seemingly preordained decision without regard for how it would accomplish its full array of statutory responsibilities. The trustees might have assessed the propriety of closure in a number of prudent ways. This was not one.”

The changes are being challenged in court by Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, who sits on the Kennedy Board of Trustees as one of its ex-officio members.
“Today’s ruling rightly affirms that this administration’s efforts to rename and close the Center have no basis in law,” Beatty said in a statement Friday. “The Kennedy Center is an institution that belongs to the American people, not to Donald Trump. He has desecrated this sacred memorial for his own vanity. I am proud to have fought for the rule of law and to protect this sacred institution.”

The Trump administration has defended the renovation as fulfilling the board’s “responsibilities to repair and improve the Center.”

The Trump administration is expected to appeal the ruling, according to sources familiar with the matter.

ABC News has reached out to the White House for comment on the ruling.

ABC News’ Peter Charalambous and Steven Portnoy contributed to this report.

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(BATON ROUGE, La.) — Louisiana lawmakers on Friday approved a new congressional map that could allow Republicans to flip one of the state’s two Democratic-held House seats in the 2026 midterms.

The Louisiana Senate gave final approval to a bill with the new map after much dissent from Democrats.

“Y’all, at the beginning of this process, I would have said that we are building a house on a broken foundation. Now, it feels more like quicksand, because we’re in 2026 going into a map that we know is flawed, that we know is going to get struck down,” state Sen. Royce Duplessis, a Democrat, said on the Senate floor.

State Sen. Jay Morris, a Republican, defended the map ahead of the final vote.

“I think we have a map here that meets all the traditional redistricting criteria. It’s not racially gerrymandered. … I think it broadly allows for representation for each region of the state, and it’s very fair, and we should approve it,” Morris said.

The new map comes weeks after U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state’s current map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

The landmark Supreme Court decision dealt a blow to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and set off a newfound scramble of mid-decade redistricting in Louisiana and other states that Democrats say could drastically reduce the number of Black representatives in Congress.

On Thursday, during hours of floor debate, several Democratic state representatives condemned the redrawn map, which eliminates one of the two majority-Black districts in the state, as discriminatory.

“I want to ask you to remember the argument that we should now be colorblind about a congressional map, in this state of all states, requires forgetting a quantity of history that I don’t believe any of us has the right to forget. Black people in this country were not citizens; not partial citizens, not second-class citizens. We weren’t citizens at all,” state Rep. Kyle Green, a Democrat and member of the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus, said on Thursday.

State Rep. Beau Beaullieu, a Republican who sponsored an amended version of the map that the state House approved, argued to members that legislators had been forced to redraw the map because of the Supreme Court’s ruling.

“And now we find ourselves back with a similar map to the one this body passed in 2022, that had five Republican districts and one Democrat district,” he said on Thursday. “The map complies with traditional redistricting principles and also maximizes partisan advantage. The map is contiguous; it is compact; it binds communities of interest; it protects incumbency. … Race was not a factor when drawing these districts.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Trump administration officials have pushed the office tasked with printing the nation’s money to move forward with designing a commemorative $250 bill with President Donald Trump’s portrait and signature, should legislation to create the new currency pass, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions.

It would mark the first time a living person has appeared on U.S. currency in more than 150 years. As of now, federal law explicitly states only deceased people can appear on United States currency.

But some Republicans in Congress are working to change that.

Republican Rep. Joe Wilson, of South Carolina, has introduced a bill ordering the Treasury Department to print $250 Federal Reserve notes featuring a portrait of Trump.

The bill has 15 Republican cosponsors, a small sum for legislation that was introduced more than a year ago.

The bill has not passed — stuck in the House Financial Services committee for more than a year — but in a statement to ABC News, the Treasury Department acknowledged the Bureau of Engraving and Printing is “conducting appropriate planning and due diligence” should the legislation be signed into law.

It would still have to pass the Senate as well before it hits Trump’s desk, requiring a bipartisan majority of 60 votes for passage. Democrats are expected to try to block the effort.

If the bill doesn’t become law, it expires at the end of the 119th Congress. After that, Wilson or another member can try to reintroduce it in the 120th session.

A Treasury Department spokesperson called the bill a “proactive” measure.

“Should this legislative mandate be signed into law, the BEP is moving proactively to produce a $250 commemorative note which will appropriately recognize the 250th Anniversary of our great nation,” the spokesperson said.

The number 250 reflects the nation’s upcoming anniversary.

There’s been no word from Republican leadership on whether they would support Wilson’s bill, though none of its party leaders have signed on as cosponsors.

Two people familiar with the discussions told ABC News that U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have pushed for the president’s signature to be added to the $250 bill.

The Treasury Department did not dispute the reporting.

“Based on the recommendation of U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach, Secretary Bessent will recognize the historic achievements of our great country and President Trump by adding his signature to the currency,” a spokesperson stated.

The Treasury Department insisted no taxpayer dollars will be used to produce the new bill, noting Bureau of Engraving and Printing finances its operations entirely through product sales and billings rather than relying on annual congressional appropriations.

The State Department announced it would begin issuing special edition passports featuring Trump’s portrait and signature to commemorate the anniversary.

The Washington Post was the first to report the news.

ABC News’ John Parkinson contributed to this report.

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