President Donald Trump says he wants his new acting director of national intelligence to cut the office, which has already been significantly scaled back during his second term. Trump noted aboard Air Force One the size of the office has been "way too high for way too long" and if Bill Pulte cuts it, he "wouldn't mind." The Republican president said in an earlier interview with The Wall Street Journal he has asked Pulte to start the process of firing employees. Trump says Pulte will stay in the acting position depending on how long it takes to get his successor confirmed. The president says he's considering five people but hasn't named them.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence says it will dramatically reduce its workforce and cut its budget by more than $700 million annually. The move Wednesday amounts to a major downsizing of the responsible for coordinating the work of 18 intelligence agencies, including on counterterrorism and counterintelligence. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard says the office "has become bloated and inefficient, and the intelligence community is rife with abuse of power, unauthorized leaks of classified intelligence, and politicized weaponization of intelligence." The reorganization is part of a broader administration effort to rethink how it tracks foreign threats to American elections, a topic that has become politically loaded.