Just over 50 career and political intelligence staff at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have been removed from their roles since Bill Pulte became the agency’s acting director, Friday.

Six career and political intelligence staff were terminated and 45 were sent back to their home agencies, according to three sources familiar with the personnel moves.

Pulte has been asking deputies and other directors for suggestions about cuts. Some of the ODNI deputies pushed for more cuts, but Pulte said that the 51 was enough for now, one of the sources said.

One source characterized the cuts as thoughtful and methodical. No staffers have been removed from the counterterrorism group.

No further firings are planned for now, two of the sources said.

The cuts follow hundreds of staff reductions last year by former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who stepped down last week. Last year’s planned downsizing sought to bring the office’s headcount from 2,000 to around 1,300.

President Trump has pushed for further cuts, directing Pulte to “execute the immediate and needed downsizing of the office” in a Truth Social post earlier this month.

The office is charged with overseeing the country’s intelligence agencies and helping them coordinate with each other. It was created in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which investigators widely believe was preceded by a failure of intelligence agencies to share information. 

Since then, Gabbard and some lawmakers have argued the ODNI has become bloated and has added more bureaucracy to the intelligence community — worsening a problem it was created in part to resolve. 

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said earlier this month the office has “grown far beyond its original mandate.”  Many of the office’s staff hail from other intelligence agencies but have been detailed to ODNI, and Cotton argued large numbers of them should be returned to their “home agencies.”

Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrats on the Senate and House intelligence panels, warned Pulte against making large-scale staff cuts, calling it an inappropriate course of action for an acting official without national security experience.

“While there is room to consider responsible reductions to ODNI’s workforce, any large cuts would follow on a substantial downsizing that has already occurred in 2025 and risk jeopardizing the mission of an organization explicitly created after 9/11 to prevent any future such terrorist attack,” the two Democrats wrote in a joint statement.

After Gabbard announced in May that she would resign from the post, Mr. Trump said he would install Pulte, a housing finance official, as acting director of national intelligence. He later nominated Jay Clayton, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, to serve as Senate-confirmed director.

Mr. Trump’s pick for acting director of national intelligence, who assumed the role on Friday, has sparked intense pushback in Congress. Democrats, and some Republicans, questioned the selection due to his lack of national security experience. 

Democratic Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado said Sunday he’s worried that “Americans are at risk” with Pulte serving as DNI “because we have someone who’s incompetent at the head of this agency,” in an interview on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”

In addition to Pulte’s lack of national security experience, Democrats have railed against the pick for his role in investigations into Mr. Trump’s political foes. Crow, who serves on the House Intelligence Committee, said he’s “obviously concerned that this is somebody who’s a political attack dog, and his single biggest qualification is that he’s loyal to Donald Trump and is willing to go after Donald Trump’s enemies.” But he said more immediately, he’s concerned about Americans’ safety.

“This is a really important position. This sits atop our intelligence agencies, and by law, Congress mandated that this person have significant intelligence experience because they have to make sure that we’re keeping Americans safe, which is not what Bill Pulte is capable of doing,” Crow said. 

Since Pulte’s selection, Democrats have declined to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which grants intelligence agencies broad authority to spy on overseas targets, causing the legal provision to expire earlier this month. 

And as Senate GOP leaders tried to bring an end to the impasse by moving to quickly confirm Clayton as permanent director of national intelligence, the president abruptly called for Clayton’s confirmation hearing to be canceled last week.

Talks on extending FISA Section 702 were already strained, with some members of both parties pushing for stricter guardrails and arguing the program can scoop up Americans’ communications without a warrant. Intelligence officials say the program is essential to national security.

Asked whether Democrats have miscalculated, Crow said “not at all.”

“I know how important it is, but I’m unwilling to trade Americans’ constitutional rights, privacy and essential civil liberties for temporary extension to this program,” Crow said.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said on “Face the Nation” that “any Democrat that shuts down FISA at a time of great peril for the United States is making a huge mistake.”

“We’re playing with fire here, no matter what side does it,” Graham said. “America needs FISA up and running.”

SURFSIDE, Fla. — Just around the corner from where a beachfront condominium collapsed five years ago, there’s a makeshift memorial: a plastic banner strung up on a wood frame, with the names of the 98 victims, ranging in age from a year-old infant to a 92-year-old grandmother.

“It’s an unfortunate reminder of how big this tragedy was,” says Martin Langesfeld, locating the name of his sister Nicky, 26, and her husband Luis Sadovnik, 28. “It’s more than just names. It’s stories. It’s families.”

Two-thirds of the 12-story Champlain Towers South building collapsed just after 1 a.m. on June 24, 2021. It started when the pool deck caved in. Seven minutes later, as many of the occupants were sleeping, the tower began to fall.

Five escaped, and three were rescued from the rubble with severe injuries by first responders. Search teams evacuated residents in the remaining part of the building, which was demolished 10 days later for safety reasons.

Search and rescue personnel work in the rubble of the 12-story, beachfront Champlain Towers South condominium that crumbled to the ground on June 24, 2021 in Surfside.

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Hundreds were left without a home and belongings, and the state was forced to grapple with how it regulates structural safety.

Langesfeld is among those who’ve been pushing to improve what they consider a lax system of building oversight. His sister and brother-in-law were newlyweds, who had moved into the condo together just a few months earlier.

“A dream place, home, where you feel you’re safest is where they were killed,” he says.

He’s also frustrated there is no permanent memorial honoring the victims, while a new luxury condo is going up on the land where Champlain Towers once stood.

“It’s been almost five years and there’s no development for the memorial,” he says. “And the development for the new building is very well underway.”

The North Tower of the Champlain Towers condominium complex stands on April 27, overlooking the vacant site where its sister building, Champlain Towers South, collapsed on June 24, 2021. The collapse resulted in 98 deaths and remains one of the largest structural failures in U.S. history. A new luxury condominium complex, the Delmore, is slated for construction on the empty lot.

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Technical findings released Monday by the National Institute of Standards and Technology concluded the problem started about three weeks before the collapse when two connections between garage columns and the pool deck failed, causing cracks to grow and loads to shift to connections that were not strong enough to support them.

Washington — President Trump on Monday said proof will be provided in court of his allegations that vandals “cut” a massive slit in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which he claims is the reason the paint is peeling on the recently renovated but algae-plagued project. 

In an exchange with CBS News senior White House correspondent Ed O’Keefe, Mr. Trump insisted that vandals, rather than questionable craftsmanship, are responsible for the enduring problems following the $14.7 million sealant job. The president claimed vandals cut a 350-foot slit in the pool between the World War II Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial. Five people have been arrested for vandalism related to the Reflecting Pool, and five additional individuals were issued federal citations, according to the U.S. Park Police, although neither the company behind the project nor the U.S. Park Service has said a cut slit was responsible for the peeling. 

Asked if he had proof, such as photos or video, that vandals used a knife to cut a massive slit in the pool, Mr. Trump responded: “Well, let’s put it this way, when you have a 350, I think it’s 350, not 250, when you have a 350-foot slit, from one end to the other, you think that’s proof? You think that’s proof?” 

O’Keefe noted that reporters had been to the site and found no evidence of a slit.

“Well, you’d have to go see the Parks Department. They’ll show it to you, or see, see the secretary, but I saw it,” Mr. Trump said, likely referencing Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. “They cut it, they cut it very violently. The same thing with the floor, they cut it, and then they lifted it. They pulled it, and that’s what it is.”

After defending the project, the president said, “We also have pictures.”

O’Keefe asked the president for evidence of his claims. 

“Yeah, at the right time you’ll see it,” Mr. Trump said. “You’ll see it in court. You’ll see it in court, but all you have to do is call the Parks Department, call the Department of Interior.”

The president also suggested someone may have placed fertilizer in the water to create the algae that teams have been attempting to clear. 

“If you put fertilizer in the water, you get algae, but somebody said they might have put fertilizer, they did something to create the algae,” the president said, again without providing evidence for his claims.

CBS News has reached out to the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior. So far, there’s been no response.  

Atlantic Industrial Coatings, which received a no-bid contract to install the sealant on the floor of the Reflecting Pool, told CBS News there are “some areas” that “require repairs.” 

“These areas are a very small part of the massive 7-acre project, and do not indicate a failure of the liner,” the company said. “These repairs can not be made until the pool is drained. As soon as it’s feasible for the park, the pool will be drained and AIC will be back to make those needed repairs as part of the warranty.”