June 11, 2026
President Trump just caved to the demands of Democrats—and some Republicans. Even though just yesterday, he said this.
Well, President Trump just did what they wanted and nominated someone else besides Bill Pulte to be the next Director of National Intelligence. Trump just nominated Jay Clayton to be the next DNI. We’ll get into him in a second.
So what happened? Why did Trump make this switch right now?
Because, as I reported would happen in this video yesterday, this morning the House failed to pass an extension of a critical government spy tool called FISA 702. The extension failed big time. If you don’t understand FISA 702, go watch that video from yesterday—it’ll catch you up.
So the question is: Now that Trump nominated Jay Clayton, will Congress pass the extension of FISA 702? Does that solve the problem?
It’s very unclear right now for two reasons.
One, because Bill Pulte still may be acting DNI until Clayton can be confirmed. Just yesterday, President Trump said Pulte would take over as acting DNI on June 19. But because of the Senate calendar, it’s very unlikely the Senate can go through the entire confirmation process for Clayton by then. And at least today, Democrats are saying if Pulte is in the DNI role for one second, it doesn’t matter who Trump has officially nominated. They’re going to vote no on any extension of FISA 702 because they don’t want Pulte to have access to it.
And this is not the kind of thing that Republicans can pass on their own—they must have Democrats’ votes in both the House and the Senate to get it done.
The other reason why it’s unclear if FISA 702 is going to be extended is because of Jay Clayton himself. The law specifically says the person who holds the title of DNI shall have extensive national security expertise.
Jay Clayton is a high-powered lawyer. He was the chairman of the SEC during Trump’s first term, and he currently serves as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He has extensive legal expertise—absolutely—but no known intelligence experience.
Now, he may have some national security experience through his role as U.S. Attorney. He was actually the one who signed the indictment of Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro. But it’s unclear if that’s going to be enough to meet the threshold in the law and whether it’ll be enough to get Democrats on board to not only confirm Clayton, but also approve the FISA 702 extension.
As I mentioned, a temporary three-week FISA 702 extension failed in the House this morning because of both Democratic and Republican votes. The Republicans and some of the Democrats who voted no are upset because they think FISA 702 needs serious new guardrails to protect the privacy of American citizens.
But since that extension failed, it looks like this program will likely go dark tomorrow.
Watch Trump’s comments here.
Here is the House vote failed FISA 702 here.
