Trump also said he has “five interviews” for outgoing DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s permanent replacement.

“Five different people, all very good, all people that you know very well, all people that do that kind of thing, and they’re very respected people,” he added.

Trump told the Wall Street Journal earlier Friday that he had asked his Federal Housing Finance Agency director and chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to “start the process” of firing a large number of employees at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

“I’d like to see it smaller,” he told the outlet. “I think there are a lot of people in there that shouldn’t be there.”

During her tenure, Gabbard, who leaves at the end of June, has already reduced ODNI’s workforce of 1,800 people by 30%.

Trump’s comments will do little to placate concerns from lawmakers on Capitol Hill that the president and Pulte are poised to politicize the position of DNI after Pulte, the grandson of a real estate mogul, used his access to mortgage applications to criminally refer Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), and Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook to the Justice Department over allegations of mortgage fraud.

At the same time, Republicans have long criticized the DNI’s office as a boondoggle.

“The whole thing was a post-9/11 mistake,” one former Trump administration official told the Washington Examiner. “It was supposed to be very small and elite, and now has 1,800 employees who just duplicate what other agencies do.” 

HOW BILL PULTE TURNED BEING AN ATTACK DOG INTO A CHARM OFFENSIVE WITH TRUMP

Another Trump alumnus pointed to how “a large number of leaks over the past few months have come out of ODNI.”

“There needs to be an internal hunt for leakers from the top,” the source told the Washington Examiner. “If the mandate to Pulte is plug the leaks and scale back ODNI while maintaining the fusion of intelligence across agencies, Pulte might do just fine.”