Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) questions Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent during a Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs hearing in Washington, DC on February 5, 2026. Nathan Posner | Anadolu | Getty Images Republican Sen. Thom Tillis on Wednesday blasted President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. intelligence community as an “incendiary attack dog” who has no path to being confirmed by the Senate. The remarks on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” from the retiring North Carolina senator added to the growing backlash against Bill Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, whom Trump appointed acting director of national intelligence on Tuesday on top of his housing role. “I don’t think he has a prayer” of making it through the Senate and becoming the permanent DNI, Tillis said of Pulte. “Whoever told the president to go ahead and commit to this publicly before vetting it should lose their jobs, because they should know that the math just works against Pulte being confirmed,” he said. But the senator also acknowledged that the Trump …