JUST IN: Senate CONFIRMS Jay Clayton as Director of National Intelligence

This just in: the Senate has officially confirmed Jay Clayton as the next Director of National Intelligence.

The final vote was 51-47, along party lines.

Jay Clayton will be replacing Bill Pulte, whom President Trump nominated to serve in the role temporarily after Tulsi Gabbard’s departure in June.

Watch the moment Clayton was confirmed here:

🚨 BREAKING: Jay Clayton has just been CONFIRMED as President Trump's Director of National Intelligence by the US Senate, 51-47

He'll be replacing BILL PULTE who just fired nearly 30% of the DNI office's workforce 🔥

Clayton has been targeting LEAKERS in his previous position,… pic.twitter.com/wM6OZFVwKY

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) July 28, 2026

In the few, short weeks he led the ODNI, Bill Pulte carried out five rounds of firings targeting Deep State intelligence officials.

Just this morning, he posted this update on X:

Good News! In addition to the Historic DECLASSIFICATIONS (Transparency!) by the President, we are, this morning, Executing a 5th and Near Final Round of TERMINATIONS, an approximately 30% Staff Reduction from Weeks Ago. The Intelligence Community must protect the American people,…

— DNI Pulte (@DNIPulte) July 28, 2026

Good News! In addition to the Historic DECLASSIFICATIONS (Transparency!) by the President, we are, this morning, Executing a 5th and Near Final Round of TERMINATIONS, an approximately 30% Staff Reduction from Weeks Ago. The Intelligence Community must protect the American people, NOT the political whims of the bloated and corrupt elite class.

No wonder Senate Democrats opposed Bill Pulte’s nomination so hard!

In fact, Democrats hated his appointment so much that they walked away from a bipartisan deal to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

But, despite Democrats pushing for an immediate replacement to get Pulte out of there, not a single one ended up voting in favor of confirming Jay Clayton.

CBS News explained why:

Democrats initially praised the selection of Clayton, who was until recently the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, to oversee the intelligence community. Mr. Trump announced the pick just hours before Section 702 was set to expire in mid-June, and Republicans moved quickly to confirm him as they tried to break the stalemate on the spy authority. But Mr. Trump upended those plans shortly before he was set to appear for his confirmation hearing last month, surprising Republicans.

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Clayton appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee — about a month later than originally planned — on July 15, where he declined to say outright that former President Joe Biden won the 2020 election, angering Democrats. Clayton repeatedly said Biden was “certified” as the president.

In a statement Tuesday, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Clayton “now has an opportunity — and the responsibility — to demonstrate that intelligence will never be shaped to fit a political narrative.”

“Having known and worked with Jay for years, I was encouraged when he was first nominated for the position of DNI. Unfortunately, I came away from his confirmation process with serious reservations about whether he would be willing to stand up to political pressure when it matters most,” Warner said. “Now that he has been confirmed, I sincerely hope he proves those concerns unfounded, because the Intelligence Community deserves steadier leadership than it has received in recent months.”

Still, Jay Clayton’s confirmation may open a pathway towards getting the FISA bill renewed.

Fox News reported further:

Clayton’s confirmation was thought to be a means to an end for the ongoing standoff over Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a tool that has been used to thwart several terror plots, including a planned mass-casualty event at a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna, Austria.

However, they changed their tune when it came time to vote, and after a contentious confirmation hearing where only Republicans voted to send him to the Senate floor.

“As Senate Republicans move to once again confirm an inexperienced and unqualified nominee to a position of massive national security consequence for years to come, one thing remains clear — this type of politicized leadership will only make Americans less safe,” Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said in a statement.

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Boiled down, the Section 702 program allows the U.S. government to collect intelligence on foreigners abroad who are using U.S. communication systems, and it serves as a major part of Trump’s daily intelligence briefing.

But it also sweeps up communications from Americans who are talking to foreign suspects — a key issue that threatened reauthorization among privacy hawks in both parties well before Pulte’s appointment and Clayton’s subsequent nomination.

The program expired, however, last month in response to Pulte’s appointment, despite warnings from Republicans that allowing Section 702 to go dark could have dire national security consequences.

And Clayton’s confirmation, for now, does not appear to be breaking through the partisan logjam. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Fox News Digital that the pressure wasn’t on to reauthorize FISA.

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“Democrats have refused to pass a bipartisan FISA bill until a new DNI is confirmed,” a spokesperson for Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton, R-Ark., told Fox News Digital. “Now that Jay Clayton is confirmed, it’s time for them to stop playing politics with national security and put up the votes to give our intelligence community the tools it needs to keep this country safe.”