Senate Democrats on Tuesday evening blocked the swift confirmation of John Ratcliffe, who is President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the CIA.
Democratic Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy objected to a time agreement that would have expedited the confirmation of Ratcliffe, who is the former director of National Intelligence. Murphy’s refusal to give Ratcliffe a swift confirmation vote could be the first of many objections by Senate Democrats to drag out the confirmation process for Trump’s cabinet nominees.
Murphy’s objection to Ratcliffe comes after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer appeared to commit to working with Senate Republicans on confirming Trump cabinet nominees evaluated by Senate Democrats to be “qualified” to lead their agencies.
“Democrats have been very clear about our approach to President Trump’s nominees,” Schumer said in a statement Monday. “We will neither rubber stamp nominees we feel are grossly unqualified, nor will we reflexively oppose nominees that deserve serious consideration.”
Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, slammed Murphy’s objection to Ratcliffe. Cotton said that Ratcliffe advanced out of the Senate Intelligence Committee with just three Senate Democrats in opposition. The panel’s top Democratic lawmaker, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, also supported Ratcliffe.
“I don’t really understand the objection to Mr. Ratcliffe,” Cotton said on the Senate floor. “He was confirmed by the Senate to be the director of National Intelligence. He was fully vetted by the bipartisan process on the Senate Intelligence Committee.”
Cotton also said that the Senate will work late nights and into the weekend to confirm Ratcliffe and other Trump cabinet nominees, such as Pete Hegseth for secretary of Defense and Kristi Noem for secretary of Homeland Security.
My message to obstructionist Democrats:
Don’t make plans this weekend. We’re going to get President Trump’s nominees confirmed the easy collegial way, or apparently the hard way. pic.twitter.com/DJrA09bTqk
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) January 21, 2025
“I hope nobody [senators] are making plans for the weekend or the evenings because we’re going to get these nominees confirmed starting with Mr. Ratcliffe, and then moving onto Mr. Hegseth and moving onto Ms. Noem — the easy way or the hard way,” Cotton said on the Senate floor Tuesday evening. “We tried to cooperate with the Democrats — the cooperation has not been forthcoming — so I guess it’s going to be the hard way.”
“Should we be denying the country a Senate-confirmed CIA director in such dangerous times for no good reason?” Cotton asked. “What this is really about is trying to drag out all of these nominations to play procedural games as we’re about to with Pete Hegseth’s nomination to try to deny President Trump his cabinet in a prompt and timely fashion.”
Murphy defended his objection to Ratcliffe’s swift confirmation.
“He repeatedly politicized intelligence in a way that does raise for many of us real questions about whether he’s going to spin highly sensitive intelligence his agency will gather for political purposes,” Murphy said during debate on the Senate floor. “I don’t think it’s too much to ask that we have a full, real debate that lasts two days on the Senate floor given the serious questions that have arisen about his qualifications to do this job in an apolitical manner.”
In March 2021, the Senate voted unanimously to approve former President Joe Biden’s CIA director William Burns without a roll-call vote.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is the only Trump cabinet nominee to receive a confirmation vote thus far.
A spokesperson for Schumer did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment about whether he believes Ratcliffe is “qualified” to helm the CIA.
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