Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act--Motion to Proceed
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, unfortunately, we were at the point of almost having a consent agreement to have a vote on the confirmation of John Ratcliffe to be CIA Director tomorrow--not today, not yesterday when it should have happened, but tomorrow--but the Senator from Connecticut has decided to object at the last minute.
I don't really understand the objection to Mr. Ratcliffe. He was confirmed by this Senate to be the Director of National Intelligence. He was fully vetted through the bipartisan process in the Senate Intelligence Committee. We voted him out yesterday on a 14-to-3 vote.
Senator Schumer stood here yesterday and talked about how we are going to cooperate on highly qualified, capable nominees with integrity, which John Ratcliffe is, but the only vote we got yesterday was Senator Rubio.
Now we are not going to have a vote today, and apparently we are not going to have a vote tomorrow, which means I hope nobody is making any plans for the weekend or the evenings because we are going to get these nominees confirmed--starting with Mr. Ratcliffe and then moving on to Mr. Hegseth and moving on to Ms. Noem-- the easy way or the hard way.
We tried to cooperate with the Democrats. The cooperation has not been forthcoming, so I guess it is going to be the hard way starting on Thursday.
1, John Ratcliffe to be the Director of the CIA; that there be up to 2 hours of debate equally divided between the two leaders or their designees on the nomination; that following the use or yielding back of that time, the Senate vote on the nomination; that, if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to the nomination; that any related statements be printed in the Record; and that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate resume legislative session.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. COTTON. It is fine if the Democrats have legitimate concerns with this nominee or any other nominee. We had legitimate concerns with President Biden's nominees. Come down to the floor. Get it off your chest.
You talk about a full and real debate for 2 days. I hate to disappoint the people watching here. You are probably seeing more debate than we will have on John Ratcliffe's nomination for the next 48 hours before we confirm him. That is what I predict.
We could have debated this anytime today. We debated it for 2 months in the Intelligence Committee. The Senator from Virginia, the vice chair of the committee, worked diligently and promptly with me--his team with my team--to process this nomination so it would be ready for confirmation yesterday. On a bipartisan basis, 14 to 3--not many other nominees are going to come out of committee with that kind of vote.
So I understand the Democrats are opposed to some of President Trump's nominees, and I understand they want to vote no, and I respect that. But should we be denying the country a Senate-confirmed CIA Director in such dangerous times for no good reason?
Again, maybe Senator Murphy has more to say. I invite him to come down to the floor and speak again if there is a lot more to say. I predict, though, that once again this will be the longest debate we have about John Ratcliffe's nomination over the next 2 days.
What this is really about is trying to drag out all of these nominations, to play procedural games, as we are about to with Pete Hegseth's nomination, to try to deny President Trump his Cabinet in a prompt and timely fashion, just like the Democrats did in 2017. Yep, it happened in 2021 as well because around here, the shoe gets on the other foot pretty quickly. But it didn't happen in 2009. It didn't happen in 2001 and before that. We should get back to that practice. We should especially get back to that practice when it is a highly accomplished, well-qualified nominee of integrity like John Ratcliffe is.
So I regret that now we are going to spin our wheels for 2 days, but, as I said, don't make plans for the weekend, and don't have any dinner dates scheduled starting on Thursday night because we are going to get these nominees done the easy, collegial way or apparently the hard way.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. COTTON. The vote was 14 to 3.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source