Senator Cotton: unfortunately, we were at the point of almost having a consent agreement to have a vote on the confirmation of John Ratcliffe to be the 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 the Senate to be the director of national intelligence. He was fully vetted through the bipartisan process on the Senate intelligence committee. We voted him out yesterday, on a 14-3 vote. Senator Schumer stood here yesterday and talked about how we’re going to cooperate on highly qualified capable nominees with integrity. Which, John Ratcliffe is.

The only vote we got yesterday was Senator Rubio. Now we’re not going to have a vote today and apparently, we’re not going to have a vote tomorrow, which means I hope nobody’s making any plans for the weekend or the evenings cause 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. We tried to cooperate with the Democrats. The cooperation has not been forthcoming, so I guess it’s going to be the hard way. Starting on Thursday.

…

Senator Cotton: It’s fine if the Democrats have legitimate concerns with this nominee or any other nominee. We had legitimate concerns with President Biden’s nominee. Come down to the floor and get it off your chest. We talk about a full and real debate for two days, I hate to disappoint the people watching here, you’re probably seeing more debate than we’ll have on John Ratcliffe’s nomination for the next forty-eight hours before we confirm him. That’s what I predict. We could have debate this at any time today. We debated it for two months in the Intelligence Committee.

The Senator from Virginia, the Vice Chair of the committee worked diligently and promptly with me, his team, and with my team to process this nomination so it would be ready for confirmation yesterday on a bipartisan basis of 14-3. Not many other nominees are going to come out of committee with that kind of vote. So, I understand that the Democrats are opposed to some of President Trump’s nominees, and I understand that 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 that this will be the longest debate we have about John Ratcliffe’s nomination over the next two days. 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, just like the Democrats did in 2017. 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, or before that and 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’re going to spin our wheels for two days but as I said, don’t make plans for the weekend, don’t have any dinner dates starting on Thursday night because we’re going to get these nominees done the easy collegial way, or apparently the hard way.

https://www.facebook.com/HygoNewsUSA/videos/979614987363425
Sen Cotton: Democrats Block Floor Vote on CIA Nominee, drag out all to play procedural games