Senate Confirms John Ratcliffe As Trump’s CIA Director
On Thursday, the GOP-led Senate confirmed the nomination of John Ratcliffe to become CIA director in President Donald Trump‘s second term.
The final tally was 74-25, with many Democrats joining with Republicans in voting for Ratcliffe, who is the second Trump Cabinet nominee to be confirmed after Secretary of State Marco Rubio was approved unanimously earlier this week. A simple majority was needed for confirmation.
Ratcliffe is a former House Republican from Texas who served as director of national intelligence at the end of the first Trump administration.
During his confirmation hearing last week, Ratcliffe testified that he demonstrated his “record in terms of speaking truth to power and defending the intelligence community and its good work” when he stood firm against efforts to discredit the Hunter Biden laptop story.
“In 2020, when a chairman of an intelligence committee misrepresented that a laptop owned by then-candidate [Joe] Biden’s son was somehow a Russian intelligence operation and 51 former intelligence officials used the imprimatur of IC authority to go along with that, I stood in the breach. I stood alone and told the American people the truth about that,” he said.
CIA Director Nominee @JohnRatcliffe: “In 2020, when a chairman of an intelligence committee misrepresented that a laptop owned by then candidate Biden’s son was somehow a Russian intelligence operation… I stood in the breach. I stood alone and told the American people the truth… pic.twitter.com/5d75IK13BG
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) January 15, 2025
The Senate Intelligence Committee advanced Ratcliffe’s nomination by a 14-3 vote with bipartisan support. However, earlier this week, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) objected to a so-called time agreement that would have allowed a final confirmation vote to have taken place on Tuesday.
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Murphy said he wanted a “full” debate that lasted a couple of more days while insisting that some members had “serious concerns” that the CIA pick would not be able to “distance himself from the political interests of President Trump.” Intelligence Chairman Tom Cotton (R-AR) rejected Murphy’s claim about Democrats needing more time and surmised that “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.”
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
The Senate could hold a confirmation vote on Hegseth, who is the nominee to become defense secretary, as early as Friday after GOP leadership took procedural steps to set it up in the face of Democrat resistance to speed up consideration of Trump’s Cabinet picks. South Carolina Governor Kristi Noem, who is Trump’s nominee to become Secretary of Homeland Security, may be next with a final vote over the weekend.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) warned Democrats against slowing down efforts to confirm Trump’s nominees, saying on X: “As I’ve repeatedly said, Senate Republicans are ready to work as long as needed to confirm President Trump’s nominees. Nights. Weekends. Recesses.”