said so powerfully, as he pointed out at ms. gabbard's confirmation hearing, she sent this tweet at the very moment that russian tanks were rolling over ukraine's border. essentially saying that vladimir putin was justified in invading the free nation of ukraine. then-senate intelligence committee vice chair -- now secretary of state -- marco rubio tweeted in response saying, this is, quote, simply not true, end quote. noting that the week before the invasion, putin once again demanded nato leave every country that joined after 1997, including bulgaria, romania, and 12 others. ms. gabbard chose not to listen to the vice chair of the intelligence committee or the intelligence community itself, which had issued a declassified

threat assessment two weeks prior. ms. gabbard decided instead to give the benefit of the doubt to vladimir putin. how can we trust that she won't do that again? ms. gabbard has also repeatedly praised edward snowden, a former national security agency contractor hot fled to -- who fled to china, then to russia after he was charged in 2013 with illegally exposing government surveillance methods and classified information. ms. gabbard has called him a brave whistleblower and even went so far as to introduce legislation in the house of representatives to pardon edward snowden. in 2016 the house intelligence committee issued a declassified scathing report that found snowden leaked secrets that

caused tremendous damage to u.s. national security, including damage to american troops and american personnel overseas. as that report made clear, snowden was not a whistleblower. he was and is a traitor to this na nation. ms. gabbard and anyone who is interested in understanding the impact of the leaked secrets has access to the declassified house intelligence committee report and many other public sources of information explaining the damage that snowden caused for our national security. yet she continues to believe her own sources of information instead, and to this day will not say that snowden betrayed this country. let me be clear, edward snowden is not a whistleblower. he is a traitor. ms. gabbard should know this full well. if we confirm her as our next

director of national intelligence, ms. gabbard will be responsible for transmitting lawful whistleblower complaints to congress. her past statements on snowden reveal deficient understanding of our nation's whistleblower laws that should be patently disqualifying for any director of national intelligence much less any national security appointee. when my colleagues in the intelligence committee pressed ms. gabbard during her confirmation hearing about whether her views had changed and if she would acknowledge that mr. snowden is a traitor, she refused. this is who we want to lead our intelligence community? someone who outright refuses to condemn the actions of someone who jeopardized our national security and put the lives of many members of our intelligence community and national security

community at risk. it's hard to believe that we could be so reckless. finally, ms. gabbard has also advocated a full repeal of section 702 of the foreign intelligence surveillance act, or fisa. section 702 is one of our intelligence community's most important tools to effectively fight terrorism, disrupt foreign cyberattacks, impede drug trafficking and protect u.s. troops serving abroad. ms. gabbard introduced a bill in the house that would have completely repealed section 702. i will be the first to say that there are reforms to section 702 that we should make to ensure that this law always focuses on the communications of foreign targets abroad and never inadvertently used in a way that

invades the privacy of americans. in the past i've worked closely with my colleagues to advance some of these reforms. a wholesale repeal of section 702, however, is a wildly out-of-step and dangerous proposal. do we really want to confirm a director of national intelligence who has advocated for the dismantling of such a foundational source of foreign intelligence to protect our national security? so any number of ms. gabbard's statements or actions would be disqualifying for a nominee to lead our intelligence community and keep our president accurately informed on pressing national security matters. but i am not alone in raising concerns about this nomination. and as with many of trump's,

president trump's unqualified nominees, i have heard from many p new mexicans, many constituents in my own state in opposition to ms. gabbard's nomination. and i want to take a moment to read to you from some of these letters that i have received. addie, addie from mountain air wrote to me to share her concern about ms. gabbard's lack of experience to safeguard our nation. addie said running the dni requiring an unwavering commitment to evidence-based decision making, national security, and independence from political or foreign influence. tulsi gabbard has none of that. she is completely unfit for this position. a constituent and former intelligence officer from santa fe who wished to remain anonymous is concerned how ms.

gabbard's background will impact operations critical to defending the united states from foreign threats. this individual told me, as a retired intelligence officer, i urge you to do everything you can to keep tulsi gabbard from becoming the next dni. our allies will be reluctant to share intelligence with her, as will our own intelligence professionals, given her past support for putin and for other dictators. this is a job that needs to be filled by serious experts in intelligence and national security policy. katie from tularosa is troubled with ms. gabbard's past association with dictators and tighters. she wrote she has met with bashar al-assad, the unrepentant dictator and war criminal. her appointment threatens u.s. national security. gary also from tularosa, a

retired intelligence officer, worried about ms. gabbard's lack of national security experience and how it will affect efforts to safeguard the united states. gary wrote as a retired u.s. air force intelligence officer, i urge you to use all of your influence to block tulsi gabbard as the next director of national intelligence. she is absolutely unqualified to assume this key position in the intelligence community, to serve our nation the dni must have a deep understanding of the strengths and limitations of the broad array of civilian and military intelligence agencies. only then can the dni lead effectively and offer unbiased counsel to the president. tulsi gabbard has none of these qualifications or experience. walter from santa fe is a veteran who served as an intelligence officer as well. he wrote to me to convey his

disgust with president trump putting an individual of loyalty over national security with his nomination. walter said, i am appalled at president trump putting individual loyalty above competency in this appointment. while ms. gabbard is a veteran, she lacks experience in the field of national security and her playing with conspiracy theories lacking valid documentation raises serious questions about her judgment. i agree with my constituents in new mexico. ms. gabbard's poor judgment, lack of national security experience make her wholly unqualified to serve as our next director of national intelligence. confirming her to this role will make our nation less safe. and for all of these reasons, i will not be supporting ms.

gabbard's confirmation. thank you, mr. president.

>> good afternoon everyone. this week the senate budget committee and leadership of senator chairman graham will move forward with the budget resolution that will address many of the topics that we think are of immediate concern to the american people and priorities of president trump and his administration. starting with securing our southern border we desperately need resources to make sure that our leaders, and we heard from a couple of them today and senator graham will speak to that in just a minute, have the resources they need to do the job the american people expect us to do and that is to keep our southern border security and national security issue and economic security issues and secondly obviously just as importantly making sure our military and their defense is ready to deal with any threat that exists around the world.

the biden administration in every single one of their budgets didn't keep up with the rate of inflation when it comes to funding the military so they are things that need to be done to ensure that america is ready to face whatever threats exist in this very dangerous world and the final issue that will be addressed in this budget resolution is energy. the biden administration and their policies made it very difficult for this country to become energy dominant. it's a go wild to get us back to where we need to be and as we undo some of those policies and put policies in place that will encourage american energy production and get us on the way toward making america energy dominant. that's the goal and objective the objective this year. this is a process, the budget resolution which unlocks budget conciliation which enables us to do these things. so we are here today basically

senator graham is here to speak to that issue and to take questions that you might have about how that process works and what it looks like but as the week unfolds we hope he and his committee can move forward on this process and put us in a position where we are able to execute on the floor in addressing what are critical priorities with the president and with this administration for our country. securing our southern border rebuilding our military and unlocking american energy dominance. senator graham. >> i was the speaker johnson at the super bowl sunday with president trump and i told him and i want to tell everybody in the country i'm a huge fan and nothing would please me more than one big beautiful bill passed by the house that did all the things we need to do to make us prosperous and safe. that is my preference. what guide my thinking is the

problem we have now we are running out of money so we had tom holman and russ vought speak at the conference today and i'm urging the speaker to invite them over and let them tell the house what they told us. tom holman said i'm begging you for money. russ vought said we are running out of money for ice and we can't rob other accounts any longer. why do we need this money? bear 300,000 children that are missing that we want to find. the sooner we can find them, it will end their abuse and they are being abused while i speak. so to the american people if you want your government to track down these 300,000 immigrant children that are missing we need more money to do it. to the american people if you'd like to finish the law we need more money to do it. if you want a more moderate border we need money to do it in if you believe president trump

is right to track down and deport criminal aliens and cleanup the mess that's been created over the last four years, we need more ice agents. .. $150billion up the military yesterday. that will be part of this bill. we will have money for the coast guard. we are just not going to spend $153 billion were going to pay for it. what will happen tomorrow, hopefully, budget resolution says the armed services committee it will come out whent a 50 billion-dollar plan to increase spending, to make her

military stronger. will come up with 175 billion-dollar plan to secure the border. that will be judiciary and homeland security will enact that plant working with the administration. the other committees will be instructed by the budget committee to find offsets. so, what will they do? they will go into mandatory spending accounts and find offsets to pay for this. and, that is what we are going to do tomorrow. and while we are doing it tomorrow, after hearing these two gentlemen today we are living on borrowed time. i've never been worried about the terrorist attack on her home and then i am now per tom homan said the activity on the northern border is at an alarming rate. the number of suspected terrorist types have moved from the southern border to the northern border. after tom talked about trying to find these children, half of the

started to cry. you have no idea what these kids are going through. the sooner we get ice and other people the money, to free them the better off our country will be. to my friends in the house we are moving because we have too. i wish you the best. what one big beautiful bill i cannot and will not go back to south carolina. not supporting the president's immigration plan. they need the money and they need it now. >> editor cap and "thank you. i would to thank chairman graham for what is done to educate all of us. and to help all of us understand the process at the budget committee. we are excited about it and know will be a successful result. i want to add my voice to both

leader soon and our chairman to show we are very united across the hall with the house and the senate. we had the same goals. we have the same end in mind we share with president trump. and so, we are fighting hard that the house can find a way for the big beautiful bill. but, it's important for them to know we are working so that when that happens and if that happens we are all ready. in time is of the of essence. on the energy portion it's really important for us to unlock and unleash american energy. it's important for my sake, for my citizens is important for the country security both internal and external. we are going to roll up our sleeves will be watching carefully the budget can committee tomorrow we they will be successful we talk about immigration numbers last week and how the president has delivered with results. we got the tools to be more

successful to have good results in the future. thank you. >> questions were centigram? cooks make this compelling case about this money being now. i know you said you want them to talk to the house. if that's the case the house and over going to are built focused on government spending for that is not seen to invest in it why not? >> the briefing we just had i hope they will. all i can say is the one or $75 billion was broken down in a way that made perfect sense to me. we need to not release people into the community that wreak havoc. we need to finish the wall. we need ice ages to deport criminals and find these kids. all i can say is i wish the house would at least listen to what they are saying. what compels my thinking? i still want a one big beautiful bill.

but after what i heard today, not act. i saw president trump over the weekend. he wants to get results. and after that briefing if the republican party cannot provide the money to the trump administration to do all of the things they need to do to make a safe, we have no one to blame but ourselves. because, we have the ability through reconciliation to do this. and i just want to do it sooner rather than later. [inaudible] cooks your plan is a nonstarter. >> i am going to do i think is best with my colleague to make america safe. if you listen to what i said today and you're hesitant to act, that would be a problem. i heard tom homan, pretty tough guy, begging us for money. i beg you to give me more resources. i heard russ vought say ice is

out of money. all i can sell my house colleagues, whatever you need to do to get to one beautiful bill do it. do it now. have my blessing, you have my support. but, if you cannot do it quickly we need to go to plan b. i dare to say that most americans heard what we heard in that room, this debate would end pretty quickly. will quickly give money to tom homan and the military to get the job done. mr. whitehouse: is the senate presently in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are not. mr. whitehouse: in that case, mr. president, i am here to speak in opposition to the nomination of tulsi gabbard to serve as the director of national intelligence of the united states of america. setting aside her lack of

qualifications and setting aside her rotten judgment, her nomination strikes me as being part of a pattern of unilateral disarmament by the trump administration against russia. one can hazard as to why this is happening, but the fact that it is happening seems hard to deny. in november 2024, "the washington post" wrote this: gabbard's planned appointment as the head of national intelligence elicited the most excitement in russia because she has long been regarded as a darling of the propagandaist

russian r.t. network which i am my fied her sympathetic takes on bashar al-assad and putin. russian state tv has called ms. gabbard our friend tulsi. the russian newspaper published an op-ed, and it was titled, the cia and fbi are trembling why trump protege tulsi gabbard will support russia as head of national intelligence. so the russians are telling us pretty plain and simple she's with us. if you look at some of her behavior, particularly relevant to the dni position, she has constantly opposed section 702

of the foreign intelligence surveillance act which is a key source of foreign intelligence for our national security and which i guess i'd have to say in this location presumably is useful at getting intelligence on russia. she's not alone. over at the fbi, trump's nominee for fbi director, kash patel we just found out was paid $25,000 by a russian filmmaker with kremlin ties to participate in a documentary attacking the fbi, which is an adversary of russia's, which spends a great deal of time and effort keeping an eye on russia's adverse intelligence activity in the

united states. to make it worse, kash patel has said he wants to shut down what he calls the intel shops, the part of the fbi that would go after russian intelligence operations and russian criminal networks in the united states. he's even said he wants to shut down the fbi building and run everybody out into the field offices around the country. well, guess what takes place at fbi headquarters. our intelligence and cou counterintelligence operations. if you empty that plays out and move everything out to the field where everybody is doing regular criminal work, it's another way of saying we're going to shut down our intelligence operations. and just in the past week, since she has been in, attorney

general bondi has pulled down the doj kleptocracy asset initiative which has recovered billions of dollars of ill-gotten gains from foreign kleptocrats, many russian, many close to vladimir putin. and she shut down doj's task force kleptocapture which has been targeting the russian oligarchs around putin, seize their assets that has been used to support putin and his illegal, brutal invasion of ukraine and take those assets and provide them to the ukrainians for their rebuilding and defense. so common theme here. tulsi gabbard wants to come in as our friend tulsi, according

to russian state tv, to have the cia and fbi trembling because she will support russia. kash patel is coming into the fbi who takes money from a kre kremlin-associated filmmaker and promises to shutdown or degrade our intelligence capabilities within the fbi. and attorney general bondi is busy over at the doj taking down the anti-kleptocracy initiative to promote russia's gang of oligarchs who prop him up. it's 3-3 in unilateral disarmament by the united states against russia. there's a little history here that's worth going back to in evaluating all of this, and it includes that russia interfered

in the 2016 election through a kremlin-linked internet research agency. there's been a good deal of reporting on that but since that reporting there's been a persistent right-wing trump narrative to pretend that never existed, that there was no trump-russia thing. that trump-russia was a hoax. in fact, it was not a hoax. trump-russia was a thing as a bipartisan report from the senate intelligence committee pointed out. that bipartisan senate intelligence committee report found that russian president putin had ordered the russian effort to hack computer networks and accounts that were affiliated with the democratic party and that were affiliated with the democratic national

committee and that the purpose was to find and to leak information that would be damaging to hillary clinton in that election. here's what the committee found. i quote the report, the bipartisan report. moscow's intent was to harm the clinton campaign, tarnish an expected clinton presidential administration, help the trump campaign after trump became the presumptive republican nominee, and undermine the u.s. democratic process. that was the finding of the u.s. intelligence committee. -- sorry, community. as well as the finding of the intelligence committee. it went on. you remember that famous meeting, where trump took the russian ambassador and the russian foreign minister right into the oval office and

divulged to them highly classified information, highly classified information which caused u.s. officials to warn that trump's revelations jeopardized a key source of intelligence in the islamic state. they had to ping out to other intelligence agencies and to our offices in the field, look out. classified information has just been given to these putin officials to try to shore up and defend our sources and methods. the mueller report went to exhaustive effort, with all the support of grand jury and senior fbi and department of justice offi officials, and they concluded that the trump campaign both knew of and welcomed the russian

inter inter interference, and expected to benefit from it. it even talked about obstruction of justice by president trump. but what they concluded in talking about obstruction of justice by president trump is that he could not be indicted as a sitting president, and therefore would not be fair to lay out the conclusion that he had committed this crime because he wouldn't have a process by which to acquit himself and to clear the accusation. but they certainly laid out plenty of evidence that was sug suggestive that had he been an ordinary individual, he would have been indicted, charged, and convicted for obstruction of justice relating to this whole trump russia saga.

later, when he was asked about all this at a conversation about vladimir putin, he said, in november of 2017 about putin, he said putin said he didn't meddle in the election. i asked him. he said he absolutely did not meddle in our election. he did not do what they're saying he did. everybody in the intelligence community knew that he did, in fact, do what they're saying he did, but trump, for some reason, some connection, some trump-russia connection, went with putin rather than the united states law enforcement and intelligence services. the next year, in helsinki, trump met privately with putin for two hours. we don't know what happened, because they just met with their

interpreters. then they went out for a news conference, and there again, standing right next to putin, he sided with him over our own intelligence agencies. but the meddling was real. the meddling was documented. the mueller report helped document the meddling. if you go into the details, you see the subplots. paul manafort was trump's 2016 campaign chairman. he was meeting regularly, communicating regularly with a russian intelligence officer named constantin kilemnik and with a russian oligarch through the campaign. the senate intelligence committee bipartisan report found on numerous occasions manafort sought to secretly share internal campaign information with kilemnik.

this did not end well for paul manafort. he was indicted by a federal grand jury for the crime of conspiracy against the united states, convicted, and sentenced to more than seven years in prison. oh, except that trump pardoned manafort in late 2020. there was the infamous trump tower meeting in which donald trump jr., the same paul manafort, and son-in-law jared kushner met with a russian billaire and a -- billionaire and a russian lawyer connected to the kremlin, right in trump tower. the meeting came about because donald trump jr. had been told by a contact that the russian government wanted to offer, and i'm quoting here, official documents and information that would incriminate hillary.

official documents and information from the russian government that would incriminate hillary. the response? if it's what you say, i love it, and they went ahead to the meeting. clearly, the trump campaign's purpose for that meeting was to obtain from russia incriminating information on clinton to influence the election. the special counsel decided not to prosecute the attendees, in part because it couldn't determine that that information would actually have been determinative, because it related to orphans, and what didn't connect with the trump attendees at that meeting was that the interruption of the orphans being delivered to the united states for parents who wanted to adopt them was the

response to sanctions against oligarchs and people around putin. and this was an effort to get the sanctions lifted. if you could crack the code, you'd know that that is what the orphans conversation was about, because that's why the orphans block aid had been -- blockade had been set up. ultimately, russia did, in fact, hack e-mails, both from the dnc and from the clinton campaign chair. russian intelligence got their hands on those documents. trump -- here's what the intelligence committee wrote about that, trump and senior campaign officials sought to obtain advance information about wiki leaks' planned releases through roger stone. at their direction, stone took

action to gain inside knowledge for the campaign, and shared his purported knowledge directly with trump and senior campaign officials on multiple occasions. this wasn't just a one-off. this was information being channeled through roger stone to the trump campaign. didn't end well for stone. he was indicted and convicted on charges of lying to congress about what he, and then-candidate donald trump knew about russian efforts to discredit hillary clinton's campaign and witness tampering and obstruction. on we go to carter page, also associated with the campaign, who traveled to moscow in that time frame, july 2016, to

deliver a commencement speech, while working for the campaign. russia's deputy prime minister dorkovic expressed, quote, strong support for mr. trump. strong support for mr. trump. and a desire to work together. another campaign operative, george papa dop lus, same year, may, was traveling and told the greek foreign minister that the russians had dirt on hillary clinton. so you have all these pieces coming together about the russians seeking dirt on hillary clinton, getting it, leaking it through wiki leaks and constantly having a back channel through members of the trump campaign. didn't end well for popadopolous either. he was arrested for lying to investigators, pleaded guilty,

and of course trump pardoned him too, trying to cover up his tracer. michael flynn, in 2015, delivered remarks at a moscow gala honoring russia today, r.t., the same organization that tulsi gabbard was the darling of. he was seated at the gala next to putin. next to putin. he was paid $33,750 from r.t., whose darling tulsi gabbard was, for this one speech, didn't correctly report the payment. ended up being paid more than $67,000 by russian companies

before the 2016 presidential election. didn't end well for him either. he lied to vice president pence and to the fbi about communications he was having with russian ambassador sergei kisliach, about sanctions imposed by the obama administration while president obama was in office. yes, the sanctions related to the orphans conversation at trump tower. flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi about that conversation, and of course trump pardoned him days before flynn was due to be sentenced. it's kind of an ongoing thing between trump and russia. a lot of us on both sides of the aisle are very concerned about what's going on in ukraine. indeed, furious that putin would

launch his army into ukraine and perform massive atrocities and war crimes. firing rockets into children's hospitals, having soldiers murder through neighborhoods. it is a foul spectacle, and it started with russia's invasion of crimea, the so-called little green men. and trump thought that was all a pretty good thing. you'll remember that the way they started it was to foment riots by russian-speaking people in crimea to provide a justification for coming over the border. sort of 1930's europe-style tactics coming back to us here. so that kicked it off. there were these demonstrations. putin said oh, my people, my people, they're being abused by those terrible ukrainians, and in went the little green men. here's how trump praised putin's

invasion then of crimea -- when you see the riots in a country, because they're hurting the russians, okay, we'll go and take it over, and he really goes step by step, and you have to give him a lot of credit. and of course, there's the famous comment to russia publicly saying, russia, if you're listening, in is during the campaign, russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. i think you will probably be rewarded mightily in the press. then there were the episodes that i mentioned earlier, where he said, no, russia wasn't meddling in our elections, despite the thickety that -- the fact that everybody knew they were, but he took putin's side in all of that. most recently he refused to condemn putin for the death of

alexey navalny, who had been such a brave fighter, standing up against the corrupt putin regime and died in a penal colony at the age of 47. for a long time, i have described the united states as being in a clash of civili civilizations, with rule-of-law countries like ours on the one side and kleptocrats, autocrats, and governments run by criminal organizations, like the narco traffickers on the other side. fairly simple clash, rule of law v. rule of thuggery. there ought to be bipartisan support for making sure that the united states does not become a safe haven for kleptocrats and criminals. we should not be giving aid and comfort to our enemies, by allowing them to park their funds here in our country. we've made progress to combat

the kleptocrats and the international criminals who are on the other side of this clash of civil zicivilizations. ms. gabbard is not on the right side of that clash. not when she's so chummy with putin. not when she's so chummy with the murderer bashar al-assad. not when she is our tulsi to -- our darling tulsi to russian me media channels. ed a not when she's -- and not when she's lined up with kash patel, threatening to take down the fbi offices that track russia, taking money from a russian filmmaker, and then stack that up with attorney general bondi taking down the kleptocracy and kleptocapture efforts at the doj that have been making the russian

oligarchs' lives miserable by going after their assets. one, two, three, all unilaterally disarming against russia in the wake of all that time in which the trump-russia connection appeared over and over and over and over again. as far as i can tell, still persists today. i see my colleague here on i se senate floor and i will yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. a senator: mr. president, today the senate is deciding whether colonel tulsi gabbard should be the person who each day makes the call on which intelligence gets in front of the president

of the united states. that's what the director of national intelligence does. kelly they sift through -- mr. kelly: they sift through the intelligence from all the intelligence agencies from the cia, nsa, and decide what to brief the president on. which includes information about terrorists planning attacks here in the united states or on our servicemembers abroad. it includes evidence of adversaries backing cyberattacks. often the intelligence is incomplete or there are pieces that contradict one another. it's this person's job to cut through the noise and present the president with what he needs to know. there can't be any spin.

there can't be a finger on the scale to get him to do one thing or not do another. it requires impeccable judgment and sound decision-making. everything we've learned about colonel gabbard during her:confirmation process is that she's not the person for this job. it's that simple. mr. president, i went into this process with an open mind. colonel gabbard and i, we had a long meeting in my office. she responded to a number of written follow-up questions that my colleagues and i had for her. and i was able to ask her questions in an open and close hearing of the senate intelligence committee. and after each of those steps, i became more and more concerned.

colonel gabbard is often dismissive and has been at times outright hostile towards our intelligence community and the tools that it uses to protect this country. now, i have a tremendous amount of respect for colonel gabbard's service to this nation, and i do think that healthy skepticism is a good thing. it's something that i always valued of my crew members at nasa and i value it today in the senate. but that's not what we've seen from colonel gabbard. she has a track record of embracing overblown, flimsy claims that confirm her own viewpoint while easily dismissing the thorough assessments and the methods of our own intelligence community. that's not the person we should

want in this job. now, let's start here with her record on edward snowden. edward snowden was a government contractor who stole and then leaked highly classified information from the national security agency in 2013. snowden could have used whistleblower protections to securely and legally share concerns that he had about the legality of certain surveillance programs. but he didn't do that. instead he stole millions of document, most of which didn't pertain to the programs that he had raised concerns about. and then he leaked them. without caring about what would the lasting damage be to our national security.

after the department of justice revealed charges against him for committing espionage, snowden fled to russia where he was welcomed with open arms. edward snowden exposed our government's secrets to the world, includ adversaries. he put intelligence operatives and servicemembers around the world at risk, at great risk. and he made all of us less safe, and that's true even today. he should be in prison for betraying our country. colonel tulsi gabbard wanted him to be pardoned. she introduced legislation calling on the federal government to drop all charges against snowden, and

unsurprisingly, it failed to gain support. this was in september of 2020 after he'd been in russia for nearly seven years. and after the house intelligence committee had released a bipartisan report to the public detailing snowden, about how he had broken the law and made our country less safe. this came after that. and she publicly lobbied president trump to pardon snowden during his first term. he didn't. and on october 6 of 2020, gabbard called snowden a brafb -- a brave whistleblower. two weeks later, vladimir putin gave snowden permanent residency in russia. this should obviously be of great concern to anyone

considering her for this job, and it's clear that colonel gabbard knew it would be an issue in her confirmation hearing. she knew that. so she came prepared with a well practiced answer. and she used it word for word over and over again. vice chairman warner's first question was whether she thinks edward snowden is brave. she said that edward snowden broke the law. but that he released information that led to reforms. she didn't mention the harm he did to our national security. he followed up. she started with the same answer. and on and on it went. next with senator king. then senator young asked if she

agreed with the house intelligence committee report that snowden caused damage to national skecurity. she repeated the same answer she had given just before. at least eight times by my count as i sat there in the hearing room, she gave the same answer word for word. but the real moment of truth came when senator lankford of oklahoma asked her what he himself has publicly said was a softball question. and the question was, is edward snowden a traitor? it really should have been pretty easy. if you believe edward snowden broke the law and the law he broke is the espionage act, it's pretty clear that's exactly what he is. he's a traitor.

she wouldn't answer. senator bennet gave her another opportunity. she didn't take it. now, colonel gabbard came into her confirmation hearing with a plan to give the same nonanswer over and over again about edward snowden. and she was counting on that being enough to skate by. it wasn't for me. and i still can't understand to this -- to this day i still can't figure it out why she will not call this guy a traitor. colonel gabbard would be leading the men and women of our intelligence agencies whose work and lives edward snowden put at risk. i ask my republican colleagues, how can we entrust this responsibility with someone who wanted to free edward snowden

and still to this day cannot say whether or not he's a trait or? for a lot of nominees, that would be a way big enough issue to prevent them from getting this job. that's pretty clear. but so, too, would her hostility towards fisa 702, one of the most important intelligence collection tools that we have. this is the program that enables us to monitor the communications of foreign actors outside of the united states. it has stopped terror attacks. it has protected american troops serving abroad. about 60% of the president's brief every single day is derived from intelligence that's

gathered from this program, the very brief that colonel gabbard would be responsible for compiling every single day. without it we'd be exposed. we'd be less able to detect and prevent terror attacks or other attacks against the american people. but that's exactly what colonel gabbard tried to do. she voted against reauthorizing this program in 2018. and in 2020 she introduced legislation to repeal it, all of it, not just the piece -- the piece of it that congress was debating how to reform. she wanted to just get rid of the whole thing, all of it. and when she advocated for doing away with the program, she made false statements about how it

works and how it impacts american citizens. this should be a concern for anyone being considered for this job. because while the senate intelligence committee has a range of views on how this program should work, none of us on the committee, on either side of the aisle, has any interest in getting rid of it. because we know how important it is, how critical it is to the safety of all of us. in fact, we came together with others in congress to deliver reforms that further protect our civil liberties as americans while retaining the tools our president needs to stay ahead of threats. once again, colonel gabbard knew that this would be an issue with her confirmation. and again she bet that she could

just say as little as possible to just get by. that's why in a written response to the committee, she said -- and this is a quote -- my prior concerns about fisa were based on insufficient protections to civil liberties and significant fisa reforms have been enacted since my time in congress to address these issues. end of quote. sound reasonable. well here's the problem. just last year she was on a pod podcast trashing those very reforms she is now saying that they back up her position on fisa. she said, and i quote, this legislation that was just passed recently expanded those authorities. in some other ways it took an already bad problem and made it many, many times worse.

so which is it? did these reforms fix the issues she had with fisa? has she said in her written response? or do they make the problem worse as she said on the pod katz? -- on the podcast? it can't be both. colonel gabbard was asked about this inconsi kconsistency durin confirmation hearing and she couldn't answer for it. in fact she couldn't answer for what these reforms are and how they address her concerns or don't. and folks, mr. president, this is not trifb yal. -- is not trivial. the director of national intelligence works with the attorney general to assess compliance with the law and improve internal procedures that decide how the intelligence community will collect, use, and store foreign intelligence to combat threats like terrorism

while ensuring americans -- ensuring their constitutional rights are protected. that means colonel gabbard would be responsible for implementing these reforms and advising congress on their effectiveness. finally, as we are all aware, all of us in the senate, we are aware that this program is up for reauthorization in just over a year. president trump, he has been all over the map on this program. but as recently as last year, he told congress to kill fisa. the dni is going to advise the president and make recommendations about this program. fisa.

do we really trust that colonel gabbard will fight to protect this program, given her track record on this? i know i don't. that, too, should be disqualifying for this job. but the last example of colonel gabbard's hostility towards the intelligence community is the one that should give everyone the most concern. it is, for me. now, i said -- as i said earlier, the primary responsibility of this job is to coordinate across 18 intelligence organizations and sift through intelligence, make some sense of it and decide what to take to the president of the united states. and in her confirmation hearing, i asked colonel gabbard, what does a good process look like? and her answer to this question -- it was fine.

she said, build a strong team, welcome dissenting voices, and make sure the truth is reported. that's great. but then we got into a real-life example when she had sought out the intel, claimed to be reporting the truth, and then got it wrong. and that's where, for me, it was obvious she is not the right fit for this job. colonel gabbard accepts the conclusion that former syrian president bashar al-assad used chemical weapons against his own people, except for two incidents. she has publicly disputed the confident conclusion of our intelligence community and

international experts that assad used chemical weapons in konche and other place in syria in 23018. she offered a report on her campaign website questioning whether she is attacks were staged by anti-assad groups, despite the repeated determinations that this was yet another incident of him murdering his own citizens. now, you might be asking yourself why, why did colonel gabbard go to such great lengths to sow doubt about these two attacks knowing that it would have to be useful to assad's goals? why did she doubt our intelligence community's conclusion in these two cases but not the others?

well, i asked her. and here's how that answer began -- this is a quote, these two cases -- this is a quote from colonel gabbard. these two cases are being looked at to be used as a pretext for major military movement. and another -- and my fear, her words, my fear was a repeat of the deployment of another half million soldiers like we saw in iraq towards what was the obama administration's goals, which was regime change in syria. setting aside that obama didn't deploy a half million soldiers to syria, here's the problem. by her own admission, colonel gabbard's doubts about u.s. intelligence in these two cases began with her disagreements about how the intelligence was going to be used.

she didn't want the u.s. and our allies to strike syria as punishment for these chemical weapons attacks. so instead of making a strong argument on the policy, she tried to question whether the attacks happened in the first place. colonel gabbard also invoked the iraq war. and she's right. we needed to learn important lessons from the lead-up to the invasion. the biggest lesson was to carefully follow the intelligence where it actually leads, rather than bending it to fit the outcome that you want. which is exactly what colonel gabbard did in this case. it's that simple, folks. and it's also that dangerous. especially for someone in this job. if she's already disputed

intelligence because of how it would be used, would she do it again in this position? the position of the director of national intelligence. she's the person deciding what the president would see. would she withhold information? or would she seek out confirmation without regard for whom it came from? or that her viewpoint was correct? because that's what she did in this case. the report she authored questioning whether these attacks were staged relied on a professor without expertise in chemical weapons. his theory in this case -- his theories were deeply flawed and have been widely debunked by experts. i asked her colonel gabbard if

she was aware that this professor had appeared on russian propaganda news stations. she said she had no idea. to produce his findings, this professor relied on an australian chemistry student with a history of defending the assad regime. i asked her if she was aware of that. she said she was not, not at the time, but since she has been made aware. here's what that tells me. colonel gabbard was unwilling to even examine, let alone weigh, the biases and shortcomings of the sources she was seeking out and elevating. she embraced these people and their half-baked theories because they confirmed what she wanted to be true.

that assad didn't gas his own people in these two cases. she wanted it to be true so badly that five years later she says that she was still unaware of the facts of their background. facts that me and my staff, that we found with some rather routine searching of public information. it was not hard. and she trusted and further publicized their claims without verification, despite our government making clear that assad and russia would attempt to raise these sorts of questions and theories to distract america and our allies. mr. president, if that's not a red flag, i don't know what is. still, five years later, colonel gabbard came before the united

states senate intelligence committee and repeated all of this as if it weren't in contention. she continues to apply less skepticism towards these sources and narratives than the assessments of american intelligence operatives, professionals who have a ton of experience at this. and who she is nominated to lead. all because they support her point of view, that the united states should not have struck syria in reat that for their use of -- in retaliation for their use of chemical weapons. that's why she believed the people online. now, that kind of reverse engineering to try to steer a policy outcome is dangerous in a job like this. mr. president, the next couple of years are going to be challenging for our national

security, and i think we all agree upon that. we face threats that grow more complicated each and every day, and our intelligence community -- now, they're the best in the world. they're really good at gathering intelligence of all kinds. now, the hardest part is sifting through that information and making some sense of what it all means. making determinations, that's what this job is all about. and everything we have seen from colonel gabbard throughout this process suggests that she is the wrong person for this job. she lifted up edward snowden as a hero and is unwilling to call him a traitor. she tried to get rid of one of the most important intelligence collection tools that we have and has contradicted herself

when answering for it. and most central to this role, mr. president, she's displayed poor judgment and poor decision-making when assessing intelligence, especially when it comes to chemical weapons use in syria. each of these, each one of them on their own should be disqualifying for holding this job. taken together, they paint a picture of someone who is especially ill-suited and unprepared to take on this responsibility. and, mr. president, i know that these concerns are shared by my republican colleagues. so let's be honest about it. let's say no to the political pressure, and let's put our national security first, and

let's vote no on this nominee. thank you, mr. president. i yield the flo

test: .

encourage american energy production. ing officer: the senator from wyoming. ms. lummis: i ask unanimous consent that the senate be in a period of morning business for debate only with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. lummis: mr. president, i have three requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted. ms. lummis: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the appointment at the desk appear separately in the record as if made by the chair. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. lummis: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the order of january 24, 1901, the traditional reading of washington's farewell address take place on tuesday, february 18, 2024, following the prayer and pledge of the flag. the presiding officer: without objection, the chair on behalf of the vice president pursuant

to the order of the senate of january 24, 1901, as modified, appoints the senator from mississippi, mr. wicker to read washington's farewell address on tuesday, february 18, 2025. ms. lummis: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today it stands adjourned until 10:00 a.m. on wednesday, february 12. that following the prayer and pledge, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the senate proceed to executive session and resume executive calendar number 18 under the previous order. finally, that if any nominations are confirmed during wednesday's session, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the president be immediately notified of the senate's action.

the presiding officer: without objection. ms. lummis: if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned until the previous order following the remarks of senators blumenthal, warren, and schumer. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. blumenthal: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: mr. president, i'm here to ask my colleagues to join me in a very simple truth. tulsi gabbard should not be the next director of intelligence. it's a simple, unequivocal truth, and it should be so clear to everyone because she is unprepared and unqualified for this role. she lacks the competence and character, and that has been made crystal clear in the proceedings so far during her confirmation. i urge my colleagues to consider not just her lack of

preparedness, but the existential threat her confirmation would pose within the intelligence community that she would head. since the revolutionary war, our nation's intelligence be professionals have served out of the spotlight, never expecting recognition or adulation or award. they served in some of the most demanding, dangerous posts in harm's way and hostile environments far from their families, in many cases unable to speak to their friends and loved ones for long periods of time and unable to tell them where they are or what they're doing. others serve in the nation's most sensitive facilities here in washington, d.c., or elsewhere in this country. many of them constitute the best

mathematicians, best linguists, best analysts and cryptographic minds in the world. they choose to serve because they believe in the values and institutions that we should cherish and protect -- democracy, integrity, the truth. we expect our intelligence professionals to live to the standards personified by one of connecticut's glatest sons -- greatest sons, nathan hale whose dying regret was he had but one life to give to his country. he served ably and instrumentally during the revolutionary war. he came to be admired and add lated for his patriotism, his dedication, his willingness to give his life for his country.

that is the tradition of our nation's intelligence community. they know they are going into some of the riskiest places on the planet. they do it for their country, and they keep it secret. i can't support tulsi gabbard to be in charge of them. i can't countenance allowing someone who is this risky to them and to our country having responsibility over their lives and their capacity to contribute to the intelligence that is critical to this country avoiding disasters. you know, what i've learned in this body is that very often the most important work of the intelligence community is to

avoid disaster, terrorist attack, or other kinds of catastrophes. and the country never knows about it because it's been avoided. the history of these last two and a half decades since 9/11 is we have avoided some of the greatest disasters that might have befallen us because of that intelligence community, their competence and their dedication. ms. gabbard has given a part of her life to the nation through uniformed service, and i respect her service in that role. but she has given another part of her life to our adversaries in service to those who would see us become supplicants of ruthless, ruinous powers.

her integrity is at best suspect. her judgment is flawed. her moral compass is capricious. that's a nice way of putting it. for the last several years she's made a career of antagonizing the very patriots who serve in the community she now wants to lead. her disdain for the intelligence community undermines the public's trust in those very agencies that often serve as our first line of defense and avoid those catastrophic attacks on this country or on our allies and partners and friends around the world. those agencies are not just our first line of defense. they are sometimes the line of defense against attacks. make no mistake, we're in an age of strife and conflict.

it demands leaders of principal and determination, leaders who are willing to counter the efforts of anyone who would seek to end all of our democratic and free people. russia is waging an illegal murderous war against ukraine. it is hell-bent on establishing itself as a disrupter in europe for the foreseeable future, a disrupter of democracies. it is using disinformation through social media and tech for l spreading lies and dividing democracy, bolstering far-right movements that threaten the fabric of our al allies. democracy. it isn't just our nation that is at risk. it is democracies around the

world at risk from russia. and in the indo-pacific, the people's republic of china is determined to defy the international norms that have maintained security in the region for 60 years. iranian temerity in the middle east throws the region potentially into an uncontained religious war stained by sectarian zeal and the potential use of nuclear weapons. we must stop a nuclear armed iran at every potential cost. and we should be siding with our ally there, our great friend and partner israel to stop a nuclear armed iran. we should support their effort to eradicate terrorism. hamas, hezbollah, the houthis, proxies of iran. the axis of evil that we're

seeing now -- russia, china, iran -- moving against us, they are working together and they're developing new methods to threaten the united states and our allies around the globe. they are potentially disastrous to our security and our allies and the intelligence community stands as a bulwark seeking information sometimes at great cost, developing human sources of intelligence, using electronic surveillance. all of it depending on secrecy and trust. the credibility of this nation will crater if tulsi gabbard is confirmed. ms. gabbard's confirmation would be a self-inflicted wound. i don't believe that conflict is

unavoidable or inevitable, but we should not do our adversaries' work for them. and confirming tulsi gabbard puts in place someone who has proven untrustworthy throughout her career, potentially an aide to moscow, beijing, tehran, and others. we are waiting for this body -- they are waiting for this body to give her control of the intelligence community. putin's minions call ms. ga gabbard, our little girl. i'm probably mispronouncing the russian, but i've got the english right. our little girl. she has routinely parroted the kremlin's talking points on the war in ukraine, castigated nato and painted vladimir putin as a victim.

that's exactly how vladimir putin wants to be depicted, and mother russia to seek reestablishment of the russian empire, including ukraine, potentially poland and other eastern european countries. that's his agenda, and ms. gabbard apparently is sympathetic. as my colleagues on the intelligence committee noted, she went as far as meeting with president bashar al-assad and upended the obama administration's efforts to isolate a vicious dictator. for years she's been one of the most effective apologists for autocracy, exactly what we should be es chewing when

autocracy poses a threat around the world. she is a star but not in a good way. she is a star for our adversaries, our enemies, and others who mean us harm. she's either complicit in putin's machinations or unable to establish fact from fiction, either one makes her unfit for this critical role. we claent her, the proverbial fox into the henhouse. we can't let her into a position that demands character, character, integrity, and sound judgment. we can't let her be confirmed.

i ask my colleagues to join with me in saying no to tulsi gabbard. there are other kwirmgsz that -- confirmations that we've opposed, there are other individuals whom i have said are unqualified for positions of high trust in the president's cabinet. there is a general deference that should be paid to the president in choosing his team. but this position is one of the most critical sensitivity and important, demanding the highest trust and credibility. it should not be occupied by tulsi gabbard. i ask my colleagues to join me in saying and voting no. thank you, madam president, and i yield the floor to my great

colleague from the state of massachusetts, senator warren. ms. warren: madam president. the presiding officer: senator warren is recognized. ms. warren: thank you, madam president. and thank you, senator blumenthal, for your unrelenting work to help protect our nation and in raising this issue around tulsi gabbard as a nominee to be the director of national intelligence. i appreciate your work here and i'm proud to be able to follow you in this effort. i'm here today because tulsi gabbard's nomination is a national security threat. we are being confronted with a vote that could put all of us at risk. look, everybody in the senate understands the threat that tulsi gabbard poses, but i want to make sure that everyone understands the job she would have. why do we even have a director

of national intelligence? the short answer is to prevent another 9/11. the director of national intelligence position was born in the aftermath of the terrorist attack in new york that caused the twin towers to collapse to the ground, that collapsed the pentagon, that led to the deaths of 40 brave passengers on flight 943. these attacks killed almost 3,000 people and they affected families, coworkers and neighbors and in every state in our country and around the world. soon after the attacks, we asked the most obvious questions. how did this happen? why didn't we see this coming? why weren't we able to head it off? it rapidly became clear that our

nation had major intelligence failures. we were gathering intelligence abroad and here at home, but we were not effectively integrating and coordinating foreign military and domestic intelligence, and the result of that failure was catastrophic. that's where the dni director comes in. the director of director of national intelligence is the keystone that holds together our intelligence community. this is the person who coordinates across agencies to make sure that each component of our intelligence system is talking with every other to make sure that what happened on 9/11 doesn't happen again. this person is the principal advisor to the president on any

national security related intelligence. the director of national intelligence is central to how we make decisions about where our military should be deployed, it's central to how we identify our greatest national security threats, and is central to knowing what our enemy is going to do next. all of that. tulsi gabbard is aggressively unqualified for this job, and making her the director of national intelligence will increase the risk of a national security crisis. for starters, she has no experience in the intelligence community and she has never served as a national security official in the executive branch. tulsi gabbard is also disqualified to be director of national intelligence, not just

unqualified, but actually disqualified. his disqualifications mean that she should be kept far, far away from any part of our government intelligence system. the problems with tulsi gabbard are many. she is an apologist for vladimir putin, routinely spreading russian misinformation and russian talking points about both ukraine and syria. she rejected our own u.s. intelligence that assad used chemical weapons against syrian civilians. and she went to syria to meet assad, who had threatened to activate suicide bombers within the united states and europe. let me state this as clearly as i can.

tulsi gabbard would be the number one person in charge of all of our nation's secrets, all of them, all of our intelligence, every piece of secret information that we gather from around the world, and every secret that our allies around the world might share with us. she would know all of it, and she would have access to all of it and she would be the one who would fit it all together. then she would be one of the people responsible for viezing the -- advising the president on when and where to use our military. i am deeply concerned about tulsi gabbard's track record and whether she can be trusted with our secrets, but i'm not the only one who's worried. with the history that tulsi gabbard has, can we reasonably expect other nations to trust us with the secret information that

they gather? even if gabbard behaved admirably as dni, the united states would likely have less access to sensitive information because our allies just wouldn't want to take a chance on her, just wouldn't want to take a chance that information that they gathered and passed along, information that could make their own operatives at risk, for example, would not want to take a chance to pass that information along to the united states, that tulsi gabbard would see it, and then who knows where it goes. i am concerned that other countries would say because they don't want to take a chance on her, that it would further undercut national security if tulsi gabbard were confirmed as dni. what i'm saying tonight is not breaking news.

there's nothing here that hasn't been said before. concerns about tulsi gabbard have been circulating on capitol for years. every single senator, democrat, republican, or independent knows that they are putting our national security at risk if they support tulsi gabbard's confirmation to head our nation's intelligence coordination. every single senator, republican, democrat, independent knows the threat that tulsi gabbard poses. every single senator, republican, democrat, or independent knows that tulsi gabbard could be handling our -- handing our secrets over to our staunchest adversaries. the risks our nation faces are

rising by the hour. tulsi gabbard at dni, peat hegseth -- pete hegseth at dod, and it's not just confirmed cabinet appoint east putting our -- appointees putting our nation at risk, just look at elon musk and his doge people. for them to gain access to our over $6 trillion payment system, we don't know what safeguards those hackers pull down. we don't know what gates they open, and they have apparently tried to get access to sensitive information at the consumer financial protection bureau and they have gained access to medicare and medicaid records, which, by the way, is another $1.5 trillion in payments every year. they seem to be rushing to

access more large data sets across the united states government every day. when musk's team got into our federal databases, were the gates open for hackers from china, from north korea, from iran, from russia? what criminal gangs and black hat hackers now have access to our personal data? i never thought away would get to this moment? my colleagues in the senate, despite our differences, have always taken national security seriously. but at a moment when they are faced with a choice between endangering our country or bending the knee to donald trump, too many republican senators are too afraid of billionaires and trump in their

own party to do what they know is right. i want to take some time to underscore just how dangerous tulsi gabbard will be to our national security. let's start with tulsi gabbard's ties to russia. these connections are laid out nicely in "the new york times" article, how tulsi gabbard became a favorite of russia's state media. quote, in 2017, when she was still a democratic member of congress, tulsi gabbard traveled to syria and met with the country's authoritarian president bashar al-assad. she also accused the united states of supporting terrorists there. the day after vladimir putin began a full-scale invasion of ukraine in 2022, ms. gabbard blamed the united states and

nato for provoking the war by ignoring russia's security concerns. she has since suggested that the united states covertly worked with ukraine on dangerous biological pathogens and was culpable for the bombing of the nor stream gas pipeline from russia to germany in january 2022. officials say that sabotage was carried out by ukraine operatives. according to analysts and former officials, ms. gabbard seems to simply share the kremlin's geopolitical views, especially when it comes to the exercise of american military power. let me just say that again. according to analysts and former officials in government, ms. gabbard shares russia's

point of view especially when it comes to attacking american use of military power. back to the story. in russia, the reaction to her potential appointment has been gleeful, even if mr. putin's government remains wary of american politics even under a second trump administration. quote, the cia and the fbi are trembling provda, a russian newspaper wrote on friday of a glowing profile of ms. gabbard. noting positively that ukrainians consider her, quote, an agent of the russian state. rosia, called her a russian comrade in mr. trump's emerging

cabinet. russian media has emphasized ms. gabbard's desire to improve relations to moscow, according to a firm that analyzes news organizations and other postings. quote, gabbard fits an overall pattern of trump breaking with much of the post cold war consensus said jonathan tubner, the chief executive of filter labs. she is for russia the one that perhaps most perfectly embodies the changes they were hoping for from the u.s. in other words, tulsi gabbard is russia's dream come true. mr. trump's critics call the choice a dangerous one that would undermine national security and that signaled a

deference to mr. putin's world view. quote, nominating gabbard for director of national intelligence is the way to putin's heart, and it tells the world that america under trump will be the kremlin's ally rather than its adversary, ruth giant, a professor of history at new york university and author of "strong men" a 2020 book about authoritarian leaders wrote on friday, quote, and so, we would have a national security official who would potentially compromise our national security. let me say that one again. and so we would have a national security official who would potentially compromise our national security. quote, this war and suffering could have easily been avoided if biden admin./nato had simply

acknowledged russia's legitimate security concerns regarding ukraine's becoming a member of nato, which would mean u.s. nato forces right on russia's border. gabbard wrote on twitter, now known as x, when the war began in february 2022. a month later, she posted a video on the platform saying the united states was operating 25 to 30 biological research labs in ukraine. she accused the biden administration of covering them up, and said they could release dang dangerous pathogens. though she stopped short of claiming the labs were making biological weapons, as russia has falsely claimed. ms. gabbard's remarks were quickly called out by republican members of congress, including representative adam kinzinger of

illinois and senator mitt romney of utah. her willingness to criticize the biden administration made her, like other prominent critics of the government, a favorite source of anti-american content on russia's state television networks. vladimir sulavia, a popular talk show host, called her our girlfriend in a segment in 2022. the program included an interview ms. gabbard did with tucker carlson in which she claimed that mr. biden administration's -- that mr. biden's goal was to end mr. putin's control of the russian government, according to julia davis, creator of the russian media monitor, which tracks kremlin propaganda. her appearances were regularly picked up by russia's state media, including the international network r.t., which promoted her critiques and

lauded her with headlines, such as tulsi gabbard dares to challenge washington's war machine, and biden wants regime change in washington -- ex-congresswoman. by this year, ms. gabbard's politics converged with mr. trump's. in october, she joined the republican party and hit the campaign trail on his behalf, extolling him as a peacemaker. quote, a vote for donald trump is a vote for a man who wants to end wars, not start them. she said at mr. trump's rally at madison square garden, shortly before election day. quote, and who has demonstrated already that he has the courage and the strength to stand up and fight for peace. that's the end of the article. ah, tulsi gabbard --

beloved by russian press, touted in russian press, and an attacker of america's military. or take key sections from this letter that william webster, the only person who lead both the fbi and cia sent to me. he was appointed by president jimmy carter, remained director under president ronald reagan, and reagan tapped him to be the head of the cia. i will quote directly from the letter. dear senator warren, i had the honor as -- i had the honor of serving as director of both the fbi and cia, organizations vital to safeguarding our nation. their effectiveness depends on operating with complete independence from political infl influence, a principle essential to maintaining public trust and national security. history has shown us the dangers of compromising this

independence. when leaders of these organizations become too closely assigned with political figures, public confidence erodes and our nation's security is jeopardized. this underscores the necessity for these institutions to serve the american people, not the political agendas of the executive or legislative branches. congresswoman gabbard's profound lack of intelligence experience, and the daunting task of overseeing 18 disparate intelligence agencies, further highlight the need for seasoned leadership. effective management of our intelligence community requires unparalleled expertise to navigate the complexities of global threats and to maintain the trust of allied nations. without that trust, our ability

to safeguard sensitive secrets and collaborate internationally is severely diminished. as someone who transitioned from the fbi to the cia, i can attest to the steep learning curve, even for a seasoned professional. this is no time in world history for a novice in the field to learn this role. every president deserves appointees they trust, but the selection process must prioritize competence and independence to uphold the rule of law. as you consider these and future nominations, i urge you to weigh the critical importance of nonpartisan leadership and experience. the safety of the american people and your own families depends on it. trust in our intelligence and

law enforcement agencies is also crucial for our international partners. without that trust, we cannot be effective in guarding sensitive secrets or collaborating to address shared threats. thank you for your careful consideration of these pivotal appointments. sincerely, william webster, former director of the cia and fbi. that's the end of his letter. i just want to say how grateful i just want to say how grateful you websteronline withdual

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intelligence. we are being asked to vote for

someone whose loyalty to this country has been questioned repeatedly and who has raised alarms for our allies across the globe. it would be a dangerous mistake to give tulsi gabbard access to all of our secrets and an even greater mistake to trust tulsi gabbard to protect this country. i urge all of my colleagues to vote no. madam president, i yield the floor.

we are just waiting for tenant to speak on the floor for the next boat will be on confirming and weathered events and nomination of rfk junior to be secretary of hhs. those votes happen on wednesday at 11:00 a.m. eastern here on

cspan2 just waiting for senator to speak.

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the combination of robert f kennedy george b health and human services. president trump is tapped. es th leader. mr. schumer: madam president, this week senate republicans will force a pair of nominees through the senate they know perfectly well do not merit confirmation, but republicans will confirm them anyway because donald trump is strong arming them into submission. today senate democrats are here on the minor to oppose one of those two nominees, tulsi gabbard. she had been nominated by the president to serve as director of national security intelligence, the number one intelligence officer of the entire federal government. by now there's no question about whether or not ms. gabbard is qualified to lead america's intelligence agencies because by any objective measure and by

every objective measure as well, she is not qualified. from the moment she was nominated both democrats and republicans were puzzled by this choice. of all people donald trump could have picked to oversee national intelligence, he picked someone known for repeating russian propaganda and getting duped by conspiracy theories. do republicans honestly think this is the best person for the job out of all the other so many qualified people? 52 republicans voted last night to advance her. but i know both sides of the aisle still remain troubled by this nominee. i hope, i pray for the sake of our country, of our security republican colleagues think very carefully before casting their vote. i hope they think about the safety of our people, the concerns of our allies, and the

threats -- the threats posed by the likes of putin and xi and others before casting their vote. every single democrat, i'm proud to say, will oppose the nomination of tulsi gabbard because we simply cannot in gone conscience trust our most classified secrets to someone who echoes russian propaganda and falls for conspiracy theories. it is alarmingly dangerous -- dangerous, not just bad but dangerous, to trust someone like that. the job of national intelligence is a matter of life and death. the job is to oversee all 18 of the nation's intelligence agencies. dni would be the top intelligence advisor to the president of the united states. it would be their job to decide what intelligence reaches the president's desk and what does

not. few positions in government carry the burden that dni will carry every single day. the person who serves as dni therefore cannot be someone controversial, they cannot be someone who has to literally convince senators to ignore their checkered past, to ignore their conspiratorial views and essentially ask senators to hold their nose while they support her and that's what tulsi gabbard has had to do with so many senate republicans. who is kidding who? who are our republican colleagues kidding when they talk about -- that she's a good choice? it's incredible. it's incredible given her long list of frailties and dishonesty and conspiracies. there should never, never be any doubt that the dni is qualified and shows sound judgment.

she wouldn't meet a low bar, but this job has a very high bar because it is so important to our security. the director of national intelligence must be fluent in the truth, fluent in the truth. but ms. gabbard speaks the language of falsities and conspiracy theories. listen to this, america, this is who they want to put in, this is who donald trump wants to put in, someone who shortly after russia invaded ukraine gabbard's infamously spread a false conspiracy theory. she suggested that the u.s. was supporting biolaboratories in ukraine without a shred of evidence. you know where this myth came from, donald trump? from russia. it was spread to justify putin's invasion. that alone is more than enough

to be disqualified for anyone seeking to become the top intelligence advisor to the president of the united states. but the world is inside out, turned topsy-turvy, upside down by donald trump, and it is confounding that america is at this point, and even more confounding, that our republican colleagues at this point are going along with someone they know is so patently bad for this agency. they should be ashamed of themselves. there are certain times that you have to buck and and with ms. gabbard this is one of them. the director of national intelligence must be strong against america's adversaries, she has spent time with the likes of putin and assad. nobody who plans a secret face-to-face meeting with bashar al-assad while in the middle of

slaughtering his own people should be in this job and could possibly claim to be strong against america's adversaries. after assad used chemical weapons against his own people -- this list goes on and on. it's almost fictional it's so bad. so after assad used chemical weapons against his own people that 2017 and 2018, tulsi gabbard turned against u.s. intelligence and sided with fringe conspiracy theorists to cast doubt on these two specific incidents. i want to be clear on how strange and troubling this episode was. on the one side you had the entire united states ecosystem and the intelligence of the freven government and the organization -- french government all saying the same thing assad used chemical

weapons against his own people in 2017 and 2018. it was based on satellite imagery, witness accounts, medical experts. in other words, the kind of intelligence data that ms. gabbard would be responsible for evaluating on this important job. and then on the other side, on the other side of all these intelligence experts and all of this evidence, you have tulsi gabbard relying on the judgment gabbard relying on the judgment home

the senate continuing work on president trump's c nomination for the next votes in the senate will national intelligence, and whether to advance robert f kennedy jr. to be secretary of health and human services but those votes are scheduled to happen wednesday morning at 11:00 a.m. eastern time. other denominations in queue for votes include howard lutnick service commerce secretary brooke rollins for agriculture secretary and kelly loeffler to lead small business administration but watch live coverage of the senate on cspan2. cspanshop.org as he spends online store browse to the latest collection of c-span or products, apparel, books, home to cork, and accessories. there's something for every c-span fan every purchase help support the nonprofit operation. shop now or any time at cspanshop.org.

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