and he has already shown that he has little respect for congressional oversight. though i think that this nomination is badly flawed. i hope that the senate will not accept it. i have been through a number of those and starting with violating the policy of not paying your medicare taxes, this nomination in my view is an exhibit of what you should not have come before the floor of the united states senate. with that, i yield the floor. >> madam president. >> senator from idaho. a few detractors frame their policy preferences and i emphasis, policy preferences as if they are compliance issues with regard to his taxes. with regard to his taxes. sent followed all applicable law and met the finance committee's long-standing and rigorous diligent standard. the finance committee has the most rigorous standards for vetting nominees of any committee in this congress. having tax experts come in and evaluate tax returns with us. his diligence matched that geared he provided extensive supporting material for all of the attacks on him. including more than 3000 pages worth. he

so obviously this position is one that requires congressional oversight. i don't think any of us up here would ever ask you to answer questions in a way that revealed anything that was classified or was more appropriate for closed session. so i want to ask you why you thought that was appropriate and then today can you commit that if confirmed, you will appear at this committee's annual open hearing on worldwide threats and take questions from the committee itself? mr. ratcliffe:

i expect h h s to provide timely incomplete responses to congressional oversight. number 2, next p b hours. something you and i discussed in our office. i've been working the whole pharmacy benefit managers are comfortable in order lower prescription drug prices. i expect you to work with us to hold p a p, dams accountable. and that may be watching all, just as for us to refer to your gm tube or bringing you come to receiving it as that you should not have generic vaccines apply to everybody at the same time. so he's attempting to go back to an extent to stones on vaccine seats, regarded publicly as an empty back set to put it at kelly. he's also just being honest about his stance on these so called o salvatore's maximum security prison. the biggest in the world to do to house the gang members. the government's cool and it's cracked down. it has room for $40000.00 people and it's almost full prison authorities told us 80 to a 100 prisoners in each. so only let's out for 30 minutes of exercise a day in the hallway. the government's cracked down has worked by anyone'

so, obviously, this position is one that requires congressional oversight. i don't think any of us up here whatever ask you to answer questions in a way that revealed anything that was classified or was more appropriate for closed session. i want to ask you why you thought that was appropriate and today, can you commit that if confirmed you will appear at this committee's annual open hearing on worldwide threats and take questions from the committee itself? mr. ratcliffe: senator, thanks for the question. i think there was a slight mischaracterization. i didn't refuse, i made a proposal about how to handle the worldwide threats hearing. i did that for a number of reasons. first of all, i did it at that time as dni, which as you know the dni speaks for the entire intelligence community. my proposal was actually a reflection of multiple leaders across the intelligence community who shared my opinion that other countries don't hold public hearings like that where we discuss sensitive national security information. the problem isn't in terms of you asking questi

it set a standard for congressional oversight operations and was widely praised for effective work saving billions of dollars in taxpayeron. it also made senator truman a national figure. truman committee's investigations ranged far and wide sometimes even including household goods like this umbrella that you see in the case. the tag on the umbrella there marked by the committee said it was an illustration of waste and material and manpower because of its shoddy construction and didn't last very long. in war time, even a regular consumer goods were considered to be critical war time commodities. the truman committee also requested tips from the american public which he received many of. there are many, many letters that he received where individual americans were pointing out things they had witnessed of waste, fraud, or abuse. we have one letter here from somebody, from a citizen to truman thanking him for his actions churching the fraud. he was many who wrote in to express either tips or their support. the conclusion of this investigation after saving billions of dollars of taxpayer mon

i will confess that one of the things i was disappointed in was despite being on a congressional oversight committee over the intelligence community, there was so much intelligence i learned for the first time as a dni that i knew no member of congress was aware of. and i think that sort of speaks to my approach and understanding that i take seriously the obligation i will have to keep this committee and fully informed on intelligence issues. it is not that this committee or any intelligence or oversight committee needs to know everything, but you should at least know the topics. >> let's talk about that a little bit, congressman. the president gets his presidential daily brief every day. there is a very high standard for veracity of what is in that because he has to obviously make the most significant decisions that any human has to make. deploying our defense assets or the other things that a president does. we don't have anything like that in congress. a lot of the time, it seems like we are often, as you said, finding ourselves fishing around in headlines and in the less well organized

congress is often seen defense secretary's delay and evade congressional oversight. think pete hegseth will be willing and able to partner with us in that regard the senate armed services committee convened to consider mr. hegseth nomination. and testimony lasted nearly four hours, he addressed three key audiences. ourco committee, and i say senae as a whole, and the american people. i think the american people liked what they saw. i know i did. he showed each of us why president trump chose him to be the next secretary ofe. defense. first of all he articulated a clear vision of the pentagon it's clear to anyone who listened he is going to bring energy and fresh ideas to shake up the department stagnant bureaucracy.ar he will restore a war fighting east coast and relentlessly to focus on's core mission to deter conflict and if necessary to win a war. mr. hegseth committed to bringing a swift and to the corrosive social policies that serve to divide our service sere members rather than unite them. and as i pointed out earlier in the american people are behind him in t

they were an abuse of congressional oversight power. and they uncovered virtually no instances of communists infiltration. that does not mean that there was not communist infiltration. other investigations, others analysis has shown that there were people who had invest who had infiltrated the state department. the u.s. military, even the white house. but it turns out that senator mccarthy's investigations probably impeded the effort to try to root out the spies and and protect american national security and the integrity of our institutions. he really hurt that effort because he really wasn't interested in frankly, in succeeding, in finding these communists. he was really trying to promote himself and build his own political stature more than anything else. when senator mccarthy was elected in 1946, did he come in with this mantra of finding communists in the government? not initially. the record indicates that he was pretty quiet for the first three years of his service, beginning in 1947. it was only in in 1950 that he started to rea

that is perfectly to me legitimate congressional oversight. over and over this witness has told us what questions he will answer, but the oath he took was to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in response. so it was there some limitation about what question i can answer, i would like to understand that? if not i would like to have the chair tilde witness to answer my questions. chair graham: as i understand it there is no attorney-client privilege here. you are not claiming attorney climate privilege. mr. vought: i am not claiming a privilege. chair graham: generally speaking, you know, i guess the question is did you advise on executive orders and which ones, is that the question? sen. whitehouse: yes. chair graham: can you kind of tell us that, please? mr. vought: i was not a member of the transition and not a member of the president's campaign. sen. whitehouse: do you have knowledge of where the executive orders were drafted? mr. vought: i do not have a comprehensive knowledge. sen. whitehouse: do you have any knowled

johnson: i'm really looking forward to working with you to reinvigorate congressional oversight, which -- i want to work cooperatively with you to do so. first chart, shows that what bipartisan spinning cooperation yields us. in 2019, prior to the pandemic, the government total spinning was $4.4 trillion. during the pandemic, we tried to help americans out of that and we spent $6.5 trillion. an american family, let's say you spent a hundred thousand dollars a year and you have a family member that gets sick and maybe you have $50,000 you spend the year. the following year you don't spend a hundred $50,000. for the last five years we've averaged six point $5 trillion, last year we spent over $6.9 trillion. this is $2.1 trillion above 2019 levels. this is absurd. mr. vought, do you see rationale for continuing the spending levels? mr. vought: no, we have $36 trillion in debt, our fiscal house continues to be a mess. i left office we were spinning about 350 billion dollars in interest per year, too much. we are now in a situation to surpass what we spend on defense. we have to put forward

i expect hhs to provide timely and complete responses to congressional oversight. number two, pbms. something you and i discussed in our office. i've been working to hold pharmacy benefit managers accountable in order to lower prescription drug prices. i expect you to work with us to hold pbms accountable and that may even ask in your support for legislation that is before the congress. drug pricing. senator durbin and i have for a while been trying to get a bill passed that requires price disclosures on tv ads for prescription drugs knowing what something costs before buying it is just common sense, president trump tried to do this by regulation in his first term, vice president vance co-sponsored our bill last congress. i ask you to support this bill. or if you can do it by regulation, to do it by regulation. on rural healthcare, the previous administration dragged its feet in opening up slots for rural community hospital demonstration programs. it also ignored concerns from rural pharmacies when implementing changes to medicare part d and ignored rural needs when it comes to dist

. >> responses to congressional oversight. >> number two. >> pbms. something you and i discussed in our office. i've been working to hold pharmacy. benefit managers accountable in order to lower prescription drug prices. i expect you to work with us to hold pbms accountable. and that may even asking your support. for legislation that's before the congress. but drug pricing. senator durbin and i have for. >> a while. >> been trying. >> to get. >> a bill. >> passed that requires price disclosures on tv ads for prescription drugs, knowing what something costs before buying it is just common sense. president trump tried to do this by regulation in his first term. vice president pence co-sponsored our bill last congress. i ask you to support this bill, or. >> if you can do. >> it by regulation, to do it by regulation on rural health care. the previous administration dragged its feet in, opening up slots for rural community hospital demonstration programs. it also ignored concerns from rural pharmacies when implementing changes to medicare part d and ignor

so, john, look, i think that this is just the beginning of the congressional oversight. we're going to see on this particular meme coin issue, because it just raises so many questions. >> yeah. it does. all right, mattie, great to see you this morning. thank you very much, kate. >> all will be revealed full stop. no, that is what president trump said when signing yet another executive order, this one to release the files related to the assassinations of jfk, rfk and mlk jr.. why? he says this is all about transparency. and new details about the fate of the hostages, set to be released by hamas in the coming weeks. former hostages expected to be released tomorrow. >> this cnn business update is brought to you by intuit. turbotax. now this is taxes. >> and now taxes is getting the. turbotax app and filing your taxes yourself 100% free. if you didn't file with us last. >> year. >> pay $0 when you file by 218. all tax forms, all 100% free. now this is taxes file free in the app by 218. when you switch to turbotax, do it yourself. >> speak now or forever. >> hold your. >> onl

of fodder for libertarians to be mad, for overreach, concentrating certain powers, loss of congressional oversight over u.s. foreign policy in warmaking and things of that nature so i thought cool, i will find some interesting eo's. i opened the spreadsheet you sent. holy cow, 14,000 of these. second thought, i started reading through the, i feel like foreign policy eo's unfortunately like the health care issues and the environmental and energy, there is not much, it's not as interesting. there are some interesting ones. in the foreign policy space, as i was trying to find which ones to write about, a lot of them had to do with things like sanctions on pretty odious regimes. north korea, venezuela, iran. lots of stacking going on. initial eo saying we have this country we are designating has a problem for this reason, then a different eo that added on different entities/individuals to add to the sanctions list. that comprised a lot of recent eo's post global war on terror. some big themes, and the foreign policy space, you have a lot of eo's that exist on the books for things that have been overta

mad at the executive agency for overreach and concentrating powers and things like loss of congressional oversight over u.s. foreign policy and war making, that nature, i thought, okay, cool, i'm going to find some really interesting executive orders. i open the spreadsheet that you sent over that had all of them and the first thought was, holy cow, there's 14,000 of these. the second thought as i started reading through them as i feel in foreign policy executive orders unfortunately unlike i think the healthcare policy issues and the environmental and energy policy issues, there's not much -- it's not as interesting. there are some interesting ones and i will talk about them but i feel in the foreign policy space as i was reading through them and trying to find which ones to write about, a lot of them had to do with things like sanctions on pretty odious regimes, like north koreas, venezuelas, your irans, and lots of stacking where you would have an initial excuse me, initial executive order sort of saying, hey, we have this country that we are designating as a problem and such reason and differe

neither, peter, is subject to congressional oversight. >> aaron, thank you. >> a lot of questions who is in charge. if m is confirmed, she will have the trump team planning to get to work right away on the promise of mass deportations. nbc news has learned that i.c.e. officials are planning a major enforcement operation to target immigrants and one u.s. city in the days after the inauguration. it is not clear exactly who will be targeted and how. several sources familiar with the planning told nbc news that the cities that could see early activity could include washington, d.c., philadelphia, los angeles, denver and chicago. >>> to the measures that are being done and taken to keep president-elect trump and everyone also says. senior white house correspondent kelly o'donnell has a look at what the law enforcement agencies are doing to get ready. >> reporter: the u.s. secret service is leading this national special security event involving more than 25,000 responders, a secure perimeter, includings a record 30 miles of anti-scale fencing. drones deliver expansive visibility from above.

but if it's going to be someone that is not subject to congressional oversight that's running this, that'soing to be something that i'm concerned about even further beyond the lack of accountability for a czar, which has always been an issue. >> and during the obama years, republicans were very concerned about all the czars. not so much today. but beyond that issue of accountability, do you have issues about tom homan? >> well, first of all, you know, we don't have the ability to talk to him and be able to engage more deeply. but what i see it as is a it's a another example of a fundamental undermining of our government system. the work that we're trying to do that i'm worried about, you know, for instance, we had before the homeland security committee, russell vote, who is seeking nomination for omb. you know, again, somebody who was one of the lead authors of project 2025, somebody who came up with the idea of schedule f, which, again, would allow the president incredible capacity to be able to fire anybody in the executive branch. and i say that as someone who used to be a civil servant

reporter: congressional oversight of the president of the united states finally begins in earnest todayersonal lawyer, michael cohen, will give public testimony before the house oversight committee, and that'll be televised live. jamie raskin: in his opening statement, which we got last night, he said the president was a racist, a con-man and a cheat. and my reaction was, tell us something we don't know. (laughing) so, you know, i'm basically looking at him like a renegade refugee from a organized crime family and he's gonna tell us sort of the internal dynamics of the trump operation. (people chattering) jamie raskin: the big story in my mind is that we have a president who has turned the government of the united states of america into a money-making operation for himself, for his family, for his business, and for his friends. and so, we wanna try to get the best, most fine-grained portrait we can of what's taking place within the trump operation. and then we've got to start to ask the question about whether this is a president who is an actual threat to the character of our republic.

quite a lot of difficulty in terms of congressional oversight, but i suspect that is going to be evens so nervous about asking your political question because i know that is ordinarily not your lane and you took that car and drove it right into your legal for spending some time with us. we will take a quick break and be right back. be right back. ne lets me adjust the bass. add more guitar. maybe some drums. wow, so many choices. yeah. like schwab. i can get full-service wealth management, advice, invest on my own, and trade on thinkorswim. you know carl is the only frontman you need... oh i gotta take this carl, it's schwab. ♪ schwaaaab! ♪ have a choice in how you invest with schwab. ( ♪♪ ) my name is jaxon, and i have spastic cerebral palsy. it's a mouthful. one of the harder things is the little things that i need help with: getting dressed, brushing your teeth, being able to go out with your friends by yourself. those are hard because you don't want help, but you need it. children like jaxon need continued support for the rest of their lives. whoa, whoa, whoa. and you can help. pl

bipartisan legislation to curb the abuse of presidential emergency powers reassert proper congressional oversight. i am deeply concerned about reporting that indicates that you design the plan to abuse the national emergency act, to circumvent laws passed by congress by moving military construction money to blue reporter wall. do you commit to not recommend of presidential a murmur emergencies on the policy agenda? >> editor with regard to that instance in our first term, we were specifically using transfer authority that have beenty provided in that language the department of defense appropriations transferring authorities to army engineers for the use on the border wall. it was specifically a transfer authority congress had given the president and the underlying appropriation. >> you circumvented the law i think it's pretty clear. my question is, next question at last question will you support efforts to rein in presidential authority and ensure congress has a rightful say, that congress has a rightful say in the use of emergency powers? please support those efforts? >> and don'ts begun future

and question arises, is the trump administration trying to avoid congressional oversight completely for whatever it is they have planned? here's senator andy kim on that. >> i guess i just want to ask you just point blank, like, who's going to be in charge of the border? >> well, the president will be in charge of the border. it's a national security issue, and the president is in charge of this country and has made a promise to the american people, and we will fulfill his agenda. >> but i guess i got confused when trump made the announcement about tom homan. he said, quote, i'm pleased to announce that tom homan and said that he's in charge of our nation's borders. so i guess, again, i'd just like to go back to you. how are you going to work with mr. homan? what is the division there? i'm trying to get a better sense of who's in charge. >> yeah. tom. tom homan is an incredible human being who has over 30 years of experience, incredible experience at the border. i'm just trying to think through insight and wisdom, decision making process when it comes to your work. >> for instance, will

i expect hhs to provide timely and complete responses to congressional oversight.o give you a taste there of the spiciness of this confirmation hearing. rfk jr before the senate finance committee, democrats hammering him over previous remarks against vaccines. you did just say hear him say as hhs secretary, if i'm confirmed, i will not go against the measles vaccine, which was one of the questions that democrats had. we're going to continue to monitor, of course, keep you abreast of any news from the rfk hearing. we've also got to talk about the upcoming fed decision and earnings results from three of the magnificent seven names all coming this afternoon tesla, meta, microsoft, steve kovac and julia boorstin here with more on what investors should be watching out for. steve, we'll start with you. >> yeah. sara, the dynamics of this microsoft. >> earnings report. >> has just really changed in the last week or so. we found out last week with that stargate announcement that microsoft is no longer that exclusive cloud partner for open ai. and that stargate project is r

when we're doing better than that, that's a good thing for congressional oversight.thank you, chairman. sen. grassley: thank you. ms. bondi: can we take a minute off senator schiff? i'm joking. since he took an extra minute. i'm joking. sen. grassley: yes, you can. you wanted to say something to senator schiff? ms. bondi: no sir, i asked if we could take a minute off senator schiff since senator whitehouse took an extra minute. i was teasing. i'm sorry. sen. grassley: ok. senator tillis. sen. tillis: thank you, mr. chairman. ms. bondi, i wanted to come back and i'm glad i did. i got another mark on my bingo card, qanon came up. it's a little-known fact but the so-called, i think i heard someone say that that's a cabal that has cannibalistic tendencies. i don't know if y'all know this, it's a well documented fact that the so-called qanon shaman is a vegetarian who actually had to be transferred to another prison to satisfy his dietary needs after being sentenced to 41 months in prison. so i don't know if all the qanon people are cannibals, but it's a little bit absurd

. >> do you -- you are concerned that the oversight in the congressional branch of the intelligence community will not happen and will instead by focused in a politicized way? is that what i hear you saying? >> i know my focus was national security. that's going to continue to be my focus in congress. >> very good. >> we will have to stay tuned for the rest. >> very diplomatic. before i let you go, donald trump pulled security details from those who face active threats from iran, including the former cia director and secretary of state. would you ask him to reconsider that in. >> i'm concerned for mike pompeo. >> mike turner, thank you for your time. we will be right back. ♪♪ imagine checking your own heart with medical precision from anywhere. introducing kardiamobile 6l, the fda-cleared ekg that provides six-times more heart data than any smartwatch. and it detects three of the most common arrhythmias in just 30 seconds, including atrial fibrillation, bradycardia and tachycardia. check your heart with the most advanced personal ekg outside the hospital. get yours at kardia.com or amazon. ♪♪

congressional letters. congress has a constitutional duty to perform oversight of the executive branch. intend to hold him to his commitment to respond to all congressional inquiries in a timely and responsive manner. i also told him that every nominee that comes before any committee is asked that same question, will you respond to our letters, and i say kind of tongue in check but with some truth to it that you ought to say maybe, because i showed pam bo bondi, our nominee for attorney general, when she was in my office a whole file of 158 letters in the last four years that i sent to the department of justice that have remained unanswered or not fully an answered, and all that. so i hope that we can get this trump cabinet to keep their word, that they're going to answer our letters, because they need to focus it from the standpoint of the constitution. you learn it in eighth grade civics, that we not only pass laws here and appropriate money, but under checks and balances we have the responsibility to make sure that the executive branch fai faithfully executes that law, or spends that

congress has often seen defense secretaries delay and evade congressional oversight. i think pete hegseth will be willing and eager to partner with us in that regard. last week the senate armed services committee convened to consider mr. hegseth's nomination. in testimony lasting nearly four hours, he addressed three key audiences, our committee, the united states senate as a whole, and the american people. i think the american people liked what they saw. i know i did. he showed each of us why president trump chose him to be the next secretary of defense. first of all, he articulated a clear vision of the pentagon. i think it's clear to anyone who listened that he's going to bring energy and fresh ideas to shake up the department's stagnant bureaucracy. he restore a war fighting ethos and relentlessly focus on the military's core mission, to deter conflict and if necessary to win a war. mr. hegseth is committed to bringing a swift end to the corrosive social policies that serve to divide our servicemembers rather than unite them. and as i pointed out earlier, the amer

oversight. >> the ig's. >> must be able. >> to. operate without fear of improper. >> intervention or intimidation. >> i found them very helpful in supplementing the congressional responsibilityt. they're independent and. >> that means no. >> political interference. >> no political interference. that was top republicans discussing ig watchdogs, many of whom have just been ousted in a friday night action. we are joined by former federal prosecutors joyce vance and barbara mcquade. barbara, your view on the ig firings this new jan six review? that's beginning, i guess, today, according to wall street journal. and whether these are linked in any concerning use of government power. >> i think they. >> are, ari. >> you know, first, let's start. >> with this. >> they're lawless. as we heard about the ig's. there has. >> to. >> be this 30 day period. >> where there's a report. >> to congress and. >> an. explanation for the reason. >> with regard to these january 6th prosecutors who prosecuted donald trump. they have. >> civil service protections. >> they have. >> to go through performance. >> reviews, warnings, opportunities to improve. >> if their service. >> is somehow. >> deficie

auction authority, improvement in the inter- agency coordination process with appropriate congressional oversighte administration on developing uniform single policies only appear at the next work in 2027. >> thank you for that. mr. chairman i yield back. that shirt not recognize the representative from ohio to ask your question per. >> thank you mr. chert ranking member for this incredibly important hearing. broadband, wi-fi at work that we do have a bleat one of the most important things we have to get right. nationally obviously congress has a play a big leadership role in that. this is been one of my colleagues says of bipartisan discussion because it's a bipartisan issue. there are two pieces really importune that stand out for me. one is the relevancy, the impact it has on our economy. the growing economies, there are massive investments in infrastructure, education and broadband is huge huge piece of the infrastructure. and it's part of our global competitiveness second is the impact it has in her daily lives which she talked a lot about. i represent southwest ohio city, suburb, rural ohio

i expect hhs to provide timely and complete responses to congressional oversight. number two, pbms, something you and i discussed in our office. i've been working to hold pharmacy benefit managers accountable in order to lower prescription drug prices. i expect you to work with us to hold pbms accountable. and that may even ask in your support for legislation that's before the congress. broad drug pricing. senator durbin and i have for a while been trying to get a bill passed that requires price disclosures on tv ads for prescription drugs, knowing what something costs before buying it is just common sense. president trump tried to do this by regulation in his first term. vice president vance co-sponsored our bill last congress. i ask you to support this bill. or if you can do it by regulation, to do it by regulation on rural health care. the previous administration dragged its feet in, opening up slots for rural community hospital demonstration programs. it also ignored concerns from rural pharmacies when implementing changes to medicare part d, and ignored rural

i expect hhs to provide timely and complete responses to congressional oversight. number two, pbms, something you and i discussed in our office. i've been working to hold pharmacy managers accountable in order to lower prescription drug prices. i expect you to work with us to hold them accountable, and i may even ask in your support for legislation to speak for the congress. drug pricing. senator durbin and i have for a while been trying to get a bill passed that requires price disclosures on tv and for prescription drugs. knowing when something costs before buying it is just common sense. president trump tried to do this by regulation in his first term. vice president pence cosponsored our bill last congress. i ask you to support this bill or if you can do it by regulation, with my regulation. on neural health care. ration opening up slots for rural community hospital demonstration programs that also ignored concern from borough pharmacies when into and changes to medicare part d and ignored rural needs when it comes to distributing residency slots. i expect you t