a senate majority leader john thune filed cloture on john ratcliffe or john ratcliffe was just confirmedoversy of the cia director. the democrats have said we support a peaceful transition of power we just oppose the transition altogether. so, what are they doing? they're using guerrilla tactics. this is systemic to block almost every one of trumps nominees. except some of the more liberal ones are some they are friendly with like rubio to put them through and say see, we are bipartisan but the majority of them, that's not what is happening. they're not disallowing it up and down votes for the committee have your hearings, you make your decisions because the they are using the powers, the rules of the senate to try in the scuttle from day one the trump presidency. to try to sabotage it. to try to kneecap his ability to manage the government right out-of-the-box. it's crucial first 100 days he be able to do so. soon found cloture on john ratcliffe's nominee nomination for cia director. for homeland security secretary, of course for pete hegseth can you imagine pete hegseth as secretary of

have been politicized whether they're at home or on the job they become so political, here's what ratcliffetor of the cia. watch this. >> what happened in this case, after donald trump announced he was going to run for president for different sets of prosecutors went to joe biden's white house to meet with joe biden's lawyers in his department of justice from georgia to new york, letitia james, jack smith shortly before he brought his indictment and of course all the brag who not only met with joe biden and joe biden's lawyers in the white house he took one of joe biden's lawyers from the department of justice to have him bring this case. all of these people in the jurisdictions are proxies of the biden white house. maria: this is part of it i know there trying to cut out cost and they say listen here's a buyout, bye-bye, the other reason for this is because they've all been politicized and that's why they're offering and telling people to d.o.j. get up you worked for jack smith and the fake investigation, you are d done. >> ultimately trump is entitled to the executive branch this is a fas

. >> a decision that cia director john ratcliffe made personally telling the white. >> house that he believed that the agency should. >> be included in the so-called deferred resignation program. but this is still a much less sweeping offer than has been. >> offered to federal employees. in other civilian government agencies. >> there are, even. as the offer has gone out to the entire workforce at the cia, not everyone is expected to be allowed to take it. our sources tell us that there are believed to be some restrictions on which. >> employees. >> based on their expertise, or based on what particular career path they're in, are actually going to be able to exercise this buyout if they. >> should choose. >> this does. >> appear to. >> be a recognition of the fact that there are certainly some roles that are considered too important to national security to be allowed to resign, even as. >> the broader. >> mandate to. >> shrink the federal. >> government is a key priority for the trump administration and for elon musk. but this is, of course, still an effort to really reshape the cia.

as new director john ratcliffe tries to shift the agency's culture to align with the trump agenda, a cia spokesperson said the move was part of the director's efforts to, quote, ensure the cia workforce is responsive to the administration's national security priorities and said the changes are part of a holistic strategy to infuse the agency with renewed energy. let's discuss this with republican congressman pat fallon of texas. he is on the house intel and also the house armed services committees. sir, as i mentioned, you're on the intel committee. you see this buyout offer at the cia. do you worry about a brain drain at a key agency like that that, you know, could lead to the next 9/11? >> well, actually, brianna, i'll tell you, the really high quality agents that we have within the cia are probably going to stay because they're very good at their jobs. and people that are very good at their jobs tend to like their jobs, and they want to continue contributing to the country. i talked to john ratcliffe, who was actually my predecessor in congress when he was the national director fo

. >> and i think director ratcliffe is making the right decisions. he's a great leader. he understands certainly what the cia needs to do. he's he's led. >> what about his. >> what about his deputy. >> mike ellis? >> i think mike ellis is going to be listening directly to the director, who's a great, great leader. and i think you're going to see excellent national security policy come out of the cia. >> and do you think that at this stage with our national security and our counterterror issues having withdrawn from afghanistan and not having eyes on their with isis potentially resurgent, with hamas fighters reappearing in gaza, is this. >> the time. >> to lose anybody from the cia? >> there are terrible dangers around the world, but at the same time, i do think that and again, we're not talking about overall, you know, reducing our our intelligence capabilities or our investments in intelligence operations. there are opportunities for us to redirect, to reinvest, to invest in different ways. and i think giving the director that ability that that that option is certainly

mark: john ratcliffe said the same thing. >> we come back the stunning rise of chinese upends artificialgence race since u.s. tech stocks tumbling is the arrival of deep ck eyes >> moment. ♪ okay everyone, our mission is to provide complete, balanced nutrition for strength and energy. yay - woo hoo! ensure, with 27 vitamins and minerals, nutrients for immune health. and ensure complete with 30 grams of protein. (♪) what tractor supply customers experience is personalized service. made possible by t-mobile for business. with t-mobile's reliable 5g business internet. employees get the information they need instantly. this is how business goes further with t-mobile for business. ♪ like a relentless weed, moderate to severe ulcerative colitis symptoms can keep coming back. start to break away from uc with tremfya... with rapid relief at 4 weeks. tremfya blocks a key source of inflammation. at one year, many people experienced remission... and some saw 100% visible healing of their intestinal lining. serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections may occur. before treatment, your

maria: and don't forget john ratcliffe running the cia. that tre trio should be real effective. with you. thank you so much. quick break and then sand box aq ceo jack henry is here to tell us about his company and the state of artificial intelligence. he'll give us his take on a.i. under the trump administration when we come back. you're watching "mornings with maria" live on fox business. ♪ maya knows how quality care can bring out a smile. but it's been a few dog years since she was able to enjoy a smile of her own. good thing aspen dental offers affordable, complete care all in one place. and new patients without insurance get 29 dollar exams and xrays. plus 20% off treatment plans for everyone. loving our patients unconditionally. it's one more way aspen dental is in your corner. baby: liberty! mom: liberty mutual is all she talks about since we saved hundreds by bundling our home and auto insurance. biberty: it's pronounced "biberty." baby: liberty! biberty: biberty! baby: liberty! biberty: nice try, kid. only pay for what you need ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ baby: liber

john ratcliffe at the cia offered every worker reportedly this buyout, right, to get on board with the it, there's not a place for you at the table. cheryl: i know we have to run, but look, if they get 5 to 10% of the federal workforce to take deals and leave, that's $100 billion in annual savings. >> a year. cheryl: annual save pings. that's an incredible amount. >> they're at 2% now. if they can double that, 1 s h100 billion a year. by midnight. cheryl: all right. more than 100 million americans across 22 states under winter weather alerts, the midwest, the northeast, bracing for heavy snow and icy conditions and might be dangerous out there. fox weather meteorologist britta merwin joins us now with an update. britta. >> depends on where you wake up. the nation's capital was prepping for ice this morning. they've been dished a lucky hand. only dealing with rain but we did have a two hour delay for most districts out of precaution. different story in other locations. philadelphia and baltimore picking up on freezing rain so ice is a large concern. so many facets to the winter storm. w

and clearly the cia under john ratcliffe is now included in that. of what is essentially the deferred resignation program that the administration launched and were offering to federal workers across the country, more than 2 million of them. and the deadline for that is tomorrow night, thursday night at midnight. and there was a new message that went out not only to the cia workers, but others across the federal workforce, effectively warning them if they don't take the offer, which as the offer stands, is essentially that they would be resigning their jobs and would be paid with benefits, however, all the way through september. so essentially six months of compensation without working. and this new memo that went out clearly under the guise that there was frustration that not enough federal workers were taking this effective buyout offer. well, it sent a clear message that the government agencies are going to be going through restructuring and realignment, where the words in this new memo to federal workers and suggested that there will be looming l

trump's new cia chief, john ratcliffe, distinguished himself when he had his last big job, when he was director of national intelligence in trump's first term in 2020, he released a batch of what he initially conceded might be russian disinformation that he apparently, nevertheless hoped might help trump in the 2020 election. that's how he distinguished himself in 2020, leading to calls for his resignation at the time. but now he's cia director, trump's nominee for intelligence director. this term has also been a phenomenal customer for notorious russian disinformation. she, for example, put a megaphone on russian false claims that the u.s. had secret bioweapons sites in ukraine. and that's the only reason we didn't want mother russia to invade. vladimir putin ordered usaid out of his country more than a decade ago, and has since spent years spreading lies and conspiracy theories about usaid to try to discredit it, to try to kill it, including weird and totally made up claims that aired on russian state tv recently. that said, usaid funds had been sent had been spent to send american c

ratcliffe fielded any questions or offered any reassurances that these individuals knew their names would be put on an unclassified list and shared with the trump white house? >> yeah. >> again, what. >> a what an. >> unnecessary mistake, right? >> there are just. >> it is so. >> easy to send. >> classified information from one. >> government agency. >> to the other. so this. >> to me was just. >> a it. >> appears to have been done because. >> of inattention. and i'll make another point because, yes, you know, somebody who's going to spend their career as. >> an. >> analyst, you. >> know. >> primarily sitting in. >> the washington metropolitan area. >> their cover. matters less. >> than somebody who is maybe going to. >> operate under non-official cover. non-official cover means they're. not covered by diplomatic immunity. there's a little bit of a spectrum of risk. >> and importance of cover there. >> but guess what? that analyst who may be spending most of their career in the washington metropolitan area, will from time to time meet with people in cafes or elsewhere around the world who

. >> to your point, brianna, a cia director, john ratcliffe, during his confirmation hearing, said exactly that, that he wants the cia to get back to its core mission, which includes covert operations and intelligence collection, human intelligence collection. but that does require protecting the people that you have, you know, carrying out that work, including the people who are working under, you know, need their identities protected in order to do so safely. so, look, this does sort of run counter to the stated mission. but again, donald trump has made clear that reducing the size of the federal workforce and specifically validating his gripes against the cia specifically, are his top priority. >> all right, zach cohen, thank you for the great reporting. we do appreciate it. aviation officials briefing lawmakers on the deadly midair collision near washington, dc, as investigators are trying to figure out what went wrong. we'll have the latest next the last thing you think is someone's going to pass away. >> everybody watched him become this force. >> none of us is perfect. kobe lived it

this is according to our reporting from katie polglase and kaitlan collins, that cia director john ratcliffe was behind this and he personally wanted employees at the cia and within the agency to have this type of option and to be able to opt in to the program. now, this seems like a recently, you know, new decision. as of last week, we know that many people at the cia were questioning whether or not they would be able to try and get into this deferred resignation program. now we are learning that they are. of course, the questions are who can actually do this? are there people who will not be able to opt into this again, given just how critical the cia is? of course, to the security of the united states. >> and the white house now saying that the layoffs will be coming for those who don't resign. tell us a little bit more, elaine. i know you laid out some, but how soon could this happen? how many people could be impacted overall? here? >> i mean, these are sweeping. when i talked to my sources about this, who told me about these expected layoffs, they said they are going to be very widespre

and an aide to cia director john ratcliffe said the agency is freezing the hiring of job seekers whor. so they're freezing hiring, telling everyone who works at the cia, feel free to please leave. how are we supposed to defend our national security if they kick everyone out and then only hire back people who have pledged eternal allegiance to donald trump? like, i just don't understand the logistical how this actually is supposed to work to make us safer as a country. i don't get it. >> well, there are just so many years of experience that cia officers need in order to carry out their duties, you know, fully. and if you remove those individuals, you're really going to not have that capability for the cia to carry out its mission in far off corners of the world. there are thoughtful and appropriate ways to do workforce reduction. if there are certain disciplines or job categories that you no longer need as many people of. but this across the board, it's just, again, it's hard to understand how the leadership of the cia really believes that this is going to enable the cia to continue t

. >> the cia's new director under president trump, john ratcliffe, is opting in to efforts to shrinkthe federal government. the agency is the latest to offer these so-called buyouts that tell federal employees they can quit their jobs and then receive roughly eight months of pay and benefits. cnn's katie michael ellis is here with us now. all right. katie, so the offers went out. the decision is tomorrow. is it tomorrow for them? well. >> so there's still a lot we don't. >> know about other federal employees. >> i was going to say this offer is the offer that cia, the cia workforce has received is a little bit different. >> than the one. >> that the broader sort of civilian workforce of the federal government has received. it's not at all clear that the entire workforce at the cia is actually going to be eligible to take this buyout, even though they've all received the offer, according to our sources, there are likely to be a lot of restrictions or are expected to be a lot of restrictions on who is actually able to say like, yes, i'm going to take this and and wave sayonara to feder

director ratcliffe is moving swiftly to ensure the cia workforce is responsive to the administration'security priorities. but again, when it comes to this buyout, there are open concerns about if the offer is valid and if that money is there. senator mark warner saying on the hill yesterday the government at this point is only funded through march 14th. of course, that funding fight still on the horizon. coming up ahead, we'll switch to sports and tell you why history will be made this sunday at the super bowl, whether or not the chiefs can pull off the three peat. but first we want to know why are you awake? email your reasons to way too early@msnbc.com or tell me on social media at ali vitali using the hashtag way too early. as always, we're going to read our favorite answers later in the show. >> when that passenger airbag exploded, he lost his nose. he lost his right eye. you still. >> have 40. >> million plus. vehicles globally that are driving around with a potential ticking time bomb, a grenade in either their steering wheel or their dashboard. morgan morgan has a national reach

no more, no less, and no that is having three to john ratcliffe just two weeks ago, how we have treatedominees like avril haines and dan coats in the past. for instance, miss gabbard has conducted dozens of office meetings with senators. she has completed the committee's standard questionnaire. she has answered 247 questions in writing. this is all in keeping with committee customs, precedents and rules. before i address the important work ahead, please also let me make two observations about some of the accusations about miss gabbard. first, i am dismayed by the attacks on miss gabbard's patriotism and her loyalty to our country. for instance, hillary clinton has smeared her, calling her an asset of a foreign nation. let me remind everyone that miss gabbard has served in our army for more than two decades. she has multiple combat tours and she still wears the uniform to this day. she has undergone five fbi background checks. i spend more than two hours last week reviewing the latest, putting eyes on more than 300 pages. it is clean as a whistle. it is find that we have differences of o

a source tells cnn that newly appointed director john ratcliffe personally decided to involve his agency in the deferred resignation program. as the offer rolls out at the cia, fbi employees are suing over an impending purge after fbi officials turned over information about who worked on investigations related to january 6th. the information includes details of more than 5000 bureau employees, but not their names. and now a group of employees are suing the justice department, accusing the doj of violating privacy laws. a judge agreeing to keep their identities sealed over fear of retribution. >> whether it's counterterrorism, great power competition, you name it from head to toe. those two organizations are what protect america, along with the department of defense, eroding the workforce or really getting after the morale and really empowerment of the workforce is going to have a direct impact on national security at every level. >> so, mark preston, you know, i think that there is some willingness from american voters to take a look at the federal government generally and say, hey, like

to opt in to this program, to this offer, to accept the buyout, but also that cia director john ratcliffe personally decided he wanted his agency employees to be involved in this. so of course, we are still learning exactly what the impact could be. how many people at the cia would take it? it also seems like a new development, and that's according to reporting from katie michael ellis, who was told essentially that as of last week, people were still questioning at the cia whether or not they would actually be able to accept this if they could be included in this program. so this all seems like a very much a new development. and as you mentioned, it comes really the big picture here, of course, is that president trump and also elon musk at the helm of doge have been working very hard to massively reduce the size of the federal workforce and really reshape it in the president's image and what he views the workforce to be. and so we are expecting widespread layoffs. and now we know that cia employees are also able to opt into this program. >> all right. thanks. elena. back to you, alex. she

they look at john ratcliffe, the director. he's close to trump, a trump loyalist. they just installed as his deputy somebody who has very little intelligence experience. and again, whose principal credential is that he is loyal to donald trump. and if you're a cia officer or now at the national security agency, you're looking at your buyout offer and you're wondering, what's my future? maybe i should bail. >> yeah. two different. >> former. >> national security. >> officials texted me yesterday. a line from the times story. it's worth reading again that these names included a young crop, large crop of young analysts and operatives who were hired specifically to focus on china and. >> whose identities are usually. >> closely guarded because chinese hackers are constantly trying to identify them. and one of those officials texted me, added the line, we're doing our work for them. this was just such a mistake here, and it shows a lapse in security and it twinned with. we're seeing efforts at the fbi. we talked about pam bondi, but kash patel, if she if he is indeed co

a spokesperson for the agency says director john ratcliffe is moving swiftly to ensure the cia workforcest the justice department amid growing concerns about a trump administration purge within the bureau. the lawsuits allege agents are being targeted for politically motivated retribution after employees were asked to fill out surveys about their role in various january 6th criminal cases. the agents are calling for a judge to stop the publication of any list of employees who worked on those cases. nbc news has learned. the fbi turned over a list of agents involved in january 6th cases to the justice department, but it includes identification numbers instead of names. let's bring in nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian, who has been reporting on these lawsuits. so, ken, how many agents are suing and what are the next steps? can they can they keep their jobs in this environment? >> good morning mika. well, that's the big question right now. there's about nine or so agents suing anonymously in each one of these class action lawsuits. and the second one was also brou

but also look at the national security team that president trump has put together, from john ratcliffe know, rubio, vance, stefanik all supported the tiktok ban. so did mike waltz this morning. president trump, it's been reported he's putting jd vance in charge of that. and mike waltz i think we'll get to a resolution on this. and it won't be good for tiktok. >> congressman lahood, i'll ask both of you. we had ro khanna on the broadcast. well, we had him just a couple of days ago, but a couple of weeks ago, he effectively said that. and i don't want to put words in his mouth. but the conversation you're having right now about tiktok is a lie. that's what he basically said. he basically said that that, that, that he's seen the intelligence and that it is a lie that there's with the with to the extent that tiktok is actually taking that information, giving it to the chinese government or the chinese government is using tiktok in some kind of nefarious way today, that's not to say that prospectively, in the future it couldn't. and that's a clearly a possibility. and if we want to say that