John Ratcliffe, President Donald Trump's nominee for Central Intelligence Agency Director, was confirmed to lead the CIA by the Senate on Jan. 23 thanks to an overwhelming bipartisan consensus, making him the second member of Trump's national security team to be approved by the upper chamber of Congress.
The final vote to ratify Ratcliffe as new CIA Director was 74-25, with Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) not voting. Twenty-one members who caucus with Democrats voted along with every present Republican on Thursday.
"He will bring valuable knowledge and experience to his new post," Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said on the floor earlier this week, crediting Ratcliffe's previous experience as director of national intelligence (DNI) and on the House Intelligence Committee.
"Mr. Ratcliffe brings the right experience and the right approach to the CIA, and I look forward to working with him in his new position," Thune said as reported by The Hill.
Although he has been confirmed, Republicans were unable to process him as quickly as they had hoped. Thune and other Republican leaders hoped to confirm his appointment by Jan. 21, but Democrats threw up one final roadblock in an effort to further delay Pete Hegseth's confirmation to run the Pentagon.
One of the Democratic Senators, Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) pointed to "serious concerns" some of his colleagues had about Ratcliffe as well as questions about his willingness to distance himself from Trump, having been a close ally to the president's political interest while serving as DNI in 2020.
During the confirmation hearing, Ratcliffe told Democrats that he would keep the CIA apolitical and would not fire any agency employees on the basis of political leanings or opposition to President Trump.
With Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Ratcliffe now confirmed, Senate Republicans plan to move on to the other half of Trump's national security team "in the coming days," according to Thune.
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