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Ratcliffe Testifies at His Senate Intelligence Confirmation Hearing, Jan. 15, 2025

January 15, 2025 · PBS NewsHour · 2:08:35

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

John Ratcliffe testified on January 15, 2025, before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at the confirmation hearing on his nomination to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, carried live in full by PBS NewsHour. Ratcliffe, who had served as Director of National Intelligence in the President’s first term, told the committee the nation’s premier spy agency must do a better job of staying ahead of global threats: “We’re not where we’re supposed to be,” he said, as the Associated Press reported from the hearing.

Ratcliffe said he viewed China as America’s greatest geopolitical rival, with Russia, Iran, North Korea, drug cartels, hacking gangs, and terrorist organizations also posing challenges, and he pledged to push the agency to harness technologies such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing while expanding its use of human intelligence collection. He promised to keep the agency politically neutral, pledging in his opening statement that he would lead the CIA to be non-partisan and never allow political or personal biases to cloud its judgment or infect its products. Pressed by Senator Angus King — “Will you or any of your staff impose a political litmus test for CIA employees?” — Ratcliffe answered, “No.” He also told lawmakers he supports the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act surveillance program, saying the rules in place are designed to ensure Americans’ privacy is protected. The Senate confirmed Ratcliffe on January 23, 2025, by a vote of 74–25, making him the second member of the Cabinet confirmed.

Why it matters

This hearing is the founding document of Ratcliffe’s CIA directorship: the neutrality pledge, the no-litmus-test answer, and the technology-and-human-intelligence agenda he stated here are the commitments his tenure — conducted largely out of public view, as the quiet tier’s record is — is measured against on this site. Ratcliffe is the first person ever to have served in both of the nation’s highest intelligence positions, as the President noted in announcing the nomination.

Scoreboard watch

This is a candidate item for the weekly scoreboard: Ratcliffe’s January 15, 2025 confirmation commitments — a politically neutral CIA with no litmus tests for employees, expanded human intelligence collection, and greater use of artificial intelligence and quantum computing — each as stated at the hearing, to be checked against his conduct in office.

Sources: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, confirmation hearing on the nomination of John Ratcliffe to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, January 15, 2025 (full hearing as carried by PBS NewsHour, embedded above); Associated Press, January 15, 2025, on Ratcliffe’s testimony; Ballotpedia News, January 16, 2025, on the hearing. All figures and characterizations as stated by Mr. Ratcliffe and committee members at the hearing.