Senate Confirms John Ratcliffe to Lead CIA, Giving Trump His Second Cabinet Member

The Senate on Thursday confirmed Ratcliffe, giving President Donald Trump the second member of his new Cabinet.

Transcript

00:00Good afternoon everybody. It's great to have you here. I'm thrilled to be joined, of course,

00:05by our incoming director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Ratcliffe, as well as his lovely

00:11wife, Michelle. And I will say that John is a great patriot, a guy that has the trust

00:17of the President, and I think really believes deeply in the mission, first of all, of keeping

00:21Americans safe, but also doing it in a way that ensures that the American people have

00:26confidence in our national intelligence services. And both of those things really matter. We're

00:30not going to have much safety, and we're not going to have great intelligence services

00:35unless the American people actually trust that those intelligence services are doing

00:39their job. And I have every confidence that John Ratcliffe is going to do that. That's

00:42why the President nominated him, and that's why the Senate confirmed him with big margins.

00:47Now normally, after I administer the oath, I would actually invite the new guy to say

00:55a few words, but given that he's the leader of the CIA, anything that he told you he would

01:00have to, well, you know how that goes. So John Ratcliffe is not going to give any remarks

01:04because every piece of knowledge in his brain is actually classified, so he's going to head

01:08straight to Langley and do his job that the American people need him to do. So John, are

01:12you ready? I'm ready. Okay, please place your hand on the Bible, raise your right hand.

01:17I, John Ratcliffe, I, John Ratcliffe, do solemnly swear, do solemnly swear, that I will support,

01:21defend the Constitution of the United States, that I will support and defend the Constitution

01:25of the United States, against all enemies foreign and domestic, against all enemies

01:30foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I will

01:34bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I take this obligation freely, that I

01:38take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, without

01:44any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge,

01:50and that I will well and faithfully discharge, the duties of the office on which I am about

01:54to enter, the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God. So help

01:59me God. Congratulations. Thank you.