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Senate Votes on Trump Cabinet Nominees. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired February 12, 2025 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[11:01:04]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN HOST: Good morning. I'm Phil Mattingly in Washington. Pamela Brown is out today. You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

And we begin with the breaking news. Right now on Capitol Hill, President Trump is inching closer to finalizing the Cabinet he laid out from the beginning and crushing any tiny lingering doubts he's the singular leader of the Republican Party.

At any moment, the Senate will begin voting on Tulsi Gabbard to be the next director of national intelligence. And she is all but certain to be confirmed along party lines, despite initial very clear bipartisan concerns about her lack of significant background in intelligence and some of her past statements that seem to support U.S. adversaries.

After that vote, the Senate will pivot to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Senators will vote to advance his once-embattled nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Now, Kennedy and Gabbard were among President Trump's most controversial nominees, now on the cusp of confirmation.

Let's break this all down. We have our correspondents and analysts here to walk us through a very, very busy hour.

Manu Raju on Capitol Hill, I want to start with you. We saw some Republican senators vote -- voice early concerns about both of these nominees. Were those real? And kind of how did they come around to what looks like soon-to-be-confirmation?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's been a combination of pressure, a combination of some subtle and maybe not- so-subtle arm twisting from administration allies and direct conversation with Donald Trump himself with some of those Republican senators.

Some senators, like Senator Todd Young of Indiana, had some real concerns about Tulsi Gabbard, all those issues that you laid out there. But he did speak to Gabbard, repeatedly got some commitments from her, and also spoke with Donald Trump as well.

And that happened also with RFK Jr. He himself spoke directly with senators who were skeptical about his nomination and he seemed to have won them over, even people who were concerned about his views on issues like vaccines and whether or not he would support the science behind the vaccines and would knock down the notion that vaccines are linked to childhood autism.

Some of his comments walking back from his past statements were enough to assuage Republican senators. And even on issues like abortion, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., somebody who has espoused abortion issues that are aligned with his former party, the Democratic Party, he made commitments, like senators -- like Senator Josh Hawley, that he would not deviate from Donald Trump's position opposing abortion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): I'm going to vote for him based on his commitment based on life, that he said that he would implement President Trump's agenda from his first term.

RAJU: You believe him on that abortion issue?

HAWLEY: Yes, he testified under oath that he would reimpose all of the pro-life protections. Well, if he doesn't do that, we will have a big problem, because he told me under oath he would. So, yes, I believe him.

If not, it's not going to be pleasant.

SEN. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): We have done everything we can to fight him and we're not done fighting him. But we need some of the Republican members to decide they're not going to cater to every whim of this president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: And that last comment coming from Senator Adam Schiff, a freshman Democrat from California, and laying out the stark reality for Democrats here is they simply just do not have the votes to stop any of these nominees unless Republicans defect. Really, four Republicans would need to defect on any party-line vote.

And we do not expect that either for Tulsi Gabbard or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The votes to watch in this Gabbard vote that's going to happen -- that is happening in this hour is, what will Mitch McConnell, the former Republican leader, do on that, and what will John Curtis, freshman Republican senator from Utah?

But even if they both vote no, Phil, that will not be enough to stop the nomination, and the same issue with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. No Republicans are opposed at the moment and certainly doesn't seem like four would, which means that they're very, very likely to get their job, Gabbard as soon as today -- Phil.

MATTINGLY: Yes, it seemed a lot dicer a couple of weeks ago.

Manu Raju on Capitol Hill, keep us posted from there.

David Chalian, I want to go to you, because it was funny watching Manu's interview with Josh Hawley. It was like the -- it was like he just realized that perhaps a Cabinet official would go back on their word and was like, wow, that would be bad. [11:05:02]

But what he's laying out there is critical, which is I remember the meeting he had before any of the hearings with RFK Jr. And right after that meeting, he posted a thread of tweets saying RFK has promised on X, Y and Z related to abortion. Critical.

The way the Trump administration has gone about getting these people to this point is not a small thing.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes, it's not like Senator Hawley had to extract that from RFK Jr.

He went into these meetings with a plan that he knew to get people on the Republican -- in the Republican Conference on the right, some pro- life folks, on board. It was going to have to be to make these assertions that he would follow Donald Trump's policies and positions on this.

Listen, we're talking about these two nominees, Phil. We should note it's just a couple of years ago these two nominees were Democrats. So you're already just starting with this notion of some skepticism from the Republican Conference.

So then you have to get to their actual policies and positions. And there's been some more bipartisan skepticism. Now, because they were Democrats, there's also this opportunity, potentially, people thought at the beginning of this process, for some hybrid coalition of Democratic and Republican senators coming together to get them over the finish line.

That seems to have drifted away in large part. And listen on the Gabbard piece how Republican senators have gotten to a comfortable place. So, like, Lisa Murkowski, somebody normally who maybe need to be wooed over if you are a Republican president: "I trust my colleagues on the Intelligence Committee. They did this vetting of her, and I trust what they have to say. And so I'm going to be on board with it."

You just saw day after day how the effort from the Trump administration to get these nominees over the hump, it was a senator- by-senator strategic plan to get them comfortable with this. And note, J.D. Vance is in Paris, so they're not all that worried about this being a 50/50 vote.

MATTINGLY: Or he would be there.

CHALIAN: Yes.

MATTINGLY: Well, everybody, hang out for a second. I want to listen to Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, speaking on the Senate floor.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): My guess is, if a secret ballot were cast on Tulsi Gabbard, maybe she'd get 10 votes. You all know how bad she is.

And so I know that people feel they want to please the president in his nomination. But there are certain times you have to buck and stand up and say, no, this is just a very bad choice for America. And the nomination of Ms. Gabbard is simply one of those.

I plead with my colleagues -- I know it's the last minute -- to think twice, to vote no, as we all will vote, because this is such an awful nomination, who will endanger our national security and our intelligence operations throughout the country and the world. I yield the floor.

MATTINGLY: You have been listening to Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. We expect the vote on Tulsi Gabbard's confirmation to start shortly.

Alex, I want to go to you.

Look, we have all heard the concerns from both Republicans and Democrats related to the Gabbard nomination, particularly for this post. That was a stark demonstration from the Democratic leader. If a secret ballot was held, maybe 10 votes at most. "You all know how bad she is" a direct quote.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's truly reflective of the bipartisan concerns about her.

I mean, this obviously was a long-term Democratic lawmaker who no longer enjoys the support of her former party and doesn't have a loyal following among Republicans. What she does have is the backing of President Trump, and that appears, and this is what Chuck Schumer is saying, is that that's going to get her across the line.

There are two significant concerns that have been shared among Republicans and Democrats. The first is her utter lack of experience on an intelligence level. Of course, she's served in the military for quite some time, but never in any kind of intelligence capability. And now she's being asked to run not just one, but oversee 18 different intelligence agencies.

And then there's the question of her past statements that has been of great concern to Republicans and Democrats. She was pummeled in her confirmation hearing about Edward Snowden and a desire to pardon him. Time after time, she was questioned about whether he was a traitor, and she wouldn't say that.

That -- Susan Collins, Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, coming out of the gate asking about that. Her past statements about Putin and Ukraine and how the West and Ukraine provoked that war, her visit to Assad in Syria. She did manage to convince the swing Republican votes on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Susan Collins and Todd Young, to vote for her.

So she got out of committee. And so it does appear that she is on her way to a glide path for this nomination. It is not without its complications and it is not without its reservations. But it does appear that, because of the backing of Trump, that she will get those Republicans to line up behind her.

MATTINGLY: You're watching Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat on the floor, speaking now.

Alayna Treene, who's over for us at the White House. I want to talk to you, because Alex makes a good point about kind of what we saw publicly and in that hearing, where I don't think anybody on either side of the aisle thought Gabbard came out of it looking particularly like she was on a glide path.

[11:10:13]

But the behind-the-scenes, and you have done a ton of reporting on this, that they were able to kind of secure conversations that were critical to getting her to this point. Walk people through that.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Right.

I mean, I can't overstate, Phil, how crucial some of the behind--he scenes jockeying and back-channeling really was, particularly from the side of the White House. President Donald Trump, as Manu mentioned, was directly involved in some of these conversations.

But after that hearing in particular that you mentioned, where there was a lot of concerns over Gabbard's response on whether Snowden was a traitor to United States for what he did, the White House helped set up a bunch of meetings between Gabbard and some of the skeptical Republican senators to try and bring them on board.

When I talked to different White House officials about it, they said they really believed that it was in those meetings, those closed-door meetings after her hearing, that convinced them to kind of come on to their side and support Gabbard out of that committee hearing.

Now, we also know, in addition to Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, he was mentioned in a couple senators' statements for convincing them, not just with Tulsi Gabbard, but also RFK Jr., to come on board with their nomination or their confirmation as well.

So, very much, we're seeing the Trump team very directly involved in this. One thing that I find interesting, though, as well is what I have been told about the broader picture, if you want to take a step back and look at this.

A lot of people I have spoken with, people close to the president, people inside the Trump administration, they argued that the work on getting these nominees through is a crucial test of the president's power on Capitol Hill. They recognized that they -- especially after Matt Gaetz had to withdraw his nomination because he wasn't going to have enough support, they felt that they had to get the others through because they didn't want there to be this precedent that the president would be kind of bowing to Congress on this.

They want Congress to be the ones responding to the president.

MATTINGLY: Yes, and on the verge of a clean sweep post-Matt Gaetz. We want to dip back into the Senate floor, where Senator Wyden, who is the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, which oversaw the Robert F. Kennedy nomination, is speaking.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

SEN. RON WYDEN (D-OR): ... health care possible, rather than having a handful of health care companies being gobbled up in the entire market for health insurance, pharmaceuticals, hospitals, and even doctors.

The results have been great for shareholder profits and disastrous for American families. Costs keep climbing. The act of getting a doctor's appointment or filing an insurance claim seems to have become an Olympic sport in much of America. The system delays and denies care and rakes in profits while patients are left wondering how they're going to get the care they need.

So the question before the Senate now is whether we want America's chief health officer to be somebody who's going to take on those corporate interests, somebody who's going to fight tooth and nail to lower costs and improve care, somebody who's going to work to protect and improve the federal health care programs that tens of millions of Americans rely on them, and not gut.

Everything I have seen and heard from Mr. Kennedy over these last few weeks has led me, colleagues, to conclude he is not the person that America needs. Americans have little reason to take Mr. Kennedy as his word. They do, however, have every reason to believe Mr. Kennedy will continue to embrace and amplify anti-vaccine programs.

Every reason to believe is, he will back up Donald Trump's abortion bans. And every reason exists to examine the prospect that he will be a rubber stamp for the Republican health agenda that would rip away the health care of so many Americans.

Over the next 24 hours, Democrats are going to show the American people why these concerns are so serious. I yield the floor, and I urge my colleagues to oppose this nomination.

MATTINGLY: That was Senator Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.

We are awaiting the vote to confirm Tulsi Gabbard for the director of national intelligence. Wyden talking about the vote to advance Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s nomination to be health and human services secretary. That is expected to follow that. His nomination vote will be, as he said, about 30-ish hours later.

We're going to keep an eye on this, keep watching the Senate floor as we wait for these votes to kick off in just a moment. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:19:03]

MATTINGLY: We are following the breaking news. You are looking live at the Senate floor, Tulsi Gabbard's nomination to be the director of national intelligence, a nomination that seemed like it may be imperiled, certainly had a lot of criticism publicly from Democrats, privately from Republicans.

Some Republicans certainly weren't over the fence or over the line just a couple of weeks ago, now appears to be on a glide path to getting the requisite number of votes she will need to be confirmed to take on the role as the top U.S. intelligence official overseeing 17 intelligence agencies, I believe.

I will defer to my colleague Alex Marquardt on the specifics of that. After that vote, we will have a procedural vote on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s nomination. That will move him one step closer to confirmation as well.

As we keep an eye on the floor, Alex Marquardt, when you look at the role that Tulsi Gabbard will be taking on, the scale of it seems enormous.

MARQUARDT: Yes.

MATTINGLY: But it's within a system where there are other key players. What will she be doing in this administration?

MARQUARDT: And that is exactly the right question, because we know the concerns and -- that led up to this vote, and now it does appear that she's going to get through. So what does her role look like now?

[11:20:06]

This was a role that was created after 9/11 to act essentially as a coordinator across the intelligence agencies. Technically, this is the most senior intelligence officer in the administration, though directors of the CIA might quibble with that. And, oftentimes, both are members of the Cabinet, as will be the case here.

But it's all going to come down to how Trump decides to use Gabbard. And all presidents use their DNIs in different ways. You do have the traditional ones, like a James Clapper, who, of course, was in the room when bin Laden was killed, or Dan Coats, and, most recently, Avril Haines.

And when you look at those pictures from inside the Situation Room, they're right at the head of the table, near the head of the table, alongside the secretaries of defense and secretaries of state. So those past examples have been really loud voices when it comes to intelligence matters.

And, keep in mind, the director of national intelligence, the definition of their role is, they're the senior adviser on intelligence issues for the president. Will Trump use her that way? That remains to be seen. There are obviously a lot of voices around Trump.

And on any of a number of issues, we're always asking ourselves, well, who is actually the loudest voice when it comes to X-issue? I'm focusing obviously on foreign policy. You look at Ukraine today. Is it Pete Hegseth? Is it Keith Kellogg? Is it going to be Tulsi Gabbard?

And that's where there are going to be some concerns from a lot of Republicans and Democrats because of the past statements that she's made about Ukraine, about Putin, about NATO. So is she really going to be a loud voice when it comes to weighing in on the questions of the day? The ODNI, the Office Director of National Intelligence, is in charge of the president's daily brief, the famous PDB, the intelligence briefing that the president gets each day.

Will she be the one delivering it? Will it be a career official from the CIA? I think it really remains to be seen. But the last thing I will say is, what got Susan Collins across the line -- and Susan Collins actually wrote the bill that brought ODNI -- that created ODNI -- is that she said that she thinks that Tulsi Gabbard can bring ODNI back to its roots and actually trim the size of the bureaucracy and get it back to its true role of coordinating these different agencies.

And so that appears to be her task at hand, but I will really be watching closely how much she is a voice in the room when it comes to the different foreign policy priorities.

CHALIAN: You know, Alex, when you cite all those previous examples of the DNI through Republican and Democratic administrations, and including the previous Trump administration that you were citing, it seems to me, and in talking to folks around the president, part of why she is going to be in this job is to actually be a complete contrast to all of those examples.

Disruption is part of the mission of this appointment, of this nomination. And I'm not quite sure that we know yet what that disruption will look like, but it is both with Gabbard and Kennedy, quite frankly.

Controversial, as they may be, Donald Trump sees both of these policy areas as part of the so-called deep state that he is looking to completely upend, and I don't think we know what it looks like when those pieces are upended.

MATTINGLY: All right, we're going to take a -- stay with us. We're going to actually watch. We're listening in to the Senate floor right now as we wait the final vote tally for Tulsi Gabbard's nomination.

CLERK: Banks, Barrasso, Blackburn, Britt, Budd, Cassidy, Cotton, Crapo, Curtis, Daines, Grassley, Johnson, Justice, Lankford, Moran, Mullen, Risch, Rounds, Schmitt, Scott of South Carolina, Sheehy, Tillis, Tuberville.

Mr. Hoeven, aye.

MATTINGLY: Clarity of what everybody's watching right now, senators get to come in and vote. They don't technically have a clock on them. They may claim otherwise.

What you just heard was a clerk reading off the votes of those who have voted yes. Anybody who hasn't voted can come in and vote while they're doing it. I will just say it's actually a very cool thing to watch if you're a Senate procedural nerd. You see the pages sitting down there?

CHALIAN: Do you know any Senate procedural nerds, Phil?

(LAUGHTER)

MATTINGLY: I have met some.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTINGLY: Adjacent to them. Yes, the guys sitting down right next to the guy on the desk are the pages, who actually run the Senate...

(LAUGHTER)

MATTINGLY: ... but are actually enormously helpful.

So we're continuing to watch as senators come in. I believe you see somebody wearing an Eagles Jersey right there who clearly lost a bet at some point.

(LAUGHTER)

MATTINGLY: You're allowed to have a little bit of fun, although you're supposed to be wearing a jacket and a tie on the Senate floor.

As we continue to kind of watch these votes -- I'm sorry. Is that a Jeremy Maclin jersey? That's -- yes, that's old-school.

(LAUGHTER)

CHALIAN: I think that's what it is. Senator Moran from Kansas?

(CROSSTALK)

MATTINGLY: ... Moran. It's got to be either Missouri or Kansas, I assume.

Sorry. We're a little pulled away right now.

To your point, though, David as we continue to watch these votes, the political coalition is the reason why RFK and Tulsi Gabbard are -- were even in consideration, because if four years ago you would have said RFK is going to be the health secretary for a Republican president, Tulsi Gabbard is going to be running intel, it would have been like a crazy Mad Libs section of things that would never happen.

[11:25:15]

But Trump seems to understand politically, as well as your point in terms of what they could do for policy, how critical these people and the base that they bring with them were to his coalition winning.

CHALIAN: Yes. And I think it's key the way you just phrased that, because I don't think that they are sort of just natural fits into the most traditional version of the MAGA world we think of.

And yet they both represent a real current, whether with RFK Jr., the make America health again movement inside the MAGA world. That proved to be quite politically potent this cycle. And RFK Jr. was the face of that. And so part of why the Trump folks were so eager to get his endorsement, it wasn't just like a high-profile famous Democratic last name.

It was he actually had some currency and followers and a movement that came with him. And now not is it just a reward to put him in the position in government, but actually to try and bust up some of this policy that they think has been so bloated and gone awry from the mission of health policy in the government.

MATTINGLY: Guys, stay with me. I want to go to Manu Raju, who has some new reporting on one senator that we have been watching very closely.

Manu, what do you got?

RAJU: Yes, this is freshman GOP Senator John Curtis, someone who had actually expressed concerns with Tulsi Gabbard's nomination not too long ago.

In fact, just last week, he put out a statement saying that he was concerned about her confirmation hearing and he indicated that he wanted to go back and review this nomination. But he just put out a statement indicating that he's a yes.

He voted for her confirmation the floor of the United States Senate, saying in the statement: "After working through a process, examining her nomination, consulting with experts, I will be voting yes." And he said that: "Anyone that followed my process knows my vote was not predetermined, but the fact that my trusted colleagues on the Intelligence Committee supported her was significant."

So that shows you how important the committee process is to some of these senators. Remember, in that committee process, it was unclear what Susan Collins would do. It was unclear what Todd Young would do. They were the ones in particular we were watching.

When they became a yes, those Republican senators, that essentially assured Tulsi Gabbard's confirmation. That same dynamic played out in RFK Jr. and his confirmation hearing and his consideration in the Senate Finance Committee. If one senator broke ranks on the GOP side, then that would have been enough to stop the nomination.

In that case, Bill Cassidy voted yes. That was enough to bring him to the floor. And some of these Republicans who were wavering on what to do saw the committees move ahead and said, OK, I'm going to listen to what the committees decided and I'm going to follow their lead. And that's what Senator John Curtis decided to do.

One other person to watch here in this vote, Mitch McConnell. We're told at the moment he has not voted yet, former Republican leader. And his office has not said which way he will come down. He has expressed some concerns about some of Trump's national security picks, namely, Pete Hegseth, who he voted against, one of the three Republican senators to vote against Pete Hegseth for his nomination to be the defense secretary.

What will he do here? But even if McConnell is a no-vote, that would mean there's bipartisan opposition, but very little bipartisan opposition, because she will -- is on path to be confirmed as the next director of national intelligence after these senators were wavering, like Senator John Curtis, voting yes, ensuring that she is going to get the job here after this confirmation vote, Phil.

MATTINGLY: Yes, it appeared like a high-wire act at various points, now, slowly but surely, everybody lining up to the president's picks, deferential, but also I think respecting the effort put in to get them to this point.

Manu Raju, the team here, stay with us.

I believe that's Eric Schmitt, the Missouri senator, wearing the Jeremy Maclin, which would make sense. Jeremy Maclin was -- is that -- that would -- no, I don't think it is.

CHALIAN: It was Roger Marshall.

MATTINGLY: Is it Roger Marshall?

CHALIAN: It was.

And, apparently, Senator McCormick was helping him get it on.

MATTINGLY: My sincere apologies to Senator Schmitt. Maclin went to Missouri, so I was trying to put two and two together. I couldn't see the back of the head. Am I down a rabbit hole here? Yes, I am. But that's why I have David Chalian here to fact-check me.

(LAUGHTER)

MATTINGLY: Stick with us. We're continuing to wait for the final votes to come in for Tulsi Gabbard's nomination to be director of national intelligence.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:30:00]