Senate faces packed, complicated agenda as midterms loom

By — Lisa Desjardins Lisa Desjardins By — Kyle Midura Kyle Midura Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/senate-faces-packed-complicated-agenda-as-midterms-loom Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Audio On Capitol Hill, time is starting to run short for Congress as the midterm elections loom. The House is on summer recess, but the Senate is in Washington trying to handle a packed, complicated agenda. That includes a first vote on President Trump’s pick as the Director of National Intelligence. Lisa Desjardins reports. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. Geoff Bennett: On Capitol Hill, it is a split screen. The House is out for summer recess, but the Senate is very much in session, working through a packed and complicated agenda that includes a first vote tonight on President Trump's pick as the national director -- the director of national intelligence. Our Lisa Desjardins is here with more. So, Lisa, let's start with the action tonight, this key vote on President Trump's pick for DNI. Tell us more about it. Lisa Desjardins: Right. This vote for the director of national intelligence is about the position created after 9/11 to coordinate intelligence. So it is a very big deal. The past four months, this agency has been run by an acting and controversial selection who really has focused on just shrinking the agency. Let's talk about the permanent nominee. That is Jay Clayton. He right now is the U.S. attorney for Manhattan. And if you look at the Senate floor right now, you can see the vote under way. This is seen as an experienced nominee, and he has just gotten enough votes to advance. We expect his final confirmation tomorrow. But, until then, Geoff, Bill Pulte remains the acting DNI. He is controversial for a few reasons, but one is he's continuing to make major decisions even now. Last night, he posted on X -- quote -- "As of this evening, we just finished a fourth round of thoughtful, measured layoffs." The agency didn't respond to my request for exact numbers, but sources familiar tell me that Pulte has laid off some 200 or more people just in the few weeks that he's been acting director. If Jay Clayton is confirmed tomorrow, this will be Pulte's last full day on the job. Geoff Bennett: Another thing we're watching, Lisa, is President Trump publicly criticizing the Senate Republican leader, John Thune. That isn't entirely new, but the fact that Thune is pushing back, that is unusual. Lisa Desjardins: Right. This whole situation is a bit rare, except for the Trump factor, when you have these public airings that are unusual. Now, this tension is in part because Thune is a defender of the Senate, but he also can count, Geoff. He knows there are not 60 votes for much of the Trump agenda. So let's dial back to what we have seen back and forth. Trump had some imp