Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that several of President-elect Donald Trump’s nominations for cabinet positions were not “qualified or serious.”
Host Jake Tapper said, “Speaking of the FBI, you just heard your colleague, Senator Banks…you just heard him say that the New Orleans attack shows the need to quickly confirm President-elect Trump’s national security nominees, such as Kash Patel to be FBI Director, Pete Hegseth to be Secretary of Defense, Tulsi Gabbard to be Director of National Intelligence. You’re on committees that are going to consider all those nominations. Is he right that dragging out this confirmation battles will jeopardize the national security?”
Kelly said, “Well, we want qualified, serious people that are ready to do these jobs on day one in these jobs.”
Tapper said, “Are those three not qualified or serious?”
Kelly said, “Well, I think in some cases, especially a couple that will come before the Armed Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee, where I’ll have a chance to, you know, interface with them directly, I’ve got some big concerns about their experience, their background, you know, Pete Hegseth.”
Tapper asked, “All three of them are just Hegseth?”
Kelly said, “Well, all three of them but the the candidate for the FBI director will go in front of Judiciary I believe , So I’m not going to see him directly. But again, that’s somebody that I have significant concerns with. We want people with the background and especially with in national security positions like DOD, like DNI, like the FBI, who wants serious people that have a background to do these very, very hard jobs.”
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