[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 64 (Thursday, April 19, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2296-S2297]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Nomination of Mike Pompeo

  Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, thank you for acknowledging me and letting 
me speak on behalf of our nominee to be Secretary of State, Mike 
Pompeo.
  I did not know Mike Pompeo well. As a matter of fact, I am not sure I 
ever met him until he was nominated. I just want to say to the people 
in this body, I don't think anybody would view me as an apologist in 
any way for the administration, and I view Mike Pompeo as a highly 
qualified nominee. I spent a lot of time with him privately and on the 
phone. He did, I thought, an excellent job in his hearing.
  We have had a tradition of confirming people to important positions. 
Just to give a little history, John Kerry was confirmed as Secretary of 
State by Republicans and Democrats by a vote of 94 to 3. Obviously, 
John Kerry, my friend, no doubt, had been involved in partisan 
activities. He ran for President. He is someone, no doubt, who I am 
sure has said things people did not agree with.
  Secretary Clinton was confirmed as Secretary of State by a vote of 94 
to 2--no doubt, the same case. I am sure she said things many 
Republicans disagreed with when she was a political person as a U.S. 
Senator running for President.
  Condoleezza Rice was confirmed to be Secretary of State in a vote of 
85 to 13, and Colin Powell was unanimously confirmed as Secretary of 
State. So we have had a history of the last Secretaries of State to be 
overwhelmingly confirmed.
  I realize we are in an atmosphere now where that is just not going to 
be the case. I realize that my Democratic friends in many cases feel 
that in supporting Pompeo, it is a proxy for support of the Trump 
administration policies, which many of them abhor. I understand that. 
There will be a few Democrats who I believe will support him.
  I want to say to people in this room, our President has very 
entrepreneurial tendencies. He talks to people on the phone late at 
night. He comes in in the morning sometimes with differing points of 
view than he had the day before. We had evidence of that recently on 
Syria, where one day, we are going to leave Syria, and the next day, 
General Mattis and others intervened, and thankfully we are going to 
stay there and complete the work we are doing against ISIS.
  I would argue to people here that we need to have someone like Mike 
Pompeo, who serves the Nation so well.
  This is a person, by the way, who graduated first in his class at the 
U.S. Military Academy, West Point, in 1986. He served as a cavalry 
officer patrolling the Iron Curtain before the fall of the Berlin Wall. 
He also served with the 2nd Squadron, 7th Cavalry, in the U.S. Army's 
4th Infantry Division. After leaving Active Duty, Mr. Pompeo graduated 
from Harvard Law School, having been editor of the Harvard Law Review.
  Sometimes we meet people in life who are just sharper than we are, 
who have had an incredible academic background. I can't even imagine 
having accomplished some of the things he has accomplished in life.
  I know the Presiding Officer served, thankfully. We appreciate that 
he served in our military. People who have served in the military 
typically have more respect for diplomacy than those who have not 
because they understand that their diplomatic effort, if successful, is 
the thing that keeps our men and women out of harm's way. They know 
that. Pompeo is committed to that. He was there at the Iron Curtain and 
understood what diplomacy did to free people and keep conflict from 
occurring. I know he is highly committed to that.
  We have had cultural issues at the State Department, there is no 
question. I think everyone understands that. Our former Secretary of 
State is someone with whom I had a good relationship. No doubt there 
were some things that were left undone at the State Department. We have 
a lot of positions that are unfilled. All I can say is that I know our 
nominee is highly committed to promptly filling those positions. We 
have some culture issues there as a result. We do, there is no 
question. We know that. We acknowledge that.
  As head of the CIA, every month Mike Pompeo sits down with CIA 
employees in a casual setting where they call him Mike, and they talk 
with him about what is going on. He is a person who knows how to build 
culture. He has done so at the CIA. He understands the importance of 
the professionals who have committed their lives--just like the Foreign 
Service officers at the State Department--to the CIA. So we have 
someone who I know is going to build culture. We have someone who I 
know is committed to diplomacy.
  Let's talk about where we are in the world today. We have crises all 
over the world. We have issues with North Korea, Syria, Russia, 
concerns about some of the things China has done, Pakistan, 
Afghanistan, Iraq. Who in the world can possibly know more currently 
about where we are than our Director of the CIA? I can't imagine there 
is a person in Washington who has more current knowledge about 
threats--the people involved in those threats, the people we can use to 
help us deal with those threats--than the Director of the CIA. There 
could be no one here more qualified or more knowledgeable to step in 
immediately and deal with the kinds of issues we have to deal with 
around the world.
  Look at what has happened in North Korea just recently. We know that 
the back channels to North Korea have always been through intelligence. 
We understand that. He was exactly the right person to be there to talk 
and do the precursor work that needs to be done. Many others need to be 
involved--Secretary of Energy, Secretary of Defense; many other people, 
obviously--but Director Pompeo was exactly the right person to go and 
demonstrate his ability to be dealt with with respect.
  I will be leaving this body in 8\1/2\ months. It has been the 
greatest privilege of my life to serve here. As I said to my Republican 
colleagues yesterday at lunch, I actually think the talent and the 
caliber of people here in the Senate have risen since I have been here. 
I think we have the best group of Senators today serving in the Senate 
that we have had since I have been here. I see a crop of people running 
for these seats, and I think it may even improve next time.
  It pains me to know that my friends on the other side of the aisle 
know that this is a qualified person, this is a person who has 
demonstrated incredible

[[Page S2297]]

excellence in his life--he served his country. He has been in the 
private sector. He served in this body; he was a Congressman. Now he 
has distinguished himself with his service as Director of the CIA. By 
the way, in this position, I know many of my Democratic friends have 
lavished praise on him because of his transparency and honesty in 
dealing with them but also the way he has built an excellent culture 
there.
  We will have a vote on Monday night in the committee. I hope we are 
able to send him out of committee and to the floor. I hope that the 
Members on the other side of the aisle who have not yet said how they 
are going to vote will think about the circumstances we are in today 
and feel that they can support a highly qualified Secretary of State 
because they know that having someone like him giving advice to the 
President, leading diplomacy, making sure the State Department, with 
the great professionals we have there, is given the ability to do what 
it does best by leveraging its efforts around the world--I hope that 
people will think about this and realize that we are much better as a 
nation having Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State than not having him as 
Secretary of State and will vote aye on the floor.
  I thank the Presiding Officer.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I rise today to talk with this body 
about the NASA Administrator.
  Later today, we are going to have a vote that is extremely important 
for the future of NASA and the future of space exploration, what we are 
going to do with our satellites, what we are going to do on climate 
issues, and what we are going to do on weather. All of those are 
related to NASA.
   Jim Bridenstine, who is a friend and who is a fellow Oklahoman, the 
current Congressman from Tulsa, OK--Oklahoma's 1st District--is the 
person the President has tapped to say: That is the person I support to 
be the next NASA Administrator.
  He has for months and months and months gone through the process. He 
has gone through committee hearings and has gotten all kinds of 
support. The committees he served on in the House of Representatives 
sent a bipartisan letter with wide majorities to the Senate saying: We 
have worked with  Jim Bridenstine. He is exceptionally knowledgeable 
about issues on space. He is a great choice.
  They sent that letter over from the House to the Senate.
  Multiple individuals have written letters in support of  Jim 
Bridenstine, including Sean O'Keefe, who is a former NASA 
Administrator. Buzz Aldrin also sent an extensive letter in support of  
Jim Bridenstine and also wrote a pretty remarkable op-ed about  Jim 
Bridenstine, in support for him.
  We have had multiple different groups that are space related who have 
sent us all kinds of information and endorsements about  Jim 
Bridenstine leading NASA and being the next Administrator.
  There has been a lot of support from around the country and from 
multiple individuals--former NASA Administrators, former astronauts, 
individuals who have risen up--but I still have people who bump into me 
and say: I don't know who he is. Well, I get that. He is a Congressman 
from Tulsa, OK. Let me give just a little bit of background so you will 
have some perspective on him.
   Jim Bridenstine began his naval career flying the E-2C Hawkeye off 
the USS Abraham Lincoln. As a naval aviator, he had 333 carrier-
arrested landings. He has had 1,900 flight hours in total. While on 
Active Duty, he transitioned to the F/A-18 Hornet and flew at the Naval 
Strike. He flew for TOPGUN. He served in Afghanistan. He served in 
Iraq. He served in our drug interdiction work in Central and South 
America, flying there. He has had a pretty remarkable naval career.
  He graduated from Rice University, which is no simple thing to do. He 
graduated with a triple major when he finished at Rice University. He 
has an MBA from Cornell University. He is extremely smart, and he is 
extremely engaged.
  He has been very attentive to the issues of space. Serving in the 
House of Representatives, he has made his focus space and research and 
trying to realign NASA into being mission-focused. Some have said that 
NASA in some ways has lost its focus of what it exist for.  Jim 
Bridenstine has been very, very passionate in trying to get NASA back 
on focus with a big vision and a big mission. He has done that with 
multiple different bills that he has worked through, but he has also 
done that in trying to articulate to the space community why it is 
extremely important that we have a good, solid, and functioning NASA in 
all of its areas of operation.
  He has the support of our delegation. He has the support of many in 
the space industry. He has the support of former NASA Administrators. 
He has the support of former astronauts. And he should have the support 
of this body today.
  We will vote on him at 1:45. NASA's Acting Administrator is in the 
process of retiring right now. Not only should Jim be here, but we 
should not have taken this long to actually get to this spot. It has 
taken 8 months to get to a vote on a NASA Administrator. Let's get him 
on this task, and let's get him going. We need him in this spot, and I 
think he will do a fine job. That is not just my opinion; folks from 
all over the country have risen up and looked at him clearly and have 
said he is the right person for the job.