Sen. Mark Warner says he hopes Senate can confirm Trump's DNI pick "this week"

Source: CBS News

June 14, 2026 / 3:26 PM EDT


Washington — Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on Sunday that he's hopeful the Senate can confirm President Trump's new nominee for director of national intelligence this week, amid an impasse over the president's controversial pick to serve as acting intelligence chief that resulted in the expiration of a key spy authority late last week.

"We will get Clayton, I hope, confirmed as quickly as possible. We will then move very quickly to get FISA reauthorized," the Virginia Democrat said on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan."

The president announced on Thursday that he was nominating Jay Clayton, the current U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, to be the next director of national intelligence as Tulsi Gabbard resigning as director of national intelligence, citing husband's cancer diagnosis. The move came after Democrats, and some Republicans, had balked at Mr. Trump's selection of the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Bill Pulte, to serve as acting director of national intelligence. Democrats refused to agree to an extension of a warrantless surveillance authority under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as long as Pulte was set to assume the role.

Then, with just hours before the spy authority was set to expire, the president announced Clayton as his long-term pick for intelligence chief. But the move came too late for Congress to intervene, with the House having already left town. The Senate will return on Monday, where GOP leaders have indicated that they plan to move quickly on Clayton's nomination. The Senate Intelligence Committee is scheduled to hold a confirmation hearing Wednesday.

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mark-warner-trump-dni-pick-jay-clayton-senate-confirmation-face-the-nation/