MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Not far from where rescue crews were working at the wreckage site, senators on Capitol Hill were holding confirmation hearings for several of President Trump's cabinet picks. They were contentious. Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's choice for director of national intelligence, was one of the nominees who faced tough questions from members of both parties on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Here's an exchange with Democratic Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado at yesterday's hearing.
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TULSI GABBARD: I understand how critical our national security is.
MICHAEL BENNETT: Apparently, you don't. Apparently, you don't.
MARTIN: Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, also a Democrat, also participated in that hearing. And he's with us now to tell us more of his thoughts. Good morning, Senator.
MARK KELLY: Good morning, Michel.
MARTIN: So let me explain a little bit about what the director of national intelligence does. He or she is supposed to be the leader of the intelligence community. They're supposed to coordinate the intelligence across agencies so they can present a coherent picture to the president. Basically, that person is the person's main adviser on intelligence. What's your main reservation about Tulsi Gabbard serving in that role?
KELLY: Well, whether or not she's prepared to do it. You mentioned these agencies. There's 18 of them, including the CIA, the National Security Agency and others. And it's about whether you have the background to do this, but also having the right judgment and ability to make some really hard decisions every single day to make sure the president has the intelligence that he needs to protect our country. And so my big concerns with Colonel Gabbard is, you know, that she's contradicted our own intelligence community on Assad's use of chemical weapons against his own people. And then she also has this propensity to use information as if it's true when it comes from, you know, dictators like Putin and Assad in Syria. And that's going to result in us being - all of us being less safe.
MARTIN: So you mentioned Colonel Gabbard. She's a former officer in the Army Reserves. She's also a former member of Congress from Hawaii. And when she sat on the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees, she was skeptical of U.S. intelligence that Syria's former dictator Bashar al-Assad was linked to chemical weapons attacks on civilians in his country. She was relying on a theory espoused by somebody with ties to Assad. Now, you asked her about that during the hearing. What does that whole episode tell you?
KELLY: Well, it tells me that she, you know, is skeptical, very skeptical. And I think skepticism is actually a healthy thing. And not...
MARTIN: I was going to ask, is that a bad thing to be skeptical?
KELLY: It's not a bad thing. And it's good to be pushing back, including, you know, on the people that are supporting you and that you work with. But she was much more skeptical of our own intelligence community despite having a huge number of experts in so many different areas. And she would not apply that same skepticism to information she would get from a single source that wasn't an expert. You mentioned, you know, these - there were two specific chemical attacks. And she had a so-called expert from MIT who was relying on a chemist who happened to be a chemistry student in Australia that would put videos online, that was not an expert. And this individual at MIT didn't have the expertise in sarin gas and other chemical weapons.
And so she was, you know, very sympathetic to, like, these sources, and also sympathetic to Assad in this case and repeating talking points that would come from our adversaries and not trusting anything that the intelligence community put out there on Assad's use of chemical weapons. So that's not the healthy kind of skepticism, and it didn't have the follow-up that you would expect from somebody who's a professional and who wants to lead 18 agencies.
MARTIN: So do you know how you're going to vote?
KELLY: Yeah, it's going to - I'm not there on her. And, you know, I think she's a patriot. She's served our country, you know, for over two decades. She served in Congress. You know, she cares about our nation. I just don't feel she's up to this job.
MARTIN: Do any of your Republican colleagues share your concern about her qualifications and her judgment?
KELLY: Well, for anybody who watched that hearing we had yesterday, and especially on the issue of Edward Snowden, who stole millions of documents, secrets and then turned them over to Russia - if you watch those exchanges with my Republican colleagues, you get a strong sense that they're having a very hard time with this nomination.
MARTIN: OK. So let me turn to immigration. You're among 12 Senate Democrats who voted with Republicans on the Laken Riley Act. It's a new law that requires federal officials to detain undocumented immigrants who are arrested or charged with certain crimes, including shoplifting. On the one hand, the person who killed Laken Riley had been picked up on a charge like that. The argument is he wouldn't have been in the position to kill her if he had been deported. On the other hand, people can be charged who are innocent. And that's one of the things that critics of this are concerned about. Is this bill good policy or is it just good politics?
KELLY: Well, so public safety is very important to me. You know, I'm the son of two police officers. I represent the state of Arizona in the United States Senate. We're a border state. Immigration and border security are very important to me. It's something I work on a lot. I think this is the right bill. Maybe it's not perfect. You know, we tried to amend it a little bit. But when you consider it in its entirety, it's addressing an issue that - it's not just about Laken Riley. I mean, it's about individuals that come across the border that - already they're committing, you know, one crime, and then they commit another one. And then what do you do with that?
MARTIN: And what if they didn't? What if they're innocent?
KELLY: Well, then there would be a process. And, you know, after they're found, you know, through a jury trial or charges are dropped, ICE, you know, has the authority to release them.
MARTIN: Before we let you go, you know, when Mitch McConnell was the leader of the Republicans when Obama was president, he said his top priority was depriving him of a second term. He didn't do that. Do the Democrats have a similar philosophy toward this administration? Do you have an overriding priority when it comes to the Trump administration?
KELLY: Well, Trump's not going to get a third term, so that's another...
MARTIN: So it couldn't be that, but is there another one?
KELLY: No, it's not that. Yeah, I mean, I think it's to figure out where to work with this administration when we can move this country forward. That's a priority of mine. But another priority of mine is when he is acting not in accordance with our principles, longstanding principles as a nation, or not acting in accordance with the law or our ethics, to push back and to prevent bad things from happening. He's got a tendency to throw a lot of stuff out there, you know, test the waters on things. And, you know, it's hard to - hard for the American people to keep track of. It's hard for me to keep track of. It's my job. I mean, it's like something new every single day, and it's chaotic. So we're going to - you know, we're working hard here in Washington, and we're going to continue to do that.
MARTIN: That is Senator Mark Kelly. He's a Democrat from Arizona. Senator Kelly, thanks so much for talking with us. We hope we'll talk again.
KELLY: All right. Thank you. Bye.
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