Trump Cabinet hearings live: Most controversial picks Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel and RFK Jr. face questioning

Sanders raised questions over Kennedy’s response to Cassidy over vaccines and autism.

‘The evidence is there. That’s it. Vaccines do not cause autism,’ Sanders said.

Kennedy countered he’s ‘not going to go into HHS without any pre-ordained’ but Sanders cut him off.

‘I asked you a simple question Bobby,’ Sanders said. He pointed out the studies are there.

‘Senator if you show me those studies,’ Kennedy said.

‘That is a very troubling response,’ Sanders said.

He said the studies are there and Kennedy’s job was to look at the studies as an applicant for the job of HHS secretary.

Senator Cassidy asked whether Kennedy still believes that ‘Lyme disease was created as a military bioweapon?’

He referenced Kennedy telling Senator Bennet in yesterday’s hearing that he probably said that.

Kennedy responded ‘I’ve never believed that senator’

He said he believes we should always follow the evidence and there were three books suggesting that.

‘I have not read them through, but I’ve said we should always follow evidence no matter what it says,’ Kennedy said.

‘I have never said that definitively Lyme disease was created at a biolab,’ he said.

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

Kash Patel’s parents and sister came from overseas to attend his confirmation hearing on Thursday.

Above Patel hugs his mother while his father looks on.

Patel, in his opening remarks before the Judiciary Committee, thanked his family for making the long trip.

He specifically called out how his mother and father traveled from India to support him in the endeavor to be President Donald Trump’s FBI Director.

Patel leans in to greet his sister, who traveled from overseas to attend his confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on Thursday, January 30.

Kennedy delivered an opening statement where he repeated some of his testimony from yesterday.

However, he started out by noting he and his wife are heartbroken over the collision last night. He said he could see the rescue operations from his window.

Kennedy repeated that he promised Trump that if confirmed, he would put the health of America back on track.

He also addressed vaccine concerns by repeating he’s not anti-vaccine and anti-industry, saying ‘I’m pro safety. I’m pro-science.’

Kennedy said he believes vaccines have saved lives and play a ‘critical role in health care.’

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

Republican Sen. Thom Tillis held up a piece of paper showing a ‘Kash Bingo’ card he created to see if he could guess what words Democrats would use to attack President Donald Trump’s FBI nominee.

Tillis, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, introduced Patel on Thursday.

He showed the game he created to the room and revealed he crossed out four boxes during the opening statements alone.

‘I created a Kash Bingo Card that I have available to any of my colleagues who would like it on the other side of the aisle,’ Tillis said.

Some may view this as an unserious caricature and not appropriate for this committee. Sadly, I consider it a serious caricature of what I expect to be witness today.

I think we’ll have words like ‘enemies list’ and ‘deep state.’

Sarah Ewall-Wice, Senior U.S. Political Reporter on Capitol Hill:

HELP Committee Chair Bill Cassidy (R-LA) started the confirmation hearing of Robert Kennedy Jr. by raising his concerns with the nominee’s past actions when it comes to vaccines.

During his opening remarks, Cassidy spoke about the importance of vaccines and his own work on encouraging vaccinations.

The GOP senator and doctor told Kennedy ‘I have some reservations about your past positions on vaccines and other issues.’

He said he has constituents who credit Kennedy in part for not vaccinating their children.

Cassidy said Kennedy will tell senators he’s pro-vaccine, ‘so what will you tell the American people?’

He accused Kennedy of undermining confidence in vaccines with misleading arguments.

By Nikki Schwab, Chief Campaign Correspondent at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport

‘Trump Force One’ – President Donald Trump’s personal plane – was parked on the tarmac of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport Thursday morning, as reporters flocked to the airport in the aftermath of Wednesday night’s crash between an American Airlines flight and a Black Hawk helicopter.

It’s unclear why Trump’s 757 was at DCA – or whether the ground stop at DCA impacted the travel of any of the president’s family members.

The White House did not immediately comment on-the-record. The Secret Service also didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Jon Michael Raasch, U.S. Political Reporter on Capitol Hill

The top lawmaker on the committee, Arkansas Republican Tom Cotton, touted Gabbard’s clean record despite Hillary Clinton claiming otherwise.

‘First, I’m dismayed by the attacks on Ms. Gabbard’s patriotism and her loyalty to our country, for instance, Hillary Clinton has smeared Ms. Gabbard, calling her an asset of a foreign nation.’

‘Let me remind everyone that Ms Gabbard has served in our army for more than two decades. She has multiple combat tours, and she still wears the uniform to this day,’ he said.

‘She has undergone five FBI background checks.’

‘I spent more than two hours last week reviewing the latest, putting eyes on more than 300 pages. It’s clean as a whistle.’

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

Senate Judiciary Ranking Member Dick Durnin tore into Kash Patel during his confirmation hearing on Thursday.

He called the idea that President Donald Trump picked Patel to lead the FBI ‘ludacris.’

‘The idea that Kash Patel is going to be the FBI Director is appalling,’ the Illinois senator said in his opening statement. ‘His legal career is modest at best, his ideas are ludacris.’

Patel sat stone-faced listening to Durbin’s inflammatory remarks.

Former Hawaii Democrat Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has arrived at her confirmation hearing to become Donald Trump’s next director of national intelligence.

Gabbard, 43, is one of the most stirring selections the president has made and she could be seen as the most likely pick to not get confirmed.

The nominee took a solo trip to visit former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2017 while a congresswoman, a journey that has prompted many questions for her de-facto diplomacy.

Upon arriving into the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing her supporters broke out in chats, yelling ‘USA, USA, USA,’ to which she turned and gave a beaming smile.

‘I will not allow or tolerate disruptions,’ Chairman Tom Cotton quickly reminded the crowd at the introduction of his remarks.

Kash Patel is not and has never been married and he does not have any children.

The 44-year-old bachelor lives in the suburbs of the city of Las Vegas, Nevada.

He is in Washington, D.C. on Thursday for his confirmation hearing to be the next FBI Director.

Sarah Ewall-Wice, Senior U.S. Political Reporter on Capitol Hill:

Robert Kennedy Jr. is back on the hill this morning for Day 2 of his confirmation hearings to become the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

He is joined again by his wife Cheryl Hines.

This morning he will be appear before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in a much smaller room.

Yesterday he appeared before the Senate Finance Committee yesterday where he faced a barrage of attacks from Democratic senators who used his past comments on vaccines and abortion against him.

Here’s a recap from Day 1:

By Nikki Schwab, Chief Campaign Correspondent at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine and Rep. Don Beyer told DailyMail.com Thursday that they’re certain that some of the passengers who perished in the American Airlines crash were their constituents.

Lawmakers have yet to be briefed on the names of the deceased.

‘There will be constituents of mine on the plane. Absolutely. Just because of – people were flying into Reagan National, right? Flying into Arlington. I have not yet seen a manifest or a passenger list but you kind of have a sense of dread about something like this – you’re going to see names that you know,’ Kaine said in a gaggle with reporters at Ronald Reagan Washington Airport Thursday morning.

Kaine said he wasn’t given a timeline on when the manifest would be released.

‘Someone mentioned that there was a family from Reston here last night. But that’s the only glimmer I have,’ said Beyer, whose Virginia Congressional district hugs DCA.

Beyer was supportive of the decision to reopen DCA Thursday morning.

‘It may well freak people out,’ he acknowledged. ‘But I think that Jack Potter and his decision to reopen the airport is trying to bring back a sense of normalcy,’ he said, referencing the president and CEO of Metropolitcan Washington Airports Authority.

‘The fact that it is still safe,’ he continued. ‘This was an accident last night, in the dark, which is typically when the training exercises are taking place. It is safe, people need to come back. People are eager to get about their business.’

‘And then our job would be to do our best to serve the families that lost loved ones,’ the Virginia Democrat added.

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

Former lawmaker and attempted assassination survivor Gabrielle Giffords thinks ‘conspiracy theorist’ Kash Patel serving as FBI Director would be a ‘threat to public safety.’

Gifford’s nonprofit executive director Emma Brown released the following statement ahead of his confirmation hearing on Thursday:

‘Patel is woefully unprepared to lead an agency tasked with keeping Americans safe. His troubling ties to extreme groups that oppose basic gun safety measures, combined with his total lack of experience in public safety, make him uniquely unqualified to oversee the FBI.’

Donald Trump’s nominee for FBI Director Kash Patel arrived Thursday morning for his confirmation hearing.

Patel is one of Trump’s more controversial picks and will face an hours-long grilling from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) shows Patel to his seat for his confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on Thursday, January 30.

All right. Update this morning. I just got off the phone with the SOUTHCOM commander and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs talking about our efforts at Guantanamo Bay. That is ongoing. We’re leaning forward and supporting the president’s directive to make sure that we have a location for violent criminal illegals as they are deported out of the country. No one’s going to wait on the Defense Department, and we’re working that in real time.

But I also wanted to give an update on the tragedy that happened last night here in Washington, D.C. and provide a little bit more information as we are actively working to investigate and understand what occurred and why. At about 8:48 last night, a UH60, assigned to the U.S. Army Aviation Brigade in the military district of Washington, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, collided tragically with a civilian airliner.

The unit involved the Army unit involved with Bravo Company, 12th Aviation Battalion at Fort Belvoir. It was an annual proficiency training flight. And when we look at the crew and we’re not all. Not all kin have been notified, So we’re going to withhold ranks and names at this point. We do know on our side who was involved. It was a fairly experienced crew, and that was doing a required annual night evaluation. They did have night vision goggles.

The 12th Aviation Battalion, as of now was granted a 48 hour operational pause on contingency missions as what happened is reviewed and a senior level aviation team, an investigative team from our aviation safety center, was deployed last night and already is in Washington, D.C. to investigate what’s going on. We anticipate that the investigation will quickly be able to determine whether the aircraft was in the quarter at the right altitude at the time of the incident.

As I mentioned, next of kin notifications are ongoing. It’s a tragedy, a horrible loss of life for those 64 souls on that civilian airliner. And of course, the three soldiers in that Black Hawk. They’re in our prayers, their families and their communities as people are notified. I can’t imagine and I know it’s it’s gone from a rescue mission to a recovery mission. And we’re with all the first responders that are moving actively to. So at the Defense Department. Our thoughts and prayers go out. We are actively investigating to find out what happened and why. And as we get updates, you will have them. God bless.

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley hopes Kash Patel will reiterate to the panel his commitment to restoring public trust of the FBI.

During his opening statement during Patel’s confirmation hearing on Thursday, Sen. Grassley (R-Iowa) denounced claims that President Donald Trump’s nominee has an ‘enemies list’ he plans to use to exert ‘revenge’ against as FBI Director.

‘Mr. Patel, it’ll be your job to restore the public’s trust and return the FBI to its core mission of fighting crime,” Grassley demanded.

He also said: ‘In my time, I’ve never seen our law enforcement and intelligence community institutions so badly infected with political decision-making. They’ve broken faith with We the People.’

‘You must be fair, consistent, and aggressive. Your actions must be based on accountability.’

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

Tulsi Gabbard’s chances of becoming Donald Trump’s Director of National Intelligence is in jeopardy.

The controversial Democrat-turned-Republican former congresswoman doesn’t appear to have the votes to make it out of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

A senior aide for the committee told Fox News Digital half of the pael’s Republicans are not sold on Gabbard’s nomination.

With a Republican majority, this means that even members of Trump’s own party are in opposition to Gabbard’s nomination to one of the top national security and intelligence positions in the U.S.

So far, none of Trump’s nominees have failed to be voted out of their respective committees to receive a full Senate floor vote.=

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter in Washington, D.C.

Kash Patel will tell senators during his confirmation hearing on Thursday that he wants to improve Americans’ view and trust of the FBI, according to his opening statement obtained by DailyMail.com.

He will seek to end ‘abuse’ of FBI powers as the law enforcement arm of the Justice Department, but also embolden his field agents to carry out their duties.

‘Let good cops be cops,’ Patel will say in his remarks to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

‘I will focus on streamlining operations at headquarters while bolstering the presence of field agents across the nation.’

He will express his welcome of ‘congressional oversight’ to make sure the FBI ‘operates with the openness necessary to rebuild trust.’