English transcript

Director Gabbard, last year you testified that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon. Do you stand by that statement?

Yes or no?

Context matters with that statement. Iran had all of the materials and capabilities to do so.

Mr. Chairman, I reclaim my time.

It's an easy answer. You either stand by what you said last year or not.

It is a serious question that requires the totality of the information available.

Director Gabbard, I reclaim my time.

When President Trump was asked about your testimony, he said you were wrong.

Were you lying or not?

I stand by the intelligence community's complete assessment.

Director Ratcliffe, when it came to the Director's testimony,

she said that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon last spring in Congress.

And so the Supreme Leader has not authorized the nuclear weapons program.

Do you agree with what she said or not?

Yes or no?

The Director's right here. She can speak for herself.

Oh, so I thought this was an intelligence community briefing.

Let's move on.

Trump also said he didn't care what you thought or said.

Should he care about what you have to say when it comes to intelligence?

I continue to provide the President with the intelligence community's assessments on all matters.

So let me just kind of get this straight.

The Department, you said that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon last year.

President Trump said he didn't care what you thought and you were wrong.

They engaged in Operation Midnight Hammer.

He then says it was obliterated.

We hear later reports in open source reporting that it was only set back by a few months.

Then at the beginning of this war, he said that they were weeks away.

I just want to kind of get a sense of were they weeks away of achieving a nuclear weapon?

Yes or no?

Congressman, this is a serious matter and you've made some very serious mischaracterizations here.

And so it would be a disservice to you and the American people to answer this question with a mere yes or no.

Reclaiming my time, were they weeks away or not?

The American people need to know if this was an imminent threat or not.

If they're weeks away or not.

If they're months away or not.

None of this dodging, were they an imminent threat?

Yesterday, you said that only the president, the only person who can determine what is an imminent threat is the President of the United States.

Do you stand by that statement?

Yes, I do.

Director Ratcliffe, do you agree with that assessment?

That the president is the only person that can determine if something is an imminent threat or not?

The president's commander-in-chief gets to make a decision about what's an imminent threat.

Reclaim my time.

Reclaim my time.

Reclaim my time.

Reclaim my time.

The reason why is that if the president can determine and ignore what you're doing, why do you guys even have a job?

Why do you even advise him?

So you're saying tomorrow the President of the United States can say China is an imminent threat.

And then he can take his own, no matter what the intelligence says, he can take his own action.

So that's what you're basically saying.

Okay, let's go on.

Director Gabbard, you said that North Korea has intercontinental ballistic missiles that can reach the homeland.

Yet, the Defense Department said that Iran was at least 10 years away from achieving an intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach the homeland.

Which one is a more serious threat, North Korea or Iran?

These threats are taken within the context of the total body of intelligence reporting.

So that's – it should be.

And that's my point.

It's not just about having the capability of building a weapon.

It's if they can actually deliver that weapon.

If they can – they have the intention of doing that.

How many weeks away are they?

I haven't – we haven't heard that they were weeks away.

We haven't heard that they're months away.

But that's what we're waiting for.

Imminent to me means that they're mobilizing troops.

They're moving things into position, artillery.

They're getting ready to attack.

But everything that we've heard is that this is not the case.