Netanyahu and Zelenskyy meet Trump before Lindsey Graham funeral service – US politics live

The US Senate voted 51-to-47 to confirm Jay Clayton as director of national intelligence, installing Donald Trump’s pick in the role despite his lack of prior experience with intelligence.

Clayton will replace Tulsi Gabbard , who resigned last month and had confirmed in sworn testimony last year, before Trump attacked Iran on the premise that it was about to obtain a nuclear weapon, that US intelligence agencies assessed “that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003”.

Clayton will take over from the acting director, Bill Pulte , a pro-Trump political operative who similarly lacked the intelligence experience for the role that is mandated by law.

During his Senate confirmation hearing, Clayton repeatedly refused to say that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. He also made baseless accusations in a CNBC television appearance that the slow vote count in California was an indication of fraud.