From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.

Today, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo testifies before the Senate,

at question, what is actually U.S. policy toward Russia, what the president says,

or what the U.S. government does? It's Thursday, July 26th.

Julie, what was the origin of Wednesday's hearing?

Well, so the Senate Foreign Relations Committee wanted to call the Secretary of State to talk

about the administration's recent foreign policy moves.

Julie Davis covers the White House for the times.

So, this wasn't your routine invitation to a Secretary of State. It's pretty unusual.

And then after the invitation had been extended, of course, we had this summit last week that President

Trump had with President Putin and Helsinki Finland. They all had a lot of questions that they

wanted to ask Mike Pompeo about what went on in that room. And that got added to the agenda

of this hearing. And it becomes really a chance for the senators to question the Secretary of State

who used to be a member of Congress about what is really going on here.

Foreign Relations Committee will come to order.

So it begins with opening statements from the Chairman of the Committee and the Ranking

Democrat. Secretary Pompeo, we are glad to have you here today. We're grateful for your service to

our country. I have faith in your leadership and I appreciate what you're doing to change the

culture of the State Department in positive ways. But I want to get straight to the point.

You come before a group of senators today who are filled with serious doubts about this White House

and its conduct of American foreign policy. Essentially, Bob Corcor, the chairman of the committee

who is a Republican, but he is very outspoken and he is retiring. Basically says that...

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