Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise today to oppose Colin Kahl's nomination for Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and I advise my colleagues to do the same, as we are getting ready to take a vote on this very important position in the Pentagon. That, to me, is one of the most important positions we have at the Department of Defense. While I have many policy disagreements with Dr. Kahl, which I have discussed at length with him, I want to say I have a long history of working across the aisle, with Democrats and Republicans, on defense issues, even with those with whom I don't agree on their policies. As a matter of fact, the Presiding Officer and I have a very strong working relationship, and we don't agree on a lot of issues, particularly on issues of the military. I serve on the Armed Services Committee, and I take these matters very seriously. They are some of the main reasons I ran for the U.S. Senate 6\1/2\ years ago. I focus a lot on military personnel, uniform and civilian, whom we put in the Pentagon and who have this enormous responsibility to oversee the Department of Defense. Whether they are Assistant Secretaries, Under Secretaries, admirals, or generals, I try to understand where they are coming from, and I have a record of strongly supporting almost all of them, whether they have been in the Obama administration, the Trump administration, or even are in the Biden administration.…”