Political Quotes

“Madam President, I remember that night well. It occurred just some months ago. The nuclear option was being threatened. Many had worked very hard to avoid that. Keep in mind that the nuclear option was not just discovered this year or last year; Senators have known of the nuclear option for a long time. We have been down this road before when Republicans were in the majority. Fortunately and wisely, they backed off. A group of I think 14 Senators got together and said: You know, we have to figure out a way to deal with this. And they did. They got a lot of criticism. I remember that. I remember the criticism was that they caved in, they gave in, they compromised, and that they should not have compromised and all of the things that you hear. But at the end of the day, leadership backed off of doing exactly what happened here right before Thanksgiving. Well, that night we went into the Old Senate Chamber. Anybody who has ever visited that room, you walk in and you feel the history of that place immediately. Some of the great Senators in our Nation's history have spent time in that room arguing for the great causes of the day. It is a remarkable place. The doors were closed. There was no staff in the room. There was no media in the room. There were no cameras recording everything we were saying. This was a meeting of the Senators who were there to try to figure out whether there was a way forward.…”