Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman, Mr. Blumenauer, for his amendment, although I urge its defeat. I start off with pointing out that both the Obama administration and the Trump administration have decided the fact that Russia is in violation of the INF Treaty, and neither of those administrations have indicated any belief that Russia will come back into compliance. But having said that, I want to say I am troubled that the gentleman would want to provide a veto on the development of a system that hasn't been developed, much less deployed. The gentleman is worried about deployment of a system that we still don't have developed yet. And hopefully it won't be deployed when it is completed. That is really the function of whether Russia comes back into compliance. General Selva, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the HASC in March: ``They do not intend to return to compliance absent some pressure from the international community and the United States as a cosigner of that same agreement. There is no trajectory in what they are doing that would indicate otherwise.'' The development of this system that we are talking about here today is that very pressure that General Selva was referencing. This kind of development got the Russians to the table on the INF Treaty anyway, but they are violating the treaty. And that doesn't just matter to Europe. It matters to Asia, which is completely ignored by the gentleman's amendment. And Asia matters on INF. Why?…”