Political Quotes

“Arizona is a couple thousand miles away from here, and as folks know, we are a bit unique in the sense that we do not observe daylight savings time. What that means is that we are either 2 or 3 hours behind DC depending on the time of year. Right now, it is 2 hours. So usually when things start happening here in Washington that affect my State, me and my staff will hear from concerned Arizonans a little later in the morning, usually closer to 12 noon. That wasn't the case on Tuesday because that is the day that we all woke up to a vague, reckless memo from the Trump administration that said they would freeze all Federal grant funding. The memo was short. It was just two pages. It said: Federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to the obligation or disbursement of all federal financial assistance. There was no list of programs it would impact and programs it wouldn't--no details. It was just a broad, unconstitutional mandate that pretty clearly intended to just grind everything to a halt. The calls and texts to me and my staff started immediately. As early as 6:30 a.m. Arizona time, my Southern Arizona director was hearing from a nonprofit concerned about what this meant to them. Ten minutes later, my Northern Arizona director got a text from a county supervisor, asking what this meant for their county's Federal grants that had already been awarded. On and on this went for the rest of the day.…”