Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I thank my friend for the question, and I thank him for standing, quite literally, with me every second of these last 13-plus hours. I thank my friend from Connecticut as well, who is about to speak, for doing the same. It is nice to have friends. It is nice to have friends who are committed to the same thing as you are, but it is just nice to have friends. It doesn't have to be like this. There are so many things in this country that we accept as inevitable, true, and unchangeable, and we are right on the precipice of getting to the point in this country where we accept this level of gun violence and gun homicide as just a normal facet of life in this country. I know it because I heard the kids in the North End of Hartford tell me that the sound of ambulances and police sirens is their goodnight lullaby. They are used to falling asleep to the response of the next shooting. I knew it at the beginning of this week, when, as the news was filled with not just another mass shooting but the worst mass shooting in the history of this country, this body signaled that it wasn't going to take up any measures to combat the epidemic of gun violence in the wake of the worst mass shooting in the history of this country. It has felt like we have fallen upon the precipice of accepting this as the new normal in this country. All we are doing tonight is standing here and talking. We are asking for a vote.…”