Political Quotes

“I thank the Presiding Officer. Mr. President, I just returned from a trip to a major transatlantic conference in Europe. While the Europeans have spent a lot of time over the course of the last 12 months hand-wringing about whether the United States is committed to Europe, committed to NATO, committed to our common defense, my feeling upon going to Brussels for this particular conference is, they are kind of over the hand-wringing. They are now just making plans to move on without us. They are making plans to protect themselves without us. They are making plans to set the rules of the road economically, politically, and culturally around the world without the United States. The evidence of that was very clear. The Europeans are setting up something called the European Defense Initiative, in which they are going to start doing military planning and purchasing outside of NATO because they are just not convinced, not confident that the United States is going to be seriously engaged in NATO. That compromises our security as the Europeans start to make plans for their defense without us, even though we still have an obligation under the treaty to protect them. Over and over, you see the world moving on as they watch this massive withdrawal of America from the world. The President said at a rally in Alabama a few months ago that the world is starting to respect the United States of America again. That could not be further from the truth.…”