Political Quotes

“first, let me thank the Presiding Officer, the staff on the floor, and the staff in both caucus rooms, for putting up with a very, very late night to take the floor just past 3:30 in the morning. I thank my friend Senator Schatz for picking up about an hour and a half, from 2 until 3:30, and I know that Senator Kaine will be joining the floor shortly. This is an exceptional night because we are living in exceptional times. We are likely to see tomorrow a record number of COVID cases diagnosed in this country. I know that it now feels like the new normal 7, 8 months into this pandemic, but this is unthinkable that our country has been ravaged by a virus that less than a year ago no one had ever heard of. Sometime in November or December of last year, COVID-19 started popping onto the international public health radar screen in China, and a few months later, it was here in the United States. Most countries were able to come up with a plan to control, contain, or essentially eliminate the threat of COVID-19 in a matter of months. The United States was not, because of an abysmal failure by this administration. We are now living with a third wave of COVID. As we speak on the floor tonight, we are looking down the barrel of 300,000 Americans dead by the end of this year. No one is safe. There are millions of kids who can't go back to school, businesses that have gone under, and 10 percent of our workforce that is out of work.…”