Political Quotes

“Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I heard a very similar speech last week when Senator Paul came to the floor to offer this exact same resolution, and I came to the floor to offer the exact same objection. I guess we are going to be here next week and the week after having this same back-and-forth on the Senate floor. I don't know that this is the most important problem facing the country today, the question of whether a small number of Senate pages has a vaccine or not. I think Senator Paul's obsession with the page vaccine policy is a little weird and not squared with the actual priorities of the American public. But I will continue to come down here and object because it is important to know that there is no legal mandate that pages be vaccinated. It is a policy, not a mandate. Senator Paul is proposing a mandate--a mandate--through this resolution that under no circumstances can pages be required to have a vaccination as a condition of their employment here. I find Senator Paul's recitation of his body of evidence interesting. I don't dispute the fact that the vaccine today is much more efficacious on preventing serious illness and is not, like prior vaccines, effective at preventing transmission. But here are two things to say about that. Senator Paul says over and over again that if you are a healthy kid, you have nothing to worry about, that no healthy kids are dying. OK, that is broadly true.…”