Political Quotes

“I would like to thank Mr. Smith and Mr. Khanna for their leadership on this amendment and just express my disappointment at the statements made by my friend, Mr. McCaul. I never imagined that an amendment that essentially restated congressional authority as detailed in the Constitution would ever get characterized as a propaganda win for Iran, as a pro-Iran thing; and I would remind my friend, Mr. McCaul, that, yes, the President stepped away from a military conflict that might have been justified as an act of self-defense. I am not in the practice of praising the President on this floor, but he took a prudent course a few weeks ago. There is absolutely no guarantee he will do so again. This amendment does one simple thing. It is not unprecedented. Its precedent is the United States Constitution, which vests war-making authority when it is not in self-defense, as Mr. Smith points out, exclusively in the Congress. Now, we may or may not like that idea, but it is the principle that we swore to uphold. And I would just remind the Chamber that, every time we allow a Democratic or a Republican President to go to war without an authorization in this Chamber, we shirk our constitutional duty. We fail to back our warfighters with the full and robust voice of the United States Government.”