Political Quotes

“If the Senator will yield. In addition, I agreed with the White House to further amend my amendment to change the effective date, which was a very important element to the White House. They wanted the original language we had in Lugar-Biden that we moved off of to go to the House bill, and in previous language that we had in other bills, including the original bill which came out of the committee and passed out of here. It had language relating to the effective date when countries could qualify to meet the test for this. The White House wanted it tighter, wanted it more stringent. We took the better part of the afternoon, 3 or 4 hours, negotiating back and forth. We yielded on that point as well. That is the point at which the White House spokesperson from the National Security Agency said to us, ``We have a deal.'' That is when it then got scrubbed. That was even more palatable, I am told, to the speaker and the majority leader. That is as much as I can say firsthand.”