Political Quotes

On the recordFebruary 5, 2025
it is not unusual in this job of ours in the U.S. Senate to run into a reporter in the hallway. It happens all the time. They are trying to write a story, and they want to ask a question or two to get a quote, possibly, for the story. Today, I came out of one of our hearing rooms on the Committee on Agriculture, and one of the more prominent reporters for one of the cable news networks said to me: Can you give me a reaction to the suggestion by President Trump, yesterday, that, somehow or another, the United States of America is going to take over control of the Gaza Strip and develop it? Well, I had read that in the morning papers, that assertion, and all I could say to him was, If you follow his suggestion to let Canada become the 51st State; that we take over the Panama Canal--if necessary, by force--that somehow or another we come into ownership of Greenland, then the notion of developing hotels on the ocean on the Gaza Strip is just one of the Trump suggestions we are dealing with. For those who argue, ``Well, the American people voted for it,'' were they voting for those things? The point I am trying to make was made earlier by Senator Schumer. There are efforts afoot that go way beyond the issues of this last Presidential campaign, where the American people, I believe, said: We want a change. We are going to vote in the majority for Donald Trump because we want to see a better lifestyle for ourselves and our kids.…
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Dick Durbin
Democratic · Illinois

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