Political Quotes

“I listened carefully to the comments of the minority leader, Senator McConnell, and he is asking for bipartisanship and quick action on the Ukrainian matter before the Senate today. I agree with him completely. In fact, it was about 10 days ago when Senator John McCain, on the other side of the aisle, joined with me and six of our colleagues, and we took a late-night flight on a Thursday evening, flew all night long to go to Kiev, Ukraine. We spent the whole day on Friday meeting with government leaders. We had one night in a hotel room and then the next day, Saturday, a whole day of meeting with their leaders as well. Late that night we caught a plane back to Washington, arriving at 5 in the morning. It was a whirlwind trip but an important one because it came just hours before the Russians staged this phony referendum in Crimea--a referendum that had been condemned by the United Nations Security Council, with the exception of Russia's vote. They voted against the condemnation, which was to be expected. China abstained. So the question before us is, What can and should the Senate do, and when should it do it? Well, we have a measure before us that passed out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I believe the vote was 14 to 3. I may be mistaken by a vote or two there, but it was a strong bipartisan majority. Senator Menendez then brought it to the floor.…”