Political Quotes

“Madam President, on December 1, 2011, the Senate voted 100 to 0 to pass the Menendez-Kirk amendment to impose crippling sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran. As this chart shows, the Menendez-Kirk amendment decreased the value of Iran's currency by 73 percent the following year. On November 30, 2012, the Senate passed the second Menendez-Kirk amendment by a 94 to 0 vote. This amendment cut off Iran's energy and shipping sectors from international markets. It also restricted Iran's ability to barter in gold and other precious metals. These Iran sanctions played an indispensable role in forcing Iran to the negotiating table, but the administration wasted our powerful economic leverage when it agreed to a bad deal with Iran. Since this disastrous deal, Iran's behavior has worsened. Iran has taken more American hostages, including Baquer Namazi and Reza Shahini. Iran received over $100 billion in sanctions relief and has increased support to terrorists groups, such as Hezbollah and Hamas. In fact, Iran announced the creation of its own foreign service to cause problems in Yemen, Iraq, and Iran and those places. Iran has conducted multiple missile tests on October 15, 2015; October 21, 2015; March 8 and 9, 2016; April 19, 2016; and July 11, 2016. In June of 2015, Senator Menendez and I introduced S. 1682, a bill to renew the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 for 10 more years.…”