Political Quotes

“Mr. President, several points have been made about whether we should engage with Egypt. Absolutely, we should. But the Egyptian people don't see it as engagement when the engagement is at the end of a truncheon, when the engagement is tear gas bought with American money and then sprayed on them. They do not quite understand that as engagement. So buying arms--American tanks and American tear gas--to be used for crowd control isn't exactly what the Egyptian people have in mind as far as engagement. With regard to Israel, there is no unified statement from the nation of Israel saying they are for this. I have had both private and public discussions with the leaders of Israel, and to tell you the truth, without naming individuals, I can tell you they are not too excited about sending more arms to Egypt. So for someone to come to the floor and say they speak for the nation of Israel, they speak for all people who love Israel in our country, is false. There are probably 20 different groups in our country that support the nation of Israel and support them as our ally. I speak to them all the time. I visit with them daily and weekly in our office. So what I can tell you is if you talk to the people, to the grassroots and not to the so-called leadership, you will find a much different story. Because I would promise you--let me speak to the entire crowd at an AIPAC meeting and we will see whether they like sending more weapons to the Muslim Brotherhood or more weapons to Egypt.…”