John Kerry: “I completely agree with the intention of the Senator. I think all of us agree we have to negotiate a tactical nuclear…”

“I completely agree with the intention of the Senator. I think all of us agree we have to negotiate a tactical nuclear weapons treaty with Russia. Unfortunately, this, according to our NATO allies, according to our national security representatives, will actually prevent us from getting to the place where we negotiate that because the first thing we have to do to get the Russians to the table is pass the START treaty. If we pass the New START treaty, we can engage in these discussions. If we don't pass it, they have no confidence. We simply go back to ground zero and begin negotiating all the pre-START items again before we can ever get there. We cannot just pass this unilaterally and order them to get there. We have to get them to enter into those negotiations. The way to do that is to preserve the integrity of the START treaty and then get to those agreements. We have that in the resolution of ratification. There is language that urges the President and embraces this notion of the Senator from Florida.”