Angus King

If the precedent is established that the president can hold the Congress and the government hostage to get some policy that he wants, then I don't know where it stops.

Holding the government hostage is exactly what this is, is not, shouldn't be in the toolkit.

We can only interdict one-fourth, 25 percent, of the boatloads of drugs that we know are coming by water from Latin America because of lack of resources.

I've never heard anybody say that. I've never heard anybody advocate it. Everybody on both sides of the aisle is for border security.

I think it's inappropriate for the President to be dangling pardons in front of Manafort and calling Michael Cohen names and complimenting Michael Flynn.

I think there are going to be a number of investigations in the House and there may be some rules under which getting the tax returns are appropriate.

The judge explicitly gave him an opportunity to withdraw his plea, and in effect argue that he was ambushed or perjury trap or something like that, he did not do so.

Do you feel that we are headed toward a time when there can be a clean audit?

I hope the Navy is thinking about workforce development because that is not going to happen on its own.

I think this is a really big deal, and it is very important in terms of budgetary priorities.

It strikes me that both in aircraft and ship maintenance, we do have a lot to learn from the private sector.

You bring up an interesting concept.

So in order to support this bill, there would have to be a line drawing in terms of what would be preserve and what would be park, is that correct?

Talking about the New River Gorge, which Senator Capito so ably presented, one of the things she mentioned was traditional hunting and fishing as being non-negotiable.

I think one of the stories, if you will, out of the Mueller investigation, is the nonstory. The fact that they've done a really pretty amazing job in this town of keeping, you know, very quiet and deliberate about what they're doing.

I can't give you a number, but I can tell you that that was one of the things our committee decided to do if there were references that were appropriate to the special counsel, we were going to make them and have done so.

I do think it raises a lot of questions, and we understand that General Flynn spent many, many hours, I think something like 19 meetings -- with the special counsel's team, and so it raises questions that he, obviously, had a lot to say.

I just want to commend to you, S. 3656, just recently introduced by myself and Senator Ernst, that asks the Department of Energy to help us, particularly with the Veteran's Administration and the Department of Defense, in terms of big data…

I want to go on record as being very skeptical of that. I do not see how you can significantly increase demand, in effect, by exporting and not affect domestic prices. We cannot repeal the law of supply and demand.

I think Maine is second to Minnesota in voting percentage and I think it has to do with states with large numbers of lakes, maybe.

I think that's an issue we need to pursue.

We are in danger of a kind of slow-motion change of strategic balance, where we don't have a response

Are they being smarter than we are in their expenditures?

We should list interest rates as a strategic risk, because it won't be long before interest on the debt will exceed defense expenditures.

I want to commend the report, the way it's presented, how clear it is.