Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise today as a very new Senator, a freshman Senator, to talk about the confirmation prospects for the nominee for the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. I think context matters here. I am the first CIA officer to ever be elected to the U.S. Senate. Before I ran for office in Michigan, I had a career in national security. I am what is called a 9/11 baby. I happened to be in New York City on my second day of graduate school when 9/11 happened. It changed my life. I decided to go into national security. I got recruited by the CIA right out of grad school and then was quickly sent on my first of three tours in Iraq alongside the military, providing intelligence to the U.S. military to deal with the groups that were shooting at U.S. forces and plotting against the U.S. homeland. I worked in national security roles very proudly in both administrations, Democratic and Republican. I worked in the White House for George W. Bush, and I was there the Friday that he left office and the Monday that Barack Obama walked in. I did the same job for two very different Presidents, one for each party. I went on to be a Pentagon Assistant Secretary of Defense. But in between all of that time, one of the things I got to do was help stand up the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. I was the intelligence briefer in Baghdad for Ambassador John Negroponte, who was the first Ambassador to Iraq under the Bush administration.…”