Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Shaheen and my colleagues on the floor here--Senators Coons, Ernst, Blunt, and the others who joined the bipartisan delegation at the NATO summit. It was an extraordinary opportunity to see firsthand how the democratic world looks at the United States for leadership. It was an extraordinary opportunity to talk about Russia's aspirations. It was an extraordinary opportunity to talk about what I think may go down as the greatest miscalculation in this century on the part of Vladimir Putin. Months ago, when he was massing troops at the Ukrainian border, he called it a special military operation, a training exercise, for a little while. What he was thinking in the back of his head was that now was the time to test NATO's resolve; now was the time to see if the differences that we have was enough to break an alliance. What he found out was quite the opposite. Shortly after February 24, the NATO countries came together, the EU came together. We implemented sanctions. We provided troops on the ground to assist with the evacuation of Ukrainian refugees. And now we are in a position of providing support for the very courageous members of the Ukrainian military. What else did he get for his miscalculation? Two nations that, for decades, have been nonaligned, Sweden and Finland. Eight hundred and thirty miles of Russian border is now about to be the back door or the front yard of NATO.…”