Political Quotes

“Mr. President, a few weeks ago, I was talking with my staff, in advance of the President issuing the emergency order, and I told them I wanted to put together an op-ed to really express two things; one, my concern with the manner in which funds were being appropriated but also that there is a real crisis we have to address. In fact, I am very sympathetic to what the President did, and the only question is how he went about doing it. I received a lot of feedback over the past few weeks, but what it allowed me to do was to engage in a discussion with some of my colleagues here and with the White House over the past couple of weeks that have been very productive. My main concern with this Executive action is future potential abuses. I have a concern with the Executive action the President took, the emergency order, and that is why I voiced it, but I am sympathetic to what he was trying to do. I think we can view this as an opportunity--I thought we could view this as an opportunity where maybe we could have a discussion about the National Emergencies Act and potentially make a real difference. So today, I come to the floor to say that I do not intend to vote for the resolution of disapproval, and here is why. A lot has changed over the last 3 weeks--a discussion with the Vice President and a number of senior administration officials, a lot of collaboration with my colleague from Utah.…”