Political Quotes

“Madam President, I wish to speak briefly. I thank the Democratic leader for giving me the opportunity to speak for 5 minutes to do what I have done every week for the past couple of months and what I will do every week until we get a resolution; that is, to talk about Pastor Brunson, a Presbyterian minister who has been in prison in Turkey since October of 2016. As best as we can tell, the only thing Pastor Brunson is guilty of is being a missionary who has committed 20 years of his life to working with people in Turkey who want to hear the Word of God. That is it. We can talk about--I will not today because my time is limited--all the trumped-up charges I witnessed when I spent 12 hours in a Turkish courtroom a couple of months ago or that I discussed with Pastor Brunson about 3 weeks earlier when I visited him in a prison. Today what I want to talk about is relevant to the national defense authorization and the work we have done in committee to put Turkey on notice that this is unacceptable. Turkey has been an ally of the United States since 1952. The NATO alliance commits every member of NATO to send their men and women in uniform into harm's way to defend the national security of a nation of the alliance. We have that with Turkey; we have since 1952.…”