Political Quotes

“Well, I think the other important point that we both made is the fact that what stopped policies and the pipeline when the first sanctions bill was passed was the threat of sanctions; it wasn't actually implementing those sanctions. In fact, it was then Russia's ability to come back in, retrofit ships, and do the work themselves, Gazprom and Russia. Russian ships did the work themselves, and throughout the last year of the Trump administration, they refused to take any action to address that. In fact, I remember being in a meeting--I can't remember if you were in that meeting or not--with Senator Cruz and some of our Republican colleagues and a member of the administration urging us to pass another sanctions bill because the administration had not acted. So I think it is really important, as you say, to point out that 95 percent of that pipeline was done under the previous administration when Senator Cruz and our colleagues who would like to stop the pipeline had the opportunity to hold up his nominees to raise those concerns, and that did not happen. That puts us at a disadvantage today as we look at the threat of Nord Stream. Would you agree with that?”