Bob Menendez

But how do they deserve a waiver?

Malaysia stayed on the Tier 2 Watch List because it has a serious human trafficking problem, and it did not make overall increasing efforts.

I would like to thank Secretary Tillerson for announcing at the Trafficking in Persons rollout that the State Department is proceeding with the $1.5 billion End Modern Slavery Initiative.

You cannot seek peace while you pay people to kill.

It is outrageous and unconscionable that any government anywhere in the world in the 21st century would codify, openly write into legislation, incentives for harming and killing innocent civilians.

The suffering inflicted by financial institutions that played fast and loose then continues to plague our communities.

Despite clear authority and direction from Congress in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, pleas from State Attorney Generals and even the Treasury Department, Mr. DeMarco, you refused to lift a finger.

The fact is that, from my perspective, China is eating our lunch.

I hope we can use it as a catalyst for this body to take up its constitutional responsibility of declaring war.

I hope, Mr. Chairman, we change the budget in a way that reflects the values.

How is that we fight modern slavery when you make that type of cut?

If this is a core value of our foreign policy, then ultimately zeroing out its account does not speak to that core value.

How can you say that then when the budget completely zeroes out assistance for democracy assistance?

I am appalled that you have completely zeroed out--zeroed out--the democracy assistance account.

A budget is a statement of values. And the administration has put forth a budget for the State Department that I do not think shares American values.

He will sign a bill that explodes the debt, leaves middle-class families in the cold, breaks the Mnuchin Rule by cutting taxes for the top 1 percent, but he will not sign a bill unless it includes a giveaway to large multinational…

Will the President commit himself to your own Mnuchin Rule and not sign a tax reform bill that cuts taxes on the top 1 percent?

There are no policy standards here.

In the lives of real people, it is something.

It cuts nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid and it rips away health care from the most vulnerable in our society, and it hands the money over to the most privileged in our country.

I believe in a strong defense. We spend more than the next seven countries combined.

I would hope that if you are to be confirmed, you will make sure that the critical infrastructure of the United States does not fall in the hands of a foreign Government that has shown its hostility to the United States.

Are you committed to robustly enforcing the law in all of its elements as it relates to these sanctions, these different financial consequences that we create on actors that are adverse to the national interests and security of the United…

The nominees we are considering today are critical components of our national security and foreign policy, particularly in combating terrorism and implementing what I consider to be a peaceful tool of foreign diplomacy, including sanctions.

I sometimes get concerned that, in our desire to have good governance and rule of law, which I am a big supporter of, human rights, democracy, that we do not use, in pursuit of those goals, our economic levers sufficiently enough to engage…