Political Quotes

“Mr. President, tomorrow the President is going to brief the Democratic caucus and the Republican caucus separately. He is going to address the Nation tomorrow night. As we all know, there are international discussions relevant to the matter in Syria. Normally what I would do in a situation such as this is file cloture today, but I don't think that is to our benefit. I don't think we need to see how fast we can do this; we have to see how well we can do this, so I will not file cloture this evening on the Syria resolution. I have spoken to the Republican leader. I have talked to virtually all of my Democratic Senators. We have enough votes to get cloture, but I don't think we should be counting numbers tonight. I think what we need to do is to make sure the President has the opportunity to speak to all 100 Senators and all 300 million American people before we do this. As I have said before, when we get on this, we are going to deal with this in a manner that is dignified and move forward in a way that is expeditious, yet thorough. I have discussed this with the President and other people in the administration. I repeat: I wish to make sure the President has a full opportunity to make his case to the Senate and the American people before we vote on this matter. As always, I will continue to discuss this with Senator McConnell, and we will see if we can reach some kind of agreement to move forward without cloture.…”