Political Quotes

“Madam President, I thank my colleague. There is just one difference between what happened then and what is happening now: Neither side was shutting down the government until it got its way. I will make my statement, I guess, and wait for Leader McConnell and the motion to proceed. S.J. Res. 2 Madam President, before we take a vote on the motion to proceed on this resolution, I will make two brief points, and I know my colleagues have discussed this very well. First, my friends the Republican leader and former Republican whip Senator Cornyn are being incredibly disingenuous to suggest this is a political stunt and to accuse Democrats of forcing this vote out of the blue. The timing of this vote was not determined by me or by Leader McConnell. It was determined by the wall. The law says that we only have 30 days to disapprove of sanctions relief on Russia. This was filed right before Christmas. I would suggest the administration and the Treasury hope to get away with it because they know how unpopular it would be to remove sanctions on Deripaska or on the companies he controls. They knew how unpopular it would be, so they snuck it in right before Christmas, right before we left. We have only 30 days, and those 30 days expire on Thursday. If we wait, those 30 days will expire--they will be gone--and we will have no opportunity. So this is no accident.…”