Political Quotes

“This is an amendment that would strike section 1646 of the bill and replace it with a determination by the Secretary of Defense as to a certification of need. Madam Chair, this provision is a unilateral nuclear disarmament provision. Now, the chairman has said repeatedly this is not a unilateral nuclear disarmament, but let's break down those words. It is unilateral because it only applies to us. There is no one else. It is nuclear because it applies to a nuclear weapon. And it is disarmament because it requires the pulling of a nuclear weapon that is scheduled for deployment. What we currently have in this bill is a requirement that the W76-2, which is a low-yield nuclear weapon that is currently headed for our submarines, be pulled and not be deployed, a weapon that our Department of Defense has determined that we needed and, in fact, last year, on a bipartisan basis, was funded and approved for deployment. But now we are going to reverse course because now Congress is going to decide, for unilateral nuclear disarmament, to reach out and start pulling back nuclear weapons that are there to defend us. Let's talk just for a moment as to why we need this. Russia has adopted a new nuclear doctrine that is called escalate to deescalate. They actually believe that the first use of nuclear weapons is something that can deescalate a fight as opposed to escalate it.…”