Political Quotes

“Mr. President--Senator Tillis, I heard the tail end of it. I was in the cloakroom trying to find out exactly what the parliamentary procedure was going be on this. I would be willing to say yes to a lot of these once we take care of the mine workers. This is a wide-open forum. Let's take care of the mine workers, and then we can consider each of these other bills. But none of these bills has the immediacy of thousands of mine workers, retirees, and their widows in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana. None of them have the immediacy of these mine workers' health care being cut off December 31. These are important public initiatives. I can't think of anything that we are considering--I mean, I really want to get ``Buy American'' in the WRDA bill. We had it in the Senate bill. It was bipartisan. Speaker Ryan--even though we tweeted the President-elect of the United States asking him to weigh in on ``Buy American,'' saving thousands of dollars in Coshocton, OH, in Wheeling, and in other places all over this country, we couldn't get any response to that. I want to see us do that. I would like to stay and do that, but the immediate question is, How do we protect these miners and retirees and how do we protect these widows and widowers, for that matter, make sure their health care is protected? That is the fundamental question. I am willing to do a whole lot of other things. Do this first, and then the floor is open to do other things. The PRESIDING OFFICER.…”