Political Quotes

“Mr. President, on one side of this argument, one side of this rule, we see in the end--and this kind of sums it up. We have these 30 countries that followed us and passed the rules and the laws the same as we did. We have on our side, the American Catholic Bishops, the Conference of Bishops, the Presbyterian Church, groups like the One Campaign and Oxfam--public interest groups that made their mission trying to end corruption and deal with the economic and social distress and devastation brought on by some of these companies and some of these kleptomaniacal--for want of a better term--governments. That is on the one side. On the other side, we have my Republican friends in the Senate and House. We have Rex Tillerson, the new Secretary of State, who lobbied vigorously and unceasingly against this rule as president of Exxon. We have Exxon on the other side. We have the Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute. And on that side for this bill--against the rule--we have autocrats in places like Russia, Iran, Venezuela. You can bet on this vote tomorrow morning, if 7 a.m. comes out the way it looks like it will, you can bet there will be celebrations in Russia, in Iran, and Venezuela, in all these countries where these kleptocrats, where these leaders who are so corrupt, where they benefited so much.…”