Political Quotes

“Madam President, I thank Senator Rubio for his comments. Whenever I hear my colleagues rail against China--and I agree with that 95 percent of the time. Whenever I hear them say things like that they want to be the world's most powerful country, the most powerful government, I agree with that. But, as Senator Rubio said--this isn't a debate between him and me. I just want to make a couple of comments. I want to talk about worker safety, in a moment, which I know the Presiding Officer cares so much about. I go back half a generation. Senator Rubio wasn't here then, but many of his ideological soulmates were here then. This Congress couldn't stop itself, from Presidents Clinton and Bush 1 and Obama and Bush 2 and Trump--couldn't help themselves--from giving all kinds of breaks to American corporations and incentives to American corporations to go to China, to move to China. So they shut down production in Duluth, MN. They shut down production in Mansfield, OH, my hometown, and Toledo and Youngstown. As corporations were lobbying Congress, I worked and I teamed up with Lindsey Graham, a Republican, against that. We were unsuccessful, as corporations lobbied Congress to give China something called permanent normal trade relations. So they shut down production in Ohio. They moved that production to China. And what happened? They taught China a whole lot about manufacturing, and they created a whole lot of wealth in China. Now we are surprised about TikTok.…”