Political Quotes

“I listened to the frustration of the chairman describing the process, and I sympathize with that. I have sat and admitted that this committee has one of the most difficult tasks, because as long as we are sort of unhinged here from the reality and the accountability of how they all work out, we will have people make requests for this or the administration will leave something out there, and it is difficult for the committee to try to make sense of reality out of these conflicting requests. Out of this, I think there is an elephant in the room of an unrealistic, unsustainable, and unnecessary trillion-dollar path we are on for the nuclear triad of bombers, land-based missiles, and the submarines. These are weapons that we have never used in 71 years. These are weapons that do not help us with the major challenges that vex this committee right now in terms of military readiness, the challenges dealing with ISIS, dealing with encroachment by the Chinese, problems with Russia. These are weapons that didn't stop Russian aggression in the Crimea or Ukraine or Chinese encroachment. These are weapons that don't deter the greatest nuclear threat we face, which is nuclear materials falling into the hands of extremist elements from rogue nations like North Korea or some of our purported friends in Pakistan. These are the threats that we face. And this muscle-bound nuclear triad that we are going to spend a trillion dollars on does not help us.…”