Political Quotes

“Mr. President, the Senate will soon vote on the conference report for the annual defense policy bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act or NDAA. Like all conference reports, this is a product of negotiations between the Senate and the House of Representatives. Producing a conference report takes dedicated negotiators who are willing to make tough compromises. I commend them for their work, and I particularly want to thank my friend, Senator Jack Reed, who has shown strong leadership as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. I hope these negotiations will be a good omen for how Congress will work under the incoming Biden administration. But supporting the process that produced this conference report is very different from supporting the report on its merits. I have voted against the Senate version of this defense bill twice now, once during the rollcall vote in July and then during a voice vote last month. House negotiators have managed to improve the bill since then, but not so significantly that I am able to support it now. I want to be clear that I support plenty of provisions in this NDAA. I even wrote or negotiated some of the language to improve the bill. The bill includes anti-money laundering provisions, which I strongly support. I have twice introduced bipartisan legislation to end the abuse of anonymous shell companies, and I am happy to see the NDAA expand upon my efforts.…”