Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I am going to keep my remarks short and simple. America and the world need immediately the toughest possible sanctions against the Russian oligarchs, who are working constantly to devise Byzantine schemes to get around the kind of sanctions that are in this trade bill. We all understand what is at issue here, and that is that we need to move quickly. We need to move while the President is mobilizing the collective strength of our allies. And I am interested in working with all of my colleagues. With the majority leader's leadership, we have been working for days on this. But what is important--and our friend from Maryland has touched on it-- is that we not just relitigate what came up in one committee or another, if it is going to hold up the essential task ahead, and that is that these oligarchs who are Putin's best allies and are working with him constantly to figure out ways to get money to fuel the Putin war machine--what they really don't want is what the sanctions will do: rein them in and limit them as they continually try to devise these schemes. So I would just urge my colleagues--and we are here to continue to work on this--to get this done and get it done now because to do otherwise allows the oligarchs and all their lawyers and financial managers to look at what is happening in the U.S. Senate. And those oligarchs say, ``Doesn't look like there is going to be anything right now--don't have to worry immediately.'' The Senate is better than this.…”