Political Quotes

“Madam President, I am joined on the floor today by my friend and colleague Senator Graham. We have the honor of coleading the U.S. congressional delegation to the Munich Security Conference, which for a great number of reasons, all well-deserved, is still called CODEL McCain. It is the only codel that is named for a Senator who is no longer with us, and it is out of respect for Senator McCain's long tradition of support for that conference, NATO, and the Atlantic alliance, more generally. This year, obviously things were very different. The Russians were on the border of Ukraine, and two things came out of this conference that I thought were important. One was an early flicker of hope within the delegation that the Ukrainians might actually pull this off. That was supported by none of our briefings. The entire national security establishment had presumed that it was only a matter of time until Ukraine fell. But Senator Graham and I and others were questioning each other during that trip: Is there really no chance? And the other thing was going after the kleptocrats and the oligarchs around Putin and making their lives miserable. And there was just a wonderful explosion of bipartisan support for that that has now manifested in funds, in laws, in pending bills, in lots of bipartisanship--and Senator Graham and I are going to have a bit of a colloquy about that with the Chair's permission. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.”