Political Quotes

“I take the floor to strenuously argue against the proposition being pushed by Senators Paul, Murphy, and others to deny arms sales of about $500 million to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The package they are trying to exclude from the $110 billion arms deal is precision-guided munitions that would be used by the F-15s, a package of Joint Direct Attack Munitions, Paveway laser-guided bombs for Saudi Tornado and Typhoon aircraft. The bottom line is, the package we are talking about are precision weapons the Saudi Air Force and military could use in operations against Iran's proxy in Yemen and other threats that continue to plague us. The flaws of the Saudi Government are real. They are known to me. My friends on the other side, particularly Senator Paul, constantly put Saudi Arabia and Iran on the same footing. I think that is a very unwise analysis. To suggest that Saudi Arabia is as bad as Iran is just missing the point, big time. The Iranian bureaucracy is the most destabilizing force in the Mideast. They have aggressively pursued military action through proxies and have been directly involved in military actions in Syria. Iran's efforts to dominate Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and now Yemen have to be pushed back. Here is what Secretary Mattis said about this proposal when I asked him the question: How would Iran view passage of this proposal limiting precision-guided weapons to the Saudis by Congress?…”