Lindsey Graham

Did you ever talk to the President of the United States?

When the Secretary of Defense turned to you and said, 'there's really nothing we can do within 24 hours to help these people,' what was his reaction?

We have two choices here: bring them to their senses, which is to stop developing a nuclear weapon capability; or bring them to their knees, so they can't develop a nuclear weapon capability.

I believe it would be wise to, Senator Kaine.

My concern is that at the end here we're going to drop the ball and I don't want to do that.

If we don't deal with entitlements, we're just going to become Greece.

I believe this regime, knowing it can't win the affections of its own people, I think they are very concerned that the economic sanctions could turn the people against them.

I think we have to send a message of commitment.

Am I overstating that?

At least one other nation has told me they would do that.

The Israelis have said so, Senator. I take them at their word.

I agree, and also other, non-Sunni Arab states in the general region.

If that doesn't work, the only option left is to bring them to their knees.

We could have a very good outcome in Afghanistan if we play that card well.

He's the commander-in-chief. On his watch, we're going to begin to unravel the finest military in the history of the world at a time we need it most.

Why aren't we prosecuting people who fail a background check and there are 15 questions there. They're not hard to understand if you're filling out the form. So I'm a bit frustrated that we'd say one thing, how important it is, but in the…

Well, we will never know what he was up to because it ended in a way where the family was safe, and we all agree that no one who is mentally unstable or criminal should have one bullet with any gun.

And I would just end this by saying that Vice President Biden has made the case--and I think he is very sincere--to his wife that if you live in a wooded area, you have got a double-barrel shotgun, to ward off the bad guys go outside and…

I would suggest that in some situations six bullets is not enough for a person defending their family and one bullet in the hands of the wrong person is way too many, and that is what we are trying to accommodate here.

I could not agree with you more, but the reason we have hearings like this is to try to paint the picture for America of the problem we are trying to solve.

If you have 76,000 people fail a background check and only 13 people plead guilty, I am not so sure we are sending the right signal to our citizens at large that we are really serious about you trying to get a gun illegally.

I think we should take legislation like this up and get on record and make our respective cases.

I think the argument would be that it is in common use.

The best way to prevent crazy people, mentally unstable people from getting a weapon is to identify them somehow before they murder somebody.

But being civil and being firm in your convictions are not inconsistent, are they?