Lindsey Graham

The bottom line is China is working against us, when it comes to Russia: do you agree?

You have publicly said that you had reason to believe that China may be considering providing lethal aid to Russia: is that correct?

I would encourage you, that if he came here, we should turn him over.

Are you aware that the Congress, 100 to nothing, which is pretty rare around here, supported the idea of declaring Russia a state sponsor of terrorism under U.S. law?

Senator Menendez and I, and many others have pushed for a $2 million authorization for Taiwan's defense needs.

We need to appropriate money directly to counter the influence of China, but it will not be in a mandatory spending construct.

Our men and women of the State Department, they are heroes in their own way.

A 13.1 billion dollar mandatory spending request in this budget is not going to fly.

Soft power, to me, is just as important as hard power, and many times even more important.

Haven't we now reached a point where, frankly, we have to understand we are entering a period of geopolitical competition bordering on conflict, diplomatic conflict, economic conflict; and God forbid, potentially military conflict, and as…

Taking your eye off the ball can really lead to a lot of money and lives being lost.

The goal here, I guess, is to have the local community feel like the park is an asset.

The goal, of Chris and myself, is to create a public-private relationship where the private sector sort of leads and puts their money where their mouth is.

This effort to conserve nature, and protect animals actually, is probably one of the best antidotes to the spread of terrorism, and international criminality.

If you want to do something to bring about better governance, and a semblance of the rule of law in this part of the world, in these ungoverned spaces, the parks are your best opportunity.

The proposed bipartisan bill, introduced by Senator Coons and Senator Graham, offers all three.

Conservation can help reduce the risk of conflict over natural resources.

If it were up to me, I would have a string of parks, conservation parks all over Africa because it may be the only place a community can reside with some level of peace, and certainty in terms of the rule of law.

We expect you to up your game, we expect you to make sure that the money being generated for all this activity, some of it actually goes to the people.

Of all the things the Committee could be focusing on, this is sort of top of our list for a good reason.

If we don't do something, the 345 million can double in the next 4 or 5 years.

What I want to do is create a global food security fund, modeled after the Global Fund, so we can get other countries helping us.

The bottom line is that the bilateral approach needs to be supplemented with something new because it is not working.

The failure to provide specific answers to the majority of inquiries submitted by my office indicates the Department of State lacks a coherent plan of action to process these cases.

What I want the Committee to understand, and Senator Coons has been a great partner on this, we have a crisis in the world that is really challenging to put your arms around.