Thomas Daschle: “let me express enthusiastically my desire to work with the whip to make that happen. I only lend one small piece of…”

“let me express enthusiastically my desire to work with the whip to make that happen. I only lend one small piece of advice if he is desirous of making that happen sooner rather than later. We could simply take the defend America bill off of the calendar for now--put it back on the calendar, I should say--or, obviously, we are back into a cloture vote at 2:15 on Tuesday. We can avoid that cloture vote and go right to these bills and debate them. I do not think there is any desire on our part to unnecessarily extend the debate. We do have some amendments, as I have indicated. I think we can resolve these matters one by one and have a very productive week when we get back. That might be time much better spent than to have additional cloture votes on the so-called Defend America Act. That is, obviously, a matter that my colleagues on the other side, the leadership, are going to have to decide. That would be a way with which to break the logjam and keep the process moving along. I look forward to working with the distinguished whip and the majority leader to see if we can resolve the matters in the not-too-distant future.”