Political Quotes

“I thank the Senator for his amendment. My sense is that over the course this debate, there will be a pathway forward. Secondly, I thank him for cosponsoring the legislation that is before us. As to deeming it a treaty, I wish to point out that the Senator has been in the Senate almost 6 years, which leads me to believe that at on at least three occasions, the Senator has already voted to give the President unilateral ability to implement this by a national security waiver. That is why this now is an executive agreement. And I think everyone here knows that what the President plans to do is to take what Senator Toomey and others have granted to him--a national security waiver--and go directly to the U.N. Security Council and, therefore--as a matter of fact, if we had not granted that security waiver, it would take a majority of people here to lift that. However, in putting these sanctions in place, all of us who put these four tranches of sanctions in place since 2000 have granted the President a national security waiver. In a letter in response to me, the Chief of Staff made it clear that they plan to go straight to the U.N. Security Council with this waiver in hand. They plan to waive these sanctions ad infinitum way down the road. Secretary Kerry has testified to us that maybe 5 years down the road, after the sanctions regime has totally dissipated, we would have the ability to vote. So my sense is that I agree with the sentiment that is being laid out.…”