Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I am glad to be down here with our ranking member, Senator Ben Cardin from Maryland. I want to thank him and his staff for working until 10:20 last night to complete negotiations on a Russia amendment. I want to thank Senator Crapo and his staff and Senator Brown and his staff for the work they did on the sanctions component, where over the last 5 months they have worked with our counterparts around the world to make sure that what we did in this piece of legislation was something that was workable. Truly, I think it has been a great effort by four different offices. I am glad that cloture has been filed on that amendment, and I understand we are going to vote on it tomorrow at 2 o'clock. I will be very brief. Senator Cardin and I are here on the floor together, and I know he wants to make some comments about this. Let me just give a brief summary, if I could. The amendment enhances Congress's role in determining sanctions policy on Russia. It provides for the President to use a national security waiver or sanctions termination after giving Congress 30 days to review the proposed action. I think everyone here knows I am a strong proponent of congressional review. We began that under President Obama. To me, it gets us in a place where we are playing an appropriate role in foreign policy. The amendment codifies existing sanctions on Russia for their activities in Ukraine and cyber space.…”