Political Quotes

“Madam President, I agree with so much of what the Senator from Arizona just said. We are getting ready to go through a procedural motion that I just want to briefly explain. Senator Paul has offered an amendment. I would prefer that we have an up-or-down vote on this, personally. I do not support the amendment for many of the reasons that Senator McCain just laid out. But in order for Senator Paul--I am doing this out of respect for his desire to have a recorded vote. I am going to move to table his amendment, which allows him, per Senate rules, to actually get a vote. If it were just a straight up-or-down vote, he would have to have unanimous consent for this to occur. He cannot get that. So this is not a hostile act. He is sitting right beside me, and he understands what I am doing. I am going to move to table this shortly. I do not support the substance of this amendment. I agree that we need to take action on an AUMF, even though the administration believes--and I agree with them-- that they have a legal basis to do what they are doing now against ISIS, per the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs. I agree with that. I am all for updating the AUMFs. Our committee intends to do so. There has been a bipartisan amendment offered by committee members wherein we hope to take up an AUMF. But doing away with the legal basis by which we are going against ISIS today, before we have implemented and put in place another one, to me, is not prudent.…”