Political Quotes

“I rise today to talk about one of our most complicated areas where diplomats have to engage when brutal regimes and terror groups seize Americans and use them as hostages, hoping to extract concessions from our government. These are situations that are infuriating, and they are heartbreaking. At the same time, they are immensely complicated. There are no easy solutions when dealing with hostage-takers. We know what doesn't work. We know that paying ransom for hostages, as the Obama administration did with Iran to the tune of billions of dollars, only incentivizes more hostage-taking. It is exactly the behavior you would expect from hostage-takers, and it is exactly the behavior we have seen played out over and over. My colleagues and I, along with the Trump administration, have sought other ways of securing the release of American hostages. Sometimes what is called for is diplomatic pressure. So early in my tenure in the Senate, the very first bill that I passed into law was legislation that kept Iranian regime figures who had seized American hostages in 1979 from receiving diplomatic visas to come into the United States. I also recently joined with Senator Cotton to introduce the Global Hostage Act, a bill that would require the President to impose sanctions on foreign government officials responsible for taking Americans hostage.…”