Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise today, following my colleague from Maine, to talk about S.J. Res. 37, which we believe will come up for a vote later this afternoon, possibly somewhere between 6 and 7 o'clock. I am proud to have introduced this resolution a few weeks back, together with a group of bipartisan Senators, many of whom will take the floor this afternoon to speak about it. Let me just first talk about the fact that this resolution is a little bit unusual in terms of Senate procedure. There are not many things that a single Senator can file and then be guaranteed a floor vote. In fact, there are only three or four such procedures. This resolution is filed pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which was the act used by Trump to declare the Canadian emergency that is the subject of my resolution. The IEEPA statute is an old statute. It has been around for quite a while. I will just state, at the outset, that IEEPA, the act that the President has used to declare an emergency and impose tariffs, is an act that was designed to be used against adversaries. Congress wanted to give the President tools to deal with adversaries--nations that were enemies, cartels, rogue states, and dictators. IEEPA was not designed to be used against allies. IEEPA says nothing about tariffs. It does not say that the President's actions against adversaries should include tariffs. The administration's use of this Emergency Powers Act to go against an ally is pretty unusual.…”