Political Quotes

“I rise to address a question to myself and every Member of this body, and the question is a serious one: Is the Senate capable of tackling challenging national security questions in a mature and responsible way? We have many hard national security challenges before us now. Three of those challenges are urgent: the discussions about a potential nuclear deal with Iran, the discussions in this body about military action by the United States against ISIL, and the deliberations that will take place this month about the American budget, which will determine whether we have the resources we need to meet our security challenges. We have to show the American public--and I would argue the world--that we can give these issues the careful consideration they deserve, but I am forced to admit that recent events have caused me to have some significant doubts about our institutional capacity to tackle these issues in a responsible way. We recently--at the end of February--ran up to the very brink of shutting down the Department of Homeland Security at a time when terrorist threats and other threats to our homeland security are so obvious on our borders and throughout the world. Thank goodness, after a week's extension of funding for Homeland Security, we pulled back from the brink. But that did not lead to an increase in confidence in this body, that Congress would contemplate not funding the Department of Homeland Security.…”