"As awful as the Taliban is, and there is a lot of awful governments all over the world doing a lot of awful things, do we really think that at this point, if the Taliban came back into power--they are..."
"It is my sincere hope that we not only reduce our troop levels to 2,500, but that we reduce them to zero, that we leave Afghanistan."
"To me the biggest loser in Afghanistan is the nation that stays the longest."
"I think that is something that there is bipartisan consensus on."
"I feel very strongly that, as I think every member of this committee does, that the NATO alliance has served our country very well."
"If we do things to undermine the alliance in what appears to be a gratuitous way without working with them, it undermines the strength of that alliance and plays right into Russia's hands."
"I do think that what Secretary Esper has done with the bottom-up review... is a very appropriate thing to be doing."
"We can't keep doing things the same way we have done them to date."
"I think we need to make clearer to the American public why we have troops deployed in Europe..."
"It is becoming hard to keep up with what the president is saying and what the president is doing. He is making promises that he didn't see fit to push through his legislation in his three and a half y..."
"The military has made clear to me, and we have had conversations about this, they will not follow an illegal order. They will not follow an order that would illegally help the president overturn the e..."
"we are very concerned about how those priorities were set and the impact that it might have on the programs that were cut going forward."