Members Of The United States Senate

"We were not made great as a country by indulging in or even exalting our worst impulses, turning against ourselves, glorifying in the things that divide us, and calling fake things true and true things fake. And we did not become the beacon of freedom in the darkest corners of the world by flouting our institutions and failing to understand just how hard-won and vulnerable they are. This spell will eventually break. That is my belief. We will return to ourselves once more, and I say the sooner the better. Because we have a healthy government, we must also have healthy and functioning parties. We must respect each other again in an atmosphere of shared facts and shared values, comity and good faith. We must argue our positions fervently and never be afraid to compromise. We must assume the best of our fellow man, and always look for the good. Until that day comes, we must be unafraid to stand up and speak out as if our country depends on it, because it does."

"I will close by borrowing the words of President Lincoln, who knew more about healthy enmity and preserving our founding values than any other American who has ever lived. His words from his first inaugural were a prayer in our time and are no less in ours. "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break the bonds of our affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell again when touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor."

"I was once in a rig which was inducing considerable pain, and I finally just said... God, you've got it. I can't take it any more. I can't handle it. I'm just putting it entirely in your hands, and from the instant I phrased that... I felt absolutely no pain. In fact, I felt the greatest sense of comfort, not only physical comfort, but psychological warmth and comfort that I have ever felt in my life, before or since."

"We have been in a process of attaining a great degree of luxury, degrees of luxury which distract us... and we are consumed with such matters as wrap-around octophonic sound in our automobiles and so forth, we are becoming quite sophisticated with respect to non-necessities. This has happened to nations in the past, and it is my belief that man can cope with adversity, and that his most difficult problem, is coping with prosperity."

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"We are honored to have had the opportunity to serve our country under difficult circumstances. We are profoundly grateful to our Commander-in-Chief and to our nation for this day. God bless America."

"We've got to realize that we're in a ball game at a certain juncture, at this point, where we better go back to bipartisanship in looking at foreign policy, be we conservatives or liberals, or Democrats or Republicans, that this country is beginning to lose its footing in the world, not only as a leader, but as a friend, or as a credible enemy. We are being perceived, perhaps somewhat accurately, as a rather paralyzed giant that is ripe to fall off the tree like an over-ripe plum, and fulfill Khrushchev's prophecy, "We will bury you!" He didn't mean overcome us with nuclear weapons. He meant that we, in our sloppy thinking and presumption about not being able to live with prosperity, and not being able to look things in the eye, would simply weaken until our interests were eroded to the point, and our credibility was eroded to the point, that we couldn't stand."

"Mike Lee is not a good steward of our public lands."

"Mike Lee is an obstacle in addressing climate change."

"Mike Lee is not an ally of communities of color."

"Mike Lee has shown disregard for the rights of women."

"Lee started off as a Trump opponent [...] However, Lee soon warmed to Trump and became one of his leading supporters."

"This is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way."

"I think that puts a spotlight on the need to have policy proposals to address concerns that people have, including and especially the voters who have been supporting Donald Trump. I think the solution to that to those who share that concern is to have more conservative proposals, more proposals for reform that involve constitutionally limited government, that involve economic and social conservatism. If we can offer up proposals that address the concerns that are driving people in that direction I think we'd be better off for it. A lot of people feel left out by a government that taxes too much and regulates them too heavily and seems to result in a set of circumstances where economic and political incumbents benefit at everybody else's expense. You have six of the ten wealthiest counties in America surround Washington, D.C., and the poor and middle class are getting squeezed while people at the top and people with influence in government seem always to be doing better."

"as CNN reported last week, Lee was in close contact with Mark Meadows, then the White House chief of staff, in the months, weeks and days before the Jan. 6 attack. Lee supported and encouraged the president’s effort to overturn the election, with both ideas and political assistance. “I have an additional idea for the campaign,” he wrote to Meadows on Nov. 23, 2020. “Something is not right in a few states. I think it could be proven or disproven easily with an audit (a physical counting of all ballots cast) in PA, WI, GA, and MI.” Two weeks later, Lee would tell Meadows, “If a very small handful of states were to have their legislatures appoint alternative slates of delegates, there could be a path.” And on Jan. 4, 2021, Lee told Meadows that he had been “calling state legislators for hours today, and am going to spend hours doing the same tomorrow” in hopes of finding “something from state legislatures to make this legitimate and to have any hope of winning”...Cruz and Lee were not the only “constitutional conservatives” to support Trump’s attempt to keep himself in office after losing the Electoral College vote (to say nothing of the popular vote). Their participation in the plot, however, tells us something important about what it actually means to be a “constitutional conservative.” The term is supposed to convey a principled commitment to both the Constitution and the institutions of the American republic it helped bring into being. But if Cruz, Lee and other “constitutional conservatives” have any commitment to the Constitution, it is only to the letter of the document, not its spirit."

"Mike Lee is against affordable healthcare."

"The solution to climate change is not this un-serious resolution that we’re considering this week in the Senate, but rather the serious business of human flourishing. The solution to so many of our problems, at all times and in all places, is to fall in love, get married and have some kids."

"Mike Lee is bad for public education."

"Mike Lee has not helped fight gun violence."

"The American people want a balanced budget. They want Congress to stop this barbaric practice of perpetual deficit spending. It really, if you think about it, is a form of taxation without representation. We fought a war over that issue and we won that war."

"Mike Lee champions the rich, not everyday Americans and families."

"Mike Lee has been an opponent of LGBTQ equality."

"When the U.S. is an active participant in a foreign war, what comes with that is an increased responsibility to try to rescue civilians from the harm done in part by U.S. munitions and U.S. targeting."

"The world is more chaotic today in part because the United States doesn’t help you when it comes to promoting stability."

"A progressive foreign policy isn’t just looking at the back-end of terrorism, but is also looking at the front-end of terrorism."

"American values don’t begin and end with destroyers and aircraft carriers. American values come by helping countries fight corruption to build stability. American values flow through tackling climate change and building energy independence. American values come through humanitarian assistance whereby we try to stop catastrophes from happening."

"The paralysis you feel right now – the impotent helplessness that washes over you as news of another mass slaughter scrolls across the television screen – isn’t real. It's a fiction created and methodically cultivated by the gun lobby, designed to assure that no laws are passed to make America safer, because those laws would cut into their profits...As my colleagues go to sleep tonight, they need to think about whether the political support of the gun industry is worth the blood that flows endlessly onto the floors of American churches, elementary schools, movie theaters, and city streets. Ask yourself – how can you claim that you respect human life while choosing fealty to weapons-makers over support for measures favored by the vast majority of your constituents?"

"We bomb your country, creating a humanitarian nightmare, then lock you inside. That’s a horror movie, not a foreign policy."

"There is a big open space in the Democratic Party right now."

"I've listened to Republicans say over and over again that we should focus on enforcing the laws that we have. The great hypocrisy of that statement is that they are deliberately handcuffing the enforcement agency that oversees current law."

"You have to think not about what you mean but about what people hear."

"There are Republicans, friends of mine, that I talk to that are very concerned about what’s going on. It is not easy for a Republican to take on a president of their own party in the first thirty days. Don’t assume their silence today means they will be forever silent. They haven’t moved to the place where I think is sufficient. But you are seeing some early signs here. I don’t want to predict that we’re all going to be kumbaya, Republicans and Democrats fighting the Trump administration on a daily basis but I think this is a very uncomfortable moment for a lot of Republicans."

"Don't be disheartened. Your voices are being heard and we will keep fighting."

"You have entire communities whose biologies are being changed by gun violence."

"My truth hierarchy: (1) health care is a human right (2) climate change is an existential threat (3) the Yankees suck."

"I wanted to show some of the faces of Washington’s inaction — to share a small sliver of the lives we’ve lost because our nation is overflowing with guns. This issue is only controversial in the halls of Congress. Outside Washington, people understand the horror of gun violence and are increasingly unwilling to tolerate a Congress that is owned and operated by the gun lobby."

"What are we doing? Why are you here? If not to solve a problem as existential as this? This isn't inevitable. These kids weren't unlucky. This only happens in this country. Nowhere else do kids go to school and think they might be shot that day. It's a choice and it's our choice to let it continue. I'm here to beg my colleagues. Find a way to pass laws to make this less likely."

"Why did you sign up for this job if you are not prepared to use it — if you're not prepared to use it to try to solve big problems?"

"There is not something fundamentally different about the American DNA that causes us to have a level of gun violence that is 20 times that of other first-world nations....It happens here because we choose to allow it to happen. We have a celebratory culture of guns, and the loosest firearms laws in the world."

"They have fundamentally different problems than other people."

"This is a sad day in America when we are getting closer and closer to Russia - a brutal dictatorship, and we are getting further and further away from democratic allies ... People in America want that war to end, but they don't want to end by handing the entirety of Ukraine to Russia ..."

"We have a moral obligation to act and not accept that this [gun violence] is inevitable."

"Your 'thoughts' should be about steps to take to stop this carnage. Your 'prayers' should be for forgiveness if you do nothing -- again."

"Dan Coats is a friend, former colleague and patriot who has served Indiana and our nation honorably, twice as a senator and once as ambassador to Germany, one of our most important allies. For the last six years Dan and I worked together on the Senate Intelligence Committee, where he’s been a leader in urging the Obama Administration to go after those responsible for damaging leaks of classified information and demonstrated a thorough understanding of the serious threats posed by the likes of Russia, Iran, and radical Islamic terrorism. I know Dan cares deeply about the men and women of our intelligence community, and I look forward to working closely with him to ensure the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is properly contributing to their broader efforts, and to the security of the American people."

"Mattis, Tillerson and Coats are all conservatives or apolitical people who wanted to help him and the country. Imperfect men who answered the call to public service. They were not the deep state. Yet each departed with cruel words from their leader. They concluded that Trump was an unstable threat to their country. Think about that for a moment: The top national security leaders thought the president of the United States was a danger to the country."

"Trump's cavalier attitude toward the Russian security threat has had a predictable yet devastating consequence. Moscow has not been deterred from attacking American interests. It has been emboldened. They continue to take advantage of the United States, around the world and on our own soil. Former director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testified in January 2019 that Russia was still sowing social, racial, and political discord in the United States through influence operations, and several months later, Robert Mueller said the same. "It wasn't a single attempt," he testified to Congress. "They're doing it as we sit here. And they expect to do it during the next campaign." This should be a national scandal, a cause for outrage and action against the Russian government. Instead, it's being ignored where it should matter most- in the Oval Office. Reporters asked Trump about Mueller's assessment days later and quizzed him again on whether he'd pressed Putin on the topic. "You don't really believe this," he shot back. "Do you believe this? Okay, fine. We didn't talk about it." Then he boarded Marine One."

"I’m very confident that Senator Dan Coats is the right choice to serve as Director of National Intelligence. Dan has clearly demonstrated the deep subject matter expertise and sound judgment required to lead our intelligence community. If confirmed as Director of National Intelligence, he will provide unwavering leadership that the entire intelligence community can respect, and will spearhead my administration’s ceaseless vigilance against those who seek to do us harm."

"It is an honor to be nominated as Director of National Intelligence. A robust and responsible intelligence infrastructure is essential to our homeland security, and if confirmed I will ensure our national security decision-makers have every piece of information they need to protect the American people from the threats facing our nation. There is no higher priority than keeping America safe, and I will utilize every tool at my disposal to make that happen."

"LaFollette had long been the subject of vitriolic newspaper attacks because of his stand against the big corporations and the system of which they were a part."

"Amid the rolling hills of Primrose Township in south central Wisconsin still stands the farmstead of Robert "Fighting Bob" La Follette, the most radical of America's turn-of-the-century progressives. As Wisconsin's governor and senator, and one of the most successful third-party presidential candidates in history, La Follette preached a militant gospel of opposition to corporate monopoly and the corrupting influence of special-interest money on American politics, along with unblinking support for the freedom struggles of women and minorities at home and dispossessed peoples abroad."