“American foreign policy needs to be driven by what will get results and what is legal, not by what satisfies our primal instincts of revenge.”
― Chris Murphy
“You can only explain America’s gun violence problem through guns, because mental illness doesn’t automatically lead to violence, and it doesn’t lead to violence anywhere else but America.”
― Chris Murphy
“There is just no substitute for seeing a disaster area firsthand and getting the chance to speak in person to victims and responders.”
― Chris Murphy
“Helping people get the skills they need to set them up for a rewarding career helps keep people in Connecticut, and it ensures that we have a workforce that’s ready to fill the thousands of manufacturing jobs of the future.”
― Chris Murphy
“One of the smartest investments we can make in Connecticut is in job training programs.”
― Chris Murphy
“I have gone from a proponent of campaign finance reform to a revolutionary during my time in public service.”
― Chris Murphy
“It can be frustrating that, despite widespread support for common sense gun safety measures, Congress is moving at a snail’s pace. But remember that great change takes time.”
― Chris Murphy
“The most powerful force when changing people’s hearts and minds is a person-to-person conversation.”
― Chris Murphy
“Social media is such a key organizing and communication tool, and I’ve made a major commitment to use it as a way to make the legislative process as transparent as possible.”
― Chris Murphy
“Connecticut farmers keep our economy running.”
― Chris Murphy
“The list of erratic actions from Mohammed bin Salman is long: the jailing of royal family members, the detention of the Lebanese prime minister, a nonsensical feud with Qatar, the growing internal repression of political speech, and the disastrous war in Yemen.”
― Chris Murphy
“I think most of the Washington foreign policy establishment exists in a fantasy world when it comes to Syria. They fundamentally don’t understand that Russia and Iran, from the beginning, had much more at stake in Syria than the United States did. Russia and Iran were going to do everything possible in order to keep Bashar al-Assad in power.”
― Chris Murphy
“Yemen is a symbol of our continued military hubris in the Middle East – an addiction Obama was supposed to cure but didn’t.”
― Chris Murphy
“The Choose Medicare Act will let people of all ages buy into Medicare as their health care plan, and it would let any business also buy into Medicare and offer it to its employees.”
― Chris Murphy
“You can just assume that better law enforcement response is going to quell the epidemic of gun violence in this country.”
― Chris Murphy
“The world is a mess, and while there is no simple pill America can administer to fix things, what we know is that there is significant room for progressives to articulate a foreign policy vision that is truly our own.”
― Chris Murphy
“We simply believe that we should lean into the world with something other than the pointed edge of a sword.”
― Chris Murphy
“From the outside, Qatar and U.A.E. likely look like twins – small, oil-rich Sunni monarchies that are largely friendly to the U.S. But their philosophies on the region are very different – Qatar does not fear Islamism as does the U.A.E.”
― Chris Murphy
“ISIL is a terrorist army like we have never seen – they cannot be ignored.”
― Chris Murphy
“The American people didn’t send us to Congress to post our sympathies on social media. You can do that without going through the trouble of getting elected to Congress. This job is about setting rules that better protect us and our children.”
― Chris Murphy
“Sympathy is important, but it rings hollow if not followed by action.”
― Chris Murphy
“I would be a rich man if I had a quarter for every time one of my Republican colleagues on the Foreign Relations Committee utters some variation of the sentence, ‘President Obama doesn’t have a strategy to defeat ISIS.’ It’s their calling card on the committee – and on the campaign trail.”
― Chris Murphy
“America doesn’t have the moral authority or weight to tip the scales in this fight between moderate Islam and less tolerant Islam. Muslim communities and Muslim nations need to be leading edge of this fight.”
― Chris Murphy
“The Saudis helped the U.S. ensure that the Russians never got a meaningful foothold in the Middle East.”
― Chris Murphy
“The political alliance between the House of Saud and the conservative Wahhabi clerics is as old as the nation, and the alliance has resulted in billions funneled to and through the Wahhabi movement.”
― Chris Murphy
“Congress should pass legislation that mandates increased information sharing for any country that wants to participate in the Visa Waiver Program.”
― Chris Murphy
“The European Union needs a comprehensive, continent-wise, transnational counter-terrorism center that has the authority to track threats across borders.”
― Chris Murphy
“Terrorist groups are working and communicating across E.U. borders – our efforts to track those groups must do so as well.”
― Chris Murphy
“The United States has the best intelligence-gathering operation in the world. We should provide a greater level of training and assistance to the E.U. to help them develop a more robust counter-terrorism platform.”
― Chris Murphy
“There are numerous groups across the country, both local and national, that are working to prevent gun violence in our communities.”
― Chris Murphy
“If we want our laws to change, we need to elect people who are willing to change them.”
― Chris Murphy
“I can’t stand the idea of a veteran risking her or his life for this country, suffering the wounds of battle, and then being kicked to the curb as a result of those wounds. But that is exactly what has happened to tens of thousands of men & women who have fought and bled for our country.”
― Chris Murphy
“Our veterans made a commitment to our country when they signed up.”
― Chris Murphy
“Too many families know what it’s like to have to choose between providing care for a family member and keeping their job.”
― Chris Murphy
“Health care, whether I like it or not, is at the foundation of my public service.”
― Chris Murphy
“I arrived in Hartford as a 25-year-old naive state legislator who believed in universal health care. I rose to become the 29-year-old Chairman of the legislature’s Health Committee.”
― Chris Murphy
“I served on the committee in the U.S. House that wrote the Affordable Care Act. I defended it back home in endless town halls. I got elected to the Senate, and when no one wanted to stand up for the ACA in its early days, I took up the cause, going to the Senate floor nearly every week to extol its virtues.”
― Chris Murphy
“For far too long, Washington has denied the American citizens of Puerto Rico vital human services and adequate health care funding.”
― Chris Murphy
“In 2013 and 2014, I traveled to Ukraine three times with Senator John McCain.”
― Chris Murphy
“As I’m learning, Republicans seem to only care about deficits when a Democrat is in the White House.”
― Chris Murphy
“Whenever I travel abroad, I try to visit U.S. troops just to say thanks.”
― Chris Murphy
“One of my chief criticisms of U.S. international policy is that Congress has largely abdicated its foreign policy-making responsibilities to the executive branch.”
― Chris Murphy
“If you want to change our gun laws, the best thing you can do is find a group that speaks to you and get involved.”
― Chris Murphy
“As lawmakers, our job is to listen to our constituents. If our phones are ringing off the hook with people demanding to know where we stand on an issue, we pay attention.”
― Chris Murphy
“Creating deep and meaningful change in this country takes time – years and sometimes decades.”
― Chris Murphy
“There is no doubt Assad deserves every missile we fire at him, but there’s one big problem with air strikes – there is absolutely no proof it has any deterrent effect on Assad. To the contrary, history tells us these strikes will most likely quicken the pace of his assault on his own people.”
― Chris Murphy
“Here’s the problem – under both Obama and Trump, American military forces and assistance have provided just enough support to anti-Assad forces to keep the resistance going, but never enough help to actually dislodge Assad from power.”
― Chris Murphy
“The most popular health care plan in the country is Medicare. It delivers the best care at the lowest cost – it’s better than any other part of our health care system. But most people can only get it when they’re over 65. I don’t think you should have to wait that long.”
― Chris Murphy
“There’s no denying that if I were designing a health care system from scratch, I’d build a Medicare for All system.”
― Chris Murphy
“People are working hard, they’re doing everything we ask of them, and they are still struggling. It’s not enough to just have a job. We need to make sure that these are good-paying jobs that pay the rent and put food on the table. Jobs that have benefits like health care and that allow people to save for retirement.”
― Chris Murphy
“I’ve never met a Democrat in Congress who wants open borders or who doesn’t believe in enforcing immigration laws.”
― Chris Murphy
“I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. Frankly, I’d be shocked if they did.”
― Chris Murphy
“When I got to the Senate, I made overhauling our nation’s mental health laws one of my top priorities.”
― Chris Murphy
“The Mental Health Reform Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama in 2016. It was one of my proudest moments in Congress.”
― Chris Murphy
“Washington can be a frustrating place.”
― Chris Murphy
“We have a long, proud history of making things here in Connecticut. We’re home to large companies like Electric Boat, Pratt & Whitney, and Sikorsky, as well as their thousands of suppliers.”
― Chris Murphy
“Unfortunately, the state of national security under the Trump administration is far from strong.”
― Chris Murphy
“Saudi Arabia is an important country to the United States.”
― Chris Murphy
“Our nation, in a short quarter-millennium, catapulted itself to global preeminence by solving the world’s greatest problems and exporting those solutions to the rest of the world.”
― Chris Murphy
“Participatory democracies. Open economies. Web-based communication. All American innovations to the great conundrums of the globe.”
― Chris Murphy
“The gun lobby is certainly politically powerful, but it loses as many races as it wins.”
― Chris Murphy
“America’s reputation is based on its ability to deliver the world big, Earth-changing solutions.”
― Chris Murphy
“With every new class of representatives that comes to Congress, there is a greater recognition of the perils of private financing of campaigns. I believe that by pulling back the curtain on the daily pressures faced by members of Congress, we can show the public how critical this reform is to the salvation of our democracy.”
― Chris Murphy
“Rarely do political contributions lead to direct quid pro quo transactions – donations for votes – and those that cross this line normally get caught.”
― Chris Murphy
“Most elected officials don’t want you to know about the world of political fundraising because they fear that it paints an unflattering portrait of public life.”
― Chris Murphy
“The more we remove the need for individual members of Congress to raise private election funds, the more our representatives can focus on the things they were elected to do, and the more time they will have to cross party lines and erase the divisions that pollute our national dialogue.”
― Chris Murphy
“The NRA has become financially dependent on more and more guns being sold – especially the expensive ones. In turn, the NRA has stated that its top legislative priority is to protect gun makers by advocating for legislation that benefits them.”
― Chris Murphy
“Washington is agonizingly slow at learning from its mistakes. Especially in the Middle East.”
― Chris Murphy
“I’m generally pretty responsible and diligent, but people make mistakes.”
― Chris Murphy
“I ran in 2006 as an opponent of the Iraq War, and I came to Congress to change overreliance on U.S. military power.”
― Chris Murphy
“I can’t throw a nickel from the Capitol without hitting a think tank that’s been financed by one of the Gulf States.”
― Chris Murphy
“Russia’s number-one goal is to pull apart the E.U., to pull apart NATO.”
― Chris Murphy
“I worry that there are financial ties between the Trumps and the Saudi royal family.”
― Chris Murphy
“If you were a Democrat getting ready to run for office in the 2000s, as I was, you were told to stay clear of guns… I really regret that. I regret having listened to that advice.”
― Chris Murphy
“I play in the congressional baseball game.”
― Chris Murphy
“I used to play lots of sports. I used to be a good tennis player. I used to be a decent golfer.”
― Chris Murphy
“I grew up in a pretty economically safe, physically safe household, and, you know, now my life is defined by other people’s trauma and by other people’s emotional experience with it, and I think I’m richer for that, frankly.”
― Chris Murphy
“In Connecticut, we have passed some of the strongest anti-gun-violence laws in the nation. We don’t restrict anybody’s Second Amendment rights.”
― Chris Murphy
“What we do in Connecticut is ban assault weapons. We ban high-capacity magazines. We have true universal background checks, and we require everybody to get a permit from their police department before they can carry a pistol.”
― Chris Murphy
“Background checks applied universally and nationally would take millions of illegal guns off the streets of our cities.”
― Chris Murphy
“I would respectfully disagree that the right to own a military-style weapon is a God-given right. I didn’t see that anywhere in the Bible that I read.”
― Chris Murphy
“People should remember that in the 2000s, the gun lobby got a lot passed: they got riders added to appropriations bills. They got immunity for the gun industry. They successfully managed the expiration of the assault weapons ban.”
― Chris Murphy
“Our mental health system is broken, and we should fix it.”
― Chris Murphy
“Anytime somebody loses a presidential election, there are lots of explanations.”
― Chris Murphy
“The tweets that I send out are not written by somebody else. They’re not vetted through my communications staff.”
― Chris Murphy
“More Democrats should be speaking without vetting their statements through their staff because it will feel realer.”
― Chris Murphy
“I do not understand how people can look at the rapid spread of extremism all across the globe and not understand that it is – that it isn’t coincidental to the concurrent rapid spread of a very conservative strain of Islam that is paid for out of Saudi Arabia.”
― Chris Murphy
“In Syria, a progressive foreign policy would have shown military restraint while pumping up our ability to gain political leverage over Syria’s benefactors and providing humanitarian funding to make sure that anybody that wanted to leave Syria could.”
― Chris Murphy
“I think when you have so many people working for American-based think tanks and American-based defense companies, there is always going to be a bent towards proposing American-led solutions for foreign problems. People get paid big money in Washington to come up with ways that America can fix problems overseas, and they are not always right.”
― Chris Murphy
“Ultimately, stability in Syria will come from decisions made on the ground by the Syrian people and by their immediate neighbors.”
― Chris Murphy
“There’s zero evidence, empirical or anecdotal, that more guns leads to less gun crime.”
― Chris Murphy
“It’s a wonderful story for the gun lobby to tell that if you just load up schools with weapons, you’ll be safer. All of the evidence suggests that homes and communities that have more weapons have more gun crimes, not less.”
― Chris Murphy
“I think Donald Trump believes in putting a wall around America and hoping everything turns out OK.”
― Chris Murphy
“American values don’t begin and end with destroyers and aircraft carriers.”
― Chris Murphy
“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.”
― Chris Murphy
“I think progressives understand that we are Americans at the same time as we are global citizens. We are interested first and foremost in creating peace and prosperity here at home, but we aren’t blind to the fact that injustice anywhere in the world is meaningful, important, and worth thinking about.”
― Chris Murphy
“We have a cleaner system of government in this state where people run based on their ideas, not based on their ability to raise money.”
― Chris Murphy
“The skill of telemarketing does not necessarily translate into governing.”
― Chris Murphy
“I don’t require a background check to contribute to my campaign. And so there are probably lots of people with unsavory backgrounds and pasts who have given to both Democrats and Republicans.”
― Chris Murphy
“America’s strength in the past has been our ability to bring family members to join other family members in the United States and to look at skills but not have it be the only determination of how you get here.”
― Chris Murphy
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