WASHINGTON, D.C. – Earlier today, during the Democratic leadership stakeout with reporters, U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, spoke about the firing of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the chaos President Trump has created in the State Department and around the world.

“At a time in which we have such challenging issues from North Korea to Syria to Russia and Iran, that in fact, not having any stability in the State Department and a president whose bombast against diplomacy undermines the very essence of what our people can do abroad,” said Sen. Menendez.

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Sen. Menendez also spoke on President Trump’s refusal to impose sanctions on Russia in wake of their interference into the 2016 election.

“The one thing the president has shown that he’s rock-solid about on foreign policy is that he has rock-solid consistency on doing absolutely nothing to push back on Vladimir Putin,” Sen. Menendez said. “And that emboldens Putin in the world as we just saw in the attack that took place in Great Britian. When you don’t challenge Putin, you send him a message that it’s okay. It’s almost like, ‘you were welcome to our elections in 2016, you can do it again in 2018’.”

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