Republicans always try to paint Democrats as weak on defense. This time, they can't. After all, Mitt Romney's idea of an overseas accomplishment is sending U.S. jobs there.

This bill [Immigration Reform and Control act of 1986] is a gamble, a riverboat gamble. There is no guarantee that employer sanctions will work or that amnesty will work. We are headed into uncharted waters.

Anyone who thinks they have a monopoly on truth, and there is only one way to see the world, always gets us into trouble.

We repeal sanctions, it tells Russia, go ahead and interfere in our elections and do bad things; it tells China, it tells Iran. That would be terrible.

The currency bill we have would finally do something for China`s rapacious policies.

We all agreed on the framework: Pass DACA protections and additional border security measures excluding the wall. We agreed that the president Donald Trump would support enshrining the DACA protections into law. What remains to be negotiated are the details of border security with a mutual goal of finalizing all the details as soon as possible. While both sides agreed that the wall would not be any part of this agreement, the president made clear he intends to pursue it at a later time, and we made clear that we would continue to oppose it.

If we are going to stay a great power and I hope and pray we will we need the truth. We need to know what is going right and we need to know what is going wrong. There is no greater time than now.