Top 66 Tom Malinowski Quotes

Just as some Republicans despise John McCain for calling out Donald Trump, some Democrats could never accept him unless he became one of us. And he wasn’t: he voted with the NRA; supported the Iraq War; elevated Sarah Palin.

A state that calculates that using a weapon or tactic of war is in its interest will generally find a way to do so.

It is an honor and privilege to serve as a member of the 116th Congress.

With no guillotine, ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ would have been a travel guide.

An administration that really wanted to win an ideological contest with the Chinese Communist Party would stand up for human rights consistently, rather than calling journalists anywhere ‘the enemy of the people.’

After leaving the Obama administration, I guess I got tired of pulling my hair out over Trump and the Republican Congress and thought I needed to do something practical about it.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee can and should become the principal institution in Washington exercising foreign policy oversight and serving as an alternative voice for America to the world. I hope to make a significant contribution in that effort.

Because of the friendship and common interests our two nations share, the U.S. has a stake in Ethiopia’s prosperity, stability and success.

Proponents of change within Vietnam’s government know their country will be more stable and prosperous if it continues to open up. But principled arguments don’t always carry the day.

The United States and Ethiopia have years of strong partnership, based on a recognition that we need each other.

We were right to seek practical cooperation with Russia and to encourage its integration as a respected power into global institutions.

Our people need significant investments in bridges, tunnels and roads.

Investment in public infrastructure is key to America’s greatness and essential to our national security.

As an Asst. Secretary of State, I often urged authoritarian governments around the world not to use emergency powers to defy their legislatures, courts, and laws.

Protecting our democracy shouldn’t be a partisan issue.

Political debates in the United States can be untethered from facts, but threats to life focus minds on reality.

No alliance in history has done more to prevent war, and no alliance is more rooted in the values America champions, than NATO.

When I was in government, I urged Congress to require that information about the actual owners of companies registered in the U.S. be disclosed to the Treasury Department, and made available on request to law enforcement.

Kim Jong Un, like all totalitarian leaders, wants above all to ensure his survival. He is convinced that a nuclear strike capability is necessary to deter the United States and South Korea from threatening his regime, and to extract concessions that might prolong its life.

I’ve traveled the world, and I’ve seen how people marvel at the United States of America, at our democracy, at our ambition to build what so few countries have – a nation defined not by race or tribe or religion or place of birth but by an idea, that everyone is created equal.

The chance to profit from corruption is why many authoritarian leaders seize and cling to power.

I recognize that most Americans are tired of U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan after more than 18 years of war. I am, too.

The American people do not want to waste billions of dollars on a wall that won’t stop illegal immigration but will make America look fearful and foolish.

I was elected to fight for the people of New Jersey, to win federal investment in our infrastructure, to strengthen our health care, to address gun violence, and get back our SALT deductions.

Ever since the end of the Cold War, it has been our paramount interest in Europe to strengthen NATO and to extend it – an effort I was part of when I served in the State Department and the NSC in two administrations.

U.S. security is enhanced when we cooperate with China on challenges from North Korea to Iran to South Sudan. Our trade relationship strengthens our economy and supports American jobs.

TPP will require all countries that join the agreement to conform their laws and practices to fundamental labor rights and principles. Vietnam will have to make the necessary reforms or miss out on the agreement’s benefits.

I will be working with my colleagues in the Congress to ensure that the federal government devotes as much attention to the domestic and transnational threat of white nationalist violence as it rightly has to all forms of terrorism.

An American government that really wanted to stick it to the Chinese Communist Party would be reinforcing U.S. alliances in Asia, instead of threatening to withdraw troops from South Korea and Japan until they pay extortionate rates for U.S. bases.

At the State Department, where I oversaw our human rights diplomacy, I often confronted dictatorships like China about their censorship of the Internet, which they justified by claiming they were merely filtering out lies. Our government cannot and should not take that path.

The rule of law that China’s dissidents ask for is important to U.S. businesses investing in China as well.

Any strategy to promote democracy and human rights must have the fight against corruption at its heart.

The possibility of change in North Korea arose from its greatest calamity – the famine in the 1990s, in which over a million of its citizens died. Until then, according to defectors, most North Koreans were simply unaware that different ways of life or forms of government existed in the world.

As a former Assistant Secretary of State, Senior Director on the National Security Council, and Washington Director for Human Rights Watch, I hope to bring unique experience and knowledge to the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Capping our SALT deduction was a deliberate attempt to punish states that value quality public services.

The United States has to be everything that China under dictatorship is not: well governed, intolerant of corruption, respectful of privacy, protective of truth-tellers and willing to help – rather than bully – the world.

Leading with its values gave the United States a sense of purpose in the Cold War.

Members of Congress concerned about human rights in Vietnam are right to maintain a healthy skepticism about its government’s intentions.

I pledge to put patriotism over party, and commit to the hard work of real reform over cheap political wins, quick fixes, and empty promises.

Let’s face it: much of what we truly value in life is rooted in our experience of repression and conflict.

President Trump has made no secret of his disdain for NATO and his willingness to consider leaving it.

In a sense, the central problem in U.S.-Russian relations has been a form of psychological projection. Putin views foreign policy as a means of enhancing Russia’s – and his regime’s – security, power and wealth in a zero-sum competition with other states. He assumes Americans are the same.

Perhaps we could do without tragedy in art – but what about comedy? Is it a coincidence that so many of the best American humorists have been Jewish and African-American?

I have had the privilege of working closely with some of the greatest women in this country. The idea that their contributions would not be recognized at the same level as a male colleague is abhorrent to me. I will do everything in my power to help right this wrong, and finally achieve pay parity in America.

Over the years, increasing partisanship has led many members of Congress reflexively to speak in favor of any military action launched by presidents of their own party while withholding support to presidents of the opposing party.

As a Polish American, I grew up hearing the phrase ‘nothing about us without us.’ To Eastern Europeans, the vow is a painful reminder of how Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt carved up their small countries after World War II, placing them, against their will, under Soviet domination.

It is utterly wrong for a president – any president – to shutter the government of the United States when he can’t persuade the Congress and the American people to give him what he wants.

Words matter. Words can be a fire to the gasoline of disturbed minds.

By the time I joined the Obama administration in 2014, it was widely expected that the president of the United States would raise human rights concerns in just about every meeting with a foreign leader, and meet with activists in countries he visited.

Looking back on the Tiananmen movement, it is striking how modest the protesters’ demands were: an end to press censorship and restrictions on demonstrations; openness about the income of state leaders; increased funding for education.

The first shots the United States fired in its fight with the Islamic State were to protect a religious minority: the Yazidis on Mount Sinjar, in northern Iraq. And we did so within days of their first call for help in 2014.

There are norms that preserve some equilibrium between chaos and stability in the world; that keep sociopaths like Assad from undermining that equilibrium, and the sense of security without which the freedoms we enjoy cannot exist.

The president is entitled to try to persuade Congress and the American people to pursue whatever policies he thinks are needed. But he is not entitled to shut down the government when he fails to persuade us.

It is deterrence that has prevented the use of nuclear weapons by all states that possess them since 1945.

Protecting those with pre-existing conditions was one of the greatest health care reforms in our country’s history and must be protected at all costs.

You can usually figure what Russian President Vladimir Putin is doing and why by noting the actions and values he falsely projects onto others.

Few provisions of the Constitution are more plain than Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7: ‘No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.’

Corruption empowers and enriches dictators.

The desire to help those struggling abroad gain the freedoms enjoyed here at home has remained a uniquely unifying force in American politics.

No disarmament regime is foolproof, and it was always understood that Assad likely hid some elements of his chemical weapons production capacity from inspectors.

At the State Department, I oversaw the U.S. government’s efforts to get information into North Korea. We funded defector-run radio stations, which had the added benefit of training North Koreans to be journalists.

If members of Congress were to vote to allow a military action, they might then share the blame if the mission were to go wrong. So they demand in the abstract that presidents ask their approval for going to war but in practice prefer to let presidents bear the burden alone.

Fighting corruption by improving financial transparency may be one of the most effective ways of promoting liberty around the world.

The president has immense powers, but he cannot spend money unless we, the people’s representatives in Congress, have agreed that he can.

The respect for the rights of minorities that China’s Tibetan and Uighur activists champion would prevent instability that could spill across China’s borders.

I am categorically opposed to BDS, because it seeks to delegitimize the state of Israel, opposes a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and encourages anti-Semitism.