SYRIA; Congressional Record Vol. 159, No. 117

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SYRIA

Mr. REID. Mr. President, tomorrow the President is going to brief the

Democratic caucus and the Republican caucus separately. He is going to

address the Nation tomorrow night. As we all know, there are

international discussions relevant to the matter in Syria.

Normally what I would do in a situation such as this is file cloture

today, but I don't think that is to our benefit. I don't think we need

to see how fast we can do this; we have to see how well we can do this,

so I will not file cloture this evening on the Syria resolution.

I have spoken to the Republican leader. I have talked to virtually

all of my Democratic Senators. We have enough votes to get cloture, but

I don't think we should be counting numbers tonight. I think what we

need to do is to make sure the President has the opportunity to speak

to all 100 Senators and all 300 million American people before we do

this.

As I have said before, when we get on this, we are going to deal with

this in a manner that is dignified and move forward in a way that is

expeditious, yet thorough.

I have discussed this with the President and other people in the

administration. I repeat: I wish to make sure the President has a full

opportunity to make his case to the Senate and the American people

before we vote on this matter.

As always, I will continue to discuss this with Senator McConnell,

and we will see if we can reach some kind of agreement to move forward

without cloture. If that doesn't work out, I will file cloture when it

is appropriate.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.

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