From the White House Website
Oval Office
12:12 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. I appreciate everybody being here. We’ve had a very busy two or three days. It’s been very positive. Things are happening that haven’t happened in our government for a long time.
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Now to a very positive note: criminal justice reform. Everybody said it couldn’t be done. They said the conservatives won’t approve it. They said the liberals won’t approve it. They said nobody is going to approve it; everybody is going to be against it. It’s been many, many years, numerous decades, and nobody came close. And I just want to thank all of the people standing behind me. I want to thank my daughter Ivanka, my son-in-law Jared Kushner. I want to thank — (applause) — and I have to say, I want to thank Paul and Kevin. I want to thank Mitch. I want to thank Nancy and Chuck, as I say — affectionately, actually. (Laughter.) But I do. I want to thank everybody. This was incredible bipartisan support.
Mike, you were great — Mike Pence. Everybody. Everybody worked so hard on this.
And I look at, you know, behind me — I said, this is a cross-section of everybody in our country. We have everybody here. I won’t go into details because I’ll get myself into trouble if I go into too many of those details. We have everybody wanting this. We had a few people that didn’t, and that’s okay. It’s impossible to get 100 percent. But we passed this in the Senate, 87 to 12. That’s unheard of. And the one person that missed the vote was actually in Afghanistan doing a very good job: Lindsey Graham. And I think I can honestly say that he would have voted in favor. (Laughter.) Lindsey was for it. And so it’s 88 to 12.
And then, in the House, we passed it 358 to 36. And if you look at this vote — 358 to 36 — it’s a — you don’t have votes like that. Hopefully we can do so well for border security, but it won’t happen. Hard to believe. Because border security, to me, is simpler…
