President’s Remarks Following the Elections

Below is a snapshot of the remarks made by President Obama following the elections on Tuesday, November 4th.  To read more, click here.

"... there are some things during the lame duck that relate to foreign policy that are going to be very important for us to deal with, and I’ll make mention of one in particular, and that’s the START treaty.  We have negotiated with the Russians significant reductions in our nuclear arms.  This is something that traditionally has received strong bipartisan support.  We’ve got people like George Shultz, who helped to organize arms control treaties with the Russians back when it was the Soviet Union who have come out forcefully in favor of this.

This is not a traditionally Democratic or Republican issue but rather a issue of American national security.  And I am hopeful that we can get that done before we leave and send a strong signal to Russia that we are serious about reducing nuclear arsenals, but also sending a signal to the world that we’re serious about nonproliferation.  We’ve made great progress when it comes to sending a message to Iran that they are isolated internationally, in part because people have seen that we are serious about taking our responsibilities when it comes to nonproliferation, and that has to continue."