WASHINGTON–U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Wednesday forced two votes in the Senate to object to President Trump’s corruption of U.S. foreign policy and block a $1.9 billion arms sale to Qatar and a $1.32 billion arms sale to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after Trump demanded billions of dollars in luxury gifts and business deals from the two countries. Senate Republicans blocked the votes. Ahead of the votes, Murphy addressed his colleagues on the Senate floor.

“What we need to say here is not that we are going to permanently pause our military relationships with these countries, but for the time being while these two nations are willing to pay the president tribute, we cannot endorse or condone business as usual. These are important partners of the United States in the region, and they will be important partners in the future, but this is an exceptional moment where the corruption and our effort to stop the corruption has to take priority and has to take precedent,” Murphy said.

Murphy concluded: “And so, I'm going to vote for both of these resolutions while also still believing that we are going to have a continued, important bilateral relationship with Qatar and with the UAE. But if we start to endorse and grease the wheels of this kind of corruption, then there will be no end. Because once it becomes accepted, once it becomes implicitly endorsed by the United States Senate that foreign governments can put money into the personal treasury of the President in order to gain favorable treatment from the United States of America that becomes the way our foreign policy works.”