Former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska, a 2008 candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination and longtime trenchant critic of U.S. foreign policy, including that of the Obama Administration, told the United Nations press Monday, in New York, that China’s policy offers solutions to world economic and political crises. Gravel pointed to China’s “One Belt, One Road” global infrastructure development policy for the solution to the world economic crisis, and said he sees no solution from inside Obama’s United States.

Senator Mike Gravel speaking to the UN Press Correspondents Monday, September 14, 2015. Video courtesy of Nizar Abboud.

Senator Gravel also expounded on the “horrible” U.S. foreign policy pushed by U.S. neo-Cons like Victoria Nuland with Obama’s support in Ukraine. Russian President Putin responded and acted with intelligence to stop war from escalating by annexing Crimea, Gravel asserted. Obama, he said, is the continuation of the 1988 Bush Administration and its neo-Cons. Gravel’s two-hour press conference featured many questions from the 20-30 press in attendance. They included China’s People’s Daily, China Daily, Xinhua, and Wenhui Daily; Itar Tass of Russia; Deutsche Welle Radio, the German Press Agency, and taz.de of Germany; The Wall Street Journal and wnd.com from the United States; Italy’s La Stampa and Ansa news agency; Canada’s Global Research; Pakistan’s The Dawn and Associated Press of Pakistan; Al Akbar of Beirut; Al Hurra TV, of the Mideast Broadcasting Network; Salima Press, Iranian, Bulgarian, and Japanese press, and others.

Senator Gravel was introduced by UN Correspondents’ Association Member Joe Lauria of the Wall Street Journal, who reported that he had traveled with Gravel early in 2008 when, as a Democratic Presidential candidate, he debated eight candidates including Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Lauria said that in 1971, Daniel Ellsberg had acted to expose the top secret intelligence contained in the Pentagon Papers on the Vietnam War, but “only Sen. Mike  Gravel had the courage to undertake reading that classified intelligence into the Congressional Record.” (Because there was no quorum for Senate business, Gravel had to call a hearing of the Buildings and Grounds Subcommittee he chaired on June 29, 1971, and with the press in attendance, read the Pentagon Papers to the hearing, which were later published by Beacon Press, as “The Senator Mike Gravel Edition of the Pentagon Papers.”)

Senator Gravel told his press audience Monday,

Senator Gravel gave “Obamacare” as an example; which, he said, is three times as expensive as comparable medical care in the rest of world, and added that the United States has the worst delivery system. The people of the United States wanted a single payer system, he said; Obamacare supports the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies.