Rich Lowry Quotes

It is extremely chilling that Donald Trump views the spectacle of choosing cabinet appointments in a way that is similar to deciding whether or not to fire Lil Jon or Joan Rivers.

It's been a long and tumultuous relationship between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz that started off more or less as allies during the Republican primary. As Trump took the early lead in polls, Cruz stuck with the strategy of drafting off of the front-runner waiting for the moment to make his move.

Economic libertarians and Christian evangelicals, united by their common enemy, are strange bedfellows in today's Republican party, just as the two Georges - the archconservative Wallace and the uberliberal McGovern - found themselves in the same Democratic Party in 1972.

Trump bragged about hiring only the 'best people' when he was running for president. We're seeing, time and again, the opposite. It's unclear whether the president's definition of 'best people' is different than ours, or if the 'best people' simply aren't interested in working for him.

I'm deciding where I am best for this president-elect [Donald Trump] and this vice president-elect [Mike Pence] in due course. But there are many qualified men and women who can serve him at the highest levels.

I have supported nominees for cabinet-level positions in the Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II administrations with people who I have tremendous disagreements with on substantive matters, and I've always supported them.

My support is particularly Bernie Sanders supporters but that's drawn many [Donald] Trump supporters to start with.

Donald Trump will be the next president, the 45th President of the United States. And it will be up to him to set up a team that he thinks will serve him well and reflect his policies. And those who didn't vote for him have to recognize that that's how democracy works. That's how this system operates.

The president-elect Donald Trump moved a bit closer to getting his Cabinet in place with another round of confirmation hearings. The most contentious was for his treasury secretary pick, Steven Mnuchin, a billionaire banker who worked at Goldman Sachs and owned a hedge fund. There was important news that came out during the hearing. Mnuchin said that he would support raising the debt ceiling sooner rather than later, and not risk the country defaulting.

You have two people who I would classify as extremists. Donald Trump because of his behavior and Ted Cruz because of his views, leading the Republican Party.

The next big decision [of Donald Trump], chief of staff. And the two names talked about the most, Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus. Both allies, but they send quite a different message.

Ted Cruz has struggled, and Donald Trump, of course, has been the big winner the last two outings. And the polling that we have, some of it is a week old. In fact, I think that's the latest poll suggests that he has a strong lead here. And therefore should be expected to win.

As far as I understand, the president-elect of the United States [Donald Trump] is ready for such joint work. We do not know yet what it will be like in actual practice. We have to wait for him to take office and form his administration.

I can hardly wait until Donald Trump announces his celebrity cabinet.

One of the striking things and Donald Trump is right, he gets no Democratic votes. It's interesting there were Democrats from states some of them more conservative states that voted him, Indiana, Missouri, West Virginia, Montana, North Dakota. They're not afraid of Donald Trump those Democratic Senators because they know more than he knows and know what the people want.

I generally think the president [Donald Trump] should get his Cabinet picks, unless they're egregiously out of the range, either ethically or intellectually out of the range of what's acceptable.

If Donald Trump does lose, being revealed as this bizarre personality, Ted Cruz is not going to be what Republicans are looking for in 2020.

I especially cannot imagine anyone who grew up during the Cold War era listening to Donald Trump and saying, you know what, that's a guy that I want to support. It makes zero sense.

Al Gore has endorsed Howard Dean for president. That's pretty fitting, the guy that didn't beat Bush endorsing the guy who won't beat Bush.

I think that's what's - one of the things that is alarming to me is [Donald] Trump, and I think Trump supporters seem to believe, he won, huge upset, full credit to him, and has got the wind at his back. And Republicans on The Hill do want him to succeed, obviously, and they're deferring to him more than they deep down in private sort of wish - want to, but they are going to defer to him publicly for awhile. But I think that is going to run out faster than people think.

Presidential candidate Donald Trump had a meeting with Ted Cruz. He said he does not know why he agreed to fly to New York to meet Ted Cruz and then he promised to bring that kind of leadership to the Oval Office.

You can never find a candidate that will agree with everything you believe. Then you would just have a clone and that doesn't exist.

[Donald Trump] spreading preposterous rumors that [Ted] Cruz's father had connections to Lee Harvey Oswald and the assassination of JFK. That put a bit of a damper on the bromance ultimately culminating in Cruz's epic non-endorsement at the Republican convention.

One I'm deeply into is Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals." I was the only person in the US who hadn't read it.

Michele Flournoy, by the way, is not just a talented and bright person. She was Hillary Clinton's secretary of defense in-waiting. So for her to give General [James] Mattis her support, that says something significant.