Joseph Dunford Quotes

For the President to perform his constitutional duties, it is imperative that he receive candid and unfettered advice and that free and open discussions and deliberations occur among his advisors and between those advisors and others within and outside the Executive Branch.

The secretary of defense makes recommendations, sometimes will make strong recommendations to the president of the United States. But the president, whoever it is at that time, decides, makes the call on whether or not to take that recommendation.

The president and the executive branch are always going to have greater latitude and greater authority when it comes to protecting America because sometimes you just have to respond quickly and not everything that is a danger can be publicized and be subject to open debate, but there have to be some guardrails.

Despite a campaign that was based on a very powerful promise of transparency, President Obama, and again in my view quite correctly, has used the state secrets argument in a variety of courts, as much as President Bush.

I think Hadley is to Rice as Scowcroft was to Kissinger; not inclined to think or act independently.

The administration of George W. Bush, emboldened by the Sept. 11 attacks and the backing of a Republican Congress, has sought to further extend presidential power over national security. Most of the expansion has taken place in secret, making Congressional or judicial supervision particularly difficult.

Usually you kind of give the President a pass on leaking confidential stuff.

Unless a president can protect the privacy of the advice he gets, he cannot get the advice he needs.

I’m not your lawyer. But if I were in your shoes, I’d tell the President to burn the tapes immediately and then proclaim he’d done so as a matter of national security and executive privilege and out of an obligation to protect the office of the presidency.

It seldom happens in the negotiation of treaties…but that perfect secrecy and immediate dispatch are sometimes requisite…and there doubtless are many [people] who would rely on the secrecy of the president, but who would not confide in that of the Senate, and still less in that of a large popular assembly.

I go back to Washington every year to see the President and I get my orders directly from him—not from those pipsqueaks [at the State Department.]

Ministers do not function well when they are unsure of their authority or of their standing with the Leader [ the Prime Minister]

Seward must be got out of the cabinet. He is Lincoln's evil genius. He has been President de Facto, and has kept a sponge saturated with chloroform to Uncle Abe's nose.

The national security state controls the President. It controls most of the executive departments.

Presidents have molded and been molded by all that happens here [Washington DC].

The President has authorized certain commanders of Unified and Specified Commands to expend nuclear weapons in defense of the United States, its territories, possessions, and forces when the urgency of time and circumstances clearly does not permit a specific decision of the President, or other person authorized to act in his stead.

No President is going to say, “I am not going to preempt.” This is simply a reality.

Constitutionally, gentlemen, you have the president, the vice president and the secretary of state, in that order, and should the president decide he wants to transfer the helm to the vice president, he will do so. As for now, I'm in control here, in the White House, pending the return of the vice president and in close touch with him. If something came up, I would check with him, of course.

Some information has to remain in the privy of the office of the Prime Minister and the ministers for the proper administration of government.

The nature of the presidency is such that you cannot isolate yourself.

With a glance, a nod, and a few words, without consulting anyone other than the President, the brothers could mobilize the full power of the United States anywhere in the world.

A president with a pen in their hand is a very powerful person.

Cheney refers to his vice presidency... as one of the most consequential vice presidencies in American history. And it clearly was.

To suggest that the President of the United States - the head of the free world, a man who is changing the world - is being manipulated by Mitch McConnell is insulting to the president.

The president, by virtue of his office, can easily 'go dark' when it comes to conversations with foreign leaders, even if he makes promises or assurances that run contrary to the interests of the United States or even place the country in danger.