Christopher Voss Quotes
If you're going to play the bargaining game, you just need to make the other side mad. You want them to get a little annoyed. Then you know that you've come in with a good price.
Voss, Chris. Chris Voss Teaches the Art of Negotiation. MasterClass, 2019.
Although the note was sent under Smith’s signature as Secretary of State, it was actually written by President James Madison. Smith was not particularly competent, and Madison personally authored most critical diplomatic correspondence during his administration until he replaced Smith with James Monroe.
Boehner’s Republicans controlled the House of Representatives. However the Democrats controlled the Senate and Obama, the president, was a Democrat. So while Boehner could block any legislation, he could not pass legislation that the Republicans wanted. So the speaker resorted to the tactic of holding for ransom import legislation unless the President and the Democrats would pass legislation that the majority of the public and the Democrats were against. In this case it was the debt ceiling limit. The United States spends money authorized by Congress and then has to pay the bills. When the country is growing, the government has to borrow money in order to meet its obligations and pay bills. Congress must authorize the increase in the debt limit. Boehner held the debt limit hostage until Obama would agree to spending cuts that were unpopular with the majority. A problem for the Republicans with this strategy however was that the government would not have enough money to pay the regular bills and the government would have to slow down. This was considered a most unpatriotic thing to do and one would put the United States full faith and credit at risk. Republicans justified it on the grounds that spending money as the government was doing was worse and therefore it requires extreme measures. This was not the only occasion where a political party put its ideology ahead of the welfare if the nation as a whole. But in those few past occasions the party doing this was not overt about it, and could never be accused of blackmailing. What made this quotation remarkable was that it was the first time that the politician was very explicit about the blackmail strategy. President Obama actually caved in a bit and compromised and reduced spending so the debt ceiling was raised. Earlier, President Clinton had the same tactic tried on him but he let the Government shut down, and after a few days, The political heat on the Republicans were so great that they had to raise the debt ceiling and reopen the government.
Christopher "Chris" Voss is an American businessman, author, and academic. Voss is a former FBI hostage negotiator, the CEO of The Black Swan Group Ltd and co-author of the book Never Split the Difference. He is an adjunct Professor at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business and a lecturer at the Marshall School of Business at University of Southern California.
