Bill Maher Quotes

How can you have a partnership when one of the partners doesn’t show up for 5 days…. The President said nothing while Americans watched people drown in New Orleans.

And I, unfortunately, have been to too many disasters as president.

The fact that the president (Michelle Bachelet) was out giving minute-to-minute reports a few hours after the quake in the middle of the night gives you an indication of their disaster response.

The longer political leaders shy away from the tough decisions, the greater the chance that there will be a lot more of them.

Collaborative decision-making is very poor in crises.

Now an American president like [Ronald] Reagan wouldn't have a meeting, wouldn't have a summit. He'd give 'em a warning and then - or [Gerge W.] Bush would give 'em a warning and then - whatever would happen. Because you don't allow the murder of American citizens. You just don't permit it.

I returned to the white House after midnight more depressed than ever before. I had long since arranged to attend the World Series in Philadelphia the next day. Although I like baseball, I kept this engagement only because I felt that my presence at a sporting event might be a gesture of reassurance to a country suffering from a severe attack of 'jitters.'

There's a sense of urgency that the president does not possess, that there is a 9/11 in the making.

It's important for presidents to emotionally connect, with the country in times of crisis, but also with people in Washington. If you can't emotionally connect - and [Barack] Obama is not the greatest, but he can at least do it - then people won't be with you when the times are hard.

You know, what genuinely makes me uneasy with the way things are going are not - is not really that Trump is going to do everything he said he was going to do, it's that he has no idea of his job as president. Plus, the people who have been up close and realized that he has no idea how to do this job are leaking like sieves.

We’ve seen with this president, experience matters. When that phone call comes at three o’clock in the morning, I will be up and ready for the call because I will know what’s going on in the world around us.

Caesar Flickerman asks if the president has a date in mind. "Oh, before we set a date, we better clear it with Katniss's mother," says the president. The audience gives a big laugh and the president puts his arm around me. "Maybe if the whole country puts its mind to it, we can get you married before you're thirty." "You'll probably have to pass a new law," I say with a giggle. "If that's what it takes," says the president with conspiratorial good humor. Oh, the fun we two have together.

Lincoln basically pulled in all the people who had been running against him into his Cabinet because, whatever personal feelings there were, the issue was 'How can we get this country through this time of crisis?'

I don't know what you can do if it's reported that there's been a small attack in the second- or third-largest city in country X that you have no connection to. I don't know what you're supposed to feel or how you're supposed to get into that.

If you've got somebody in harm's way, you want the president being -- making advice, not -- be given advice by the military, and not making decisions based upon the latest Gallup poll or focus group.

Over the last six months, I've seen what these two futures look like. And six months from now, we'll all be living in one, or the other. But only one. A country where our president either has our back or turns his back; a country that honors our foremothers by moving us forward, or one that forces our generation to re-fight the battles they already won; a country where we mean it when we talk about personal freedom, or one where that freedom doesn't apply to our bodies and our voices.

I offer myself as a leader to the people of this country because I think they're looking for solutions, not lawyers arguing over laws or entertainers throwing out sound bites that draw media attention. We need to solve the problem.

We do not need presidents who are bigger than the country, but rather ones who speak for it and support it.

Take a look at the way that Trump has described some of the foreign countries that we deal with - some that are allies and some that are not. China is one example. He said they were currency manipulators, but after he sat down with President Xi and had a piece of chocolate cake, he then said they were no longer currency manipulators.

Without debate, without criticism no administration and no country can succeed and no republic can survive.

The country wants the president and the Congress focused on jobs and the economy. Any regulation that the president promulgates that isn't focused on, I think, is a risk for him, and the same is true for Congress.

The issue of managing through a crisis is you have to be decisive even if you don't have perfect information.

It's tougher to be a football coach than the President of the United States. You've got four years as a president, and they guard you. A football coach doesn't have anyone to protect him when things go wrong.

One thing I had hoped Barack Obama would be is a good cheerleader for the country. He's really brought the opposite in spirit to the country.

You're really not that good a mechanic, Edward. Maybe you should have Rosalie take a look at it tonight, just so you look good if Mike decides to let you help, you know. Not that it wouldn't be fun to watch his face if Rosalie showed up to help. But since Rosalie is supposed to be across the country attending college, I guess that's not the best idea. Too bad.