Tim Kaine Quotes

Elected officials need to stop with the name calling and hateful statements.

In a lifetime of observing and participating in political debate, I have seen a lot of meanness.

When I'm debating others, whether it's Eleanor Clift or Bob Beckel, you're still in a fierce debate mode, but you're also on best behavior.

The level of discourse in this country is falling to a depth that cannot be sustained.

You can't just talk politics all the time - it's boring.

I've slipped on occasion into the realm of irresponsible invective, but I try to avoid it and generally recant when I fall short. Because name-calling does nothing to improve understanding or move the political debate forward.

The news is increasingly full of mismatched people saying daft things to one another.

There's only one way we're going to change our political climate and ensure we establish some respect in our discourse. And that is to show there is a real price to pay for being a disrespectful partisan idiot.

He's a jackass at a time when we need to have a serious debate.... Every time I turn around somebody asks we what I think about Donald Trump and the latest person he has trashed.

One of the things that is worrisome about politics is the lack of civility.

Too much of our political debate...has become a race to the bottom. An exchange of insults and slanders more appropriate to reality television than a legislature.

When candidate Donald Trump said things that I didn't necessarily agree with, I would call him on it.

The best thing we can do when we want to elevate civil dialogue in our American political discourse is to do whatever we can to make sure we treat others kindly with dignity and respect, and that's what I intend to do.

Politicians should aim for higher discourse, the media should report context instead of seeking to inflame the public, and the public should not reward bad behavior nor engage in it on social media.

In Washington, there is a way to have disagreements and debates, which is so healthy, but a way to be friends at the end of the day, which I believe is the essence of America.

I don't like the whole 'slander, slander' conversation that most political debates are these days. So I tend to keep my political standpoint not to myself, but just relatively private.

To try to preemptively shut down debate with name-calling is profoundly un-American and will harm this country.

In some ways, political decency is a sign of a healthy democracy, but in other ways, it is the cause of it.

Americans are calling for a return to common sense in how we solve problems and how the people communicate with their government.

As a country, we still have a lot of work to do. We need to agree on some basic rules for civil discourse.

Despite the occasional high decibel level, 'The Group' is not a shout fest. I don't simply want panelists with opposing opinions trying to out-shout one another.

The Constitution protects freedom of speech, but we must expect more from our elected officials to heal divisions in our country and unequivocally condemn anti-Semitism.

The one thing that is distinctive about America historically has been the fact that we are all able to engage in public discourse without the political becoming personal.

This country is not going to progress if we can't have decent civil conversations and be respectful to one another.

When members of this House use inflammatory language, use offensive language, it does not help the process. It is beneath the dignity of this body and this country.