Presidential Discourse Quotes

The president and I sat down in the Oval Office, and he expressed very clearly that what he wants from me is my best professional military advice.

Vice presidents are at times tasked with issuing direct broadsides against enemies while the top guy stays above the fray. But never before has a vice president served as an attack dog against his own party's voters.

President Trump's frequent, unfiltered use of his personal Twitter account as a means of official communication is unprecedented. If the President is going to take to social media to make sudden public policy proclamations, we must ensure that these statements are documented and preserved for future reference.

All presidents rail against the press. It goes with the turf.

Everybody wants to have the president talk about their issue.

There was a stool there, and some fella kept asking me if I wanted to sit down. When I saw the stool sitting there, it gave me the idea. I'll just put the stool out there and I'll talk to Mr. Obama and ask him why he didn't keep all of the promises he made to everybody.

When the media ask George W. Bush a question, he answers, 'Can I use a lifeline?'

I think American life would be better without Twitter, and I think we'd have a better country if the president was not on Twitter. What people say in a bar or a pub doesn't necessarily merit being memorialised.

I feel like I owe it to the readers to try to pull back the veil and give them the honest version of what's going on. But it's not more fun. If Obama, as he does sometimes already, gets a little snippy with me about something I've written, you're thinking, 'Oh God, the president of the United States is already annoyed with me.'

When a president speaks, it's to multiple audiences.

In the modern presidency, the Chief Executive is expected to respond to anxious national moments with words that stabilize the country. President Trump chose a different route. He did not give a stirring speech of unity or create a national gathering point around common ideals. He spent his passion on other things.

Presidents hate the press. They hate me most of the time.

In the course of a presidency, a U.S. president says millions of words in public. You never know which of them end up cementing a certain impression.

His [President John Adams'] language to the young men at Philadelphia is the most abominable and degrading that could fall from the lips of the first magistrate of an independent people, and particularly from a Revolutionary patriot.

Any time the president talks, you listen.

If you listen to what Trump says, you will understand the hollowness. Even a top-ranking nation like America is having a leadership crisis.

Trump needs to stick like glue to whomever writes his speeches and fire whomever told him Americans are up at night worried about the comfort and well-being of people who broke into our country illegally.

How frustrating would it be if you're the president of the United States, and every single time you turn on the TV on most of the channels, they're misconstruing what you say?

Part of the bigger problem with Donald Trump is, when you sit and talk to him one-on-one, he's reasonable, he comes across as caring, he's open-minded, but then, all of that just is thrown out the window when he tweets and when he communicates with the media - and when he communicates at all.

I think the United States is currently a kind of wonder - wonderland with the president Trump speaking on subjects of his choice, some of which are entertaining, but none of which are very strategically substantive.

News conferences are the only chance the American public has to see Ronald Reagan use his mind.

McKinley did not once give a speech to the nation without either wiring, telephoning or writing me, and sending me his speeches before delivering them.

To the rule that Presidential messages are usually excellent studies in the art of saying nothing unforeseen or unexpected, we have not found the late message of General Grant an exception.

Barack Obama can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting, and never use the word "victory" except when he's talking about his own campaign.

Google my name and 'Barack Obama.' There were many days I was tough on him. People have short-term memories. They think we're only being tough on Trump. That's just not true.