Presidential Engagement Quotes

Everybody wants to have the president talk about their issue.

We have to engage in a dialogue with Donald Trump because he is the elected president of the United States of America. But we have to emphatically oppose his foreign policy ideas.

George W. Bush attended the intelligence briefing every day. Obama has not even attended half of them. He sends surrogates. That to me is significant.

And we ought to work our diplomacy first and I think it's a reason it's going to respond increasingly to our diplomacy particularly with the president's direct involvement in the peace process, and I think that's extraordinarily important.

I'm with the president nearly every day. We engage in complex conversations about some of the most weighty matters facing the world. I deliver to him this exquisite product that's been developed by my officers. He engages in a way that shows his understanding of the complexity. He asks really hard questions. He delivers policy outcomes based on the information that we provide him. My observation of the president is that, we deal in serious matters.

It's far from clear in general that Donald Trump is a guy who really thinks about the details of policy and is going to do the kind of heavy lifting you have to do as president to get those policies through in Congress. I think the hope is that Paul Ryan and his crew will push policies through Congress and Trump will just sign them. That's not really how policy works.

President Obama had a few historians at the White House for a couple of dinners. I was lucky enough to be one of those asked, and he was very interested in Ronald Reagan, and I came away feeling that.

I spent more time talking with this president [Donald Trump] in the last few days, I think, than I probably talked with this last president [Barack Obama] in the last six months. So this is something that he is working very closely hand in glove with congress.

I would sit and talk to any president who wishes to talk to me, but I'm not anxious to rule it in.

Donald Trump was very receptive. Funny. Cracked some jokes. And understand it very well. And said he was in that he would work with us.

The American people are entitled to see the president and to hear his views directly, and not to see him only through the press

President [Donald} Trump should stop tweeting and start leading.

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

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.