Presidential Role Quotes

The CIA was set up by me for the sole purpose of getting all the available information to the President. It was not intended to operate as an international agency engaged in strange activities.

Yesterday the President had one of his busiest days. …. The corridor outside his study has been filled with gentlemen all day long. I often wonder how it is possible to adjust to so many different people and their interests in the course of a day, but after all that is one of the things every President must learn to do.

Our founders thought long and hard about what the office of president should be. George Washington resisted the role, and then defined it.

I can only say this, a very, very important element of any country, but our country, and in my opinion, the single most important thing that a president can do is the defense of our country.

We don't want a president who fails at domestic and foreign policy.

How can a president not be an actor?

I do think the president's best role is usually as the sort of initiator.

I believe people want a President for all Americans. And so I'm out there talking about what we can do for every single American.

I think that less presidential interference the better.

I think it's healthy to see a President be a family man.

I'd spent 25 years in government when I left the Defense Department back in '93, decided I'd go spend the rest of my career in the private sector, and then the president tapped me to come be his running mate. And it's been a remarkable experience. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

The issues that cross a president's desk are never easy. The easy questions don't even get to the president.

The presidency is not an entry-level electoral job.

The President was a responsibility beyond that of managing the government. He has a responsibility as a moral leader.

The president is the face of the State of Israel around the world: not a representative of a specific ideology but of the collective creativity and history of the Jewish people.

The President must be above politics. He must not be a proxy to any political party. His interest must be national, not with a political agenda in mind.

President's are compelled to shout across the gap between politics and society.

The military's job is to win the war. A president's job is to win the peace.

When things don't go well they like to blame the Presidents, and that is one of the things that President's are paid for.

The president of the United States is not a king. You know? Barack Obama was elected by the American people.

I don't want to be president if I have to win by outrage. I don't want to just win. I want to govern, and not just by executive order.

The most important need is to have a steady hand at the wheel, one which does not deviate from its purpose depending on which way the wind blows. The task of keeping America safe and secure in an uncertain world falls heavily on the president.

There's already been black presidents who've been corrupt, so it doesn't strike me that having a black man in office means he's going to be the Messiah.

The president is the government.

Donald Trump understood America. He animated America, and now he'll be the president of all Americans.