Quote collection
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"If we fall into the trap of painting all Muslims with a broad brush and imply that we are at war with an entire religion, then we are doing the terrorists' work for them."
"Just like I described in health care, yeah, somebody comes in, they got new ideas, maybe ideas that are completely opposite of my ideas. Maybe some of it goes, maybe some of that progress goes back. Maybe they think of some things we didn't think of, and so in some other areas - we can learn something."
"It's probably a prerequisite for the job, or at least you have to have enough craziness to think that you can do the job. I think that [Donald Trump] has not spent a lot of time sweating the details of, you know, all the policies."
"[My kids] complained about Secret Service as they became teenagers, and Secret Service has done the very best job they could accommodating them, so it hasn't restricted any of their activities."
"What is true is [Bashar] Assad got rid of his chemical weapons."
"My conviction is that those fights need to be fought right now and can be won. And if in fact we have finite political capital, energy, resources, we need to win those fights."
"I think ultimately is, Donald Trump is pragmatic."
"It's the job, I think, of leaders to try to address peoples' real legitimate concerns and channel them in the most constructive ways possible."
"Iran is the latest expression of a deep, ancient, powerful culture that's different than ours. And we don't know how it's going to play itself out."
"Too often, we have failed to enforce international norms when it's inconvenient to do so."
"By so many measures, our country is stronger and more prosperous than it was when we first got here. And I'm hopeful we'll build on the progress we've made in the years to come."
"We can lose so much of what we've gained in terms of the kind of democratic freedoms and market-based economies and prosperity that we've come to take for granted."
"Keep in mind that, when I came in, we had had a crisis that was the worst we've seen since the 1930s, and working with people like Chancellor Merkel, working with the G-20 and other institutions internationally, we were able to stabilize the financial system, stabilize the US economy and return to growth."
"I do think that it is impossible for us to think only in terms of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and not think in terms of what's happening with Syria or Iran or Lebanon or Afghanistan and Pakistan. These things are interrelated. And if we are looking at the region as a whole and communicating a message to the Arab world and the Muslim world, that we are ready to initiate a new partnership based on mutual respect and mutual interest, then I think that we can make significant progress."
"It's good to get fresh legs in [the White house]. I think that it refreshes our democracy."
"I think if you worked at the community level in Chicago and then a politician on the South Side of Chicago, and worked at the state level, then you're pretty familiar with all the variations of politics in the African American community and criticisms you may get. If you're not familiar with those or you don't have a thick enough skin to take it, then you probably wouldn't have gotten here."
"I was watching a documentary that during the Bay of Pigs crisis JFK had about two weeks before anybody reported on it. Imagine that. I think it's fair to say that if something like that happens under a current president, they've got to figure out in about an hour what their response is."
"One of the issues the Democrats have to be clear on is the given population distribution across the country. We have to compete everywhere. We have to show up everywhere. We have to work at a grassroots level, something that's been a running thread in my career."
"We are committed to a world in which we keep America safe, but we recognize that our power doesn't just flow from our extraordinary military but also flows from the strength in our ideals and our principles and our values."
"What we've seen at least since 1979 is Iran making constant, calculated decisions that allow it to preserve the regime, to expand their influence where they can, to be opportunistic, to create what they view as hedges against potential Israeli attack in the form of Hezbollah and other proxies in the region."