"What is portrayed as high-minded positions on issues sometimes is just designed to carve out some of their commercial interests."
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Issues quotes
Issues
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Issues quotes (page 25 of 213)
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"No other country in the world does what we do. On every issue, the world turns to us, not simply because of the size of our economy or our military might - but because of the ideals we stand for, and the burdens we bear to advance them."
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"The president [Barack Obama] understands that the country's very concerned about [terrorism] issue. And I think what you're going to hear from him is a discussion about what government's doing to ensure all of our highest priority, the protection of the American people."
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"I think that when it comes to issues of trade, I think it is important for us to be in favor of trade, but I also think it is important to make sure that we are putting in place the labor standards, the environmental standards, that are going to provide some of a fighting chance for American workers."
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"There's no doubt that on the issue of abortion, oftentimes it's very difficult to split the difference, although we can agree on the notion that none of us are pro-abortion and all of us would like to see a reduction in unwanted pregnancies, for example, and we could focus on those issues."
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"Lincoln basically pulled in all the people who had been running against him into his Cabinet because, whatever personal feelings there were, the issue was 'How can we get this country through this time of crisis?'"
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"We have to deal with issues like inequality, we have deal with issues of economic dislocation, we have to deal with peoples fears that their children won't do as well as they have. The more aggressively and effectively we deal with those issues, the less those fears may channel themselves into counter-productive approaches that pit people against each other."
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"The problem was, and we saw some of this in the immigration-reform issues as well, was they hadn't done sufficient homework to know that I didn't have all the capacity they thought I did in order to just execute this through the stroke of a pen."
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"I think that where I've gotten frustrated during the course of my presidency has never been because I was getting pushed too hard by activists to see the justness of a cause or the essence of an issue."
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"Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, are motivated by all kinds of issues. They're sincerely interested in the economy, in terrorism, in social issues. But the one overriding thing they're interested in is getting reelected. And if they think that it's harder for them to get reelected by cooperating with each other, then they won't cooperate."
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"One of the gratifying things, I think, about the end of my presidency even though admittedly my successor ran against a lot of what we stood for, is when you look at the individual issues and the progress that we've made on a lot of those issues, we got the support of a pretty decent majority."
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"What is true, though, is now we've got a bunch of videos that whatever side of the issue you're on, raises the temperature on these issues and makes people really focused ."
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"I would not advise people who feel strongly or are concerned about some of the issues that have been raised during the course of the [president electing] campaign."
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"We do have to balance this issue of privacy and security. Those who pretend that there's no balance that has to be struck and think we can take a 100-percent absolutist approach to protecting privacy don't recognize that governments are going to be under an enormous burden to prevent the kinds of terrorist acts that not only harm individuals, but also can distort our society and our politics in very dangerous ways."
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"One of the things I've learned about being president is that we'll work on issues for long periods of time, sometimes in obscurity."
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"We have to have better intelligence. We have to have better interdiction capabilities. And so the issue is not how much we spend or how hard we try; the issue is are we doing it the right way? Are we being smart about it?"
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"Essentially, Iran was sanctioned because of what had happened at Fordow, its unwillingness to comply with previous U.N. security resolutions about their nuclear program, and as part of the package of sanctions that was slapped on them, the issue of arms and ballistic missiles were included."
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"I think at a certain age I became conscious of the power of words. And it was fairly late. I was kind of a goofball - but I was always subconsciously thinking about issues."
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"We've achieved this historic progress through diplomacy, without resorting to another war in the Middle East. I want to also point out that by working with Iran on this nuclear deal, we were better able to address other issues."
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"To try to blackmail a president into giving them some concessions on issues that have nothing to do with the budget."
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