Bill Kristol Quotes

There's never a perfect bipartisan bill in the eyes of a partisan.

The middle in Congress is gone now. That is where we got most things done.

The degree of polarization that currently exists in Washington is such where I think it's fair to say if I presented a cure for cancer, getting legislation passed to move that forward would be a nail-biter.

The Senate as an institution is broken. We're not doing the work of the American people and the rules are being abused. The only way to get us back to the traditions where the Senate is doing the work of the American people is to change the rules.

I don’t chose my friends and associates on the basis of political party. The Senate has become altogether too nasty.

You used to get legislation done by getting the moderates to agree. But we have no moderates now so it doesn’t get done

In our political system it’s easier to block action than to act.

I think it's a time to be sad about what's been done to the United States Senate, the greatest deliberative body in the world.

Democratic, Republican members of Congress get along fine. But what you have is this institutional Hatfield and McCoy sentiment coming from our constituents, where the base of both sides doesn't want people to get along. But the majority of Americans, I feel, the majority, they are in the middle. They actually do want both sides to get together.

Obama tried to make deals with Republicans, and I don't think he realized he'd have such an insanely opposing Congress.

People have to recognize that it’s going to take some time for trust to be built not only between Democrats and Republicans, between Congress and the White House, between the House and the Senate. You know, we’ve had a dysfunctional political system for a while now.

I have this fear that one day there's going to be a fire in the Senate and there are only going to be 57 senators there and they’ll all die because they won't have 60 votes to allow themselves to leave the building.

After President Obama's election in 2008, there was a widespread hope that it would mark an end to unseemly partisan nastiness.

From the moment Donald Trump was inaugurated, Washington Democrats have been myopically focused on politically targeting his administration and impeaching him.

You talk about leading Republicans. That's no easy task on just like you were trying to lead Democrats on the other side. We all have independent thoughts and independent ideas.

Concerned about re-election, interest-group reactions, the media, or fundraising, many legislators have found it in their interest to refuse to cooperate with members of the opposing party - or to treat them as enemies in some kind of war, in which the whole point is to defeat and humiliate them. But the American people have been the real losers.

I've had a growing conviction that Congress is not operating as it should. There is much too much partisanship and not enough progress.

I am basically a supporter of Barack Obama - it is not easy to be a post-partisan president in a hyper-partisan era.

When I first came to the Senate, people in both parties went out of their way to have personal relationships.

Many times, disagreements between the two political parties in Washington get all the headlines. What's not reported is the fact that Republicans and Democrats agree on where we want to go, but we disagree on how we're going to get there.

When you're on the floor of the House of Representatives in the Democratic caucus, I like to say it feels like New Jersey. You have all different opinions, you have all different ideas.

Congress is more broken than ever. Congressman Will Hurd has quickly become part of the problem.

Few believe Democrats will control both houses of Congress in 2021, and even if they manage to, Republicans will still be around to play spoiler on plenty of big agenda items.

You come into Congress, and in the orientation, pretty quickly, you're separated out by party. Which makes no sense, if you want to get a body that works as a body, that learns to be able to work as a body.

On the House side, when Donald Trump came, he received multiple standing ovations.