John Podhoretz Quotes

The danger of undue power in the President is not, to me, formidable.

Obama is a tyrant the same way FDR was a tyrant. He has a view of presidential power that states: the government is in control of the country, and the president is in charge of the government. He's taken an imperial view of the presidency.

As President Nixon says, presidents can do almost anything, and President Nixon has done many things that nobody would have thought of doing.

[In wartime] there is almost always an overstretch [for power] by the President.

The President [Theodore Roosevelt] has as much use for the Constitution as a tom cat has for a marriage license.

Never underestimate the power of an American President in his early days.

During Wilson’s presidency, he followed through on an expansive view of Presidential power, suppressing domestic dissent and subversion in a manner that exceeded Dick Cheney’s wildest dreams.

I believe that Donald Trump in the White House would be more abusive to the Constitution than Barack Obama, and that's saying a lot.

There has been so much power concentrated. There is no leash on that power anymore and Americans face the situation that this power is getting momentum with each passing year with each presidency.

The office of the president is the most powerful in the world. It is also, at times, the most powerless.

President Bush has asserted the right to wiretap and eavesdrop on any American without a warrant in the name of fighting terrorism. He has asserted presidential power beyond stated constitutional rights, and there is no Republican gutsy enough to call his hand.

Nothing in the 14th Amendment or in any other constitutional provision suggests that the president may usurp legislative power to prevent a violation of the Constitution.

I truly believe that all power corrupts. Such is probably the thinking behind every political film ever made in Hollywood.

I think that presidents don't give up power that has accrued to them by the precedent of previous presidents. Even when they say they would like to, I think once they get there they don't give it up.

If a president can enforce a part of a law and delay a part of a law, then does he have a power to not enforce any law he so chooses? If he can allow illegal aliens to freely run across our border, can he force legal citizens out of the country? Where would be the end of his power?

President Obama's decision to bypass the constitutional advice and consent of the Senate is not an isolated incident.

The President seems to extend executive privilege way out past the atmosphere. What he says is executive privilege is nothing but executive poppycock.

It was settled by the Constitution, the laws, and the whole practice of the government that the entire executive power is vested in the President of the United States.

If the president were to displace from office a man whose merits require that he should continue in it… he will be impeachable by this House before the Senate, for such an act of mal-administration; for I contend that the wanton removal of meritorious officers would subject him to impeachment and removal from his own high trust.

Separation of powers means that the president cannot control Congress.

The constitution has never greatly bothered any wartime President.

This worthy President thinks that because he has scalped Indians and imprisoned judges, he is to have his own way with the Bank. He is mistaken.

The Senate has no army, no navy, no patronage, no lucrative offices, nor glittering honors to bestow. Around us there is no swarm of greedy expectants rendering us homage, anticipating our wishes, and ready to execute our commands. How is it with the President [Andrew Jackson]? Is he powerless? He is felt from one extremity to the other of this republic. By means of principles which he has introduced [the spoils system], and innovations which he has made in our institutions, alas! but too much countenanced by Congress and a confiding people, he exercises uncontrolled the power of the state. In one hand he holds the purse and in the other brandishes the sword of the country! Myriads of dependents and partisans scattered over the land are ever ready to sing hosannas to him and to laud to the skies what ever he does. He has swept over the government like a tropical tornado.

I do not believe that the President has any powers at all except such as the Constitution expressly gives him or such as are necessarily inferred.

Is there really a way to restrict the powers of the Commander in Chief ... when one man's swiftly pressing the button may be necessary for some degree of national survival?