Dick Gephardt Quotes

I see a trend here where the President seems to think his job is to count votes and then try to make a deal That's what we in legislatures do. Mr. Obama's job is to travel the country, fight for the values that he cares about.

Presidents are evaluated not by what they did by the stroke of their own pen; it's what they persuade Congress to do.

I have worked closely with many of our county commissioners, mayors, local transportation officials, and others to determine project needs in the 18th District, and they deserve a great deal of thanks for today's victory on the House floor.

We saw what happened in Jimmy Carter's administration. President Carter was a good man with the best of intentions. But he came to Washington without a good working relationship with Democratic members of Congress, which played a big part in his administration's problems.

Well, the senators I've enjoyed working with the most would be Ted Kennedy and Kent Conrad, because they were both either chairman or ranking member of the committee I was chairman or ranking member of. And in both instances they were just great people to work with.

You cannot rely on House or Senate staff to pass a piece of legislation for you, but if you have antagonized staff, they can block you.

Jon Kyl did a really good job of presenting a case and moving issues. John McCain probably is one of the more effective legislators, getting things on through the process. I always thought, too - and this may seem kind of odd - Richard Shelby was just an effective guy a lot of times at stopping things.

Especially in the whip operation, you're in constant contact with the members and their chiefs of staff, so having a chief who's approachable and reaches out to other chiefs so people know what's going - know what they're looking for in the policy that comes to the House floor - is incredibly important.

With a normal president like President [Barack] Obama, he says a word, and that's because there has been some thought that he's done and there had been policy papers and there's been aides and there's been advisers and then there is a connection to an actual set of policies. And so, the words like have roots into actual stuff.

What will most certainly happen is that there will be very clear and full communication between the government and independents and minor parties. The precise mechanisms will evolve over time, but we certainly intend to keep the minor parties and the independents very much in the loop. We have to if we want our legislative agenda to have a reasonable chance of success and that's what we intend to do.

It is hard sometimes to get the Congress to do what you want to do and you have to keep working at it.

President-elect Trump has the vision. And what Mike Pence brings to the table as vice president-elect is somebody who knows Capitol Hill. So he can take Donald Trump's vision, help translate that into actual policy, legislative language, bill text, working through the process so that it ends up back on Donald Trump's desk so that he can sign it into law.

It's far from clear in general that Donald Trump is a guy who really thinks about the details of policy and is going to do the kind of heavy lifting you have to do as president to get those policies through in Congress. I think the hope is that Paul Ryan and his crew will push policies through Congress and Trump will just sign them. That's not really how policy works.

As president, I will take that work, that bipartisan work, that finding common ground, because you have to be able to get along with people to get things done in Washington.

Gingrich, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, and Clinton passed legislation because they understood and appreciated the difficult political process. They fought for their principles yet recognized the need for compromise to get anything done.

I've taken legislation that people have been trying to pass for 10 or 15 years, and I got it passed.

Being president isn't anything like reality TV. It's not about sending insulting tweets or making fiery speeches; it's about whether or not the candidate can handle the awesome responsibility of leading this country.

Washington's a mess, but that's not stopping me from getting bills to help Montana signed into law by President Trump.

A master performer like Bill Clinton never lost sight of the fact that as president he had to project confidence and power, but if he was speaking to a group of autoworkers he would adjust his accent and his words to fit the audience, and do the same for a group of executives.

I really focus on making sure that we pass good policy. I don't mind throwing my elbows around to get it done.

I will keep working with both parties in the House to get things done for people in our District.

One must realise that it is not a child's play to run a government.

Not every President is a great speaker. Not every President is a great thinker. But in the modern era, every single President is a master of one thing: eye contact.

Where we are now is we have resolved the revenue issue and the question is what are we going to do about spending. I wish the president would lead us in this discussion rather than putting himself in a position of having to be dragged kicking and screaming to the table to discuss the single biggest issue confronting our future.

If you think of big, legislative accomplishments, most of them kind of get initiated with the president putting something out there and Congress working on it.