Elliott Abrams Quotes

I was circulating around briefing these guys. Starting with Mitchell, and Haldeman, and [domestic policy adviser] John Ehrlichman, and all the guys. Just sort of circulating around with a briefcase. I cobbled together a briefing of a sort that would do the trick. And introduced them to technical systems of one kind or another.

So with the end of the Cold War, it became increasingly obvious that there was no basis upon which any decision was being made, not in the White House, and certainly because of that, not in the Congress.

That man in the White House

In the White House there is always struggle and contention.

No White House staff person wants to conflict with the First Lady who goes home and has the ear of the President all night.

The White House staff [under Richard Nixon] viewed Congress in much the same way that the chairman of the board of a huge corporation regards his regional sales managers.

It used to be that a journalist covering the White House had trouble getting news because each person there worked for the same person, while in Congress they are all independent contractors and you could get news. But today, the White House Staff are all independent contractors and that is a great place to get news.

I think the White House is a better place for not having a Steve Bannon in it.

All presidents get frustrated with Congress.

Do you know how many congressional liaisons we are going to have? I don't either, but I told Pence, it should be four times whatever Obama had. I don't know how many he had, but I'm telling you that didn't work out.

So there are 535 members of Congress. Many of us want what's best for the American worker and the American economy. Others want what is best in their goals to take down President Trump.

When I first went to work in the West Wing, the most daunting thing was how small this place was... You walk in: it's three floors, and there's a few offices on each floor, and that's it.

The job of every president is to ride herd over Congress.

White House staff are meant to coordinate and set policy, not carry it out.

I never set out to work in the White House.

The White House has something in common with the rest of America, and that is disdain for Congress. It is hard to blame them.

If I were now presiding in the Supreme Court of the United States as Chief Justice, I should feel entirely at home, but with the troubles of selecting a Cabinet and the difficulties in respect to the revision of the tariff, I feel just a bit like a fish out of water.

The important decisions of the country are being made by a smaller and smaller group in the White House…. The Executive Branch has lost the ability to use the resources that are there [The Civil Servants].

Congressional Republicans have come to understand that their last, best hope of blocking bad policy from the White House is through spending bills.

I was deputy assistant to the president. My job was strategist in the office of the chief strategist, Stephen Bannon. Somebody once described me as the president's national security utility infielder.

I got to meet one Chief of Staff: Sam Skinner. He was Chief of Staff at the end of George Sr.'s White House.

The president has to govern.

I'm a former governor, and so I was the chief executive, and when the legislature wasn't in session, I was running the state.

I actually think, as unusual as it might sound, that working in the White House is an extraordinary life.

I was in the trade field as White House fellow in the first Bush administration.