Congressional Relations Quotes

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.

I'm thinking, That's Barack Obama. He doesn't go to work. He doesn't go down to Congress and make a deal. What the hell's he doing sitting in the White House? If I were in that job, I'd get down there and make a deal. Sure, Congress are lazy bastards, but so what? You're the top guy. You're the president of the company. It's your responsibility to make sure everybody does well. It's the same with every company in this country, whether it's a two-man company or a two-hundred-man company... . And that's the pussy generation - nobody wants to work.

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.

I think she [Hillary Clinton] would be far superior to President [Barack] Obama, who is basically remote, aloof and not involved with - he doesn't deal with members of Congress.

It used to be that Democrats and Republicans would disagree, but they could be social to each other. There were times during the year that we acted together in the good of the country.

I think the amount of love and trust on Capitol Hill is often in short supply, and having more dogs here would probably make this place work better and maybe in a more bipartisan manner.

Politics, so far as mobilizing support is concerned, represents the art of calculated cheating, or more precisely how to cheat without being really caught

I think dealing with the U.S. Senate is very different from dealing with the electorate.

I'm always impressed by your disdain for Congress. That's one of the reasons you have such good relations with us.

I'm a career Air Force officer. We have a saying in the Air Force: 'If you want people to be with you at the crash, you've got to put them on the manifest.' And so I was always of the view to almost leave no stone unturned when you're up there briefing the Hill.

As human nature is very much the same in Congress as in a stock exchange, a church convention, or a newspaper office, the President who deals with Congress tactfully and courteously will, in the long run get more of what he wants than the President who does not do so. He may not get so much credit for what he does gain, from those people who like to see a President fight Congress, especially in that flattering way which consists in appealing to them to make Congress do what the President wants done.

Obama has been perhaps the most partisan President since Truman. He hasn't learned to be civil - note his insulting speech to Paul Ryan, who did us the courtesy of scoring a budget. The president has to talk to Republicans when it comes to the debt ceiling. He has reached the debt ceiling before anyone expected.

With nearly two years remaining in his presidency, George W. Bush is alone. In half a century, I have not seen a president so isolated from his own party in Congress - not Jimmy Carter, not even Richard Nixon as he faced impeachment. Republicans in Congress do not trust their president to protect them.

I spent more time talking with this president [Donald Trump] in the last few days, I think, than I probably talked with this last president [Barack Obama] in the last six months. So this is something that he is working very closely hand in glove with congress.

If Presidents are not looking for confrontations with the Congress—even with their own party members—then their aides are.

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.

There is but one way for a president to deal with Congress, and that is continuously, incessantly, and without interruption. If it is really going to work, the relationship has got to be almost incestuous.

I'm a lobbyist and had a career lobbying. The guy who gets elected or the lady who gets elected president of the United States will immediately be lobbying. They would be advocating to the Congress, they'll be lobbying our allies and our adversaries overseas. They'll be asking the business community and labor unions.

You cannot leave your office until you have answered every phone call from every Congressman or Senator who called you that day….Break your backside to respond fast to every request…and if you have to say no, do it gently.

The traditions and courtesies of the Senators and Representatives stand in the way of the Executive, however, as defined by the Constitution, and no man who is trained in the congressional school fails to suffer by them in a way that men of merely executive experience know nothing of.

In the future, 'the networked' will sometimes form alliances with the Silicon Valley companies against Congress, but sometimes we are going to want and need to target our campaigns for change at the companies themselves.

All presidents get frustrated with Congress.

Give members of Congress a sense of equity in your administration.

I don't know any member of Congress who ever said, 'I'm satisfied with the communication that we have from the White House.'

I've thought about it, not a lot, but I thought my relationship with Congress - the Democrats and Republicans - would help me get some things done. Not everything, but at least they'd be willing to try.