Presidential Directive Quotes

When the President makes something a priority, we see action.

The president and I sat down in the Oval Office, and he expressed very clearly that what he wants from me is my best professional military advice.

I'm the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.

Is there any statute that gives the President authority in any way to change the spelling?

As the President has indicated, my life has been a life of travel - for 60 years constantly moving over the wide world on journeys which first and last have taken me to 83 countries, and, what is more significant, to most of them again and again.

The idea that the president doesn't interfere in law-enforcement investigative matters is one of our deep normative expectations of the modern presidency. But it is not a matter of law. Legally, if the president of the United States wants to direct the specific conduct of investigations, that is his constitutional prerogative.

The President wishes the Japanese to be very prudent about the introduction of opium, and if a treaty is made, he wishes that opium may be strictly prohibited.

If I'm elected president, let me tell you about my first day in office. The first thing I intend to do is to rescind every illegal and unconstitutional executive action taken by Barack Obama.

I can guarantee that not because I give Attorney General [Loretta] Lynch a directive. That is institutionally how we have always operated. I do not talk to the attorney general about pending investigations [On Hillary Clinton].

We were sent to this country by the President, who desires to promote the welfare of Japan, and are quite different from the ambassadors of other countries.

We operate under the law. Covert action authorities are communicated in a memorandum of notification.

My job is to make certain that I've done what I was asked and my department has done what we were asked to do by the president and the first lady and the State Department. I believe that we accomplished that.

John Bolton doesn't get to decide policy. The president does.

President of the United States is you know, our boss, so you know, the President and the First Lady are kinda like the Mom and the Dad of the country. And when your Dad says something you listen.

I go back to Washington every year to see the President and I get my orders directly from him—not from those pipsqueaks [at the State Department.]

In my tenure I had three one-on-one meetings in the Oval Office with the President, and I can assure you that you remember every word of those meetings. Abd if the President indicates what he would like or prefer, you do not take that as optional.

Secretary Perry, Ambassador Volker and I worked with Mr. Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine matters at the express direction of the President of the United States. We did not want to work with Mr. Giuliani. Simply put, we played the hand we were dealt.

I worked in the White House on 9/11, where the vice president was given the authority to, if he deemed necessary, shoot down an American passenger jet.

Cabinet members may disagree and even resign in protest, but, ultimately, they must obey the order of the Commander-in-Chief.

I think, clearly, where you have a situation in which the Solicitor General tells me, 'I cannot in good faith argue a certainly legal position,' and if the president told us to argue that position, we would have to tell him, 'No, we can't do that, Mr. President.'

The position of General Banks leaves his position exposed. You are hereby directed by the President to immediately attack …

If his order from the president is to build a wall, John Kelly will build a wall. And I've got a design out there and I hope it's considered. There are other good designs out there. But he will get it done. He's a doer.

President Johnson wanted no admission fee charged at the library. I have been sorely tempted to change that policy often, but I fear the reaction from the grave would be overwhelming.