Donald Trump/Quotes

""This president-elect is the most unique that I have experienced in one respect, he has absolutely no baggage. He has no obligation to any particular group because he has become a president on the basis of his own strategy and a program he put before the American public that his competitors did not present. So that is a unique situation.""

- Henry Kissinger

""I didn’t think President Trump had a chance at winning [...] Trump was able to convey — oddly enough, a message from a billionaire who lives in Manhattan — a genuine concern for people who feel kind of left out, are sort of offended by all the political correctness they see around them, and didn’t feel like this is the America that they’re accustomed to.""

- Mitch McConnell

""Trump took the elements of an independent candidacy — the lack of clear ideology, the name recognition of a national celebrity and the personal fortune needed to fund a presidential campaign — and then did what no one seemed to have thought of before. He staged a hostile takeover of an existing major party. He had the best of both worlds, an outsider candidacy with crosscutting ideological appeal and the platform of a major party to wage the general election. By the time he had finished, he had taken down two political dynasties: the Bush dynasty in the primaries and the Clinton dynasty in the general election.""

- Dan Balz

""I think the media have been harder on Trump than any other president certainly that I’ve known about. I think they feel free to claim that Trump is mentally deranged and everything else without hesitation.""

- Jimmy Carter in an interview for The New York Times, October 21, 2017

""The president of the United States wakes up some mornings seemingly determined to convince as many people as possible that he’s unsuited to high office. Fortunately for him, he has a Twitter account allowing him to act on this impulse immediately and without any filter. [...] But the tweets don’t constitute the sum total of the administration. It’s possible that Trump sees Twitter—and his other provocations—as a way to stir the pot, entertain himself, stoke his base, flog his enemies, and vent his frustrations separate and distinct from decisions of government, undertaken under the influence of, by and large, impressive, well-meaning advisers. Trump’s presidency is much better than his Twitter feed. Although he stands ready and willing to convince you otherwise, 280 characters at a time.""

- Rich Lowry, The Trump Presidency Isn't Nearly As Bad As It Sounds (POLITICO, November 29, 2017)

""Many people have asked me how my time as a reality TV star prepared me for the presidency, the truth is there's very little overlap between the two. Very little. In one job, I had to manage a cutthroat cast of characters desperate for TV time, totally unprepared for their jobs, and each week afraid of having their asses fired. In the other job, I was the host of a smash television hit. Television's so easy compared to this.""

- Donald Trump, during the 2018 Gridiron Club Dinner (transcript)

""Television's coverage of Donald Trump from the 1980s to early 2015 portrayed Trump as a phenomenal business success, endlessly knowledgeable and fascinating, insightful, shrewd, entertaining, and funny — a larger-than-life character. Why are so many baffled that Trump managed to turn that image into a path to the presidency?""

- Jim Geraghty, Donald Trump's Pre-Presidential Media Dominance (National Review, March 21, 2018)