Most Recent Quotes

“My thinking was when we beat them in 2012 that might break the fever, and it’s not quite broken yet.

I genuinely believe there are Republicans out there who would like to work with us but they’re fearful of their base and they’re concerned about what Rush Limbaugh might say about them. And as a consequence we get the kind of gridlock that makes people cynical about government.”

“We’ve known for years the tea party has full control of the House. Now we understand they have full control of the Republican caucus here in the Senate.”

“Every year for the past few years on Mother’s Day I’ve taken a delegation to Afghanistan – or Iraq – to say thank you to our moms – and by the way, our grandmothers – who are serving there – to also thank all of our troops for what they do to protect America’s families. I won’t be going this particular weekend because we don’t have – you know, under sequestration – we don’t have CoDels [Congressional Delegations].”

“My friend [Ted Cruz] from Texas is like the schoolyard bully. He pushes everybody around and is losing, and instead of playing the game according to the rules, he not only takes the ball home with him but changes the rules. That way, no one wins–except the bully who tries to indicate to people that he has won.”

“Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems; some of these same voices also doing their best to gum up the works.  They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.

We have never been a people who place all our faith in government to solve our problems. We shouldn’t want to. But we don’t think the government is the source of all our problems, either. Because we understand that this democracy is ours. And as citizens, we understand that it’s not about what America can do for us, it’s about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but absolutely necessary work of self-government.”

“[Ted Cruz]‘s anti-immigration. Almost every Hispanic in the country wants to see immigration reform. No, I don’t think he should be defined as a Hispanic. He’s a politician from Texas. A conservative state. And I respect Texas’ choice. But what I don’t like is… when you try to get things done, it’s okay to be strong and state your views, your ideology.  But I’ve seen him demean the office, be rude to other senators, not be part of, I think, the civility that is really needed in Washington.”

“All of these things we’ve said about what the president could do, should do, might have, could have, but the central thing to keep in mind is his opponents – you talk about taking them out to dinner, making nice with them – these people politically want to cut his heart out and throw his liver to the dogs. That does make it very, very difficult to come on nice to them.”

“It’s silly that there’s a liberal bias in media. Obviously, there are liberal voices and there are conservative voices. But overwhelmingly, media in the United States–television, newspapers, and that sort of thing–the bias shifts towards the right.  It’s a center-right media in this country.”