It is hard for people outside the White House to understand the constant daily problems and issues that come up that require the president's attention, but he can not let himself get too personally involved.
Betty White met with President Obama at the White House. President Obama invited Betty personally because she's great with animals. And the president's still having a tough time house-training Joe Biden.
I've seen how the issues that come across a president's desk are always the hard ones - the problems where no amount of data or numbers will get you to the right answer.
He was making a very serious point. Donald Trump has a way of talking to get people's attention, and it's drawn attention to a very important issue.There was a time when a Democrat president knew where the buck stopped in the White House. And the responsibility for the failed policies in the Middle East that created the environment where ISIS developed belongs to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the American people know that.
Now, like, I'm President. It would be pretty hard for some drug guy to come into the White House and start offering it up, you know?...I bet if they did, I hope I would say, 'Hey, get lost. We don't want any of that.'
I know people's problems: the problems of those who work hard, who must slave away. The couples who have two incomes but who can nevertheless barely cover their rent. The people who get stuck in traffic on their way to work. The people who have to wait in vain for a train to come just as they are supposed to be picking up their children from daycare. I can say with a clear conscience to those people: I understand your problems. And I will do all I can to decrease them.
When I was in the Senate, I had eight great years working with the community on major issues, trying to deal with problems that people brought to my attention. That's certainly what I intend to do as president. I think that is what President Obama has done.
We have to pick up people's issues within and outside Parliament and give a voice to their pain and problems and come across as a party which understands this.
My job is to be a spokesman - the spokesman, I suppose - for the President, for the White House, to do the daily briefings, to manage the press corps in terms of travel, day-to-day needs, access, interviews, all those issues.
People in the White House work hard, whatever administration. They get rewarded in psychic income, a sense that they are involved in something bigger than themselves, that it's important.
One of the hardest things for the president is to distinguish the routine issues that come through from the essential issues that affect the long term, and not to let himself get sucked into the battles of the bureaucracy for marginal issues, and to keep them focused and to keep his mind clear on what the fundamental things are that he has to accomplish.
A girl who pays attention is very cool. It's really hard to pay attention to someone. I understand. I get it. I get bored a lot when I'm talking to people, but I try. So I'd like for the girl to try, too.
The decision-making process in the White House does not let most issues get up to the President. The Council thought opening up global markets to derivatives that would destabilize other countries wasn't likely to create a lot of jobs in the U.S. and might adversely affect U.S. interests by causing global economic instability.
To this day, I can't understand why the closest man to Jimmy Carter, the key staff guy at the White House, didn't even join us at the White House breakfast meetings where we discussed upcoming legislation with the president. This was unprecedented. People used to say that Jordan was the most brilliant guy around, but you couldn't prove it by me.
Press passes can't be that hard to come by if the White House allows that old Arab Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the President.
I think that's what we don't understand as human beings is this is America. It's a democracy. Once we get whoever we want into the White House, even the person we want to get in the White House doesn't get in the White House. We have every right to not only criticize that person but demand that person does what it is we need to get done. That just happens with us mobilizing and us using our voices to talk to the mayors, the governors and the presidents.
The frustration of our [The Daily] show is- very much outside any parameters of the media or the government. We don't have access to these people, we don't have access. We don't go to dinners we don't have cocktail parties. We don't you know, you've seen what happens when one of us ends up at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, it doesn't end well.