We always have to remember that we, the Italians, have always cooperated with the U.S., and with Reagan and Carter and Nixon and Clinton, Bush and Obama. And Trump, Trump is the American-elected president. So, cooperation is there.
A troubled economy is always the sitting president's fault. It was when Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter, when Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush, and when Barack Obama defeated John McCain by running against George W. Bush.
[Dan Fried] served under President [Barack] Obama and under President George W. Bush before that and under President [Bill] Clinton before that and under President George H.W. Bush before that and under [Ronald] Reagan before that and under [Jim] Carter before that. He has been there a long time.
The truth is that for a Democrat to triumph in a presidential election, it needs to come on the heels of 'the dark times' of an unpopular Republican administration. Carter followed the Nixon era, Clinton succeeded after 12 years of Reagan/Bush, and Obama was a direct result of eight years of Bush/Cheney.
Donald Trumo is the fourth president Vladimir Putin is going to have worked with, OK? Clinton, Bush, Obama and now Trump. He respects toughness. He doesn't respect weakness. He decided, rightly or wrongly, that Obama was not a tough guy. And the question is whether or not Trump acts tough. We know he can. Right? We don't know whether he will.
They [President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton] have said that everybody should root for the success of President-Elect [Donald] Trump, but what about - those are the protesters protesting President-Elect Trump.
During the campaign, Trump in many ways repudiated President Obama's national security and foreign policy approach on issues like the Iran nuclear deal and immigration. So there's a real question of continuity or disruption with Trump, which wouldn't have existed if Clinton was president-elect.
This is not the colonial empire that somehow he has in his hand. I’ve never felt that from him. I felt that from [George] W [Bush]. I felt that from [Bill] Clinton. I felt that from every American president, including ones I disagreed with, including [Jimmy] Carter. I don’t feel that from President Obama.
Well, part of the trick of getting elected president, if you look at George W. Bush and Barack Obama, is convincing the other side, at least temporarily, not to hate and fear. And that, Trump is not going to able to do that
American presidential elections usually amount to a series of overcorrections: Clinton begat Bush, who produced Obama, whose lax border policies fueled the rise of Trump.
I do believe that the Barack Obama administration has reached a new low by using the instruments of the state against its political adversaries. Obama does not see people who disagree with him as well-meaning opponents but rather as enemies. That's not something that Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton did as President. Probably Obama's direct descendant in this line is Richard Nixon. And Obama seems to have carried Nixonian tactics to a new low. So, we've turned a corner in American politics that doesn't bode well for our future.
I do have to say when we read certain words being used to describe President Trump - it's never been done. It wasn't done about President Obama. It wasn't done about either President Bush, President Clinton, because people have a certain respect for and recognition of the dignity for the office of the president. And so I am beseeching everybody to cool it down a little bit.
I will not vote for Hillary, and I will not vote for Trump. At the end of the day, I believe that President Clinton would be less damaging to the Republican Party than President Trump. Because five minutes after she's elected president, every bit of this anxiety in our party disappears instantly. We will go at the main enemy as we do.
In a way I never did with George W. Bush or Barack Obama or Bill Clinton, I will write about the actions of the Trump presidency with the working assumption that our nation must be protected both by and from the president.
In the past, the U.S. has shown its capacity to reinvent its gifts for leadership. During the 1970s, in the aftermath of the Nixon abdication and the Ford and Carter presidencies, the whole nation peered into the abyss, was horrified by what it saw and elected Ronald Reagan as president, which began a national resurgence.
The Russians wanted Donald Trump, not Hillary Clinton. Their entire intervention in the American president election - from the news bots, to allies like Carter Page, Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn to the meeting with Don Jr. - was about hoping to elect a president who would ease the sanctions that pinch the oligarchy that enables Vladimir Putin.
I still consider Bill Clinton a friend and Donald Trump a friend. Some day in the future, President Clinton could be a big asset to President Trump in a lot of his outreach.