The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.
One of the things I learned as president is that your life is just not going to unfold the way you want it to. There will be surprises, challenges, and therefore the question is how you deal with the unexpected.
When I talk about the assets, that was at the beginning of the talks. I was president then. I'm not president now. When I said it, this would be a sign of goodwill to begin the talks.
We're a long way from the embargo ending. Look at what just happened with the rollback of Obama's Cuba policies. Two idiot congressmen convinced our idiot president to make it harder on Cubans on the island.
President Obama has earned my vote on the basis of his excellent judicial appointments, his consensus-building foreign policy and the improvements he has brought about in the disastrous economy he inherited.
We spend less time with each other now than we did during the presidency. When you're president, you're usually out and back in the same day - at least I was. I just came from a trip to the Middle East last week, where I was gone for five nights, and when I left, Laura [Bush] was out of town.
One thing you learn in this job [being US President] is that even if something's not your fault, you're still responsible. And that's how it should be.
I'd been concerned all along that the character of the president in the West Wing pilot would throw the ensemble out of whack, that that character would simply take up all the oxygen in a room. I wanted to hold off bringing this character in until the last possible moment.