Latest Mark Shields Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• The strength of Donald Trump as a candidate - and I'm not in any way defending moral convictions or anything of the sort - was that he says what he means, you know where he stands.

  Mark Shields

  Mean, Moral, Conviction

  Source: www.pbs.org

• The problem is that every study I'm aware of, which is probably not that many, has indicated that a dollar spent in preparation and avoidance of natural disasters is worth $15 that is spent in relief. But there's no political payoff for preparation. So, who benefits? I mean, the governor or senator or the president? Bill Clinton at Oklahoma City, his performance there helped him enormously. And there really hasn't been any regulation that would, in fact, interfere with environmental disaster.

  Mark Shields

  Mean, Political, Preparation

  Source: www.pbs.org

• I do think that Republicans are flirting with their tax cut, which has always been the narcotic of Republicans, that they in fact have to at some point, with any remote pretense of candor, abandon any pretense of a balanced budget.I mean, they talk about - because they are going to finance the tax cut by tax cuts. That's how they're going to do it. And I do think that the will is there right now in the Congress to act. I think they will be as close to unity as you will see on Capitol Hill this year.

  Mark Shields

  Mean, Cutting, Thinking

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Russia is a country that has supported, propped up the worst of anti-democratic regimes in the Middle East, that has practiced - mistreated its own press, mistreated its own civil society, and economic intimidation of its neighbors, including invasion of its neighbors.I mean, this is the one country on the face of the earth with the capacity to obliterate the United States.

  Mark Shields

  Country, Mean, Earth

  Source: www.pbs.org

• I think it's fair to say that Donald Trump was born without the embarrassment gene or the moral reservation gene.

  Mark Shields

  Thinking, Moral, Embarrassment

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Tim Kaine didn't come across authentic. It wasn't good. And it was - it just really - I think, for short-term benefit, I think the Democrats tarnished the brand, which is an awfully good brand.

  Mark Shields

  Thinking, Democrat

  Source: www.pbs.org

• I think the Democrats did a terrible disservice, the Hillary Clinton campaign did, to Tim Kaine. Tim Kaine had the earned reputation of being one of the most respected and well-liked, and not cheap partisan members of the United States Senate. And they turned him into an attack dog.

  Mark Shields

  Dog, Thinking, Reputation

  Source: www.pbs.org

• I thought Mike Pence, upon reflection to me, came across a little bit like your favorite aunt who refuses, in spite of first-person evidence that grandpa has been drunk and disorderly in public, that, says, no, no, grandpa would never do that, even though grandpa is being taken off in handcuffs.

  Mark Shields

  Taken, Aunt, Reflection

  Source: www.pbs.org

• But the people at home if we're doing a town meeting or a town format. You have to answer the question that is asked. And what people at home are gauging how does this candidate respond to the questioner? Do they show respect to the questioner? Do they try to understand why the questioner is asking that? Do they respond to the question? Is there a human connection between the two? It's where Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney in 2012. He lost the voters on who was a stronger leader, who had a vision for the future, but on who cares about people like me, he trounced Mitt Romney.

  Mark Shields

  Home, People, Leader

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Every Republican candidate in the country is going to be asked whether in a debate or where else, by opponents or by the press, do you consider Donald Trump to be an appropriate role model for the children of our state? And it just - as far as the women's vote reported on in Georgia, it makes it so, not simply difficult. It makes it almost impossible for somebody with self-respect, who has a mother or sister or a daughter, somebody like this in Abraham Lincoln's chair.

  Mark Shields

  Daughter, Mother, Country

  Source: www.pbs.org

• The Republicans have, with some pride - George W. Bush won the White House by promising to restore dignity to the Oval Office. And they were or presented themselves as the family - the party of family values.

  Mark Shields

  Party, Pride, Office

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Richard Nixon said it best. It makes no difference whether they hold your nose or whether they go would through a wall to vote for you. It counts the same with the X.

  Mark Shields

  Wall, Vote

  Source: www.pbs.org

• The single worst campaign slogan I have ever heard, is Hillary's Clinton, "I'm with her," it means nothing. It absolutely means nothing to anybody. I mean, it's about appealing - and it says nothing about anybody's life, about the country.

  Mark Shields

  Country, Mean, Clinton

  Source: www.pbs.org

• I think Hillary Clinton - first of all, it's a great victory, acknowledge it. She has made history.

  Mark Shields

  Thinking, Victory, Clinton

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Hillary Clinton, at the end of the debate, what you want viewers to say, yes, she's smart, she's knowledgeable, but she's not a bad egg, you know? Not a bad egg is a pretty high compliment in American politics, given the toxic atmosphere in which we currently dwell.

  Mark Shields

  Smart, Atmosphere, Debate

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Donald Trump defies gravity. And so I guess he has to be Donald Trump. It's gotten him so far.

  Mark Shields

  Source: www.pbs.org

• George Washington was the president who could never tell a lie, and Richard Nixon was the president who could never tell the truth. Donald Trump is truly the president who can't tell the difference.

  Mark Shields

  Lying, President, Telling The Truth

  Source: www.pbs.org

• I'm sure little Marco [Rubio] didn't think it would stick. I'm sure crooked Hillary [Clinton] didn't think it would stick. These labels do have a certain power to them. And so we will see how it plays out.

  Mark Shields

  Thinking, Play, Labels

  Source: www.pbs.org

• It's both strategic, to get people's minds off other things, and to pick an internal enemy. It's part of [Donald Trump's] psychodynamics to always care about his press coverage intensely. He's more interested in that than anything else.

  Mark Shields

  People, Mind, Enemy

  Source: www.pbs.org

• It's interesting how identity politics and Ann Coulter-style tactics have now blossomed. But they were always there in CPAC.

  Mark Shields

  Identity Politics, Interesting, Style

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Lee Atwater,[Ronald] Reagan's strategist, had no patience for CPAC, because he thought they were sort of wild and immature, basically.

  Mark Shields

  Immature, No Patience, Strategist

  Source: www.pbs.org

• The other thing that has changed - and this is more detailed to CPAC than the general Republican Party - is they have always been an outsider, Ann Coulter, sort of protest style, a little ruder than most Republicans. And this goes back all the way to [Ronald] Reagan.

  Mark Shields

  Party, Style, Littles

  Source: www.pbs.org

• We had the clip of [Donald] Trump saying: I'm not president of the globe. I'm president of the United States.[Ronald] Reagan would have never said that. [Dwight] Eisenhower would have never said that, because he would have said, yes, I'm president of the United States, but it's in our interests to be securing a world order.

  Mark Shields

  Order, President, Dwight Eisenhower

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Basically, global capitalism, basically to support it, or is it to be opposed? Is international order to be supported, or is it to be opposed? Republicans have taken a very clear line.

  Mark Shields

  Taken, Order, Support

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Democrats can have a different version of the line, or they can just say, no, we are the party of international peace and activism, and we're the party that's going to have a civilized capitalism.

  Mark Shields

  Party, Different, Lines

  Source: www.pbs.org