War Quotes

“As this book shows, there were failures and mistakes. The full story is, of course, not yet known. But based on the evidence available now, I believe President Biden and this team will be largely studied in history as an example of steady and purposeful leadership.”
― Bob Woodward, War

“Donald Trump is not only the wrong many for the presidency, he is unfit to lead the country. Trump was far worse than Richard Nixon, the provably criminal president. As I have pointed out, Trump governed by fear and rage. And indifference to the public and national interest. Trump was the most reckless and impulsive president in American history and is demonstrating the very same character as a presidential candidate in 2024.”
― Bob Woodward, War

“Many of Trump's former top cabinet officers and aides have said publicly that Trump should not be president again and should not even be on the ballot. Those include: former vice president MIke Pence; former secretary of defense Mark Esper; former chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley; former national security adviser John Bolton; former secretary of defense James Mattis; former director of national intelligence Dan Coats, former chief of staff John Kelley; former chief of staf Mick Mulvaney; and former secretary of state Rex Tillerson.”
― Bob Woodward, War

“In an ope-ed in The Washington Post in February 2020, Navy Admiral William McRaven, who was the U.S. Special Operations commander who oversaw the raid that killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden a decade earlier said: As Americans we should be frightened - deeply afraid for the future of the nation. When good men and women can't speak the truth, when facts are inconvenient, when integrity and character no longer matter, when presidential ego and self preservation are more important than national security - then there is nothing left to stop the triumph of evil.”
― Bob Woodward, War

“President Trump had secretly sent Putin a bunch of Abbott Point of Care Covid test machines for his personal use as the virus spread rapidly through Russia.”
― Bob Woodward, War

“Biden’s next words would stick forever with Klain: “This guy just isn’t really an American president.”
― Bob Woodward, War

“As Americans, we should be frightened—deeply afraid for the future of the nation. When good men and women can’t speak the truth, when facts are inconvenient, when integrity and character no longer matter, when presidential ego and self-preservation are more important than national security—then there is nothing left to stop the triumph of evil.”
― Bob Woodward, War

“The legacy of the Biden presidency will be the core national security team that he built and kept in place for nearly four years. They brought decades of experience as well as basic human decency. War shows the traditional and novel ways Biden and his core team pursued an intelligence-driven foreign policy to warn the world that war was coming in Ukraine, to supply Ukraine with the weapons they need to defend themselves against Russia, and to try to tamp down escalations in the Israel-Gaza war.”
― Bob Woodward, War

“Dear Ukrainians,” Zelensky said in his inauguration address. “After my election win, my six-year-old son said: ‘Dad, they say on TV that Zelensky is the president…. So, it means that I am the President too?!’ At the time, it sounded funny, but later I realized that it was true. Because each of us is the president. “From now on, each of us is responsible for the country that we leave to our children,” Zelensky said. “Each of us, in his place, can do everything for the prosperity of Ukraine.” He raised his first priority: a cease-fire in the Donbas where Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces had been fighting since Putin’s 2014 invasion. “I have been often asked: What price are you ready to pay for the cease-fire? It’s a strange question,” Zelensky said. “What price are you ready to pay for the lives of your loved ones? I can assure that I’m ready to pay any price to stop the deaths of our heroes. I’m definitely not afraid to make difficult decisions and I’m ready to lose my fame, my ratings, and if need be without any hesitation, my position to bring peace, as long as we do not give up our territories. “History is unfair,” Zelensky added. “We are not the ones who have started this war. But we are the ones who have to finish it. “I really do not want you to hang my portraits on your office walls. Because a president is not an icon and not an idol. A president is not a portrait. Hang pictures of your children. And before you make any decision, look into their eyes,” he said. “And finally,” Zelensky concluded, “all my life I tried to do all I could so that Ukrainians laughed. That was my mission. Now I will do all I can so that Ukrainians at least do not cry anymore.”
― Bob Woodward, War

“In the 2020 election, Trump received 74 million votes, more than any presidential candidate in history with the exception of Joe Biden, who won 81 million votes. Biden secured the Electoral College with 306 votes to Trump's 232.”
― Bob Woodward, War

“The second high-profile Trump critis was retired General Stanley McChrystal, who had commanded U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan a decade earlier. McChrystal had recently appeared on CNN and called Trump immoral and dishonest.”
― Bob Woodward, War

“Overall, Hamas killed more than 1,200 Israelis and dragged more than 240 hostages and back across the border into underground tunnels in Gaza. It was the deadliest attack in Jewish history since the Holocaust.”
― Bob Woodward, War

“The FBL later estimated that over 2,000 people entered the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Five people died, 172 police officers were injured, and more than 500 were arrested. The cost of the camage to the historic Capitol building exceeded $2.7 million. It took President Trump 187 minutes to post a tweet telling his supporters to "go home.”
― Bob Woodward, War

“The vice president laughed. “That might be the only reason that he still really is comfortable with me to a point,” Harris said, “because he knows that I’m the only person around who knows how to properly pronounce the word motherfucker.”
― Bob Woodward, War

“Biden could be much more indignant and profane in private than he appeared in public. One Saturday afternoon during his first year as president, Biden had called a friend from the Oval Office. “I have spent almost five hours going back and forth, back and forth on the phone with two of the biggest fucking assholes in the world—Bibi Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas,” he said, referring to the prime minister of Israel and the Palestinian leader. “Two of the biggest fucking assholes in the world,” Biden repeated with emphasis. When Air Force One landed at Ben Gurion Airport the morning of October 18, Netanyahu was waiting for Biden on the tarmac. Biden descended the steps of the plane, aviator”
― Bob Woodward, War

“Biden had later claimed during that meeting he said to Putin, “I’m looking into your eyes and I don’t think you have a soul.” Putin smiled and told Biden, through an interpreter, “We understand one another.”
― Bob Woodward, War

“The reasons for this massive migration influx at the border were numerous. Employment opportunities in the United States were skyrocketing. In Biden’s first year 6.7 million jobs were added. No other president since World War II had such job growth in their first or any year in office.”
― Bob Woodward, War

“Wishing Donald Trump away is not a viable strategy. Donald Trump’s not going away. There are millions of people in the Republican Party who believe in him, and the goal is to try to take the magic he has with our base and make it ‘Trump Plus.”
― Bob Woodward, War

“Leo Tolstoy said once, there is no happiness in life, only flashes of it—cherish them. I believe there”
― Bob Woodward, War

“minister. Biden had later claimed during that meeting he said to Putin, “I’m looking into your eyes and I don’t think you have a soul.” Putin smiled and told Biden, through an interpreter, “We understand one another.”
― Bob Woodward, War

“Zelensky won a crushing 73.17 percent of the vote, compared with 24.5 percent for Poroshenko.”
― Bob Woodward, War

“Austin delivered his final point. “All these actors in the world that you think are your friends or who are looking aside, would all turn against Russia in this scenario—the Chinese, the Indians, the Turks, the Israelis,” he said. “This would isolate Russia on the world stage to a degree you Russians cannot fully appreciate.” “I don’t take kindly to being threatened,” Shoigu finally responded. “Mr. Minister,” Austin said bluntly with not a hint of anger, “I am the leader of the most powerful military in the history of the world. I don’t make threats.”
― Bob Woodward, War

“would not purport to be aware of all contacts”
― Bob Woodward, War

“By the time Biden became president in 2021, he firmly believed that unless the United States was attacked, sending U.S. troops to solve foreign policy problems had not served the interest of the United States. From Vietnam through Afghanistan and Iraq the troop bandage had failed.
One of the most important days for President Biden's presidency was December 8, 2021 -- months before Russia invades Ukraine -- when he sat in the Oval Office alone with Jake Sullivan and said, "I'm not sending U.S. troops to Ukraine." He then announced it publicly.
"That is not on the table," he said as he walked across the White House lawn to Marine One, setting the direction of a new foreign policy.
When the war came and Russia invaded, Biden stuck to his word. Th U.S. provided massive intelligence support and billions of dollars in military assistance to Ukraine. He provided moral support and condemned Russia's invasion. He deployed more U.S. forces to Europe and continued to pledge Article 5 protection to NATO allies if they were attacked. He mobilized NATO -- the strongest military alliance in the world -- to back Ukraine without sending troops into Ukraine. . . .
"Joe Biden is the first president in the 21st century who can say I don't have American soldiers in war," Sullivan said. "Yes, there are wars. We're not fighting them.”
― Bob Woodward, War

“They had met in person once before a decade earlier, in 2011, when Biden was vice president and Putin was temporarily serving as prime minister. Biden had later claimed during that meeting he said to Putin, “I’m looking into your eyes and I don’t think you have a soul.” Putin smiled and told Biden, through an interpreter, “We understand one another.”
― Bob Woodward, War

“right”
― Bob Woodward, War

“This is genius,” Trump said during an interview on a conservative radio show the next day, February 22, at Mar-a-Lago, praising Putin’s move to declare certain Ukrainian regions independent. “So Putin is now saying, ‘It’s independent,’ a large section of Ukraine. I said, ‘How smart is that?’ And he’s going to go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s the strongest peace force. We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re going to keep the peace all right. No but think of it. Here’s a guy who’s very savvy, I know him very well. Very, very well,” Trump said gleefully. “I knew that he always wanted Ukraine,” Trump said. “I used to talk to him about it. I said, ‘You can’t do it. You’re not gonna do it.’ But I could see that he wanted it.”
― Bob Woodward, War

“Military theory does not account for regular dudes with track pants and hunting rifles,” said General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the so-called Iron General, the commander in chief of Ukraine’s military.”
― Bob Woodward, War

“As best I can tell,” Blinken said, “the rights of ethnic Russians in Ukraine are greater than the rights of ethnic Russians in Russia.”
― Bob Woodward, War

“Trump was warned by his national security advisers that the virus was deadly and a major threat to the country but he never developed a plan to respond. He did not know how to use his extraordinary executive power to prioritize saving American lives. Through defiant pronouncements, he downplayed and deflected any responsibility for handling it. There was no compassion. No courage.”
― Bob Woodward, War