David Gergen

You have an affirmative obligation to call the FBI.

It's one of the reasons to keep an eye on these polls. Ordinarily at this stage, you'd say, well, there are so many months out. They're useless.

It's very difficult to govern. It's very difficult to lead other people if they fundamentally don't believe you are telling the truth. Trust is still -- it's an old fashioned idea, but it's still the coin of the realm in politics.

I think you do -- if you are the White House, you actually go to the Congress and consult with them before you make a proposal like this, and clearly, that simply was not done.

Yes, I do. I think that this issue in particular has great resonance within the Republican Party and, you know, a lot of senators have their own well being at take here and their own popularity in their own state. So I think this is one…

But that's what we thought he was going to do on China. You know, we did not he would let go this far, that he would find a compromise and work his way out of this, and now, here we are, what amounts to a full scale trade war with China…

What I do think is that this President says he's a conservative. It is fundamental to conservatives that the government not interfere, that Washington not reach in and try to direct individual companies.

It took about 10 minutes probably for White House aides to go racing across the lawn to get to the president and say you got to take that back, because I'm not sure he knew what he was writing.

Chancellor Merkel came to Harvard to give the commencement address, a very hard-hitting speech. And she pointedly argued how much damage is done in public life when lies are treated as truth and truth is treated as lies.

The world is watching, and I think we're paying a price for it.

I think he can be the man who shapes the Democratic future.

I felt -- in the military, we called this dereliction of duty to walk off the job.

presidents don't do that.

That's a good question, Anderson. My sense of it is that what we're seeing is something new and is an extension of the stonewalling policy that the administration has adopted.

It's unfortunate for the country that the breakdown of relationships between the Congress and the presidency have descended to this level.

The law is plain on its face. It's a law that goes all the way back to the 1920s after the Teapot Dome scandal in the Harding administration, one infamous scandals in the American history, and the Congress said, from now on, the IRS shall…

I think impeachment had basically off the table, at least for now.

I think the critical thing is that after two years that Donald Trump escaped. I think he is now, you know -- people have investigated him there has been no -- they didn't find criminality with regard to conspiring with the Russians.

I do think that the report is very clear, that it does not exonerate the President on the question of obstruction.

I would be terribly worried about what was said inside the White House and what was done by the President with regard to the obstruction.

Yes, and talking about treason as well. We've seen this pattern before, it's just more glaring I think on this instance.

I just felt he would want to protect his reputation for integrity and would want to show that he was independent.

Its language you don't hear and it's often used as a prelude to cracking down and doing things in a tougher way.

I think the President was clearly signaling he thinks there's explosive damaging material in that report.

He's overridden Betsy DeVos, one of the most loyal members of his cabinet.