Lawrence O'Donnell
He addressed a black lawyer as "boy". That`s why Jeff Sessions couldn`t get through Senate confirmation process under the old rules followed by Democrats and Republicans.Collection: Boys
Lieutenant General Michael Flynn ran the defense intelligence agency from 2012 to 2014. He served as a top national intelligence adviser to General Stanley McChrystal in Iraq.Collection: Agency
Lieutenant General Michael Flynn would fit into that broader pattern.Collection: Patterns
National security adviser is not a position that requires confirmation. This is a pick that like [Donald Trump] Chief of Staff, he gets to choose on his own and have installed.Collection: Confirmation
Michael Flynn is a very controversial figure for a variety of reasons.Collection: Controversial
[Michael Flynn is] controversial among many people in the national security establishment, many people in the Republican mainstream. The thing about this appointment that, again, goes to me is most.Collection: People
National security advisors, like White House Chiefs of Staff, their job generally if they`re - if they`re competent and qualified and effective is to be honest brokers in the White House.Collection: Jobs
National security advisors are not there to be advocates, generally. They`re not there to be partisans, they`re not there to be ideologues.Collection: Ideologues
Why in general, when you`re putting together a White House staff and putting together a good one, you`re looking for someone there who is not someone who`s going to be heavy-handed.Collection: White
How much trouble did the Democrats cause for a particular nominee on the way to actually being confirmed.And usually it`s very little.Collection: Littles
169 House Democrats signed a letter to the President-elect [Donald Trump] urging him to "rescind this appointment [of Steve Bannon ] immediately."Collection: House
When Ronald Reagan nominated Jeff Sessions for federal district court judgeship, the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected his nomination.Collection: Nominations
Senator Jeff Sessions is reportedly on the [Donald] Trump shortlist to be either the next Secretary of Defense or the next Attorney General of the United States.Collection: United States
Michael Flynn not exactly cut from that cloth. Someone who has very strong views about almost everything in the realm of national security and defense.Collection: Strong
Why I supported Keith Ellison for chairing the DNC because I know Keith. And I know he`s not going to take a lot of stuff. He`s going to be in the halls of Congress arguing. But he is going to go out to the protests and talk to people.Collection: People
According to the old rules, Senator Jeff Sessions could not be confirmed by the United States Senate because in fact he wasn`t.Collection: United States
Look, [Mitt] Romney comes from a religion founded by a criminal who was anti-American, pro-slavery, and a rapist. And he comes from that lineage and says, 'I respect this religion fully.'Collection: Criminals
The screening in the United States is the toughest screening of any country in the world in terms of refugees, that accepts refugees. And of course there are those that don`t accept any, or ever have, no matter what kind they are.Collection: Country
Go head Taggert. Take your best shot.Collection: Shots
[Donald] Trump is now. And we don`t know what the rules are now.Collection: Trump
While alcohol ... continues to wreak havoc in America, supported by a $6 billion-a-year alcohol industry advertising campaign extolling the joy of inebriation, the far less harmful drug of marijuana remains illegal and continues to ruin people's lives - only if they are caught possessing and convicted of that crime.Collection: Marijuana
Someone who traffics in much more than what Jeff Sessions said back then will be with the president every day in the White House as his senior strategist.Collection: Senior
The question for the Republicans running the confirmation hearings in the United States Senate is whose rules are they going to use?Collection: Running
We are in a new era, a new era where campaign rules certainly don`t apply, and who knows what other rules don`t apply.Collection: Campaigns
Rudy Giuliani would bring conflicts of interest into any Senate confirmation hearing that would be impossible to clear if confirmation hearings operate under the same gravitational forces that they used to in the pre-Trump era.Collection: Would Be
Rudy Giuliani needed to feel safe because he turned his life into a public mess. A public mess that the "New York Tabloids" covered daily.Collection: New York
His [Rudolph Giuliani] marital life became unhinged with his wife kicking him out of the mayor`s residence of Gracie mansion. That he took up residence as a house guest in an apartment owned by friends of his.The friends were a loving gay couple. And that is the best thing I know about Rudy Giuliani.Collection: Couple
The FBI background check would show that Rudolph Giuliani had an out-of-control affair with his Press Secretary while he was mayor of New York.Collection: New York
In pre-Trump Washington where the old rules applied, Rudy Giuliani could never survive the Senate confirmation process.Collection: Confirmation
Rudy Giuliani is on the list [of Secretary of State ] not because of competence, not because of foreign policy experience, he`s on most entirely because of loyalty to Donald Trump.Collection: Loyalty
Donald Trump hasn`t decided, and most importantly, we don`t know if the old rules still apply.Collection: Trump
I`m just learning that according to a source familiar with the transition process, President-elect Donald Trump intends to select Lieutenant General Michael Flynn as his national security adviser.Collection: President
In recent years, we`ve made historic investments in NATO, increased America`s presence in Europe.Collection: Years
I`d like to curl up in a ball like Hillary [Clinton]said she would but she is out. And I think we all have to go do that. The fact of the matter is we don`t have the luxury of pulling back from this.Collection: Thinking
I am confident that just as a America`s commitment to the transatlantic alliance has endured for seven decades, whether it`s been under a Democratic or Republican administration, that commitment will continue including our pledge and our treaty obligation to defend every ally.Collection: Commitment
That`s why somebody like a Tim Ryan can go to a bar in Youngstown just as well as in Congress and talk to working people. Democrats know how to carry the message. We just have to take some telephone new voices and bring them forward.Collection: Voice
I think we should not do what the Republicans did, which is to spend eight years saying they would do absolutely nothing because we do stand for the country.Collection: Country
Let`s be the Democrats we know we have always been. And maybe every once in a when an opposition that lets you get even more tougher and clear about what you`re about. I think that`s a good thing for Democrats.Collection: Thinking
I remember the first few months of the [Ronald] Reagan administration when all sorts of things happened too fast. We cannot allow that to happen.Collection: Months
It is amazing that Jeff Sessions is still in the job. Any self-respecting Attorney General of the United States would have publicly resigned as soon as the president`s words became public. It is now clear that Jeff Sessions is going to be a witness against the president of the United States. It`s also clear that the Donald Trump's defense to special prosecutor Robert Mueller is going to be, "I don`t remember".Collection: Special
This is someone [Michael Flynn] who is considered a loyalist and as we have watched this transition process unfold, again roiled by reports of turmoil, Donald Trump seems to be really focusing right now in this initial phase on loyalists.Collection: Transition
A number of foreign policy experts distanced themselves from Donald Trump, not Michael Flynn.Collection: Numbers
Michael Flynn was one of Trump`s top national security advisors throughout the campaign.Collection: Campaigns
The "New York Times" interview shows that the president Donald Trump believes he can get through the special prosecutor`s investigation of obstruction of justice with the simple words "I don`t remember". Jeff Sessions has been publicly attacked by the president. And in the middle of that attack, the president told all of his teammates who were in the Oval Office that day how he is going to testify when Robert Mueller asks him under oath if he kicked all of them out of the room when he asked to speak with James Comey alone.Collection: Believe
Rudolph Giuliani will be the first Secretary of State whose last public office was mayor, the most thoroughly domestic public office that we have.Collection: Office
The rumored frontrunner for [Donald] Trump`s Secretary of State is former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani who of course has no foreign policy experience.Collection: New York
The professional permanent staff that lies right beneath them will still be in place, making everything work until the [Donald] Trump appointees start populating the offices on top of them.Collection: Lying
Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.Collection: United States
I said, we should allow no Syrian refugees into the country, not even women or children.Collection: Country