Quotes from Bob Beckel

In presidential campaigns, experience as a candidate is an invaluable asset.

I've been involved in five presidential campaigns, once as national campaign manager for Walter Mondale.

As a former presidential campaign manager, I remember the final week of the campaign as being the longest and most important week of the campaign. The week doesn't seem to end.

Most federal employees perform their tasks honorably and well.

I think a flat tax has merit. Anything would be better than the current tax code.

The hardest-hit taxpayers in our disgraceful tax system are those folks who pack Trump's rallies, especially in hard-hit Rust Belt states like Ohio and Michigan.

Jim Crow laws stripped blacks of basic rights. Despite landmark civil rights laws, many public schools were still segregated, blacks still faced barriers to voting, and violence by white racists continued. Such open racism is mostly gone in America, but covert racism is alive and well.

When I worked in the White House in the 1970s and '80s, I was often stopped within the White House by agents checking my credentials. They were very observant and would stop anyone they didn't recognize.

Our first priority should be to protect the homeland. If we don't, a future generation might ask, 'Who lost America?'

When I came to faith, I was on pro-choice boards, and I dropped off of those because you couldn't read the Bible and be pro-choice.

In the black community, Trump's history of racial discrimination is deeply embedded.

Disney World is exactly the wrong description of how the Secret Service should operate in public. Their jobs are not about pleasing adults and children, but rather protecting the president and the first family.

When anyone in Washington asks for a favor, no matter how little the favor means to you, act pained and get as much as you can in exchange - even if the person asking is the president of the United States.

High-quality health care is not available to millions of Americans who don't have health insurance, or whose substandard plans provide minimum coverage. That's why the Affordable Care Act is so important. It provides quality health insurance to both the uninsured and underinsured.

The media role in highlighting racial incidents only serves to exacerbate tension. We rarely write about racial harmony.

Ever since 9/11, our intelligence agencies, as part of the 'war on terror,' have expanded their operations to include American citizens. I was 'terrorized' when I learned that the National Security Agency was intercepting information on Americans.

If we have intelligence on the location of terrorist training centers, it is insane not to act.

I am not opposed to government efforts to stop terrorist plots. We are still seared by the memory of 9/11, and we should be.

We know that in the Muslim communities around the world, they do not like us. They recruit people from poor areas and turn them into terrorists.

There is no doubt that terrorists acting under the banner of Islam have declared war on us.

Putting fear into people is the principal goal of terrorists, and they have been successful.

Schools alone are not to blame for underachievement. The breakdown of the family, poverty, and decaying cities with eroding tax bases have made a good public school education nearly impossible in many parts of the country.

Some credit is due to Trump for seizing the anti establishment mood of the country, but most of his success can be attributed to pure luck.

In 2016, Trump, with his outsized ego, his anti-immigrant and anti-trade positions, coupled with barely disguised racism and deep-seated sexism and a willingness to lie whenever it suited him, was a near perfect fit.