I was working for Kennedy in those days, and [<nowiki/>Truman] said what I had learned from Kennedy, and I said, "I've learned that the president can't do everything he wants because the bureaucracy is the fourth branch of government." ... He said, "The trouble with Kennedy is he has too many opinions. A president has to know what he wants to do."

I was trying to let science guide our policy, but he was putting as much stock in anecdotal things that turned out not to be true as he was in what scientists like myself were saying. That caused unnecessary and uncomfortable conflict where I had to essentially correct what he was saying, and put me at great odds with his people.

If we want to achieve what we want to achieve, we will often have to partner with and talk to people that we don't agree with on many things. Personally, I agree with very little that President Novák, believes in, espouses, or takes forward. I'm sure she agrees with very little that I believe in,

You don't want to go to war with a president [...] There's a temptation that you have to fight to tell the president what you think he wants to hear. I’ve seen really good people do that.

“What we’ve got to have is a law! A law, not a resolution, a law.. A law that says that if you don’t get out of Iraq, what you’ve got to do is prosecute the President criminally for disobeying the law!” — On how his views on the Iraq War differed from then-candidate Obama’s. Interview.