United States Secretaries Of State

"I want to thank Bernie Sanders. Bernie, your campaign inspired millions of Americans, particularly the young people who threw their hearts and souls into our primary. You've put economic and social justice issues front and center, where they belong. And to all of your supporters here and around the country: I want you to know, I've heard you. Your cause is our cause. Our country needs your ideas, energy, and passion. That's the only way we can turn our progressive platform into real change for America. We wrote it together – now let's go out there and make it happen together."

"The man of Hope, Barack Obama. America is stronger because of President Obama's leadership, and I'm better because of his friendship."

"If the values are that you oppress people, you disappear people, you imprison people or even kill people for expressing their opinions, for expressing freedom of speech, that is not the kind of revolution of values that I ever want to see anywhere."

"The Congress must give authority to Puerto Rico to restructure its debts. Just like it has enabled states and cities to restructure their debt. And it’s a grave injustice for the Congress, led by the Republicans to be refusing to enact that opportunity within the bankruptcy law. ... Puerto Ricans are citizen of America. They deserve to be treated as citizens and to be given the opportunity to get back on their feet economically."

"The Cuban people deserve to have their human rights respected and upheld, they deserve to be able to move towards democracy where they pick their own leads. And I think both Castros have to be considered authoritarian and dictatorial because they are not freely chosen by the people that are in Cuba. I hope someday there will be leaders who are chosen by the Cuban people, and I hope that democracy will be deeply rooted in Cuban soil and that the people of Cuba will have every opportunity to fulfill their own dreams in their own country. That is my hope."

"I supported the president’s moves. I helped to implement some of them leading up to the announcements when I was secretary of state, expanding travel opportunities, remittances. And I certainly told the president toward the end of my time that I hoped he would be able to move toward diplomatic relations and to make more of an impact by building up the relationship. And there are no better ambassadors for freedom, democracy and economic opportunity than . So the more that we can have that kind of movement back and forth, the more likely we are to be able to move Cuba toward greater freedom, greater respect for rights. ... I do think meeting with dissidents, meeting with people who have been voices, tribunes of freedom and opportunity is important."

"Along came the Republicans, trickle-down economics — one of the worst ideas since snake oil — was put back into place. And we ended up with the great recession. President Obama had to rescue the economy. And I don’t think he gets the credit he deserves for doing that."

"The clean power plan is something that Senator Sanders has said he would delay implementing, which makes absolutely no sense. We need to implement all of the president’s executive actions and quickly move to make a bridge from coal to natural gas to clean energy. That is the way we will keep the lights on while we are transitioning to a clean energy future. And when I talk about resilience, I think that is an area we can get Republican support on."

"Between the Republicans trying to repeal the first chance we’ve ever had to get to , and Senator Sanders wanting to throw us into a contentious debate over single-payer, I think the smart approach is build on and protect the Affordable Care Act. Make it work. Reduce the cost."

"My dad used to say, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

"We have Dodd-Frank and we will break up banks that pose a systemic threat to our economy."

"We’re going to refinance everyone’s existing , 40 million Americans have student debt. ... Under my plan, you will be able to also lower your debt, move into a program to pay it back as a percentage of your income and more than that, my plan for debt-free tuition at public colleges and universities will eventually eliminate any student debt. But for people who have it, I’m going to put a date certain that after a certain number of years, you no longer have to pay anything. The government has to quit making money off of lending money to young people to get their education."

"Every child deserves a good teacher in a good school, regardless of the zip code that they live in."

"We need more clean energy jobs and we have to do more to help small businesses. You know, the fastest-growing segment of small businesses are minority and women-owned small business, and we need to help businesses get started. We do need to raise the minimum wage and we have to guarantee equal pay for women."

"We do have to do more infrastructure spending. That will put many Americans to work. It’s a good job that gets you on the ladder to the middle class. We need to improve the conditions for manufacturing in our country and punish those companies that want to export jobs. We need them to be incentivized to create jobs right here in America."

"There had already been one independent investigation. There had been seven or eight congressional investigations, mostly led by Republicans who all reached the same conclusions, that there were lessons to be learned. And this is not the first time we lost Americans in a terrorist attack. We lost 3,000 people on 9/11. We lost Americans serving in embassies in Tanzania and Kenya when my husband was president. We lost 250 Americans, both military and civilian, when Ronald Reagan was president in Beirut. And at no other time were those tragedies were they politicized. Instead people said, let’s learn the lessons and save lives."

"I feel a great deal of sympathy for the families of the four brave Americans that we lost at Benghazi. And I certainly can’t even imagine the grief that she has for losing her son, but she’s wrong. She’s absolutely wrong. I and everybody in the administration, all the people she named, the president, the vice president, , we were scrambling to get information that was changing, literally by the hour. And when we had information, we made it public. But then sometimes we had to go back and say we have new information that contradicts it. So I testified for 11 hours. ... We have captured one of the lead terrorists and he admits it was both a terrorist attack and it was influenced by the video. This was fog of war. This was complicated. The most effective, comprehensive reports and studies demonstrate that. ... I deeply regret that we lost four Americans. And I of course sympathize with members of the families who are still, you know, very much grieving. And I wish that there could be an easy answer at the time, but we learned a lot, and the intelligence kept improving, and we learned enough to say what we think happened at Benghazi."

"I guess Senator Sanders, that the Koch brothers, as you said, are sensible with how they use their money. And I agree with you. They stand for things that I find abhorrent, that would be bad for our country, bad for our future. But they did just put up a little video praising you for being the only Democrat who stood with the Republicans to try to eliminate the Export/Import Bank, which has helped hundreds and hundreds of companies here in Florida be able to export their goods and employ more Floridians. So from my perspective, you sided with the Koch brothers."

"I do have the toughest, most comprehensive plan to go after Wall Street. And not just the big banks, all the other financial interests that pose a threat to our economy. And I have said no bank is too big to fail and no executive is too powerful to jail, and I will use the powers that have now been passed by the Congress, by President Obama, who, incidentally, took a lot of money from Wall Street, which didn’t stop him from signing into law the toughest regulations on the financial industry since the Great Depression. There are a lot of different powerful interests in Washington. I’ve taken them on. I took on the drug companies. I took on the insurance companies. Before there was something called Obamacare, there was something called Hillarycare, and I worked really hard to get comprehensive ."

"I am not a natural politician, in case you haven’t noticed, like my husband or President Obama. So I have a view that I just have to do the best I can, get the results I can, make a difference in people’s lives, and hope that people see that I’m fighting for them and that I can improve conditions economically and other ways that will benefit them and their families."

"I do take responsibility. When you’re in public life, even if you believe that it’s not an opinion that you think is fair or founded, you do have to take responsibility. And I do. And I also have, you know, very much committed to the best of my ability my energies and efforts to helping people. That’s something that I care deeply about. And I will continue to do that, to demonstrate by my past actions and my present levels of commitment and plans that people can count on me."

"It is time to bring families together."

"The Republicans, the opponents no longer have an argument. And certainly, we hear a lot coming from the Republican side that is absolutely out of touch with reality. We raised money through the congressional appropriations process. We enhanced the border security. That part of the work is done. Everybody that I know has looked at it said, okay, we have a secure border. There’s no need for this rhetoric and demagoguery that’s still —is carried out on the Republican side. You’ve run out of excuses. ... I understand him, he’s (Donald Trump) talking about a very tall wall. Right? A beautiful tall wall. The most beautiful tall wall, better than the Great Wall of China, that would run the entire border. That he would somehow magically get the Mexican government to pay for. And, you know, it’s just fantasy. And in fact, if he cared to know anything about what members of Congress, like the senator and I have done, where it was necessary, we did support some fencing. Where it was necessary, we did add border patrol agents. We have done what by any fair estimate would have to conclude is a good job, quote, “securing the border”. So let’s get about the business of comprehensive immigration reform."

"I think the Congress should support the president’s request to fund programs that would protect people and change the culture of criminality and violence in Central America, helping people be able to stay safely in their homes and countries."

"Asylum is a particular legal process. I’d like to see it changed. I’d like to see us give more support to people who come fleeing the terrible violence that they do. But under our law, we have a process we have to go through which is different. ... The undocumented people living in our country, I do not want to see them deported. I want to see them on a path to citizenship."

"I would not deport children. I do not want to deport family members either."

"My priorities are to deport violent criminals, terrorists, and anyone who threatens our safety. So I do not have the same policy as the current administration does. I think it’s important that we move to our comprehensive immigration reform, but at the same time, stop the raids, stop the round-ups, stop the deporting of people who are living here doing their lives, doing their jobs, and that’s my priority."

"I did say we needed to be very concerned about little children coming to this country — on their own, very often — many of them not making it. And when they got here, they needed, as I have argued for, legal counsel, due process, to make a decision. We need to end private detention, we need to end family detention."

"I’m committed to defending DAPA and DACA. I’m committed to going even further to get more people deferred action, to go as far as I can under the law. And I am committed to introducing comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship in the first 100 days of my presidency."

"I have been consistent and committed to comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship. I think our best chance was in 2007, when Ted Kennedy led the charge on comprehensive immigration reform. We have Republican support. We had a president willing to sign it. I voted for that bill. Senator Sanders voted against it. Just think, imagine where we would be today is we had achieved comprehensive immigration reform nine years ago. Imagine how much more secure families would be in our country, no longer fearing the deportation of a loved one; no longer fearing that they would be found out. ... In 2006, when Senator Sanders was running for the Senate from Vermont, he voted in the House with hard-line Republicans for indefinite detention for undocumented immigrants, and then he sided with those Republicans to stand with vigilantes known as Minute Men who were taking up outposts along the border to hunt down immigrants. So I think when you were running for the Senate, you made it clear by your vote, Senator, that you were going to stand with the Republicans. When you got to the Senate in 2007, one of the first things you did was vote against Ted Kennedy’s immigration reform which he’d been working on for years before you ever arrived."

"I was the first one to call him out. I called him out when he was calling Mexicans rapists. ... His demagoguery, his trafficking in prejudice and paranoia has no place in our political system. Especially from somebody running for president who couldn’t decide whether or not to disavow the and David Duke. So people can draw their own conclusions about him. I will just end by saying this. You don’t make America great by getting rid of everything that made America great. I think it’s un-American. I think what he has promoted is not at all in keeping with American values."

"It wasn’t the best choice. I made a mistake. It was not prohibited. It was not in any way disallowed. And as I have said and as now has come out, my predecessors did the same thing and many other people in the government. But here’s the cut to the chase facts. I did not send or receive any emails marked classified at the time. What you are talking about is retroactive classification. And the reason that happens is when somebody asks or when you are asked to make information public, I asked all my emails to be made public. Then all the rest of the government gets to weigh in. ... I think that what we have got here is a case of overclassification. ..."

"I am a progressive who likes to get things done."

"As I look at American history, I see that this has always been a country of “we” not “me.” We stand together because we are stronger together. . One — out of many, one — has seen us through the darkest chapters of our history. Ever since 13 squabbling colonies put aside their disagreements and united because they realized they were going to rise together or fall separately, generation after generation has fought and marched and organized to widen the circle of dignity and opportunity. Ending slavery. Securing and expanding the right to vote. Throwing open the doors of education. Building the greatest middle class the world has ever seen. And we are stronger when more people can participate in our democracy."

"Our open, diverse society is an asset in the struggle against terrorism, not a liability. It makes us stronger and more resistant to radicalization. And this raises a larger point about the future of our country. America is strongest when we all believe that we have a stake in our country and our future. This vision has sustained us from the beginning. The belief that, yes, we are all created equal and the journey we have made to turn that into reality over the course of our history, that we are not a land of winners and losers, that we should all have the opportunity to live up to our God-given potential. And we have a responsibility to help others do so as well."

"The terrorist in Orlando targeted LGBT Americans out of hatred and bigotry, and an attack on any American is an attack on all Americans."

"It is long past time for the Saudis, the Qataris and the Kuwaitis and others to stop their citizens from funding extremist organizations. And they should stop supporting radical schools and mosques around the world that have set too many young people on a path towards extremism."

"None of us can close our eyes to the fact that we do face enemies who use their distorted version of Islam to justify slaughtering innocent people."

"We have to make it harder for people who should not have those weapons of war. That might not stop every shooting or terrorist attack. But it will stop some and it will save lives and it will protect our first responders."

"I believe weapons of war have no place on our streets and we may have our disagreements about gun safety regulations, but we should all be able to agree on a few essential things. If the FBI is watching you for a suspected terrorist link, you shouldn’t be able to just go buy a gun with no questions asked. And you shouldn’t be able to exploit loopholes and evade criminal background checks by buying online or at a gun show. And yes, if you’re too dangerous to get on a plane, you are too dangerous to buy a gun in America."

"The Orlando terrorist may be dead, but the virus that poisoned his mind remains very much alive. And we must attack it with clear eyes, steady hands, unwavering determination and pride in our country and our values."

"ISIS has become quite a self-financing terrorist network with their theft of oil, selling it on the black market with their destruction and seizure of antiquities, selling that on the black market, with their taking over Mosul and raiding the banks. They’ve got a source of funding, so I don’t really know. But I know that the — that Saudi individuals have certainly funded other related terrorist groups over time and also of Wahhabi radicalism by kicking out or sending out imams and teachers to set up schools and mosques to preach that particularly harsh brand of Islam. So the Saudis have a lot that they can do to both stop and then to help."

"I think that the Saudis have a multiple level of responsibilities, first and foremost, stopping their own citizens from continuing the financing for extremists. And, you know, Saudi financing is still a major source of revenue for terrorist groups inside Syria, inside Iraq elsewhere."

"Islam itself is not our adversary. Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism. The obsession in some quarters with a "clash of civilizations" or repeating the specific words "radical Islamic terrorism" is not just a distraction, it gives these criminals, these murderers, more standing than they deserve and it actually plays into their hands by alienating partners we need by our side."

"Once and for all, the Saudis, the Qataris, and others need to stop their citizens from directly funding extremist organizations, as well as schools and mosques around the world that have set too many young people on a path toward . When it comes to blocking terrorist recruitment, we have to identify the hotspots—the specific neighborhoods and villages, the prisons and schools—where recruitment happens in clusters."

"Stemming this tide will require much better coordination and information sharing among countries every step of the way. We should not stop pressing until Turkey, where most foreign fighters cross into Syria, finally locks down its border. The United States and our allies need to know and share the identities of every fighter who has traveled to Syria."

"Our efforts will only succeed if the Arabs and Turks step up in a much bigger way. This is their fight and they need to act like it. So far, however, Turkey has been more focused on the Kurds than on countering ISIS. And to be fair, Turkey has a long and painful history with Kurdish terrorist groups. But the threat from ISIS cannot wait. As difficult as it may be, we need to get Turkey to stop bombing Kurdish fighters in Syria who are battling ISIS and become a full partner of our coalition efforts against ISIS. The United States should also work with our Arab partners to get them more invested in the fight against ISIS. At the moment, they are focused in other areas."

"After a major terrorist attack, every society faces a choice between fear and resolve. The world’s great democracies can’t sacrifice our values or turn our backs on those in need. Therefore, we must choose resolve. And we must lead the world to meet this threat."

"You know, when you run for president, you need to be judged by what you have done. I think the evidence is pretty clear."

"One of my favorites is Angela Merkel because I think she's been an extraordinary, strong leader during difficult times in Europe, which has obvious implications for the rest of the world and, most particularly, our country... her bravery in the face of the refugee crisis is something that I am impressed by."