Briefing Quotes

As press secretary, I spent countless hours defending the administration from the podium in the White House briefing room.

The function of a briefing paper is to prevent the ambassador from saying something dreadfully indiscreet. I sometimes think its true object is to prevent the ambassador from saying anything at all.

We always get up about 5:30, and George gets up and goes in and gets the coffee and brings it to me, and that's been our ritual since we got married. And we read the newspapers in bed and drink coffee for about an hour probably, read our briefing papers.

Well my briefing was that Honduras was a small and vulnerable country just back on the path towards democracy it was about to have just before I arrived, the first elections for a civilian president in more than 9 years.

No, I can tell you one of the first things that happens to a home secretary when they arrive in the job is that they are given a briefing about the security matters that they will be dealing with and I deal with security matters on a daily basis.

I was given a White House - well, you will have to ask the White House that. But I asked to attend the White House briefing because I was, you know, because I wanted to report on the activities there.

The press briefing today I believe has lost much of its usefulness.

George W. Bush attended the intelligence briefing every day. Obama has not even attended half of them. He sends surrogates. That to me is significant.