* “China and the U.S. have a responsibility to work together.”–Chinese President Xi Jinping, in Washington for a nuclear security summit.
* “As long as Iran and Saudi Arabia are going at it, there will always be another ISIS. Which is why the ‘peace process’ the Middle East needs most today is between Saudi Arabia and Iran.”–Thomas Friedman, New York Times.
* “For the industry, it’s a game changer.”–Eddie Lubbers, founder of Cuba Travel Network, commenting on having Americans brands, such as Starwood Hotels and Resorts, joining the hotel market in Cuba.
* “I think we’re sitting on an economic bubble. A financial bubble.”–Donald Trump.
* “Trump has no actual ideas or policies. There is no army of Trumpists out there to carry on his legacy. He will almost certainly go down to a devastating defeat, either in the general election or–God help us–as the worst president in American history.”–David Brooks, New York Times.
* “You could put the Sanders, Clinton and Cruz foreign policies on a recognizable ideological spectrum, left to right. But not Trump’s. It inhabits a different space because it lacks any geopolitical coherence. It’s all about money.”–Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post.
* “(Vladimir) Putin is something of a chest-thumper. The two leading GOP candidates, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, are also chest-thumpers. Given that, it is not difficult to imagine a scenario in which the world’s two leading nuclear-weapon states are led by presidents who lack the temperament to handle a rapidly deteriorating confrontation.”–Mike Moore, retired editor of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
* “Running for president: It’s not a take-home exam.”–Former Mitt Romney campaign staffer Kevin Madden.
* “They say a Trump nomination will set their party back decades. I agree. But Donald Trump didn’t come out of nowhere.”–Hillary Clinton.
* “Trump is taking his campaign straight to the haters, and he’s gotten the roots of that old Wallace crowd.”–Joe Reed, Alabama Democratic Party official.
* “(We need) a moral economy–not an economy based on greed and selfishness.”–Bernie Sanders.
* “We’ve gained 10 million private-sector jobs since Obama took office, and unemployment is 5 percent. … Just imagine the boasting we’d be hearing if Mitt Romney occupied the White House.”–Paul Krugman, New York Times.
* “The U.S. travel industry has spent millions between different associations, like Brand USA, to position the U.S. as a very welcoming destination. Mr. Trump would work against that.”–Arnie Weissmann, editor-in-chief of Travel Weekly.
* “The data and trends showed it was either a SeaWorld without whales or a world without SeaWorld.”–SeaWorld CEO Joel Manby.
* “Gawker and other new media often lack the journalistic integrity that has helped shape privacy guidelines for traditional news sources. The new media includes individuals with bad judgment, no limits and the capacity to reach the entire planet.”–University of Florida law professor Jon Mills, former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives.
* “After the United States Supreme Court issued its ruling, one might have expected immediate, unequivocal acceptance. Not so for the state of Florida.”–U.S. District Court Judge Robert L. Hinkle, on gay-marriage reality after same-sex marriage bans were struck down nationwide by SCOTUS.
* “The enemy of Enterprise Florida is not the Legislature; it is an adherence to the free market.”–Incoming Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’Lakes.
* “The Tampa Bay region has a robust enough business community that we should be able to generate significantly greater corporate support than we have, and we’re going to make that a major focus of the next few months.”–Tampa Bay Rays President Brian Auld.
* “The market has great potential. Obviously Florida is a growing state. There is really great broadcast potential … I remain hopeful that in Tampa Bay we will find a way to get a facility built that will improve the attendance for the club.”–Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred.
* “The investment the city seeded in the Riverwalk is going to multiply tenfold with development funded by private capital.”–Mayor Bob Buckhorn.
* “We are 20-30 years behind our competition. We are trying to compete in a Model T when they are driving Teslas. Time is not our friend at this point.”–Hillsborough County Administrator Mike Merrill, on the need for more transit options.
* “I sat there for eight years and I never thought it was my job to be a mini mayor. … They have nothing to do with the day-to-day running of the city or the effectiveness of the departments.”–Mayor Bob Buckhorn, on City Council plans to push for authority to order audits of city departments.