How does this end?
[Leo knocks and walks into the office.]
Sir.
[to Sam] Like this.
[Bartlet walks to Leo to read the note he brought him.]
Turn them around. I'll make some calls and thank people.
Yes, sir.
Thank you, by the way.
You, too. [leaves]
[Bartlet returns to Sam and hands him the piece of paper.]
I'd like to try it without looking at the note.
[sits down] Okay.
China agrees to stand down the war games.
Right.
And they agree to let Taiwan test the Patriots. One Patriot.
Yes.
And we... please, I want to be right about this. We agree not to sell Taiwan the Aegis Destroyers for a period of I don't know... five years.
Ten years, but you've got it.
Sir, the Aegis... the Aegis radar technology isn't not something... I mean, what if Taiwan did fall to China? Now they have...and plus these ships cost something like $800 million apiece. Buying four of them would eat half of Taiwan's defense budget.
And so?
You never were going to sell them the destroyers.
[shakes his head] But everybody wakes up alive in the morning and saves a little face.
[amazed] I don't know how you... I don't know what the word... I don't know how you do it.
You have a lot of help. You listen to everybody and then you call the play. [rises to his feet] Sam. You're gonna run for President one day. Don't be scared. You can do it. I believe in you. [looks at the board] Checkmate.
More from this episode
All quotes from this episode →More The West Wing quotes · These quotes come from Wikiquote's The West Wing pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.