There is - I mean - I found early in life that righteous indignation is a little off-putting, and so I try to couch it with humor.

Russia has cultivated an opaque network of patronage across the region that it uses to influence and direct decision- making.

There's an appeal to the American sense of exceptionalism, that we're morally superior, as way to not be self-critical. I think that's a bit dangerous.

There's no comparison between NPR and the propaganda that you hear from Rush or from Sean Hannity, the news movement conservatives that are just laying out, slathering out the disinformation and the lies, as I discuss in my book, 'Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.'

It's easier to put on slippers than to carpet the whole world.

Yeah, we shot ourselves in the foot right out of the gate. The guy who ran it at first misled pretty much everybody about how much capital we had. He said we had enough to go three years without making money, and we had enough to go three weeks.

I grew up in Minnesota, where we treasure our tradition of civic engagement - and our record of having the nation's highest voter participation.