I always tell my staff, "Better is good." I'll take better every time, because better is hard.

The challenge there is that ISIL doesn't have an air force, so the damage done there is not against ISIL, it's against the Syrian regime.

Anybody who gets into bed and turns out the lights the first night in the White House probably feels a little bit of a start, where you say, "Goodness ... "

The ideas of ancient Greece helped inspire America's founding fathers as they reached for democracy. Our revolutionary ideas helped inspire Greeks as they sought their own freedom.

What the American people understand is that I look at what we need to get done to keep the American people safe and to move our interests forward, and I make those decisions.

I can say across Europe that many principles that have been taken for granted here around free speech, and around civil liberties and an independent judiciary, and fighting corruption, those are principles that, you know, not perfectly but generally, we have tried to apply not just in our own country but also with respect to our foreign policy.

I found this national debt doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office.