I think that there's no doubt that as I see friends, families, children of gay couples who are thriving, you know, that has an impact on how I think about these issues.

One of the great things about being commander in chief is getting to know our men and women in uniform in a very intimate way, whether it's visiting Walter Reed and seeing our wounded soldiers, or being on a base and talking to families, or interacting with them on missions. They're the best of the best: always thinking about the mission, not thinking about credit, not thinking about who's up front.

You look at something like health care, the Affordable Care Act. And for all the controversy, we now have 20 million people who have health insurance who didn't have it. It's actually proven to be more effective, cheaper than even advocates like me expected.

The banks, because of mismanagement, because of huge risk taking, are now in very vulnerable positions. We can expect that we're gonna have to do more to shore up the financial system. We also are gonna have to make sure that we set up financial regulations so that not only does this never happen again, but you start having some sort of - trust in how the credit markets work again.

The Balkanization of the media means that nobody is having a single conversation with a single set of agreed-upon facts and assumptions the way you had as recently as the 90s.

Scripture tells us that we shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a stranger. We were strangers once, too.

it’s important to make sure that we’re talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds." - Barack Obama, 44th U.S. President