The biggest challenge, I think, is always maintaining your moral compass.

There are some exceptions: Chicago, my hometown, in particular. But overall in the country this is a much safer place than it used to be.

If you look at how I've tried to and how I'll continue to try to govern, I'm not driven by some ideological agenda. I'm a pretty practical guy and I just want to make sure that things work.

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I, therefore, intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt.

All the strands of my life came together and I really became a man when I moved to Chicago.

If you're 54 or 55, you might want to listen because this will affect you. The idea, which was originally presented by Congressman Ryan, your running mate, is that we would give a voucher to seniors and they could go out in the private marketplace and buy their own health insurance.

I think that our politics everywhere are gonna be going through this bumpy phase. But as long as we stay true to our Democratic principles, as long as elections have integrity, as long as we respect freedom of speech, freedom of religion, as long as there are checks and balances in our governments so that the people have the ability to not just make judgments about how well government is serving them but also change governments if they're not serving them well, then I have confidence that over the long term, progress will continue.