I think it's perfectly consistent to say that I want my government to be operating for all faiths and all peoples, including atheists and agnostics, while also insisting that there are values tha tinform my politics that are appropriate to talk about.

Clem (Clementa Pinckney) understood that justice grows out of recognition of ourselves, in each other.

One of the great things about the United States is that when it comes to world affairs, the president obviously is the leader of the Executive Branch, the Commander-in-Chief, the spokesperson for the nation, but the influence and the work that we have is the result not just of the president, it is the result of countless interactions and arrangements and relationships between our military and other militaries, and our diplomats and other diplomats, the intelligence officers and development workers.

We're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.

If everything seems to be the same and no distinctions are made, then we won't know what to protect. We won't know what to fight for.

The American people are a non-ideological people. They very much are looking for common-sense, practical solutions to the problems that they face. Oftentimes they've got contradictory senses of various issues and policy positions and I don't think that either the Republican Party or the Democratic Party necessarily capture their deepest dreams when those parties are described in caricature or in policy terms.

We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations