Part of American leadership is making sure that we're doing nation building here at home. That will help us maintain the kind of American leadership that we need.

We've got to make sure that our economy is strong at home so that we can project military power overseas.

Now you have a choice: we can give more tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas, or we can start rewarding companies that open new plants and train new workers and create new jobs here, in the United States of America.

The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. As commander in chief, the president does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the president would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent.

There's something about these steps [in Oval Office] and thinking about everybody who's walked here and all the business that's been done here.

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.

The last thing that I want to do is to have the United States be a foil.