To the extent that our political dialogue is such where everything is under suspicion, everybody is corrupt and everybody is doing things for partisan reasons, and all of our institutions are full of malevolent actors - if that's the storyline that's being put out there by whatever party is out of power, then when a foreign government introduces that same argument with facts that are made up, voters who have been listening to that stuff for years, who have been getting that stuff every day from talk radio or other venues, they're going to believe it.

And I agree that the Democratic legislators in Massachusetts might have given some advice to Republicans in Congress about how to cooperate, but the fact of the matter is we used the same advisers and they say it's the same plan.

To anyone out there who has ever been assaulted: You will never be alone. You are never alone. We have your back. I've got your back.

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.

Today we are engaged in a deadly global struggle for those who would intimidate, torture, and murder people for exercising the most basic freedoms. If we are to win this struggle and spread those freedoms, we must keep our own moral compass pointed in a true direction.

After my election there was talk of a postracial America. And such a vision, however well intended, was never realistic.

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