Don't get cynical. Don't ever think you can't make a difference.

America is not - and never will be - at war with Islam. We will, however, relentlessly confront violent extremists.

The truth is, some of these comments, when you actually ask 'well, this is based on what? This notion that Obama's a socialist, for example?' Nobody can really give you a good answer.

As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam.

Teddy Roosevelt supported a progressive income tax. If I am sitting pretty and you've got a waitress who is making minimum wage plus tips, and I can afford it and she can't, what's the big deal for me to say, 'I'm going to pay a little bit more'? That is neighborliness.

That is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door.

We right now give $15 billion every year as subsidies to private insurers under the Medicare system. Doesn't work any better through the private insurers. They just skim off $15 billion.