Losing the PR battles, particularly about healthcare, translated into losing his Democratic majorities in Congress, beginning with a Republican landslide in the midterm election of 2010.

[The White House staff] start bringing in their kids, who you think should be babies and now are in second grade or something, and you've watched them grow up. So I think what ends up happening is you end up maintaining those networks and those contacts, but the concentrated interactions and experience that you have here, I don't think, I don't expect you can duplicate anyplace else.

If we choose only to expose ourselves to opinions and viewpoints that are in line to our own, we become more polarized, more set in our own ways. It will only reinforce and deepen the political divides in our country. But if we choose to actively seek out information that challenges our assumptions and beliefs, perhaps we can begin to understand where the people who disagree with us are coming from.

There are few things in life that are harder to find and more important to keep than love. Well, love and a birth certificate.

Of course, there's been a real debate about where to invest and where to cut, and I'm committed to working with members of both parties to cut our deficits and debt. But we can't simply cut our way to prosperity.

We Americans are not an inherently more violent people than folks in other countries. We're not inherently more prone to mental health problems. The main difference that sets our nation apart is what makes us so susceptible to so many mass shootings is that we don't do enough, we don't take the basic commonsense actions to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous people. What's different in America is it's easy to get your hands on a gun.

The degree of polarization that currently exists in Washington is such where I think it's fair to say if I presented a cure for cancer, getting legislation passed to move that forward would be a nail-biter.