I think that sometimes the Democrats have to run upstream or swim upstream because we've got the Republicans making it out as if we don't care about these things, and we should be able to engage and be willing to engage in the discussion about morality and values.

There are some exceptions: Chicago, my hometown, in particular. But overall in the country this is a much safer place than it used to be.

For the first time, preventing nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism is now at the top of America's nuclear agenda.

The fact is every single day in the ordinary American people, America's families have to make decisions about their families and that should be made by them, not by the Texas or United States.

I'm inspired by my own children, how full they make my heart. They make me want to work to make the world a little bit better. And they make me want to be a better man.

I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage. But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that's not what America's about. Usually, our constitutions expand liberties, they don't contract them.

What the American people understand is that I look at what we need to get done to keep the American people safe and to move our interests forward, and I make those decisions.