You got into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

And that, I suppose, is what I'd been trying to tell my mother that day: that her faith in justice and rationality was misplaced, that we couldn't overcome after all, that all the education and good intentions in the world couldn't help you plug up the holes in the universe or give you the power to change its blind, mindless course.

I would not advise people who feel strongly or are concerned about some of the issues that have been raised during the course of the [president electing] campaign.

We need to find a way forward to make sure that we can stop terrorists while protecting the privacy, and liberty, of innocent Americans.

The strongest democracies flourish from frequent and lively debate, but they endure when people of every background and belief find a way to set aside smaller differences in service of a greater purpose.

Sustaining the energy and focus involved in doing a good job I think starts to - starts to gets tougher the longer you do it.

We continue to urge China and other claimants to work constructively to resolve these disagreements, so that the South China Sea - which is so vital to the global economy - can be defined by commerce and cooperation.