When you try to sow the seeds of doubt in people`s minds about the legitimacy of our election, that undermines democracy. Then you`re doing the work of our adversaries for them.

I think that where I've gotten frustrated during the course of my presidency has never been because I was getting pushed too hard by activists to see the justness of a cause or the essence of an issue.

The conversations have been cordial. [Donald Trump] has been open to suggestions, and the main thing that I've tried to transmit is that there's a different between governing and campaigning, so that what he has to appreciate is as soon as you walk into this office after you've been sworn in, you're now in charge of the largest organization on Earth.

State visits are often an opportunity for the United States to reaffirm our ties and friendship with our closest partners around the world.

We have to stand up for these issues when it's tough, and that's what I've done. I did it when I was in the state legislature, sponsoring the Illinois version of the DREAM Act, so that children who were brought here through no fault of their own are able to go to college, because we actually want well-educated kids in our country who are able to succeed and become part of this economy and part of the American dream.

Lobbyist influence comes from access, not money.

The study of law can be disappointing at times, a matter of applying narrow rules and arcane procedure to an uncooperative reality; a sort of glorified accounting that serves to regulate the affairs of those who have power--and that all too often seeks to explain, to those who do not, the ultimate wisdom and justness of their condition. But that's not all the law is. The law is also memory; the law also records a long-running conversation, a nation arguing with its conscience.