The American people want to make sure that the rules of the game are fair. And what that means is that if you look at surveys around Americans' attitudes on trade, the majority of the American people still support trade. But they're concerned about whether or not trade is fair, and whether we get the same access to other countries' markets that they have with us. Is there just a race to the bottom when it comes to wages, and so forth.

I said that America’s role would be limited; that we would not put ground troops into Libya; that we would focus our unique capabilities on the front end of the operation and that we would transfer responsibility to our allies and partners.

We have to deal with the 11 million individuals who are here illegally. The bill that Senator [Marco] Rubio put forward, I think is a great place to start.

You know, there are certain things that make for good sound bites but don't always translate into good policy.

If you look at Libya, I was deeply concerned about what would happen after Qaddafi was gone.

In the campaign back in 2007, 2008, people would say, "Oh, he's being naïve. He thinks that there's no red states and blue states. And wait 'til he gets here." And I will confess that, I didn't fully appreciate the ways in which individual senators or members of Congress now are pushed to the extremes by their voter bases. I did not expect, particularly in the midst of crisis, just how severe that partisanship would be.

Hunger, disease and poverty can lead to global instability and leave a vacuum for extremism to fill. So instead of just managing poverty, we must offer nations and people a pathway out of poverty. And as president I've made development a pillar of our foreign policy, alongside diplomacy and defense.