By 2016, the people who had looked to [Barack] Obama for change were looking somewhere else.

I hoped for something else. It's a simple dream, but it speaks to us so powerfully because it is our dream - one that exists at the very center of the American experience. One that says if you're willing to work hard and take responsibility, then you'll have the chance to reach for something else; for something better.

Slowly, but surely, we are moving in the right direction. We're on the right track. The economy is getting stronger

There is no doubt that thanks to the steps that we took early on to rescue our economy and to rebuild it on a new foundation, we are entering into the new year with new confidence that America is coming back.

I've enjoyed the conversations that we've had. [Donald Trump] is somebody who I think is not lacking in confidence.

Nobody gets to threaten the full faith and credit of the United States just to extract political concessions.

That is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door.