That is our generation’s task - to make these words, these rights, these values of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness real for every American.

Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that 'the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.

Does that mean that all vestiges of past discrimination would be eliminated, that the income gap or the wealth gap or the education gap [between Afro-Americans and white] would be erased in five years or 10 years? Probably not, and so this is obviously a discussion we've had before when you talk about something like reparations.

We are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam.

We have to deal with issues like inequality, we have deal with issues of economic dislocation, we have to deal with peoples fears that their children won't do as well as they have. The more aggressively and effectively we deal with those issues, the less those fears may channel themselves into counter-productive approaches that pit people against each other.

If you want some additional money for your school, we'll give it to you. But you've got to compete, show us that you're going to reform your education system so that our children are performing better.

It's true that I have not been able to completely close Guantanamo, but we've drastically reduced the population from 700 or so to around 60 now.