Michelle [Obama] never fully took to the scrutiny. I mean, she's thrived as a first lady, but it's not her preference.

What is the empathy deficit? The inability of people to stand in other folks shoes. It's hard to empathize with people who have different values than you

As we keep up the pressure, our air campaign will continue to hit ISIL harder than ever.

Writing has been an important exercise to clarify what I believe, what I see, what I care about, what my deepest values are. The process of converting a jumble of thoughts into coherent sentences makes you ask tougher questions.

A number of countries, including some who have loudly criticized the NSA, privately acknowledge that America has special responsibilities as the world's only superpower, that our intelligence capabilities are critical to meeting these responsibilities, and that they themselves have relied on the information we obtain to protect their own people.

I would meet directly with the leadership in Iran.

This is where I think policies do need to be somewhat race-specific, is making sure that institutions are not discriminatory. So you've got something like the FHA [Federal Housing Administration], which was on its face a universal program that involved a huge mechanism for wealth accumulation and people entering into the middle class.