To try to blackmail a president into giving them some concessions on issues that have nothing to do with the budget.

I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president - with the possible exceptions of Johnson, FDR, and Lincoln - just in terms of what we've gotten done in modern history. But, you know, but when it comes to the economy, we've got a lot more work to do. And we're gonna keep on at it.

I think that there is a particular mindset that was on display in the run-up to the Iraq war that continues to this day. Some of the folks who were involved in that decision either don't remember what they said or are entirely unapologetic about the results, but that views the Middle East as a place where force and intimidation will deliver on the security interests that we have, and that it is not possible for us to at least test the possibility of diplomacy.

The world is complicated and full of grays, but there's still truth there to be found.

Put simply, what I'd like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for everybody's who is willing to work for it.

I don't expect that the president-elect [Donald Trump] will follow exactly our blueprint or our approach, but my hope is that he does not simply take a real-politic approach and suggest that, you know, if we just cut some deals with Russia, even if it hurts people or even if it violates international norms, or even if it leaves smaller countries vulnerable or creates long-term problems in regions like Syria, that we just do whatever is convenient at the time.

In our democracy and our civic discourse, it seems as if folks who take religion the most seriously are sometimes also those who are suspicious of those not like them.