I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manfuacturer's lobby. But I also believe that when a gangbanger shoots indiscriminately into a crowd because he feels someone disrespected him, we have a problem of morality. Not only do we need to punish that man for his crime, but we need to acknowledge that there's a hole in his heart, one that government programs alone may not be able to repair.

My core goal is to dismantle, defeat, destroy al Qaeda and its allies that killed Americans and are still plotting to go kill Americans.

There is a big part of me that has a writer's sensibility. And so that's how I think. That's how I pursue truth. That's how I hope to communicate truth to people.

The greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another

The Democrats should not waiver on our core beliefs and principles.

We wouldn't even be where we are had it not been that 70% of Hispanics voted for President Obama, voted Democratic in the last election. That caused an epiphany in the Senate, that's for sure. So all of a sudden we have already passed comprehensive immigration reform in the Senate. That's a big victory.

Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values.