There are kind of four people up at the top, [Donald] Trump,[Marco] Rubio,[Ted] Cruz,[Ben] Carson, and then there's me and about three governors. I'm perfectly happy with that position right now, honestly, because when I started this race, I was 17 out of 16. The pollsters didn't even ask my name, because so few people knew me.

The people are fed up with the political class.

Leadership is not about a title, degree or level. Anybody can lead at any time.

We need a leader who won't be silent - as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have been - as millions of Christians are persecuted throughout the Middle East.

Nobody needs to worry whether or not I've been tested.

I think we ought to ban earmarks. I think we ought to give citizens the opportunity to designate up to 10 percent of their federal income tax toward debt reduction. If we did that, we would reduce our debt by $95 billion a year.

What I think we need to do to engage the American people in a conversation about entitlement reform is to have a bipartisan group of people who come together and put every solution on the table, every alternative on the table. And then we ought to engage in a long conversation with the American people so they understand the choices.