Well, let's go back to the original intent of Social Security. It is an insurance contract.

You can't just drop the 82nd Airborne into Baghdad and it will all be over.

I'm a supporter of Israel, always have been.

We can't ... take that piece of reality in this business and set that aside and say, well, that doesn't count. And the Republicans on my side understand that the majority is in fact up for grabs next year. So there's not a decision made up here that doesn't have that factor coursing through that current.

I'm the first secretary of defense that's had to deal with sequestration. I've prepared two budgets that deal with sequestration. And you bring the chiefs together, the leadership of this enterprise together, to work through, how do we then take these cuts? Where do we apply those cuts? Readiness is the first thing that suffers.

Alliances and international organizations should be understood as opportunities for leadership and a means to expand our influence, not as constraints on our power.

You can have all the capabilities; if you don't have the quality people, you don't have much.