There are lots of secretaries who send off special envoys and yes, say, "Do a great job," and that's fine until it costs you something. And then they cut you off.

John Kerry tried to work with the Russians on Syria, and the man was honorable, because he was trying to do the right thing, and frankly, playing a very weak hand, a hand that was weak not because of him, okay. He did the best he could, but I will say this to his enormous credit: he never offered a dirty deal. You can have Ukraine if you only help us out on Syria. Never - he never did that.

[Donald Trump administration] didn`t ask me to stay and 40 years seemed like enough.

I am not against working with Russia in areas of common interests at the same time. We're smart enough, or we should be smart enough to have a dual track policy. You know, walk and chew gum at the same time.

It's said that Putin can't stand Hillary Clinton. I don't know that for a fact, but it certainly looks that way, but I think her approach to Russia stands up pretty well.

The European Union, ok, right, it has a bureaucracy, right. It`s sometimes difficult to deal with but so what? You hire a couple of people like me to work the European Union, and it can be done. It`s pretty good.

The Civil War was fought, in a sense, over whether that sentence - all men are created equal - is to be taken literally. And the southerners in the 1850s argued that it was not.