There is nothing wrong when the Trump administration says it wants to find areas of common ground to work with Russia - perfectly reasonable. The question is, are you willing to pay the Russians in advance for the privilege of working with them in areas that are supposed to be of common interest, and that - I don't see the American interest in doing so.

That was pretty smooth, because you don`t want something to go wrong when you have a whole senior level of actings. That`s not a position you want to be in. It`s OK to replace your team, but usually you want them to be in place until the new people are confirmed.

Think of Europe in the 20th century. Two World Wars generated by nationalism. France, Germany, Britain fighting with each other.

We are a new nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. That's what makes us Americans. When we sign onto that belief, we sign onto the core American identity, and that's very deep in us.

Putinsim is not necessarily the end state for Russia. Russia has moved in many directions since the early 1980s.

Sanctions are a strong and agreed element of the West's response to Russia's aggression. It is puzzling to me that there is so much skepticism about the sanctions. I don't understand it.

We have a deep sense of American equality and opportunity, and that informs the way in which we brought our American power to the world, because we thought that other nations were entitled to that same opportunity in a rules-based system.