I generally think the president [Donald Trump] should get his Cabinet picks, unless they're egregiously out of the range, either ethically or intellectually out of the range of what's acceptable.

The party cannot be competitive nationally unless it's competitive in California, Oregon, Washington, New England, Pennsylvania, along the coasts. And the problem for the party is, you can't get there from here. You can't start out where the current Republicans are and win back those places. To me, what you have to do is create a different Republican Party that can win in those places.

I'm of course nostalgic for Barack Obama all of a sudden.

The madman theory is that you can be a successful deterrer if you - if they think you could be crazy. And so I think it can be very effective, so long as you're not actually crazy.

There is the English language and then there's the Trump language.

I do think trying to live each day as a bunch of moral occasions, did I live up to what I would hope, and, if I didn't, what can I do tomorrow to be a little better, I do think we can improve. We get better at life as we get older.

The public is not only shifting from left to right. Every single idea associated with the educated class has grown more unpopular over the past year. . . . A year ago, the Obama supporters were the passionate ones. Now the tea party brigades have all the intensity.