If we got rid of everybody in Washington who sold access for donations, then the town would be empty. But it's unseemly.

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.

Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Marine Le Pen seem to have no respect for the institutions that were created after World War II, and they see a potential alliance of populists around the world who would fight Islam and restore a certain semblance of traditional values.

Politics is based on social identity, and so, again, there is going to be differences between rural and urban and between left and right.

Bragging about what a good deal you got is one of the many great art forms that my people, the Jews, have introduced to American culture.

If I had to fault President [Barack] Obama, I would say that sometimes governs like a visitor from a morally superior civilization.

One of the frustrations about the modern world is that we don't even have a good vocabulary to describe our state. The word sentiment sounds mushy. [...] Sentiment is not mushy.