Betsy DeVos is not the most informed person on education policy, but I have seen her present a few times, and she presents as a pretty respectable, intelligent person who has cared passionately about education and cares about charter schools.

There are plenty of team players in government who do whatever the leader says. There are too few difficult members, who have complicated minds, unusual perspectives, the toughness to withstand the party-line barrages and a practical interest in producing results.

People who give money in large amount in politics are basically not altruistic. They have some issue. They have some interest. It may be world peace. It may be preserving carried interest. But it's not altruistic.

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.

Politics really is a team sport. You really have to work the whole system to get somewhere down the road.

Woe to you who insults the intelligence community, if you're president.

We have rapidly increasing technology, which is making life very good for people who are good at using words, and not so good for people who are not good at using words.