I mean you've got a conservative and right-winged press presence with really nothing on the other end of the political spectrum.

Occasionally I’ll be sitting somewhere and I’ll be listening to someone perhaps not saying the kindest things about me. And I’ll look down at my hand and I’ll sort of pinch my skin to make sure it still has the requisite thickness I know Eleanor Roosevelt expects me to have.

I don't in any way underestimate the difficulties, because it's only gotten harder. But I do think you just have to go into politics with the attitude that you're going to speak clearly and authentically about what you see the country needs...and seek out whatever possible partners you can, even in the other party. I've looked at successful presidents going back. Some of our most successful governed through periods when their party was in charge, and when the other party was in charge. There's no magic formula.

I saw Donald [Trump] saying that there were some Iranian sailors on a ship in the waters off of Iran, and they were taunting American sailors who were on a nearby ship. He said, you know, if they taunted our sailors, I'd blow them out of the water and start another war. That's not good judgment.

The Republicans want to repeal the Affordable Care Act, I want to improve it. I want to build on it, get the costs down, get prescription drug costs down. Senator Sanders wants us to start all over again. This was a major achievement of President [Barack] Obama, of our country. It is helping people right now.

When an army unit returns from service in Iraq or Afghanistan, it barely gets a breather before it begins training for its next deployment.

There is no doubt that America remains the premier political, economic, military power in the world, and I both expect and count on it remaining so, because I think that's certainly in our best interest but also the best interests of the world.