What I am proposing is that we invest from the middle out and the ground up, not the top down. That is not going to work.

Sometimes overturning brutal regimes takes time and costs lives. I wish it weren't so. I really, really do.

I think what Secretary Ash Carter is seeing, and I'm glad he is, is that we got to get NATO back working for the common defense. We've got to do more to support our partners in NATO, and we have to send a very clear message to Putin that this kind of belligerence, that this kind of testing of boundaries will have to be responded to. The best way to do that is to put more armor in, put more money from the Europeans in so they're actually contributing more to their own defense.

Every election is about the future, which by definition means it's more about the future of young people than it is about me.

I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president.

It's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law of America.

I feel like I have had the most amazing life in my public service. And for the last 17 years, ever since my husband started running for president, I have been in the spotlight, working hard. And this job is incredibly all-encompassing. So I think I'm looking forward to maybe taking some time off