I believe in evidence-based decision making. I want to know what the facts are.

You're going to get a lot of advice coming from many different quarters to do things that don't feel right to you, that don't reflect who you are and what your values are. So you have to be grounded in who you are and what you believe.

It's important to recognize the vital role that the financial markets play in our economy and that so many of you are contributing to. To function effectively those markets and the men and women who shape them have to command trust and confidence, because we all rely on the market's transparency and integrity. So even if it may not be 100 percent true, if the perception is that somehow the game is rigged, that should be a problem for all of us, and we have to be willing to make that absolutely clear.

What I was saying back then was that we have a lot of public health costs that taxpayers end up paying for through Medicaid, Medicare, through uncompensated care, because that was in the context of the push for health care reform and that we needed some way to try to defray those costs.

I don't care if you're a liberal icon or a conservative icon. If you are not willing to be active in your democracy and do what is necessary to deal with our problems, I think you should be voted out.

The president [Barack Obama] himself has said he thought part of his job was to remind the American people that being president and commander in chief is a serious responsibility.

I don't think that the United States has the bulk of the responsibility. I really put that on Bashar Assad and on the Iraqis and on the region itself.