All the kids that I grew up with, in an almost idyllic environment - I've got to tell you, it was so wonderful - they've gone on and they're doctors and Ph.D.'s and everybody has a four-year college degree. None of our parents, I think, had a four-year degree.

I would acknowledge that [Paul] Ryan has some really good ideas about things, and I think they'll get together, like taxes. Larry Kudlow, Stephen Moore, they've been supportive of Ryan's tax view and now they're very supportive of [Donald] Trump's. So I think that's got potential.

[Donald] Trump has made this a big issue. He's leading in Ohio. He's leading, right up there in Pennsylvania, 1-point difference, and people are responding because the people's instincts are correct. This is what I believe.

The greatest disaster of all was after all the difficulties and loss of life and expenditures, President [Barak] Obama walked away, in 2011, and it is a disaster. And now we've got half of Iraq under the ISIS control and terrorists, and Iran has moved in because we weren't there, and they've taken more influence. Just a few thousand troops, in my opinion, would have avoided that.

You've got the principled people who maybe are on salaried jobs, or CEOs, entrepreneurs, and all of those that are great people, but if you're not appealing - the permanent coalition is to join that with traditional Americans who feel like, that things aren't going well for them, and to develop policies that improve their lifestyle, not just upper-income lifestyles. And once that's believed by working people, that it's serious and a commitment and you care about people like me, for a change, Republicans could create a new majority.

Basically [I become a Republican], pretty early. I had an English teacher that got me to subscribe to the National Review.

When I came up as a United States Attorney, I had no real support group. I didn't prepare myself well in 1986, and there was an organized effort to caricature me as someone I wasn't. True. It was very painful. I didn't know how to respond and didn't respond very well.