No foreign policy can be sustained in the United States of America without the informed consent of the American people. And informed means just that, successes and failure, a realistic assessment of where we are and what the president plans to do about it.

Al Qaeda is almost all in Pakistan, and Pakistan has nuclear weapons. And yet for every dollar we're spending in Pakistan, we're spending $30 in Afghanistan. Does that make strategic sense?

I'm not big on flak jackets and tie-dyed shirts. You know, that's not me.

America doesn't have health insurance.

Resist the temptation to ascribe motive, because you really don't know - and it gets in the way of being able to reach a consensus on things that matter to you and to many other people.

A lot of people criticized me for speaking out, not long ago, about gay marriage. I could not remain silent any longer. It's the civil rights of our day. It's the issue of our day.

There's a false choice being put forward by some Democrats now. Either we double-down on our progressive values, or we go out there and talk about the middle class and the working class. I've never found them inconsistent. They go together.