My philosophy is not a bean-counting, accounting 'look at this.' It is a philosophy that smaller government is better government, and government that is closer to the people is best of all.

A strong State Department to me means a corps of career officials who believe that their job is to advocate America's interests and who are trained in effective advocacy, not schooled in accommodation.

You have to negotiate from positions of strength. And right now with Iran, we're not negotiating from a position of strength. The Europeans are negotiating from the position of "Please give up your nuclear weapons program, and by the way if you do we'll give you several boatloads of carrots." The Iranians are quite willing to keep on negotiating on that line for a long time.

North Korea is going to get away with keeping its nuclear weapons.

Don't get me wrong: I would love to be president.

I am not a neoconservative. I am pro-American.

Just like Sept. 11, only with nuclear weapons this time, that's the threat. I think that is the threat. I think it's just facing reality. It's not a happy reality, but it's reality and if you don't deal with it, it will become even more unpleasant.