With a weak and rotting core, you don't have much of a foreign policy. You're discounted at the negotiating table, economically and militarily. So when people ask what's the best course of action for the U.S.-China relationship, I can give you ten academic responses. But the reality is we need to rebuild our core.

Our political debates today are corrosive and not reflective of the belief that Abe Lincoln espoused back in his day: that we are a great country because we are a good country.

The reality, sitting ten thousand miles away, is that we remain the country that inspires. We remain that shining city on a hill.

It's taken a lot of presidents to get us where we are today, a lot of deployments, a lot of wars, a lot engagements. You add them all up.

I was criticized at some level within the Republican Party by those who say government should not be in the economic development business at all. My response is that the only country I know that doesn't have an economic development plan is Papa New Guinea.

America is the primary engine of growth in the world and we are the only beacon of free trade left, and open markets.

I think we have to be very sensitive to our need to compete, moving forward, and a lot of that is tied to tax policy.