I think, when you see kind of dysfunction among the Democrats of the Republicans, it impacts the whole country: the way we feel about each other, our ability to speak as one. And in this case, I think there are lots of Republicans who are worried about, does Donald Trump really represent conservatism?

As President Obama is inaugurated for a second time, the biggest political surprise is that gun control is now key to his political legacy.

In other words, United States, our values, the way that we occupy ourselves in terms of saying here's the way we stand in this country when we go to war, it's not that we go in and we kill off anybody, including families. We don't take the riches. We don't claim the women. My God, that's not America.

Alaska and Montana are not in the south but they definitely form part of the crimson tide of red states where Republicans are dominant.

Beyond budget fights, the Obama second-term agenda was supposed to be about passing comprehensive immigration reform.

In the last 100 years only Presidents George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford lost their bids for reelection. President Lyndon Johnson did not run for a second term.

If you get the U.N. to say we're going to solve the Syrian problem, if you get the Russians involved in a productive posture, you are making progress, but the Republican core says no strategy or failed strategy.