The one thing that I remember from all of my intelligence briefings and my dealings with the Russians is that when you deal with the Russians, you have to deal with them from strength, not from weakness.

The president is out there today trying to talk about health care, and the reality is nobody cares about what he's saying on health care because this news is consuming everything. No president could tolerate that or should tolerate it.

Winning in Afghanistan is having a country that is stable enough to ensure that there is no safe haven for Al Qaida or for a militant Taliban that welcomes Al Qaida. That's really the measure of success for the United States.

I don't think I should penalize people who were doing their duty.

After every major conflict - World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the fall of the Soviet Union - what happened was that we ultimately hollowed out the force, largely by doing deep across-the-board cuts.

The consequence could be that we would have an escalation that would take place that would not only involve many lives, but I think it could consume the Middle East in a confrontation and a conflict that we would regret.

In the zero-sum budget game, every dollar spent on this problem [illegal immigration] must be taken from somewhere else....No, we should not tolerate people immigrating illegally. But we need to treat this issue honestly and fairly.