They made it to the middle class, my dad working as a bartender and my mother as a cashier and a maid. I didn't inherit any money from them. But I inherited something far better - the real opportunity to accomplish my dreams.

My father stood behind a bar in the back of the room all those years, so one day I could stand behind a podium in the front of a room. That journey, from behind that bar to behind this podium, goes to the essence of the American miracle - that we're exceptional not because we have more rich people here. We're special because dreams that are impossible anywhere else, come true here.

Unlike any other leader in modern American history, we are led today by a president that has decided to pit Americans against each other.

That thought process that somehow other people have to be worse off in order for you to be better off does not work. People get on boats people jump fences to get away from that kind of thought process.

Welders make more money than philosophers. We need more welders and less philosophers.

People are really angry at Washington. And they have a right to be. It's why I ran in 2010, by the way.

I think when you're running for president, especially someone that's never held elected office, there's one set of things that you may view the world through - a lens that you may view the world through. Then, you get elected and you get good people. And those good people bring you the facts. And they bring you, "Here's what's going on. Here are our options. Here's what happens if you do this. Here's what happens when you do that." And that reality begins to assert itself. And you have to react to that. You're now the president. You're no longer a candidate.