The strength of Donald Trump as a candidate - and I'm not in any way defending moral convictions or anything of the sort - was that he says what he means, you know where he stands.

The fact is that it's the most dangerous place to be on the political scale is to brand those on the other side as racist. That's the atomic bomb. That's the nuclear weapon of an American.

It's tempting to remember that the Tea Party had a peak and then the Republican Party establishment sort of beat it back down. And so these things are won in a day.

Franklin Roosevelt had a pretty clear line. Ronald Reagan had a pretty clear line, people who rescue parties.

From 1976, Judy to 1996, we had six presidential elections. And it was run under the Campaign Finance Reform Act of 1974. In all six of them, every candidate agreed to limits of what he could collect in contributions and what he could spend in seeking a nomination. And they all abided by it.

Franklin Roosevelt ran on a balanced budget in 1932, and the greatest president, certainly, of the 20th century. So the idea that you lay out a predicate right now, Donald Trump has recreated the Republican Party in his image.

One of the first things every press secretary assures you is, the boss has a wonderful sense of humor, because not to have a sense of humor is considered flagrantly un-American.