The [Donald] Trump administration got rid of the number one and number two most senior people ahead of [Dan fried] in the foreign service, so that did make him the most senior person still standing - but now he`s out, too.

The single best thing about coming out of the closet is that nobody can insult you by telling you what you've just told them.

After [Donald] Trump and his campaign manager both initially denied having anything to do with the platform change, a Trump campaign official now admits that the campaign pushed to soften the Russian language in the platform. It says it was done specifically at Trump`s request.

The whole straight talk thing, which John McCain kind of turned into a slogan at one point in one of his presidential campaigns, what that is, is a symptom of somebody who has no time for messing around. Because he`s trying to get stuff done constantly.

I'm not trying to change things in the world and trying to use my leverage to do so. The only thing I'm trying to change in the world is that I'm trying to increase the amount of useful information in it. And entertainment, honestly.

If you're working on better conditions for prisoners, if you make that a popular issue and you invite mainstream media to weigh in on that subject, you're going to end up with a much more regressive public-policy environment than if you approach it in a quieter way. It's not because the public is stupid, it's just that people with only a cursory interest in something are going to have a knee-jerk reaction to it. That's impossible to explain in a cable-news media... it doesn't make sense.

When people get to speak about themselves and the things that matter to them, on their own terms, we see them as who they are. They can't be reduced to objects of derision.