Clearly, there has been a lack of imagination about how much can go wrong.

With the Republican Party`s presidential front-runner proposing that all Muslims should be banned from entering the United States, that perhaps there ought to be a national registry of Muslims, that we ought to looking into Muslims having to carry government ID cards that state their religion, now, the word fascist is being used to describe this ascending and leading Republican politician.

we ought to realize by now (see Korea, see Vietnam, see Afghanistan, see Iraq, see Iran) that deploying the US military, or dealing billions of dollars a year of arms to our ally of the moment that can serve as a regional rival to our enemy of the moment, is not always the best way to make threats go away. Our military and weapons prowess is a fantastic and perfectly weighted hammer, but that doesn't make every international problem a nail.

I think Donald Trump is now kind of in love with the idea of becoming president of the United States. I think he truly does believe that he can be the Republican nominee.

There's no way to tweak your content in order to goose ratings. You do what you're good at and let people follow you.

I definitely feel like it took me a while to learn the baseline things you have to do if you want people to hear you. That's why I've had the same haircut for the entire time that I've been on television and that's why I wear literally the same jacket every day. I keep all the clothes I wear on TV in my office on a little hanging rack. My girlfriend calls it all the colors of the German rainbow. Grays, blacks, a slightly greenish gray for the days that I'm feeling particularly festive. I'm not trying to accomplish anything in the way I look other than to be boring enough for people to hear me.

These are career non-partisan apolitical staffers with a combined 150 years of experience at the State Department gone, just like that right off the top [right after Secretary Rex Tillerson was sworn in].