My goal right now is to actually help Donald Trump. He's the Republican president. He's doing a lot of things that conservatives are for. I'm for. And so my goal is to help Kentucky by repealing regulations that are killing our coal industry. And I think on that, we're very much aligned.

The most important thing you will do is yet to be seen. For me, I found my important thing to do when I learned to do surgery on the eye, when I learned to restore a person's vision.

I'm a Reagan conservative. Reagan did negotiate with the Soviets. But you have to negotiate from a position of strength.

The GOP of old has grown old and moss covered.

I think [Donald Trump] has to do everything he can to set up a firewall between him and his businesses. But I think it's unrealistic for people to be saying, oh, he should just sell all of his businesses.

I would prefer the [USA] government to be the policeman and not the businessman.

As long as I sit at Henry Clay's desk, I will remember his lifelong desire to forge agreement, but I will also keep close to my heart the principled stand of his cousin, Cassius Clay, who refused to forsake the life of any human, simply to find agreement.