I'm being unfairly targeted by a bunch of hacks and haters.

In the aftermath of 9/11, the Patriot Act was rushed to the floor. Several hundred pages. Nobody read it ... But people voted because they were fearful and people said there could be another attack and Americans will blame me if I don't vote on this.

I have allowed the president to pick his political appointees…But I will not sit quietly and let him shred the Constitution.

On the Gang of Eight bill, there was no provisions really for extra scrutiny or safety for refugees. At the time the bill came up, two Iraqi refugees came to my home town, Bowling Green, Kentucky. Their fingerprints were on a bomb from Iraq. They were in the database, but we didn't pick them up.

I would set aside all these budget cuts that are going to devastate the F.B.I., the C.I.A., and the N.S.A. Sequestration, cuts, are not only gutting the military, they're gutting the F.B.I. So if I were president, I would set these cuts aside. I would reinstate the N.S.A. program as robust as possible within the constitutional limits.

I will tell , though, that Donald Trump got 70 percent in eastern Kentucky and I don't think it had anything to do with the Russian. He got 70 percent because in eastern Kentucky we didn't like what President [Barack] Obama or Hillary Clinton wanted to do to our coal jobs. It didn't have anything to do with the Russians.

If congress refuses to obey its own rules. If congress refuses to pass a balanced budget. If congress refuses to read the Bills. Then I say, sweep the place clean, limit their terms, and send them HOME!