Even if an alcoholic is powerless over alcohol once it enters his body, he still makes a choice to drink. And, even if someone is attracted to a person of the same sex, he or she still makes a choice to engage in sexual activity with someone of the same gender.

There's places where a secure fence will work, and that strategic type fencing will work. But the idea that people can easily just stand up and say, oh, let's build a fence and be done with it, wipe our hands, it's going to secure the border, that's not reality.

The great lesson of history for us is that strength and resolve bring peace and order, and weakness and vacillation invite chaos and conflict.

I've never struggled with that at all....in the state of Texas, if you come into our state and you kill one of our children, you kill a police officer, you're involved with another crime and you kill one of our citizens, you will face the ultimate justice in the state of Texas, and that is, you will be executed.

How does the richest country in the history of the world fail to pay its bills?

We should also give students more flexibility in the courses they take in high school to prepare them for whatever their goals may be, without sacrificing our rigorous academic standards.

I don't think we've ever had a president who has more disdain for Washington than Barack Obama does, and he does things with executive orders or rules that you don't even see.