I always felt, and I still feel, that the media doesn't belong in a public official's private life. It's a very difficult balance, because if you are elected to public office, people have a right to know a great deal about you, and the press has an absolute obligation to report all of that. But the reality is that there are times in which the reporting is really happening for almost voyeuristic reasons, in the gossip columns. Maybe half of it is wrong, and half of it is correct, and a lot of it is exaggerated. You've just got to get used to that if you're in public life.

The lesson of 9/11 is that America is truly exceptional. We withstood the worst attack of our history, intended by our enemies to destroy us. Instead, it drew us closer and made us more united. Our love for freedom and one another has given us a strength that surprised even ourselves.

The reality is Donald Trump's a genius.

Why you won an election and why you didn't is a subject of, you know, books that get written 20 years later.

Like, for example, way back then,[George W.] Bush could have passed immigration reform, just like [Barack] Obama could have when he first came in. And both of them passed on it, so now they leave it for now.

The Republican Party is a much bigger tent than people give it credit for. We have a lot of what I guess you all call moderate Republicans.

I certainly have the energy, and there's probably nobody that knows the Justice Department better than me.