I got into journalism not to be a journalist but to try to change American foreign policy. I'm a corny person. I was a dreamer predating my journalistic life, so I got into journalism as a means to try to change the world.

In the '90s, there was scant presidential leadership and insufficient domestic political mobilization for foreign policy grounded in human rights.

My second epiphany came as an intern at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The man I worked for was consumed with what was going on in Bosnia. And the more I knew [about it] the more saddened I was. There were these images of emaciated men behind barbed wire.... It was like, I've got to find a way to do something.

I was interning in the CBS sports affiliate in Atlanta with Robin Roberts.... I was taking notes on a Braves-Padres game, and on the live feed came footage of these kids protesting and getting crushed during the Tiananmen Square uprising in China in 1989. In that moment I became like a lot of young people in this country today, horrified and inspired but confused as to what I might do.

There's something beautiful about working in the one place in the world where the world is present, like United Nations. Otherwise, one would have to go to each of these countries to negotiate.

President Reagan, of course, did more than any other person to entrench the Republican reputation for toughness on national security.

I think we do have an interest in combating states that try to cross borders and steal parts of other people's country.