I had to sign the paper to shut down the government. It's terrible.... [But] what the shutdown showed many, many people is the importance of the role of government. And as frustrated [as people get with] Washington, there are so many things [the government does] that are so important to people's lives every day. The panda cam, paying small businesses their loans - these are all things that shut down.

While natural disasters capture headlines and national attention short-term, the work of recovery and rebuilding is long-term.

We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to those who serve or have served in our countrys military, as well as to the families of those individuals. Whether protecting our freedoms in foreign fields or making contributions here at home, the value these men and women bring to the American workforce and our way of life is beyond measure.

So we want to make it easier to shop and understand products because many people aren't educated about what's offered - do you know your premiums? Do you know your copays? Do you know your deductibles? And so figuring out ways that we help people understand what this is, how it works, and that they can shop to get what they need.

No innovation in the past 200 years has done more to save lives and improve health than the sanitation revolution triggered by invention of the toilet. But it did not go far enough. It only reached one-third of the world.

Certainly there was the Affordable Care Act part, then unaccompanied children [there has been a surge of children entering the country illegally and without parents, particularly in Texas], and things like, we find smallpox in an NIH lab, after 50 years? Why didn't you find it, like, five weeks ago or three years ago? There was thing after thing. But the big ones were [dealing with] the Ebola [outbreak], the unaccompanied children. [It was] perhaps a bigger challenge than I had calculated on my yellow pad as I was thinking about this role.

First of all, women inherently, I think, are quite capable of having lots of balls in the air. And so, like, it's all those skills you use; you analyze the problem, figure out your tools, and then go at it piece by piece.... It's like what you have to do in the morning to get your kids out the door [if you're a parent]. The skills are, I believe, the same. The patience issues are the same.