I have said repeatedly that America doesn't torture and I'm going to make sure that we don't torture. Those are part and parcel an effort to regain America's moral stature in the world.
If we don’t uphold our Constitution and our values, that over time, that will make us less safe and that will be a recruitment tool for organizations like Al Qaeda. That’s what I have to keep my eye on.
We didn't become the most prosperous country in the world just by rewarding greed and recklessness. We didn't come this far by letting the special interests run wild. We didn't do it just by gambling and chasing paper profits on Wall Street. We built this country by making things, by producing goods we could sell.
We've got to be able to have a conversation and recognize we're all Americans; we all want the best for this country. We may have some disagreements in terms of how to get there, but all of us want to make sure that our economy is strong, that jobs are growing. All of us want to make sure that people aren't bankrupt when they get sick. All of us want to make sure that young people can afford an education.
Effective immediately, we will only pursue phone calls that are two steps removed from a number associated with a terrorist organization instead of three.
Some of Donald Trump's gifts that obviously allowed him to execute one of the biggest political upsets in history, those are ones that hopefully he will put to good use on behalf of all the American people.
That is another theme in the book [Dreams from My Father]. How do we exercise more empathy in our public discourse? How do we get the black to see through the eyes of the white? Or the citizen to see through the eyes of the immigrant? Or the straight to see through the eyes of the gay? That has always been a struggle in our politics.
We're going to reverse a trend that is killing most families in this country, and that is they're having to go in their pocket for more and more money for health care every year.
Part of what makes me most optimistic is if you look at the attitudes of young people. Across the board, young people are much more comfortable with respecting differences. They are much more comfortable with diversity.
For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they've never been self-executing. That while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by his people here on earth.
All of these different strands in me - the black, the white, the African - all of that has contributed directly to my success because when I meet people, I see a piece of myself in them. And maybe they see a piece of themselves in me.