The thing that should most concern us is a shift in American foreign policy. We have had a bipartisan belief in American foreign policy based on the post-World War II institutions that believed in democratic global world, which Russia and the Soviet Union was often seen as hostile to. And most Republicans and Democrats have always basically believed in this world order. Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin and maybe Marine Le Pen do not agree with this basic structure of the world.
Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Marine Le Pen seem to have no respect for the institutions that were created after World War II, and they see a potential alliance of populists around the world who would fight Islam and restore a certain semblance of traditional values.
President-elect [Donald] Trump's ambassador to Israel is further to the right than almost anyone in Israel, further to the right than Bibi Netanyahu on the settlements, and almost opposes the two-state solution, doesn't he?
With a normal president like President [Barack] Obama, he says a word, and that's because there has been some thought that he's done and there had been policy papers and there's been aides and there's been advisers and then there is a connection to an actual set of policies. And so, the words like have roots into actual stuff.
Even in this nuclear thing, [ Donald Trump] says we should be stronger and expand. What does that mean? So, what is concrete in what he's saying?
I think as we interpret him and frankly as the world learns to interpret Donald Trump, are these just words that are enigmatic things floating on air or are they actually shifts in policy and will they change moment by moment, day by day without any underlying connection to the actual stuff of governance? I don't know.
I happen to think most people go into government do it for the right reasons and they really do things as they see them on the merits of the issues.
I'm not sure [Donald] Trump has had that distinction between private and public life in his head. And so, I think there's likely to be an erosion of just that standard, that different standard, consciousness, and I think it's likely we'll see what we haven't seen in the last eight years and even the last 12 or 16 of private enrichment in office and scandals where people have to resign and things like that, because just once the standards go, behavior tends to go.
Democrats in environmental agencies tend to be more sensitive to environmental harm. And Republicans tend to be more sensitive to business harm.
Trump has picked the more extreme versions of all Republicans so far, the more aggressive. And I think the thing to watch out for is, I could totally paint a scenario where Trump runs an authoritarian regime. I can totally paint a scenario where he has no control over his own government.
[Donald Trump] has shifted - President [Barack] Obama has shifted American policy in a much more critical way in Israel with the settlements than the previous presidents.
Certainly, the country can't have two presidents at once, so the tradition has been to hang back if you're the president-elect and wait for your time in office. [Donald] Trump is not a hang-back kind of guy.
What Bannon and Trump have presented us with is an idea of America that's not been the traditional idea, not the Walt Whitman idea, not the George Washington, Abraham Lincoln idea, which is one of welcoming because we're the last, best hope of Earth.
Donald Trump's ego is like a comet the size of Jupiter just traveling through the solar system, and we all have to be affected by its gravitational pull.
When you're in governance, you understand the limitations and the complexities of governance.
You have to have a plan, or else you're just creating a recipe for chaos.
The Republicans in Congress, they believe in Ronald Reagan's Republican Party, not Donald Trump Republican Party or Steve Bannon's Republican Party.
Donald Trump is this whirling dervish of chaos. He picked a fight with Mexico. Germany is not far behind. He will pick a fight with them. He will pick a fight with China, which would be truly cataclysmic.
I do think Donald Trump is a fundamentally unstabilizing force and that the people who swore to uphold the Constitution are going to have to take some measures at some point.
The idea that Russia felt emboldened and apparently fearless to go into our election and manipulate our own election process, whether successfully or not, is a sign that they are outside the norms of normal society.
Personally, I think Mitt Romney would be a great secretary of state.
Mitt Romney knows a lot. He's a very professional - a consummate professional.
Populists love rich people. They just hate professionals.
Two terrible behaviors don't make a good behavior.
I just think, realistically, there's a lot of room outside the Trump populist right and the Bernie-Sanders-Elizabeth-Warren populist left. There are a lot of us who believe in open trade, open borders, a dynamic forward-looking economy, not a nostalgic economy, but do want to provide a significant level of social service or sort of economic Milton Friedman foreign policy, Ronald Reagan domestic policy, Franklin Roosevelt. And there's a lot of room in the center.
