Barack Obama: “He would sign tomorrow a bill that permanently extended the tax cuts for 98 percent of the American people.”

It is a basic principle of American democracy that the government can’t selectively target individuals simply because of their political beliefs or what they say.

If I had a blame pie for why politics is so polarised and why we're seeing a rise of populism in many places, it's because of that information that is going into our brains every day.

A drift towards extremism was "not inevitable

The full weight of the federal government is being brought down on a law-abiding elected official because she has dared to criticize the president.