Barack Obama: “We want to make sure that it's attached to a plan for both the short term but also the long term.”

That's what I hope every visitor to this center takes away from their experience.

Every president here today, as different as we are, has tried our best to uphold the values that John McCain and Mitt Romney believed in no less than I did.

We’ve now fought a war, spent billions and billions of dollars, you know, put enormous strain on our military. A lot of people have died. And it feels like we’re back where we were before we started the war, except maybe a little bit worse…

I hope this center will serve as an affirmation of just how special, how precious our democracy truly is.