Barack Obama: “These large and arbitrary cuts will have severe impacts across the government.”

When we choose, when we make that decision, I do believe – and there is evidence for this – that the world gets incrementally better, and that is a worthy goal and it’s worth fighting for.

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.

People need to “rediscover what’s the story we tell about how we’re going to live together, and see each other, and recognise each other, and disagree, and yet, still care for each other”.

I think when we act on that basis, it doesn't always work out, but over time things do get better.