Barack Obama: “I am confident that these outstanding individuals will serve the American people well, and I look forward to working…”

A drift towards extremism was "not inevitable

And I will fight for that, even if I don’t always think it’s going to win.

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.

I’m going to insist that we can do better than we’re doing right now.