Barack Obama: “I think that if he was -- if he was captured alive, then we would make a decision to bring the full weight of not only…”

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

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.

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.

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