Barack Obama: “Now, the simple truth is it took years to dig this hole; it's going to take more time than any of us would like to climb…”

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.

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

It is a decision about how do we face and embrace this finite amount of time we have on the planet.

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.