Barack Obama: “Look, I've had conversations with Bob Gates as well as Admiral Mullen about the fact that I want to see this law…”

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.

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

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.