Barack Obama: “We hold ourselves to a high standard in that respect.”

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.

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.

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

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.