George H.W. Bush: “That's a very nice personal message, but I want to say with the journalists here that we are so respectful of everything…”

This means that people of every race, religion, ethnicity can be fully and equally American. It means that bigotry or white supremacy in any form is blasphemy against the American creed.

I consider the media to be indispensable to democracy that we need an independent media to hold people like me to account. I mean, power can be very addictive and it can be corrosive, and it's important for the media to call to account…

We live in troubled times with a military deployed around the world. We need a strong leader.

More than 220 years later, Washington's warning feels strikingly relevant.