Mandela was a guy who didn't come in and just eviscerate the existing institutions. He sought to co-opt them. He brought white South Africans into his government.
One of the things you learn in government is there's a long tail to American decision-making when it comes to foreign policy. Moving the embassy to Jerusalem, pulling out of the Iran deal, pulling out of Paris, not speaking up for democratic values - the world doesn't end the next day.
There are very few things I've ever been a part of that I believe in more than the Iran deal, and everything I said I believe to be true, and I was trying to make a case about the facts.
Talking and diplomacy is often seen as a concession in America, in a way that it is not in other places.
The Catholic Church played an integral role in supporting the opening between the U.S. and Cuban governments.
For more than fifty years, the United States pursued a policy of isolating and pressuring Cuba. While the policy was rooted in the context of the Cold War, our efforts continued long after the rest of the world had changed.
For more than fifty years, Americans and Cubans have been isolated from one another even though Cuba is only 90 miles away from Florida.
Japan hosts more forward-deployed U.S. troops than any other country and serves as home port for our only forward-deployed aircraft carrier. In 2011, when a tsunami devastated Japan and created the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear facility, the United States stood shoulder-to-shoulder with our Japanese allies to respond and rebuild.
I don't think people realize how many decisions the president of the United States makes about military action.
U.S. leadership has been rooted not just in our own belief in American exceptionalism but in the faith of others around the world. By so wantonly discarding that principle, the Trump Administration has done incredible harm to the families they have separated through the state-sponsored child abuse that has been carried out in our name.
Billions of people around the globe had come to know Barack Obama, had heard his words, had watched his speeches, and, in some unknowable but irreducible way, had come to see the world as a place that could - in some incremental way - change.
Faith leaders, young people, American companies, human rights advocates, and many others have demonstrated a unique interest in our Cuba policy. But no community cares more deeply about these issues than Cuban Americans - young and old - who have maintained a profound interest in Cuba and an abiding faith in the Cuban people.