Barack Obama: I don't want to jump the gun, [but] I will tell you, tho...

I want every math teacher to know math. I want every science teacher to have expertise in science. I want them to know how to inspire and engage young people.

Barack Obama

math teacher people

The law is a powerful thing but the law doesn't always change what's in people's hearts. And so all of us have an obligation to think about how we're treating other people.

Barack Obama

powerful heart thinking

What we may think is funny or cute may end up being powerfully hurtful.

Barack Obama

hurtful cute thinking

I agree with the basic principle that anybody who wants to serve in our armed forces and make sacrifices on our behalf, on behalf of our national security, anybody should be able to serve. And they shouldn't have to lie about who they are in order to serve.

Barack Obama

sacrifice order lying

I do have an obligation to make sure that I am following some of the rules. I can't simply ignore laws that are out there.

Barack Obama

obligation following law

Undocumented workers can't report if they're not being paid overtime, or if their health and safety laws are being violated, of if they're not getting the minimum wage. And so a lot of times companies prefer to hire them in order to take advantage of them. We've got to crack down on those employers.

Barack Obama

safety law order

I have never had to travel more than thirty seconds from home to office, and it's because of that that I've been able to maintain, really a family life that has nurtured and sustained me during this time [of presidency].

Barack Obama

able office home

[My kids] are, sweet, kind, funny, smart, respectful people, and they treat everybody with respect. That's not just the biases of a parent. We feel pretty good when we hear back from friends, cause they still have sleepovers and they go to other folks houses and when the parents say, oh you know, Malia, she's just so sweet, or Sasha helped to pick up the dishes.

Barack Obama

smart sweet kids

As you might imagine, if you're a teenager having a couple of people with microphones and guns always following you around, that could grate on them. But you know, they've handled it with grace and I give Michelle [Obama] most of the credit for how well they've done, but I also just think they are graceful, good young, young women.

Barack Obama

teenager couple thinking

You not only do you appreciate the sacrifices people have made and the hours they've kept and the soccer games they missed and the birthday parties, but I also had a lot of young people who came in here [to White House], and this probably, you know, echoes with you, in your own experience, you were young when you got here.

Barack Obama

sacrifice party soccer

Now suddenly you got members of your [White House] team who were 23, 24. They've met their wives here, or their husbands here.

Barack Obama

team husband white

I'm kind of a night owl.

Barack Obama

kind owl night

These kinds of tragedies [like shooting in Fort Lauderdale] have happened too often during the eight years that I've been president. The pain, the grief, the shock that they must be going through is enormous. I've asked me staff to reach out to the mayor down there and make sure that coordination between the state and local officials is what it should be. But I think we'll find out over the next 24 hours exactly how this happened and what motivated this individual.

Barack Obama

pain grief thinking

The Russians sought to interfere with the election process - that the cyber hacking that took place by the Russians was part of that campaign, and that they had a clear preference in terms of outcomes.

Barack Obama

hacking election-process outcomes

I don't think I underestimated [Vladimir Putin], but I think that I underestimated the degree to which, in this new information age, it is possible for misinformation for cyber hacking and so forth to have an impact on our open societies, our open systems, to insinuate themselves into our democratic practices in ways that I think are accelerating.

Barack Obama

impact practice thinking

The second thing we have to do is to make sure that all of us think about how we approach our elections and our democracy not only to secure them from vote tampering, but also to make sure that we understand when propaganda is being churned through the system.

Barack Obama

election democracy thinking

[The Democrats] have got to do a better job of showing up.

Barack Obama

showing-up democrat jobs

I think we've done a pretty good job staying in touch with the American people. But at a certain point you can't help but lose some feel for what's on the ground because you're not on the ground.

Barack Obama

jobs people thinking

What I've said to [my team] is, "Look, we ran our leg of the race and we did a darn good job."

Barack Obama

team race jobs

I don't think there's a lot of dispute for this. You can argue that we didn't get everything done that we wanted to get done, but I can make a really strong argument, and I think prove, that by almost every measure the country's better off now than when I started.

Barack Obama

strong country thinking

I don't want to jump the gun, [but] I will tell you, though, that my goal is to have the best possible government.