The need for physical border security is a very real one. But equally important is the need to focus on the source of the problem: mass emigration from Central America.

Give the benefit of the doubt to your opponents if they walk back a controversial statement.

This life, this purpose, this American spirit that we hold dear - we are not alone. We do it together.

Labeling someone as an '-ist' who believes in an '-ism' because of the person's policy preference is just a shortcut to playground-style name-calling, cloaked in political terminology.

We actually all care about the environment, and most people believe in climate change and believe that mankind has something to do with that - how much is scientifically debatable, but there is some effect and we all have an interest in reducing carbon emissions, just having cleaner air, cleaner oceans. It's something we can get behind.

We have to bring back that Reagan optimism.

As a long-time supporter of Israel, I will ensure that our alliance does not waver, and that America continues to support Israeli security, advocate for her on the international stage, and contain the threat from Iran and terrorism across the region.

There are many ideas that we will never agree on. The left and the right have different ways of approaching governance, based on contrasting philosophies. But many of the ultimate goals - economic prosperity, better health care and education, etc. - are the same. We just don't share the same vision of how to achieve them.

As a country, we still have a lot of work to do. We need to agree on some basic rules for civil discourse.

I dreamed even after I laid down my rifle I would continue to uphold my oath to defend the Constitution.

Politicians should aim for higher discourse, the media should report context instead of seeking to inflame the public, and the public should not reward bad behavior nor engage in it on social media.

If you're criticizing Israel, but you're doing it in a way that implies that the Jewish people in America have a dual loyalty, that's anti-Semitism. It's more than just criticizing Israeli policy.

Victory looks like no more September 11ths.

I will attack ideas very hard. I am not shy about that one bit. So I don't want people to think that because I had a call for civility that that means I shy away from debate and that I'm agreeable. That's not the case. What is the case is that I will not question who you are as a person.

We can remember what brings us together as a country.

We just need leaders in Congress who are honest with the American people.

You can say that your ideas are bad for America, and frankly un-American, but don't say the person is a traitor.

You have to tackle the real drivers of debt - that's mandatory spending, not discretionary.

It's so easy to trigger everyone these days, especially if you mention President Donald Trump.

If you think my idea is awful, you should say as much. But there is a difference between attacking an idea and attacking the person behind that idea.

I have always disliked it when politicians start pandering to veterans and telling us how bad we have it and that if we just vote for them that they will fix all of our problems.

We bring the fight to the enemy so that they don't bring it to us.

Rebuilding the civic fabric of Central American countries is the only long-term solution to stemming the flow of illegal migration, and without Mexico as a willing partner, the U.S. will continue to fight an impossibly uphill battle.

When Democrats are proposing things like a Green New Deal and Medicare for all and proposing that they take away your private insurance... it's very obvious to people that they've gone in a radical direction that will not work.

There are a lot of veterans out there who would not think their wounds would be the source of poor jokes in bad taste to a hysterically laughing audience.

Even if we were able to agree on an ideal set of immigration laws, enforcing such laws in the face of hundreds of thousands of cases is impossible in practice.

You know you don't want to see somebody in that kind of position to the point where they're actually putting out a cry for help on social media. That's not a good place to be in.

The left is really good at selling bad ideas and the right is really bad at selling good ideas.

The judicial system is really taking an activist role in preventing Trump from implementing his agenda.

Voters have consistently brought up the topic of 'endless wars' and demands to 'bring the troops home' to me since I ran for office. It's not a left-right issue, either: Both sides question our military presence abroad.

Well-intentioned liberalism always leads to progressivism. There's no choice there. Once that action is taken the only thing you can run on is totalitarianism - you have no choice.

Our good intentions have gotten in our own way and it's bad for immigrants.

When you call somebody a Nazi, you can make the argument that you're inciting violence and here's how: As a country, we all agree that Nazis are bad. We actually invaded an entire continent to defeat the Nazis.

We should get young people to be more concerned about our debt and point out to them that promising them more all the time is a completely unsustainable way of being and that it's a lie to say that the top one percent are going to pay for it.

Houston's been getting flooded for a very long time. We always have to prepare for disasters and we have to do this in a very bipartisan way.

In Afghanistan and Iraq we would often get cowardly fire and rounds hitting us from the sides but we just hunker down and keep going, we don't turn the mission around.

We can prove that we are in the business of governing responsibly, upholding our rule of law, and giving priority to those immigrants willing to apply legally versus those who leverage our system's loopholes.

When you label them, when one of the most powerful social media companies in the world labels people as Nazis, you could make the argument that's inciting violence.

I believe that the role of government is for the government to protect the God-given rights we have and to ensure that we live as free as possible.

We utilize social media, we try to connect with voters in a way that's not only about politics. Letting people into your lives.

We are not anti-immigration. We are against chain migration, except for the nuclear family. We want a merit-based system that is really based on economic needs.

When you say 'never forget' to a veteran, you are implying that, as an American, you are in it with them.

It's OK to say whatever you want. It's a free country. And it's also OK for the rest of us to say 'We don't like what you're saying.' That's actually our job as members of Congress.

Because of a massive backlog of asylum cases and an inability to quickly adjudicate and enforce them, more migrants are making the journey to our border.

Each day I wake up and check the news. Nearly every day it's merely to make sure I did not miss anything wildly controversial. Who said what, what are the implications of that comment, what was the context of what was said? Some days are slow, which is great. We can focus on a particular policy issue or piece of legislation.

The allies we formerly relied on - the Kurds and the Syrian Democratic Forces - will have little interest in helping us after we abandon them to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

For those of us living in Texas and other border states, the reality of an open and unsecured border is a part of everyday life.

The president is under no obligation to sign the spending bills that Congress gives to him. And once that happens, once he says no, then you're supposed to negotiate.

I mean, the idea of a government shutdown, it's a consequence of our system.

As Americans, we have to be honest and ask ourselves a question: Do we really want to tone down politics? I always hear a resounding 'yes,' and I think most people mean that genuinely. But do our practices ever change?