"You're kind of a health nut. How are you going to get the smell of smoke out of the speaker's office?"

Chuck Todd asked Paul Ryan on "Meet the Press" today. (Boehner was " John Boehner is a well-known chain smoker.")

Ryan said: "That's a really good question. We've been talking about that, they have these ozone machines, apparently, that you can detoxify the environment. But I'm going to have to work on the carpeting in here. You know when you ever go to a hotel room or get a rental car that has been smoked? That's what this smells like."

It's especially a problem for Ryan because he lives in Janesville, Wisconsin, and doesn't keep a separate living space in Washington. He goes home every weekend, but during the week, he's in his office all day and also sleeps there: "I start my day at 6:00 in the morning. I end at about 11:30 at night. It's just become a really efficient way for me to do the people's business by just staying right here."

Opinions voiced about voices — the shouting woman (Hillary) and the quiet man (Ben Carson).

On "State of the Nation" this morning, Jake Tapper, interviewing Bernie Sanders, played a video clip of Hillary Clinton getting off a great feminist sound bite: "I've been told to stop, and I quote, 'shouting about gun violence.' Well, first of all, I'm not shouting. It's just when women talk some people think we're shouting."

TAPPER: She's basically calling you a sexist... You're the one she's quoting, Senator Sanders. She is suggesting in public that you have a problem with women speaking out.

SANDERS: Well, you know, all that I can say is I am very proud of my record on women's issues. I certainly do not have a problem with women speaking out. And I think what the secretary is doing there is taking words and misapplying them. What I was saying is if we are going make some progress on dealing with these horrific massacres that we're seeing, is that people have got to stop all over this country talking to each other. It's not Hillary Clinton. You have some people who are shouting at other people all across this country. You know that. This nation is divided on this issue. ...What I was talking about, clearly, across this country you've got people shouting at each other. 

On "Meet the Press" this morning, Chuck Todd, interviewing Ben Carson, played a video clip of Donald Trump mocking: "We have a breaking story: Donald Trump has fallen to second place behind Ben Carson. We informed Ben, but he was sleeping." Asked to respond, Carson said:

DR. BEN CARSON: You know, everybody has their own personality. And if he'd like to do that, that's fine. That's not who I am. And I don't get into the mud pit. And I'm not going to be talking about people. I will tell you in terms of energy I'm not sure that there's anybody else running who's spent 18 or 20 hours intently operating on somebody.

CHUCK TODD: Do you think that people mistaken your soft-spokenness with a lack of energy?

DR. BEN CARSON: I think so. I have plenty of energy. But, you know, I am soft-spoken. I do have a tendency to be relaxed. I wasn't always like that. There was a time when I was, you know, very volatile.... As a teenager, I would go after people with rocks, and bricks, and baseball bats, and hammers. And, of course, many people know the story when I was 14 and I tried to stab someone. And, you know, fortunately, you know, my life has been changed. And I'm a very different person now.

Trump seems to say we'd be better off with Saddam Hussein and Gaddafy still in power — and a stronger Assad.

On "Meet the Press" today. Watch the clip at the link. The text is going to look garbled, which is why I'm saying "seems":

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, when asked if he believes the Middle East would be better today if Moammar Gadhafi of Libya and Saddam Hussein of Iraq were still in power, responded, "It's not even a contest."

He related the situations in both of those countries with what is currently happening in Syria and seemed to endorse a stronger President Bashar Assad, even while admitting that he is "probably a bad guy."

"You can make the case, if you look at Libya, look at what we did there — it's a mess — if you look at Saddam Hussein with Iraq, look what we did there — it's a mess — it's [Syria] going to be same thing," the real estate mogul said.

The real estate mogul said!