Al-Monitor: Do you still consider yourself a Republican?
Hagel: I don’t know what the Republican Party is. I know why I registered a long time ago; my first vote was in the Mekong Delta absentee in 1968. But we’ll find a new center of gravity... After the American people speak in November, that gives us some new possibilities. If the president is re-elected, like most two-term presidents, your fifth and sixth years can be your most productive.