Columnists From The United States

"The difference between my socialism and Trump's socialism is, I believe the government should help working families, not billionaires."

"Occasionally, it might be a good idea to be honest about American foreign policy."

"Endless wars help the powerful to draw attention away from economic corruption. In today’s globalized economy, wealth and income inequality are vast and growing. The world’s top one percent possess more wealth than the bottom 99 percent, and a small number of huge financial institutions wield enormous power over the lives of billions of people. Multinational corporations and rich people have stashed more than $21 trillion in offshore bank accounts in order to avoid paying their fair share in taxes. Then they turn around and demand that their governments impose austerity agendas on working families. In industrialized countries, many have begun to question whether democracy can actually deliver for them. They work longer hours for lower wages than they used to. At the same time, they see big money buying elections, and the political and economic elite growing wealthier, even as the their own children’s future dims. Too often, political leaders exploit these fears, stoking resentment and fanning ethnic and racial hatred among those who are struggling. We see this very clearly in our own country, coming from the highest level of our government. When our elected leaders, pundits, and cable news personalities promote relentless fear-mongering about Muslim terrorists, they inevitably create a climate of fear and suspicion around Muslim American citizens—a climate in which demagogues like Trump can thrive. By turning our immigration debate into a debate about Americans’ personal security, we have conflated one policy conundrum with another and subjected all those who seek a better life in the United States to xenophobia and defamation. There is a straight line from the decision to reorient U.S. national-security strategy around terrorism after 9/11 to placing migrant children in cages on our southern border."

"I think it is fair to say that in many ways the Democratic Party has become a party of the coastal elites, folks who have a lot of money, upper-middle-class people who are good people, who believe in social justice in many respects.... But I think for many, many years the Democratic Party has not paid the kind of attention to working-class needs that they should've."

"We need to take a step back and rethink what we are doing, both in Iran and in the broader Middle East. In the nearly two decades since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the United States has made a series of costly blunders that have not only weakened our democracy but also undermined our leadership. We need a foreign policy that focuses on core U.S. interests, clarifies our commitment to democratic values both at home and abroad, and privileges diplomacy and working collectively with allies to address shared security concerns."

"The United States invaded Afghanistan in response to the worst terrorist attack in our country’s history, and with a specific purpose: to bring justice to those who planned the 9/11 attacks and those who supported them, and to make sure that such an attack would never happen again. Our military has now been in Afghanistan for nearly 18 years. Instead of staying focused on those who attacked us, President George W. Bush’s administration chose to declare a global “war on terror” in order justify its 2003 invasion of Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. The war on terror has turned into an endless war. We will soon have troops fighting in Afghanistan who were not even born on September 11, 2001. We have fathers who completed tours of duty there, only to be followed by their sons and daughters. Withdrawing from Afghanistan is something we must do. My administration will not make critical foreign-policy decisions like this one via tweet, as our current president does. We will work closely with our partners and allies to design a serious diplomatic and political strategy to stabilize the region, promote more effective and accountable governance, and ensure that threats do not re-emerge after we leave."

"But just to end our military interventions in these places is not enough. We need to rethink the militaristic approach that has undermined the United States’ moral authority, caused allies to question our ability to lead, drained our tax coffers, and corroded our own democracy. We must never again engage in torture or indefinite detention, and we must limit the use of drone strikes that too often result in high numbers of civilian casualties, boosting the very terrorist organizations that we aim to defeat. And we must seriously reinvest in diplomacy and development aid, both of which have been allowed to atrophy under the current administration. Addressing issues like civil and religious tension, corruption, and lack of opportunity before these conditions give rise to conflict can eliminate the need to address them militarily in the future."

"The United States has been at war for too long. Even today, we seem to be preparing for a new war with Iran, which would be the worst yet. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump ordered thousands of additional U.S. troops to the Middle East to confront Tehran and its proxies. And we recently learned that the Pentagon had presented the White House with plans to send tens of thousands more. I am very concerned that, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the Trump administration’s moves against Iran, and Iran’s moves in response, could put us in direct conflict. We should all understand that a war with Iran would be many times worse than the Iraq war. U.S. military leaders and security experts have repeatedly told us that. If the United States were to attack Iran, Tehran could use its proxies to retaliate against U.S. troops and partners in Iraq, Syria, Israel, and the Persian Gulf area. The result would be the further, unimaginable destabilization of the Middle East, with wars that go on year after year and likely cost trillions of dollars."

"This is not a radical idea. Vermont and Maine allow inmates to vote and more than 30 nations — including Israel, South Africa, and Canada — also understand that voting rights for all citizens is a basic principle of democracy. When we look at the history of why our country has banned incarcerated people from voting, we must understand that the efforts to rob citizens of their voting rights was a legacy of slavery and continuing racist attitudes post-Jim Crow. After the ratification of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, which extended civil and legal protections to formerly enslaved people, many state governments rushed to create new felonies to put black people in jail and then institute lifetime disenfranchisement as a way to protect their own privilege and power."

"Indeed, our present-day crisis of mass incarceration has become a tool of voter suppression. Today, over 4.5 million Americans — disproportionately people of color — have lost their right to vote because they have served time in jail or prison for a felony conviction. It goes without saying that someone who commits a serious crime must pay his or her debt to society. But punishment for a crime, or keeping dangerous people behind bars, does not cause people to lose their rights to citizenship. It should not cause them to lose their right to vote. This should not devolve into a debate about whether certain people are "good enough" to have the right to vote. Voting is not a privilege. It is a right. In my view, the crooks on Wall Street who caused the great recession of 2008 that hurt millions of Americans are not "good" people. But they have the right to vote, and it should never be taken away."

"Terrorism is a very real threat, which requires robust diplomatic efforts, intelligence cooperation with allies and partners, and yes, sometimes military action. But as an organizing framework, the global war on terror has been a disaster for our country. Orienting U.S. national-security strategy around terrorism essentially allowed a few thousand violent extremists to dictate the foreign policy of the most powerful nation on earth. We responded to terrorists by giving them exactly what they wanted. The war on terror has also been staggeringly wasteful. According to the most recent study by the Costs of War Project at Brown University, it will have cost American taxpayers more than $4.9 trillion through the end of this fiscal year. Factoring in the future health-care costs of veterans injured in post-9/11 wars, the bill will be closer to $6 trillion. And even after this enormous expense, the world has more terrorists now, not fewer. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, there were nearly four times as many Sunni Islamic militants operating around the world in November 2018 as on September 11, 2001. That is no coincidence: the way the United States and its partners have prosecuted this war has caused widespread resentment and anger, which helps those terrorists recruit."

"The reason why this issue is so important right now is that Trump and cowardly Republican politicians all over this country are working overtime to suppress the vote. Instead of trying to increase voter turnout, they are making it harder for people to participate in the political process. In Florida, the Republican legislature is trying to undermine the will of 64 percent of the people who voted to reenfranchise formerly incarcerated people. In Georgia, we have a Republican governor who took office by instituting barriers to voting for people of color. In Tennessee, the Republican legislature is trying to shut down groups who do voter registration work. In New Hampshire and Iowa, the Republicans have tried to make it harder for college students to vote. The point here is simple. At a time when voting suppression is taking place all across the country, we must make it clear that casting a ballot for American citizens is not a privilege. It is a right. If you’re an American citizen who is 18 years or older you must be able to vote, whether you're in jail or not."

"When Donald Trump ran for president he made a lot of promises to working families. He told them that he would protect their interests while standing up to the Establishment. Unfortunately, he did not tell the truth. During his campaign, Trump said he would provide "health insurance for everybody,” but as president he has pushed to repeal the Affordable Care Act and throw 32 million Americans off of the health insurance they have. His efforts would also end the protections that are currently in existence for pre-existing conditions and end the ability of people under 26 to stay on their parents’ insurance plans. Meanwhile, while 34 million Americans currently have no health insurance and even more are under-insured with high deductibles and co-payments, a handful of health care CEOs paid themselves more than $1 billion last year. In my view, at a time when we spend almost twice as much per capita on health care as do the people of any other nation, we should not be throwing millions of Americans off of health care they have. Quite the contrary! We should join every other major country on earth and guarantee health care to all people as a right through a Medicare for All, single-payer program. Medicare today is a popular and effective health insurance program for seniors. Over a 4-year period it should be expanded and improved to cover every man, woman and child in the country. And when we do that we significantly reduce the cost of health care for the average American family."

"During his campaign, Trump said that he would stop the pharmaceutical companies from “getting away with murder.” Well, that didn’t happen. They’re making more money than ever. During the first half of last year there were 96 drug price increases for every price cut. Today, in the United States, we pay by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, while the top ten pharmaceutical companies made $69 billion in profits last year alone. Shockingly, one out of five Americans cannot afford to purchase the prescription drugs their doctors prescribe. That is insane. As president, I will implement legislation I have introduced which would lower prescription drug prices by 50 percent so Americans no longer pay any more for their medicine than the people of other countries. During his campaign, Trump promised he would not cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. But the budget he proposed in March would cut $1.5 trillion from Medicaid, $845 billion from Medicare, and $25 billion from Social Security. As president, at a time when so many seniors and people with disabilities are struggling, I will not cut Social Security. In fact, legislation that I have introduced would expand Social Security benefits while extending its solvency for over 50 years. During his campaign, Trump promised that “the rich will not be gaining at all” under his tax plan. But the reality is that the plan that he helped pass provides 83 percent of the benefits to the top one percent by the end of the decade. Further, as a result of his tax plan, major profitable corporations like Amazon, General Motors, Chevron, IBM and Eli Lilly and dozens of other major corporations paid zero in federal income taxes after making billions in profits. That is a regressive and unfair tax system that must not be allowed to continue. At a time when the very rich are getting much richer and when corporations are enjoying record-breaking profits, I believe that the wealthiest people in this country have got to start paying their fair share of taxes and that we must end the tax havens that exist in places like the Cayman Islands where corporations and the rich stash trillions of dollars to avoid paying their taxes."

"During his campaign, Trump promised that he would substantially reduce the trade deficit, prevent the outsourcing of American jobs and protect good-paying jobs here at home. However, since Trump has been president the trade deficit in goods has hit a record high of $891 billion and his own Labor Department says that 185,000 American jobs have been shipped overseas under his watch. He has also expanded the tax cut that rewards companies for replacing American workers with robots; created new tax incentives for his corporate allies to shift jobs overseas; and given out $50 billion in government contracts to companies that are offshoring jobs. We are living in a pivotal moment in American history. Our goal must be to create good-paying jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, not give huge tax breaks to people who don’t need them. Our job must be to invest in public education and combat climate change, not spend trillions on never ending wars. Our job must be to bring all Americans together – black, white, Latino, Native American, Asian American, gay and straight, native born and immigrant – and not allow ourselves to be divided up. Together, we can and must create an economy and government that works for all Americans and not just the 1 percent."

"I have been attacked in recent days by President Trump and others for my conviction that people who are incarcerated should be given the right to vote. I make no apologies for that position. Our country has had a long and shameful history of voter suppression. At our founding, despite rhetoric to the contrary, only land-owning white males were given the right to participate in our democracy. Lower income people, Women, Native Americans, African-Americans, and young people were excluded. We have been engaged in an ongoing 243-year project to expand participation in our democracy. Thankfully, we have made much progress in that struggle. But our work is not done — not even close. If we are serious about calling ourselves a democracy, we must firmly establish that the right to vote is an inalienable and universal principle that applies to all American citizens 18 years and older. Period. As American citizens all of us are entitled to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly and all the other freedoms enshrined in our Bill of Rights. We are also entitled to vote. Yes. Even if Trump’s former campaign manager and personal lawyer end up in jail, they should still be able to vote — regardless of who they cast their vote for."

"Today, while hundreds of thousands of bright young people cannot afford to go to college and millions are struggling with high levels of student debt, the top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 92 percent. Today, while CEOs of major corporations make over 300 times what their average workers earn, thousands of veterans sleep out on the street and 20 percent of senior citizens are trying to survive on a paltry $13,500 income or less. For 40 years, under Democratic and Republican administrations, we have seen a massive redistribution of wealth and income from the working class of this country to the top one percent. In fact, if the distribution of income remained what it was 40 years ago the average household in America would have about $11,000 more in income today. Do you want to know why the American people are angry? Today, despite an explosion in technology and worker productivity, the average worker has seen his/her income go up by just 5 cents an hour over the last 43 years after adjusting for inflation. And, if we don’t turn the economy around, economists predict that the younger generation will have an even a lower standard of living than their parents. This is not acceptable to me. We need an economy that expands the middle class and reduces poverty and not one that makes the very rich much richer."

"O'DONNELL: Senator Sanders, we haven't had a national unemployment rate this low for this long in 50 years. Here in South Carolina, the unemployment rate is even lower. How will you convince voters that a Democratic socialist can do better than President Trump with the economy?"

"The war on terror has come with huge opportunity costs as well—things we haven’t been able to do because we were mired in costly overseas conflicts. Competitors like China and Russia have exploited our forever wars to expand their economic and political influence around the world. In China, an inner circle led by President Xi Jinping has steadily consolidated power, clamping down on domestic political freedom while aggressively promoting its version of authoritarian capitalism abroad. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has a grandiose vision of restoring the power that Moscow commanded in the Soviet era, something he knows he cannot achieve. But what he can do, what he is trying to do, is to destroy the alliance of liberal democracies in Europe and North America that stand in the way of Russian resurgence."

"Donald Trump is the most dangerous president in the modern history of our country and he must be defeated. Tragically, we have a president today who is a pathological liar and who is running a corrupt administration. He clearly does not understand the Constitution of the United States and thinks that he is a president who is above the law. In my view, he is a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a xenophobe and a religious bigot, and he must be defeated, and I will do everything in my power to make that happen."

"What I fear is going on in the House now is an effort to target Congresswoman Omar as a way of stifling that debate. That’s wrong Anti-Semitism is a hateful and dangerous ideology which must be vigorously opposed in the United States and around the world We must not, however, equate anti-Semitism with legitimate criticism of the right-wing, Netanyahu government in Israel."

"Coming from a lower-middle-class family, I will never forget how money or, really, lack of money was always a point of stress in our family... My experience as a child growing up in a family that struggled economically powerfully influenced my values,” he went on, describing growing up the son of a Polish-Jewish immigrant paint salesman who lost nearly his entire family in the Holocaust....Unlike Donald Trump, who shut down the government and left 800,000 federal employees without income to pay their bills, I know what it’s like to be in a family that lives paycheck to paycheck... I did not have a father who gave me millions of dollars to buy luxury skyscrapers, casinos, and country clubs. I did not come from a family that gave me a $200,000 allowance every year beginning at the age of 3. As I recall, my allowance was 25 cents a week...I did not come from a family that taught me to build a corporate empire through housing discrimination, I protested housing discrimination, was arrested for protesting school segregation, and one of the proudest days of my life was attending the March On Washington For Jobs and Freedom led Dr. Martin Luther King Jr."

"We are going to transform this country and finally create an economy and a government which works for all of us, not just the 1 percent. The underlying principles of our government will not be greed, hatred and lies. It will not be racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia and religious bigotry. This campaign will be based on justice—on economic justice, on social justice, on racial justice, on environmental justice."

"I learned a great deal about immigration as a child because my father came from Poland at the age of 17, without a nickel in his pocket, without knowing one word of English. He came to the United States to escape the crushing poverty that existed in his community, and to escape widespread anti-Semitism. And, it was a good thing that he came to this country because virtually his entire family was wiped out by Hitler and Nazi barbarism... The underlying principles of our government will not be racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, and religious bigotry. I did not come from a family that taught me to build a corporate empire through housing discrimination. I protested housing discrimination, was arrested for protesting school segregation, and one of the proudest days of my life was attending the March on Washington for jobs and freedom led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr."

"What he [Donald Trump] is doing and this is his entire political strategy is to divide the American people... So you have a president who gives tax breaks to billionaires and wants to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. That's not what he's going to run on. You've got a president who tried to throw 32 million people off health care. He ain't gonna run on that one. You got a president who gave 83% of the tax benefits to the top 1%, not going to run on that one. So how do you win an election? What do you say — "You see those undocumented people, they all your enemy. Stand with me. Hate them. Let's divide this country up." I think that is an incredibly ugly and dangerous thing to be done. And I will do everything I can to stop that."

"In the richest country in the history of the world, it is not radical to demand that when people turn on their taps, the water they drink is safe and clean. It has been 5 years since the start of the Flint water crisis. This is absolutely unacceptable."

"At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, when the three richest Americans own more wealth than 160 million Americans, it is literally beyond belief that the Republican leadership wants to provide hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the top 0.2 percent..."

"If somebody commits a serious crime – sexual assault, murder – they're going to be punished. They may be in jail for 10 years, 20 years, 50 years, their whole lives. That's what happens when you commit a serious crime. But I think the right to vote is inherent to our democracy. Yes, even for terrible people, because once you start chipping away and you say, 'Well, that guy committed a terrible crime; not going to let him vote. You're running down a slippery slope."

"We have to talk about democratic socialism as an alternative to unfettered capitalism, where the rich get richer and almost everybody else is getting poorer. I think that’s a message that young people are receptive to, and I think it’s a message that working people are receptive to."

"Right now, the average worker in America is making, in inflation-accounted-for dollars, and despite a huge increase in technology and worker productivity, exactly the same amount of money that he or she made 43 years ago. That’s incomprehensible."

"There has been a massive transfer of wealth from the working class of this country to the top 1 percent. And at the end of the day, John—and the media doesn’t talk about it, the corporate media does not talk about it—nobody can defend three families in this country owning more wealth than the bottom half of the American people. Or that 49 percent of all new income today goes to the top 1 percent. That is indefensible. That is outrageous. That is immoral. And I think the American people understand that has got to change..."

"I happen to believe also that what, to me, democratic socialism means is we deal with an issue we do not discuss enough... not in the media and not in Congress. You’ve got three people in America owning more wealth than the bottom half of this country. You’ve got a handful of billionaires controlling what goes on in Wall Street, the insurance companies and in the media. Maybe, just maybe, what we should be doing is creating an economy that works for all of us, not 1%. That’s my understanding of democratic socialism."

"Today, we say to our young people that we want you to get the best education that you can, regardless of the income of your family. Good jobs require a good education. That is why we are going to make public colleges and universities tuition free, and cancel all student debt..."

"I agree with what goes on in Canada and in Scandinavia: guaranteeing healthcare to all people as a human right. I believe that the United States should not be the only major country on Earth not to provide paid family and medical leave. I believe that every worker in this country deserves a living wage and that we expand the trade union movement."

"Our bill does what the American people want by substantially increasing the estate tax on the wealthiest families in this country and dramatically reducing wealth inequality. From a moral, economic, and political perspective our nation will not thrive when so few have so much and so many have so little."

"The U.S. military, unlike any other, maintains a doctrine of global power projection: that it should have the ability, through roughly 800 overseas military bases, to intervene with deadly force absolutely anywhere on the planet. In a way, though, land forces are secondary; at least since World War II, the key to U.S. military doctrine has always been a reliance on air power. The United States has fought no war in which it did not control the skies, and it has relied on aerial bombardment far more systematically than any other military-in its recent occupation of Iraq, for instance, even going so far as to bomb residential neighborhoods of cities ostensibly under its own control. The essence of U.S. military predominance in the world is, ultimately, the fact that it can, at will, drop bombs, with only a few hours' notice, at absolutely any point on the surface of the planet. No other government has ever had anything remotely like this sort of capability. In fact, a case could well be made that it is this very power that holds the entire world monetary system, organized around the dollar, together."

"I think that what we need is to create policies which deal with immigration in a rational way. And a rational way is not locking children up in detention centers or separating them from their mothers. What we need is Trump to sit down with members of Congress and work on a rational program which deals with this serious issue."

"I am not a great fan of shouting down people or being rude to people, I think we have a situation and a Congress that's way out of touch with where the American people are. People have a right to be angry when Congress gives tax breaks to billionaires and wants to cut nutrition programs for low income pregnant women. You have a right to be angry. Take that out in a constructive way. ... I think people have a right to go into a restaurant and have dinner, that's where we got to place our energy. I do know that people are angry. They are angry about these terribly inhumane immigration policies. They're angry about the fact they can't afford prescription drugs. They are angry about tax breaks that go to billionaires. The way to deal with that is exactly what Alexandria did. Organize at the grass roots level. Win elections and get involved in the political process."

"President Donald Trump’s own words helped inspire the worst act of antisemitic violence in American history."

"As the FEC fundraising deadline for 2019 approaches, I am once again asking for your financial support."

"In America today, we have more wealth and income inequality than any other major country on Earth and it is worse now than at any other time since the 1920s. Unbelievably, while millions of American workers are forced to work two or three jobs to pay the bills and over half of our people live paycheck to paycheck, the three wealthiest families in our country now own more wealth than the bottom half of Americans – 160 million people."

"Sanders: I have a D minus voting record, from the NRA. I lost an election probably, for congress here in Vermont back in 1988, because I believe we should not be selling or distributing assault weapons in this country. I am on record and have been for a very long time in saying we have got to significantly tighten up the background checks. We have to end the absurdity of the gun show loophole. 40 percent of the guns in this country are sold without any background checks. We have to deal with the straw man provision which allows people to legally buy guns and then distribute. We’ve got to take on the NRA. And that is my view. And I am, will do everything I can to—the tragedy that we saw in Parkland is unspeakable. And all over this country, parents are scared to death of what might happen when they send their kids to school. This problem is not going to be easily solved. Nobody has a magic solution, alright, but we’ve got to do everything we can do protect the children— Todd: What does that mean? You say everything we can. Does that mean raising the age when you can purchase an AR-15? Does that mean limiting the purchase of AR-15s? Sanders: Yes! Yeah, look. Chuck, what I just told you is that for 30 years, I believe that we should not be selling assault weapons in this country. These weapons are not for hunting, they are for killing human beings. These are military weapons. I do not know why we have five million of them running around the United States of America, so of course we have to do that. Of course we have to make it harder for people to purchase weapons. We have people now who are on terrorist watch lists who can purchase a weapon. Does this make any sense to anybody. Bottom line here, Republicans are going to have to say that it’s more important to protect the children of this country than to antagonize the NRA. Are they prepared to do that, I surely hope they are."

"The Paradise Papers make it clearer than ever that we need, in the United States and throughout the world, a tax system which is fair, progressive and transparent. Now is the time, in the United States and internationally, for people to come together to take on the greed of the oligarchs. We can and must create a global economy that works for all, not just a handful of billionaires."

"Further, we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs with nearly 1 out of 4 patients unable to fill the prescriptions their doctors write. Despite spending more than twice as much on healthcare as the average developed country our health outcomes are worse than most. For example, our life expectancy is about 4.5 years lower than Germany’s and we have the highest infant mortality rate of almost any major country on earth. While the current system is not working for ordinary Americans, it is working VERY well for insurance and drug companies and their CEOs. Last year, the six largest health insurance companies in America made over $60 billion in profits, led by the UnitedHealth Group, which made $24 billion in 2021. The CEOs of 178 major health care companies collectively made $3.2 billion in total compensation in 2020 – up 31% from 2019."

"We have to be clear that while antisemitism is a threat to Jews everywhere, it is also a threat to democratic governance itself. The antisemites who marched in Charlottesville don’t just hate Jews. They hate the idea of multiracial democracy. They hate the idea of political equality. They hate immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ people, women, and anyone else who stands in the way of a whites-only America. They accuse Jews of coordinating a massive attack on white people worldwide, using people of color and other marginalized groups to do their dirty work."

"Now there’s a real competition going on up here... My good friend Joe (Biden)... he’s received contributions from 44 billionaires. Pete (Buttigieg) on the other hand, is trailing, you only got 39 billionaires contributing."

"Let me be absolutely clear: in terms of potential deaths and the impact on our economy, the crisis we face from coronavirus is on the scale of a major war, and we must act accordingly. Nobody knows how many fatalities we may see, but they could equal or surpass the U.S. casualties we saw in World War II. It is an absolute moral imperative that our response -- as a government, as a society, as business communities, and as individuals -- meets the enormity of this crisis... If our neighbor or co-worker gets sick, we have the potential to get sick. If our neighbors lose their jobs, then our local economies suffer, and we may lose our jobs. If doctors and nurses do not have the equipment and staffing capacity they need now, people we know and love may die. The American people deserve transparency... We need daily information -- clear, science-based information -- from credible scientific voices, not politicians."

"O'DONNELL: Mayor Bloomberg, I'll let you respond to that. Do you think Senator Sanders' economy would be better for America than President Trump's?"

"Right now, despite the reality that 55 percent of seniors are trying to survive on less than $25,000 a year, leading Republicans in the House and Senate are proposing to cut Social Security benefits, raise the retirement age to 70 or reduce cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) for seniors by adopting a less generous formula. Most Democrats believe that we must expand Social Security benefits so that everyone in America can retire with dignity. Not a single Republican in Washington agrees."

"Instead of spending $1.8 trillion a year globally on weapons of destruction... to kill each other, maybe we pool our resources and fight our common enemy which is climate change... I do believe this is the existential issue... People of color in fact, are going to be the people suffering most if we do not deal with climate change."