Columnists From The United States

"Well, I think we use all of the tools that make sense. And if using the National Guard, which is folks I think in New York state are already using the National Guard, that is something that has to be done. This is clearly, as the vice president indicated, a national emergency. And what I worry about is not only how we respond aggressively to the virus, but also how we respond aggressively to the economic fallout of a global recession. So right now, in Illinois and Ohio, if my memory is correct, the governor there has said they're closing down bars, they're closing down restaurants. What happens to the workers who are there? What happens to the millions of workers who may end up losing their jobs? So what I think we have got to do right now is, if Trump can provide or the Fed can provide a trillion and a half to -- for liquidity for the banks, what we've got to say to every worker in America, you know what, don't panic. You're not going to -- you'll be able to pay your mortgage, because you're going to get a check."

"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?"

"Here is the bottom line. When we are dealing with this crisis, we need to listen to the scientists, to the researchers, to the medical folks, not politicians. We need an emergency response to this crisis and we need it now."

"Let's be clear, the lack of health care and affordable medicine does not only threaten the health and well-being of the uninsured, it impacts everyone who comes in contact with them. In fact, what this crisis is beginning to teach us is that we are only as safe as the least insured person in America."

"Sanders: You have to stop with this. I'm dealing with a fucking global crisis. You know? We're dealing with it and you're asking me these questions.Manu Raju (CNN): You're running for president, so...Sanders: Well right now I'm running. Right now I'm trying to do my best to make sure that we don't have an economic meltdown and that people don't die. Is that enough to you? To keep you busy for today?"

"It is ludicrous to believe that at the same meeting where Elizabeth Warren told me she was going to run for president, I would tell her that a woman couldn't win. It's sad that, three weeks before the Iowa caucus and a year after that private conversation, staff who weren't in the room are lying about what happened. What I did say that night was that Donald Trump is a sexist, a racist and a liar who would weaponize whatever he could. Do I believe a woman can win in 2020? Of course! After all, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by 3 million votes in 2016."

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

"One of the major, untold stories of our time is the rapid movement toward global oligarchy, in which just a handful of billionaires now own and control a significant part of the world economy. Here in the United States, the top one-tenth of 1% owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%. Incredibly, according to a recent report from the Institute for Policy Studies, three of the richest people in America – Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett – now own more wealth than bottom 160 million people in our country. But this is clearly not just an American issue. It is a global issue. While millions of people throughout the world live in dire poverty, without clean drinking water, adequate health care, decent housing, or education for their kids, the six wealthiest people in the world as ranked by Forbes Magazine own more wealth, according to Oxfam, than the bottom half of the world’s population, 3.6 billion people. This massive level of wealth and income inequality, and the political power associated with that wealth, is an issue that cannot continue be ignored. We must fight back."

"Trump was saying that the only way he could lose the election is if there was — let me get the exact quote — "the only way they can take this election away from us is if this is a rigged election." Now he is making that statement at a time when virtually every national poll has him behind."

"Thanks to the so-called Paradise Papers, a trove of millions of documents analyzed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and its collaborating news outlets, we now have a better understanding of how the largest corporations and wealthiest people in the world avoid paying their taxes and hide ownership of assets. Needless to say, these billionaires are all strong supporters of our military, our veterans, our infrastructure, our schools and other government services. They would just prefer that you pay for those activities, not them. According to the ICIJ’s investigative reporting, the Americans listed as having offshore accounts in the Paradise Papers, (which have not been independently reviewed by CNN), are a who’s who of billionaires, some of whom are the very same officials who have led the effort to promote the Republican tax plan, which would provide even more tax-avoiding opportunities to the very rich. Even before these revelations, we knew that tax dodging by the wealthy and large corporations, not just in the US but globally, was taking place on a massive scale. In 2012, the Tax Justice Network, a British advocacy group, estimated that at least $21 trillion was stashed in offshore tax havens around the world. In other words, while governments enact austerity budgets, which lower the standard of living of working people, the super-rich avoid their taxes."

"Last year, Secretary Hillary Clinton and I agreed upon the need for a Unity Reform Commission to move the party in a new and more democratic direction. In a few weeks, this group will have its final meeting in Washington, D.C., and will decide if we are going to move forward in an inclusive way or continue with the current failed approach. This is not some abstract, insular debate. The future of Democratic Party institutions has everything to do with whether or not Democrats have the grass-roots energy to effectively take on Trump, the Republican Party and their reactionary agenda—or whether we remain in the minority. What are some of the reforms that are desperately needed? First, it is absurd that the Democratic Party now gives over 700 superdelegates—almost one-third the number a presidential candidate needs to win the nomination—the power to control the nominating process and ignore the will of voters. Second, in contrast to Republicans, Democrats believe in making voting easier, not harder. We believe in universal and same-day voter registration and ending antiquated, arbitrary and discriminatory voter registration laws. These same principles must apply to our primaries. Our job must be to reach out to independents and to young people and bring them into the Democratic Party process. Independent voters are critical to general election victories. Locking them out of primaries is a pathway to failure. In that regard, it is absurd that New Yorkers must change their party registration six months before the Democratic primary in order to participate. Other states have similar, if not as onerous provisions. Third, in states that use caucuses, we must make it easier for working people and students to participate. While there is much to be said for bringing people together, face to face to discuss why they support the candidate of their choice, not everybody is able to participate because of work, child care or other obligations. A process must be developed that gives everyone the right to cast a vote even if they are not physically able to attend a caucus. Finally, if we are to succeed, we must fully appreciate Brazile’s revelations and understand the need for far more transparency in the financial and policy workings of the Democratic Party. Hundreds of millions of dollars flow in and out of the Democratic National Committee with little to no accountability. That simply is not acceptable."

"Donald Trump’s presidency represents an unprecedented crisis for our country. His campaign, and now his White House, seek to divide us using racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia and xenophobia. His economic agenda is the agenda of the billionaire class. He wants more tax breaks for the rich, while cutting education, nutrition, affordable housing and other programs desperately needed by working families. And his refusal to acknowledge the great danger of climate change is a threat to the entire planet. There is nothing, nothing more important than defeating Donald Trump and his extreme right-wing agenda. But this will not happen without an effective opposition party."

"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."

"Well, the Ebola crisis is one thing. This is, obviously, a pandemic, which is far more severe and impactful to this country. And I think one of the things that we want to remember here is that we got a lot of elderly people in this country who are told stay home, don't leave your house. Who's going to get food to them? How do we get food to them? You got schools all over this country now being shut down. OK? How are we going to make sure that the kids do well in this crisis, not become traumatized? What do we do about the parents now who have to stay home with kids and can't go to work? So I think what -- bottom line here is that, in this crisis, we have got to start paying attention to the most vulnerable. That includes people who are in prison right now, people who are in homeless shelters right now. What about the half-a-million people who are homeless tonight? Who's going to respond to them? Now, in 2008, when we had the Wall Street bailout, they did very well for the people on top. They bailed out the crooks on Wall Street. They forgot about the suffering of ordinary Americans. This time around, let us learn that lesson. Let us pay attention to the working families of this country and to the most vulnerable."

"Enough is enough. In March, we had a historic vote in both houses of Congress to end U.S. military involvement in Yemen’s civil war. This vote demonstrated strong bipartisan concern over unconstitutional and unauthorized wars, and it served as an important reminder that Congress must reassert its constitutional authority over the use of military force. I was one of those who opposed the Iraq war. Trump claims he opposed it too, but, in truth, he only did so after the fact. Trump campaigned on getting the United States out of "endless war," but his administration is taking us down a path that makes another war more likely. We can and we must pursue a different option. The American people don’t want endless war. Neither do we want a foreign policy that is based on the logic that led to those wars and corroded our democracy: a logic that privileges military tools over diplomatic ones, aggressive unilateralism over multilateral engagement, and acquiescence to our undemocratic partners over the pursuit of core interests alongside democratic allies who truly share our values. We have to view the terrorism threat through the proper scope, rather than allowing it to dominate our view of the world. The time has come to envision a new form of American engagement: one in which the United States leads not in war-making but in bringing people together to find shared solutions to our shared concerns. American power should be measured not by our ability to blow things up, but by our ability to build on our common humanity, harnessing our technology and enormous wealth to create a better life for all people."

"Victories in Virginia, New Jersey, Washington, Maine and other states around the country on Tuesday are an important first step in pushing back against Trump’s radical agenda. It was especially gratifying to see thousands of working people and young people jump into the political process, volunteering, knocking on doors and winning elections to state legislatures, city councils and school boards. But the longer-term trend for the Democratic Party is worrisome. Since 2009, it has lost more than 1,000 seats in state legislatures across the country. Republicans now control the White House and 34 (soon to be 33) out of 50 governorships, as well as the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. In 26 states, Republicans control the governor's mansion along with the entirety of the state legislature. This is not just in so-called deep red states. It is true in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Florida and New Hampshire, all of which will be critical to defeating Trump in 2020, and in drawing congressional districts following that year’s Census. What is especially absurd about this situation is that the American people strongly oppose almost all elements of the Trump-Republican agenda. Fewer than one-third of Americans support the Trump and Republican tax cuts for the wealthy, and just 12 percent supported their plan to throw tens of millions of people off of their health care. The majority of Americans understand that climate change is real. Donna Brazile’s recent book makes it abundantly clear how important it is to bring fundamental reforms to the Democratic Party. The party cannot remain an institution largely dominated by the wealthy and inside-the-Beltway consultants. It must open its doors and welcome into its ranks millions of working people and young people who desperately want to be involved in determining the future of our nation."

"At a time when we have a Republican president and Republican Party whose leadership and agenda are strongly opposed by the American people, now is the time for real change. It is critical that we come together and reform the Democratic Party. When we do that, we will win local, state and national elections and transform our country."

"According to Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman, individuals in the US are avoiding $36 billion through offshore tax schemes and US corporations are avoiding more than $130 billion through these schemes. The situation has become so absurd that one five-story office building in the Caymans is now the "home" of nearly 20,000 corporations – and that is just one of many tax havens operating across the globe. The essence of oligarchy is that the billionaire class is never satisfied with what they have. They want more, more and more – no matter what impact their efforts have on working people, the elderly, children, the sick and the poor. Greed is their religion. While the oligarchs are avoiding their taxes, Trump and his Republican colleagues, ostensibly in order to save federal dollars, have been trying to throw tens of millions of Americans off of their health insurance, and make massive cuts in education, nutrition assistance and affordable housing."

"I wasn’t expecting it but it wasn’t a shock. When I went to bed the night before I was thinking two-to-one three-to-one that Clinton would win. I thought Clinton would win. But it wasn’t like ‘Oh there’s no chance that Trump could do it’, that was never my belief. I thought he had a chance – I would say two-to-one, three-to-one for Clinton, but I was not shocked."

"The answer is, we will find out soon enough. The proof will be in the pudding, according to how Tom Perez [the newly elected chair of the DNC] and how he ends up leading the party. I supported Keith Ellison for that role because Keith is in his heart of hearts a grassroots organizer who believes in grassroots politics. He believes in the need as I do to fundamentally transform the Democratic party from a top-down party to a bottom-up party. Tom Perez said during his campaign to become chair that he agreed with Keith that there was no space between them in that view. But the proof will be in the pudding in the direction that Tom takes the Democratic party. There needs to be a fundamental acknowledgement that the model of the Democratic party has been a horrific failure, no ifs, buts and maybes. It’s not just the presidential election, it’s not just the loss of the Senate and the US House, it’s not just the loss of governors chairs all over this country, Republicans control almost two-thirds of the governors’ chairs – Democrats have lost over 900 legislative seats in states all over this country. There are states where there is virtually no Democratic party at all. When an election takes place the Democrats can’t even put up a candidate for the US Senate. That’s how pathetic it is. There has to be that understanding that what has been done in the past has been a horrific failure and there needs to be a fundamental restructuring."

"We need to understand where Gorsuch is coming from, make clear the American people understand where he is coming from, then reach a conclusion. I happen to believe that [the campaign finance opinion] Citizens United is one of the worst supreme court decisions in the history of this country, we need to know in general where Gorsuch comes from. I happen to believe that women have the right to control their own bodies, and we have to know where Gorsuch comes from on that issue. I am deeply concerned about Republican efforts to undermine democracy through voter suppression, where is he coming from on that issue? Obviously the supreme court has got to respect workers’ rights and not just rule time and time again on behalf of large corporations. Where is Mr Gorsuch on that? Now I think we know where Judge Gorsuch is on all of that. Our job over the next month or two is to get that information out to the American people."

"The problem has been that for some people in the liberal – and I consider myself a progressive and not a liberal for that reason alone. You can be 100% in support of the civil rights movement, for criminal justice reform, for comprehensive immigration reform, for women’s rights, for protecting the environment and being extraordinarily aggressive in transforming our energy system from fossil fuel to sustainable energy and at the same time be a champion of white workers and black workers and Latino workers and immigrant workers – there should not be a dichotomy. But what has happened is that for many people in the Democratic party they said, ‘Well, I believe in women’s rights, I believe in civil rights, I believe in immigration reform, criminal justice reform,’ and that has been the emphasis at the expense of the needs of a shrinking middle class and massive levels of income and wealth inequality. The truth is we can and should do both, it’s not an either, or it is both."

"For a start, what we know to be a fact, is that Russia played a very heavy role in attempting – successfully, I think – to impact our election. That is unacceptable. The evidence is that they have done it before and they will do it again. For all democracies around the world it is not acceptable that democratic institutions are being undermined by an authoritarian government and we ought to figure out how we deal with that – how we protect our democracies and at the same time make certain that Russia stop doing what it is doing. It is absolutely unacceptable. I think probably Obama was not as strong as he should have been in getting that message out to Putin. So that’s Number One: There’s no question but they did do that. They had many many, hundreds and hundreds of paid employees. What the exact mechanism is, who paid them may not be clear, but there were people working with the approval of the Russian government trying to undermine American democracy. Number Two: What we don’t know and what absolutely needs to be investigated is whether or not there was direct collusion between the Trump campaign and these Russians. Number Three: What we need to know is what kind of influence the Russian oligarchy has over Trump. Many people are kind of astounded. Here he is seemingly in strong disagreement with Australia, with Mexico, with long-term allies but he has nothing but positive things to say about Mr Putin who is an authoritarian leader, who is every day undermining democracy in Russia."

"One of the reasons for Brexit, for Trump’s victory in the United States, for the rise of ultra-nationalist rightwing candidates all over Europe, is the fact that the global economy has been very good for large multinational corporations, has in many ways been a positive thing for well-educated people, but there are many, many tens of millions of people in this country and all over the world who have been left behind by globalization. In this country, one of the facts that Trump pointed out in his speech that actually was a true fact is that in this country we have lost some 60,000 factories since the year 2000. Millions of decent-paying jobs in manufacturing have disappeared, some of that is due to automation, a lot has to do with disastrous trade policies which benefited the CEOs of large corporations at the expense of American workers. This is true in many parts of the world. Trump picked up support from people who felt that the elites, the economic elites, the political elites, forgot about them. And the truth is the economic and political elites did forget about them. We have seen in this country, not widely known in Europe, that inflation adjusted to wages for millions of workers today is lower than it was 40 years ago. So you have got millions of people today working two or three jobs, people who are working longer hours for lower wages, you’ve got half of older workers in America, 55 to 64, who have literally nothing in the bank as they face retirement. We have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth. We have massive income inequality. So what’s happened in America and in many parts of the world is that globalization has done well for the folks who assemble at Davos, for the ruling economic elite of the world. In this country alone you have seen a tenfold increase in the number of billionaires."

"That is an excellent question. And the answer is, as I think many people certainly in this country understand, is that what we have seen over the last 30 or 40 years is a Democratic party that has transformed itself from a party of the working class – white workers, black workers, immigrant workers – to a party significantly controlled by a liberal elite which has moved very far away from the needs of the middle class and working families of this country. So if you were to go out on the street today in any place in this country and ask working people whether they think the Democratic party is the party of the American working class, very few would say yes. If you did that in the 1930s under Franklin Delano Roosevelt they would say yes, there was a clear distinction. Let’s not forget it was a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, who deregulated Wall Street; a Democratic president, Clinton, who pushed for Nafta; a Democratic president, Barack Obama, who pushed as hard as he could for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Now in my view Clinton did some very good things, in my view Obama did a lot of good things, but that is the reality and it is within that context that a space developed for a total phoney like Donald trump who by the way manufactures many of his products abroad in China, in Mexico and Turkey in low-wage shops to come in and pose as a defender of American workers."

"Republicans have said over and over again, before and after Trump’s election, they are going to repeal the Affordable Care Act, this is the worst thing that ever happened to the American people, it is gone forget about it. Well, a funny thing has happened since. Millions of people in one form or another have been actively involved in saying, ‘Excuse us, if you want to improve the Affordable Care Act let’s do it, but you are not simply going to repeal it, throw 20 million people out on the streets without any health insurance, do away with the health insurance they now have, their protections in terms of pre-existing conditions, of what people have to pay for their insurance if they have a serious illness etc etc.’ Now it turns out that the vast majority of the American people say, ‘You will not repeal the Affordable Care Act unless you have a better replacement.’ And now the Republicans are scrambling, day and night, they are embarrassed, and that tells me they are on the defensive on that area."

"And you have a president who has called a judge nominated by George W Bush a “so-called” judge because he issued an opinion differing with the president. He has come up with wild accusations about 3-5 million illegal people voting in the election which is an attack on every election official in the United States of America and basically suggesting to the American people that the elections do not reflect reality, that the elections are fraudulent. So what you have is a president who says that what you read and see is fraudulent, that judges are not real judges if they offer an opinion different than him, and that elections are not based on real vote counts but are also fraudulent. You have all that and more going on, which leads to only one conclusion: and that is that the only person in America who stands for the American people, the only person in America who is telling the truth, the only person in America who gets it right is the President of the United States, Donald Trump. And that is unprecedented in American history. George Bush was a very conservative president, I opposed him every single day. But George Bush did not operate outside of mainstream American political values."

"What he wants, I think, is to end up as leader of a nation which has moved in a significant degree toward authoritarianism where the president of the United States has extraordinary powers, far more so than our constitution has provided for or the values of the American people support. Obviously, the only way to defeat that trend and to defeat economic policies which will benefit the 1% at the expense of everybody else is for massive grassroots resistance, and clearly we are seeing that right now. And there are many examples of that, I don’t only mean the Women’s March or the many, many tens of thousands of people who have come out to town meetings expressing opposition to the repeal of the Affordable Care Act or some of the rallies that we have organized last weekend all over this country – about 150 rallies in 130 congressional districts, tens of thousands of people coming out demanding meetings with their members of Congress to protest against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act."

"Among many other statements, here is a president who is clearly the most anti-environmental president in the history of this country, this is a president who thinks climate change is a hoax despite what virtually the entire scientific community says, this is a president who has appointed a gentleman called Scott Pruitt to be administrator of the EPA whose job will be to dismember the Environmental Protection Agency, who has appointed Governor Perry of Texas to be secretary of energy. A president who just literally on the day he gave his speech issued an executive order which significantly weakens regulations to protect clean water in America. So to talk about protecting clean air and water on the same day that you issue a regulation that will increase pollution of air and water is hypocritical beyond belief. It took some effort not to laugh out loud, it really was, the hypocrisy was beyond belief."

"Obviously, these are very scary times for the people of the United States and, because the Unites States is the most powerful country on Earth, for the whole word. The bad news, the very bad news is that we have a president who is a pathological liar. I say that not in a partisan way because I have many conservative friends who I disagree with on every issue who are not liars, they believe what they believe. But Trump lies all of the time and I think that is not an accident, there is a reason for that. He lies in order to undermine the foundations of American democracy. One of the concerns that I have is not just his reactionary economic program of tax breaks to billionaires and devastating cuts to programs that impact the middle class, working families, lower-income people, children, the elderly, the poor, but also his efforts to undermine American democracy in the sense of making wild attacks against the media, that virtually everything that mainstream media says is a lie. And we have reached the stage where a United States congressman named Lamar Smith from Texas – and I’m paraphrasing him but you can look up the quote – said ‘Well, if you want to know the truth the only way you can really get the truth in America is directly from the president.”"

"I have very conservative Republican colleagues who believe in democracy, who are going to fight for their reactionary economic views but who do not believe in authoritarianism. It is incumbent upon them, in this moment in history, to stand up and say that what Trump is doing is not what the United States is about, it’s not what our constitution is about. They have got to join us in resistance. Actually I hope in the coming months to be working with some conservative Republicans who I disagree with on every economic and environmental issue you can imagine, but to say to this president that you are not going to undermine American democracy. When the president of the United States says that 3-5 million people voted illegally in the last election, when one of his spokesmen says that busloads of people came from Massachusetts to go into New Hampshire in that election to vote illegally this is 100% totally delusional and lies. But what it does do, and it’s important to understand what his goal is, it sends a message to Republican reactionary governors around the country to go forward and expand their efforts to suppress the vote. If it were true that 3-5 million people voted illegally, that would be a real crisis and we would have to do something about it. But it’s a total lie, it’s not true, so as long as you maintain that delusion you are giving red meat to Republican governors to suppress the vote which is very, very frightening."

"This is what they should do. They should take a deep reflection about the history of this country and understand that absolutely these are very difficult and frightening times, I would not deny that for a second. But also understand that this country has had a very rocky road in terms of democracy and civil liberties and civil rights. In moments of crisis what has happened time and time again is people have stood up and fought back. So despair is absolutely not an option. I ask people if they are white to think deeply about what it meant to be an African American in the southern states in the 40s and 50s where people were treated in the most disgraceful manner imaginable, where they were humiliated, where they were attacked, where they were lynched, yet people did not give up, they fought back effectively. I would ask people to remember that a hundred years ago women in the United States did not have the right to vote, couldn’t go to university, couldn’t do the jobs they wanted to do – they stood up and fought back. A hundred years ago kids were working in factories, there were no such things as public schools, and yet working-class people fought with great courage to create movements which protected their living standards and dignity. And just more recently, and young people are familiar with this, think of the history of the gay rights movement in this country where 15-20 years ago you had state after state attacking people because of their sexual orientation and yet with great courage the gay community stood up and fought back. And now the Republicans are absolutely on the defensive on those issues. So in times of difficulty historically the American people have stood up and fought back and I believe that’s what we are going to see right now. And to the degree there is any silver lining in this whole process it will be that the American people will understand that they cannot take democracy for granted, we cannot continue with one of the lowest voter turnouts of any major country on Earth and that people have got to be deeply involved in the political process so that we will not see any more Trumps."

"Think about it for a second. What does it say about corporate media coverage of the major issues facing our country when my candidacy, alone, accounted for the majority of attention (limited though it may have been) that network Sunday news shows paid to poverty, one of the great crises facing the nation? The point here is not my role in raising the issue of poverty (and other important issues). The point is how national television coverage doesn't raise it and ignores the reality of important parts of American life."

"I have just been informed that the alleged shooter at the Republican baseball practice is someone who apparently volunteered on my presidential campaign. I am sickened by this despicable act, and let me be as clear as I can be: Violence of any kind is unacceptable in our society and I condemn this action in the strongest possible terms. Real change can only come about through nonviolent action, and anything else runs against our most deeply held American values. My hopes and prayers are that Representative Scalise, congressional staff and the Capitol Police Officers who were wounded make a quick and full recovery. I also want to thank the Capitol Police for their heroic actions to prevent further harm."

"The bottom line is that in the United States we spend an enormous amount of money for a health care system that performs poorly. It's time for a change a real change."

"Graduation should mark a joyous new beginning, not the start of an anxiety-ridden, decades-long financial bind."

"To this day, I still cannot believe that Congress's response to the worst economic crisis since the 1930s was more tax cuts for the wealthy."

"What, in our day, does democracy mean? To my mind, it should mean one person, one vote. It should mean an equal opportunity for all who wish to seek public office. It should mean that the wealthy don't have undue influence over the election process. It should mean that voting and participating in the political process is as easy and convenient as possible, and that barriers are not erected to prevent groups of citizens from exercising their right to participate. It should mean that poor people, old people, young people, and people of color are not discriminated against when they want to vote. It should mean that the United States has one of the highest voting turnout rates in the world, not one of the lowest. It should mean that political consciousness is high and that people are aware and well informed about the major challenges our nation is facing."

"I do write my own speeches."

"transforming America is more than just elections. It's about changing our culture."

"Humanity is at a crossroads. We can continue down the current path of greed, consumerism, oligarchy, poverty, war, racism, and environmental degradation. Or we can lead the world in moving in a very different direction."

"If my campaign for president stood for anything, it was about all of us standing together, as one nation, to demand a better life for all."

"I think we're making some progress, but everybody knows that for decades now, not just under Biden, not just under Trump, but for decades now, what we have seen in America is an economy in which the very, very wealthy are doing phenomenally well while working families are struggling. Today, Bob, we don't talk about it much, we have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had in the history of the United States. This is way before Biden. But what we're seeing now is 60 percent of our people living paycheck to paycheck, we have a health care system which is totally broken, we pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. We've got 18 million households, where people are spending 50 percent of their income trying to pay the rent or pay a mortgage. So, we have some structural problems in America. The Biden administration has made some progress, we have got a long way to go. And what the Democratic Party has got to do is have the guts to take on corporate greed, which is unprecedented, all over the economy. The people who own the large corporations have enjoyed record breaking profits, we got to create an economy that works for all, not just a few."

"I think in this particular time, this particular moment in American history, when we're taking on somebody — the former President, who in fact does not believe in democracy — he is an authoritarian, and a very, very dangerous person — I think at this moment there has to be a unification of progressive people in general all over this country — people who are prepared to make sure that women control their own body, that we deal with climate change, that we represent the needs of the working class of this country, and take on the billionaire classes."

"The difficulty that we have, and I don't mean to be rude here, is that we have a president who is a pathological liar. So, could it be true? I guess it could be. Is it likely to be true? Probably not. And I think what happens in our own country and around the world, people don't believe much of what Trump says, and when you lie all the time, the problem is sometimes when you're telling the truth that people are not gonna believe you."

"To my mind, global climate change is the single greatest threat facing the planet. It poses an actual existential threat to our country and our world."

"It's very likely Hillary Clinton will still prevail in the Democratic Party. Bernie Sanders, though, has had a remarkable showing, particularly among young people."

"Again I don’t know all the details, but what Corbyn has established pretty clearly is that there is a huge gap between what was the Labour party leadership and rank-and-file Labour party activists, and he made that as clear as clear could be. What needs to be I think is leadership has got to reflect where working people and young people are in the UK and that’s true all over progressive movements all over this country. Too often we have a political establishment which removes itself from the day-to-day struggles of ordinary lower-income people and that has got to change."

"The Ebola crisis, in my view, exposes the dysfunctionality of the health care system and how poorly prepared we are despite how much money that we spend. And the Ebola crisis is also, I think, exposing the cruelty and the unjustness of our economy today. We have more income and wealth inequality in America today than any time in 100 years. And what that means that in the midst of this crisis, you know, if you're a multimillionaire, no one is happy about this crisis, you're going to get through it. You're going to get everything you need. You're not worried about health care. You're not worried about income coming in. Half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck. We've got people who are struggling working two or three jobs to put food on the table. What is going to happen to them? So the lesson to be learned is we have got to move aggressively right now to address the economic crisis as a result of Ebola -- as a result -- keep talking about Ebola, you've got Ebola in my head here right now. As a result of the virus here, the coronavirus, what we have got to do also is understand the fragility of the economy and how unjust and unfair it is that so few have so much and so many have so little."

"I've been very concerned about his lack of knowledge."