In and out of government, I've always been willing to take on complicated, sometimes unpopular, issues and work them through to have a solution.

We are the only major country on earth that doesn't guarantee health care to all people as a right and yet we end up spending much more than they do, so I do believe that we have to move toward a Medicare for all, single-payer system.

Of course the Republicans have long wanted to privatize Social Security and destroy it. But Social Security has been the most important and valuable social program in the history of the United States.

If people envisage me in the Senate they might think of me as someone who would emulate Paul Wellstone, fighting for the issues he fought for. He was a good friend of mine. We'll be trying to do a couple of things. One is fighting for national health care. Another is fighting to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, and changing our trade policies.

We have to enforce the individual mandate. We're losing a lot of money that is not coming into the system.

What we have got to do immediately is to say that racism and xenophobia is totally unacceptable and we will stand with the 1 percent of our population who are Muslims, for undocumented people in this country. Absolutely, we will stand.

You know, let me be very clear. I supported Barack Obama originally.