At a young age, I became very aware that not only did my family have to struggle but that families around the country were struggling as well. Also, being Jewish and having lost relatives in the Holocaust, I've always been aware of the meaning of prejudice. These are things that have remained with me throughout my political career.

Not just for the U.S. Senate but it also means for school board and city council. We need to revitalize American democracy. We need to have people at all - all over this country, having the courage to take on big money and demand a set of policies that work for all of us and not just for the few.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Jack Welch, the CEO of General Electric, laid off over 100,000 employees. His reward? When he retired from GE, he received a golden parachute of over $400 million dollars. This is the kind of corporate greed and irresponsibility that is destroying the middle class and must be ended.

We don't need a president like a Trump who doesn't actually, George, doesn't even believe in climate change, let alone wants to do anything about it, rejecting science.

Do not tell me that I have not shown courage in standing up to the gun people, in voting to ban assault weapons, voting for instant background checks, voting to end the gun show loophole and now in a position to create a consensus in America on gun safety.

When my Republican colleagues talk about family values, they mean that a woman should not be able to have the right to control her own body; that women should not be able to purchase the contraceptives that they want. Those are their family values, not our family values.

It's absurd we remain the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care to all people and paid family and medical leave.