I have taken on virtually every element of the big money establishment, whether it's the Koch brothers, and the big energy companies, whether it's the industrial complex, whether it's Wall Street... I have taken on the drug companies. I have taken on the insurance companies.

I have spent the better part of my adult life standing up and fighting for working families.

In America, we are living in a society which is moving more and more toward an oligarchic form of society where government is dominated heavily by big-money interests.

It is a public financing system that everybody knows is antiquated. It no longer works. Nobody can become president based on that system.

The truth is that political consciousness in this country is pretty low... To the degree that we can help educate and organize people around the most important issues facing their lives and show that there is support for fundamental changes in the way we do business in the United States of America in terms of income inequality, in terms of low wages, in terms of disastrous trade policies, in terms of being the only major country not to have a national healthcare program - that's success.

As an independent, my views, in fact, are a little bit different than many of my Democratic colleagues.

No. It is not acceptable that the 6 largest financial institutions in this country have assets of almost 10 trillion dollars, and issue half of the mortgages and two-thirds of the credit cards. That is too much wealth and power in the hands of a few. If Teddy Roosevelt were alive today he'd tell us to 'break them up.' And he'd be right. These huge banks must be broken up.