I do not accept the belief that the United States of America and our government can't stand up to the ripoffs of the pharmaceutical industry which charge us by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.

Republicans drove us into debt with two wars and the Bush tax cuts. Now they want to pay for that debt with cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. This is not only immoral it is bad economics. Why do Republicans always have money for war but not for those in need?

If jazz education in our colleges were free to all it would provide thousands of good jobs in the music industry which has been taken over by corrupt millionaires and billionaires.

I'm not going to tell you I know George W. Bush intimately. I'm not going to tell you we're best friends. I'll tell you I met him on a number of occasions. You know what? George W. Bush is a very nice guy. Very funny guy. His wife is a very nice woman; I thought she was a great first lady. George [W.] Bush was the worst president in the history of the United States of America... The issue is not Bernie Sanders. The issue is the Koch brothers. The issue is who owns America.

The disastrous invasion of Iraq, something that I strongly opposed, has unraveled the region.

The reality is that we have one of lowest voter turnouts of any major country on earth because so many people have given up on the political process. The reality is that there has been trillions of dollars of wealth going from the middle class in the last 30 years to the top 1/10th of 1 percent.

Ever since [Donald]Trump has been opening his big mouth, you`re seeing all these bitter people, latent racists who are becoming emboldened. You`re seeing some ugly stuff happening around this country.