The Republicans are many things, but they're not dumb. And if millions of people begin to stand up and fight back, they're going to be thinking twice about doing very bad things.

I do not believe that we must maintain a bloated military budget which spends almost as much as the rest of the world combined and may lead us to perpetual warfare in the Middle East.

I want to applaud those workers rallying to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. I believe strongly that a great nation will not survive when so few have so much and so many have so little. Every worker in America should be given respect, dignity and the wages and benefits they need to take care of their family.

I believe that climate change is the great global crisis that we face, environmental crisis. I believe that if you're serious about climate change, you don't encourage the excavation and transportation of very dirty oil.

We have to transform our energy system.

Most people that I know don believe that a handful of corporations request sit together without disclosure, by the way, and pump hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars into the political process. That is not the democracy that many of us believe America should be.

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.