I've been very independent from the day I arrived in Washington.

When you work in the United States Senate, and you are around people of all different ideas and beliefs, you realize that what our Founding Fathers did that was so genius, is that they made the Senate the place where compromises are supposed to happen because of the makeup of the Senate.

I think Donald Trump can take major steps towards reassuring the American people that there can't even be appearance of impropriety for pay-to-play schemes under his administration.

I'm not questioning that Donald Trump won the election. But there's nothing more sacred than our democratic process in the United States. And we have got to make sure that - put aside partisan politics and make sure that we're getting to the bottom of all of this.

Even though we know sexual assault is still dramatically underreported, I think women are much more empowered today than they used to be.

The goal is not to just have rapists expelled from schools. I don't want rapists transferring schools. I don't want them out there, being able to commit these crimes. I want them to go to prison. But if you understand this crime and you understand what happens in the reporting of this crime and the support that a victim does or does not get, you realize that our legislation increases the likelihood that a young woman will go to the police in a timely manner and that the police will investigate and that they will be able to administer real justice in the criminal system.

I started in the mailroom, literally, as an intern... in 1974. The legislator I was working for at the time said, 'I want you to get your law degree and come back here and get elected and be the first woman governor.' I kind of took that guy seriously - I thought that sounded like a pretty good idea.