I have fought the establishment, run primaries, my entire career. I think that for Planned Parenthood or NARAL or the Human Rights Campaign to be considered the establishment, somebody's not paying close attention to how American politics works.

I don't think Democrats are ever going to get excited about cutting Medicaid to pay for tax cuts to wealthy people. I just don't think that's the direction we should be going in our country. The 1 percent's doing very well in America. They don't need more help. But Medicaid does.

I'm a moderate. I hang out in the middle. I vote against my party with some regularity and try to compromise. It doesn't appear right now that the Republican Party is welcoming moderates any more.

I've tried for years to get Republicans to help us fix some of the mistakes that we made in the Affordable Care Act. There are things we can do to shore up the exchanges, to make those pools healthier, to bring down costs. I would like to see us work together on that.

I voted against my party with some frequency, because of my independence. I've just got to remind Missourians that I am independent and that I try to call them like I see them, and sometimes my party is wrong on some things.

Somehow in the public sector, if you start in the mailroom and spend your life getting promoted, it's unseemly.

I'm the only United States Senator in the country that I'm aware of that's had the far left up on TV and the far right up on TV against me at the same time.