We now know from a Princeton study that Superfund sites are causing higher rates of birth defects. We now know that there's no excusing the lack of moral urgency to do something about this environmental crisis. We see Flint, Michigan, for example, and the attention it's gotten, but what most Americans don't seem to realize is that this lead problem is not confined to just Flint. There are over 3,000 jurisdictions that have twice the lead levels in people's blood than Flint does. We're now seeing more people being exposed to the truth about environmental injustice in our country.

Any Democrat running is trying to get that Barack Obama coalition, which is an increasingly diverse voter base. It's young folks. It's minorities, as well as white women. I don't think we as a party can afford to alienate or not try to speak to the concerns, fears, insecurities, aspirations of white men. We should not give up that ground.

The first thing we should be concerned about the BLM movement should be the issues that the Black Lives Matter movement is bringing forward. There's no fundamental platform being brought by activists in Oakland, Baltimore, or New Jersey. The main issues that you see, the commonality between activists all around the country, are trying to deal with the challenges in the criminal justice system, something that is very much central to my work. So my hope is that people stay focused on the urgency to create justice here at home.

We choose forward. We choose inclusion. We choose growing together. We choose American economic might and muscle, standing strong on the bedrock of the American ideal: a strong, empowered and ever-growing middle class.

I do not believe that marijuana is a gateway drug, and having been a mayor trying to keep my community safe, if there was any drug that was driving violence, more than marijuana, it was alcohol which is legal. And so I just don't think this is a gateway drug. And by the way, if you regulate it you're actually going to overcome a lot of problems with people having to go to the streets to buy their drug. You don't know how dangerous that is.

No matter what, we always have the power to choose hope over despair, engagement over apathy, kindness over indifference, love over hate.

We want everybody to think about what's in their interests. And I believe that our Democratic party platform has a better vision and better actually pathway for white Americans, as well black Americans, Latino Americans, women, and so forth, to be successful.