Donald Trump talks us down. He makes disparaging comments about America. He calls our military a disaster. Well, it's not, but it might have been if everybody else had failed to pay taxes to support our brave men and women in uniform.

What we are learning around the world is that if women are healthy and educated, their families will flourish. If women are free from violence, their families will flourish. If women have a chance to work and earn as full and equal partners in society, their families will flourish. And when families flourish, communities and nations do as well.

Trickle-down did not work. It got us into the mess we were in, in 2008 and 2009. Slashing taxes on the wealthy hasn’t worked. And a lot of really smart, wealthy people know that. And they are saying, hey, we need to do more to make the contributions we should be making to rebuild the middle class.

Many of the fights that are going on are not ones that the United States has either started or have a role in. The Shia-- Sunni split, the dictatorships that have suppressed people's aspirations, the increasing globalization without any real safety valve for people to have a better life. We saw that in Egypt. We saw a dictator overthrown, we saw Muslim Brotherhood president installed and then we saw him ousted and the army back.

I think that being in politics, being in leadership should be as much about listening as talking. That's how I think you can get the information and sort of pick up the nuance that will enable you to do the best possible job.

On healthcare we are the prisoner of our past. The way we got to develop any kind of medical insurance program was during World War II when companies facing shortages of workers began to offer healthcare benefits as an inducement for employment. So from the early 1940s healthcare was seen as a privilege connected to employment. And after the war when soldiers came back and went back into the market there was a lot of competition, because the economy was so heated up.

My parents always stressed the importance of education, working hard in school and learning as much as possible. They also encouraged me to value myself and believe in myself and do what I thought was right for me.