I want to avoid sounding like I'm criticizing because I don't have all the facts in front of me yet. And I am trying to be a unifier.

I'm an optimistic guy.It's just as much the case that people will come to me and ask my opinion about how to properly include the Muslim community, as it is that people will come with some hateful stuff too. When people come to me about my religion, it's not always a thing of "we don't want people like you here," which happens sometimes. But mostly it's people who would like to know more. I get a chance to help people understand the religion better.

If you put everything, your heart and soul into a campaign, it might take you a while to come around to the realization that, you know, another person has won.

Trump is trying to tell all of us Americans that we are our own problem, not him. And that's not true. He's the problem.

I was very proud to be part of the Million Man March. I think it's one of the best things that I ever did.

You take for example the environmental movement is a big deal in my district. You know, you might say, yeah, more African Americans are suffering from asthma and air pollution-related illnesses, but there`s a lot of white folks, a lot of white kids with inhalers. So, you just got to talk to the reality of everyone, not exclude anyone. And make sure that people know that you care about them too. I think if you do that, we can get there.

I think that you need all perspectives to reflect the needs of the country. If you only give people one perspective, inputting their views into the congressional process, you're going to have a skewed outcome.