We have weakened the parties and strengthened all the special interests.

I'm a little nervous about public funding. It's better than what we got now.

Mitt Romney was the man who stood up to Donald Trump early, hard, never wavered.

I think the Republican Party is cursed. And it's cursed itself.

The way to solve all the money in politics is not to pretend we can get money out of politics. That will never happen. We have to channel it in ways where we can see it and hold it accountable. And I think the parties are the best vehicle for that.

Now the Republicans have a very low-scale, by economic standards, base. Donald Trump has.

The lobbying over China most favored nation trading status was disgusting. There's no way in hell that MFN would have passed in '95, '96, '97, '98, '99, 2000 if all these companies hadn't come in flooding and making campaign contributions and ask for people's support. That drove the debate. Every year was the allure of corporate dollars flooding into members' bank accounts.