As a mayor, I don't make my decisions based upon whether it is a "Democrat" issue. You make your decisions based upon the people you represent as a city to move our city forward.

That's what American values and ideals are all about: We can come here and be different and celebrate different faiths and be OK with that.

I'm personally asking each and every single Boston resident to look after their neighbor.

I know from my own life that you can’t move forward unless you reach out and deal honestly with the past. The truth is that when it comes to race and class, Boston has a lot of unfinished business. We must not be afraid to talk about it.

Even though we all might have differences, there's commonality in the sense [that] people are hard-working, people want to raise a family, people want to put a roof over their head, people want to put food on their table, people want good things for their children.

I truly do live my life a day at a time. When I talk to people trying to get through anything, it's a day at a time. If people stop to think, "It's going to be potentially three years and 10 months for the new president to come in," that's a very long time and that can have major effects on somebody's psyche. But if you take this thing a day at a time, and break it down a little differently, and do what you can do today, it will make it easier for people to move forward, and it makes it easier for me to move forward.

Clearly, I think that there have been racial problems in America for a long time. I still think that, particularly during the second half of the Obama presidency, there has been a lot of emotion, a lot of feeling stirred up.