You can't really move forward if you don't heal the past and identify and address the fact that you had a problem and in some cases still have issues. That has to be dealt with.

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.

There's probably never been a more important time for mayors in America than there is right now in this country, because the people who are being targeted, and the fear that's happening out there, those people live in our cities.

The majority of people who come to America come for a better life, just like the Italians, the Jews, the Irish, and the Polish did in generations before. A lot of the Irish came here back in the turn of the 19th to the 20th century because there were no opportunities and no options at home for them. There were no jobs and there was extreme poverty. They came here to be able to send money back home.

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.

You can't really move forward if you don't heal the past and identify and address the fact that you had a problem and in some cases still have issues. That has to be dealt with.

The Affordable Care Act is a huge problem. [Repealing the ACA is] going to have huge implications. We have millennials that live in Boston that are on their parents' health insurance. The businesses have hired them and have been able to hire more people because they have been able to be on their own health insurance. We have seniors in our city who have preexisting conditions, or something called a "donut hole," which is a prescription drug [gap] in Medicare. Whatever changes they make could have detrimental effects on people's health care, but also on the economy.