Cory Booker

Any Democrat running is trying to get that Barack Obama coalition, which is an increasingly diverse voter base. It\'s young folks. It\'s minorities, as well as white women. I don\'t think we as a party can afford to alienate or not try to speak to the concerns, fears, insecurities, aspirations of white men. We should not give up that ground.

I think that we need to have an honest conversation in this country. This idea that somehow we\'re beyond sexism, beyond racism is just wrong. And this is where having an honest conversation with white men about their issues and their concerns, and having honest conversations about the experiences that African-Americans are still having, despite who\'s the president of the United States, in the criminal justice system that we see in sentencing, we see in policing and a lot of these issues.

I\'m a competitor. And I don\'t want to say, hey, just because this person is a woman or this person is a minority, that they\'re not going to get the white male vote.

Gender bias is real. I was an early Barack Obama supporter, and I was even shocked at the way the media treated President Obama vs. how they treated Secretary Hillary Clinton. Questions that were asked about, what is wearing, how much does she weigh, about her hair were never ascribed to the president.

I still remember how upset I was in the aftermath of President Obama\'s election, where people in Republican leadership didn\'t say that, \"Hey, I want to focus on the issues and values of our country,\" but, \"My number one goal is to see that Barack Obama is not a two term president.\" That to me is outrageous. I would never do that. My number one goal is to fight to protect poor people, ethnic and religious minorities, working class folks.

What I don\'t want to see my Democratic party do is to begin to talk down towards white men, as if their concerns are not legitimate and that we shouldn\'t be listening to a lot of their aspirations and hopes as well.

I visited the Ethiopian National Project which was created by the government to fully integrate Ethiopian Jews into Israel\'s society. They\'re still facing a lot of challenges with poverty, unemployment but the Ethiopian National Project is really doing an extraordinary job in empowering the Ethiopian community to be successful.

When you have a president in his campaign who ran saying things that not are just contrary to a fact, but literally threatening to use presidential power in a way that would erode the rights and privileges and equality of large sections of Americans, God bless the protestors.

Speaking as somebody who voted against TPA and has a lot of suspicions about Trans Pacific Partnership that are reflected in our concerns about what\'s hurting the American economy and what the opportunity is to grow, I have to say I like a person like Hillary Clinton who is willing to analyze the facts. I have met no one smarter than her in politics.

If Donald Trump governs the way he campaigned, it\'ll be a disastrous presidency. This is a chance for him to be magnanimous, humble. To work across the aisle. If that\'s the kind of president we have, that\'s fine. But if not, I want our DNC chair, I want Democratic senators and Congresspeople, citizens, we need to resist.

2016 is an election like I\'ve never seen before. And I think it reflects the fact that many people have a dissatisfaction with politics as usual. So I think this is a time where both parties should be humble, reach out to each other and try to find ways to build on common ground to serve the concerns, the rightful frustrations of the American people.

We live in a gender-biased world. I know we have a lot. But I do know that this history we\'re making, when Hillary Clinton will accept the nomination, I think it\'s going to go good steps in helping this country heal from its past and grow towards its future that\'s more inclusive, more accepting and more realizing that every American has value and that discrimination has no place in politics, in the workplace or anywhere at all.

I have my rights, not because of Washington suddenly deciding, Strom Thurmond and others, \"Hey, let\'s give certain Americans equal rights.\" But because of the ardent, unyielding voice of protesters.

I want you to understand that racial justice is not about justice for those who are black or brown; racial justice is about American justice. Justice for LGBT Americans is not about gay and lesbian justice; it\'s about American justice. Equality for women isn\'t about women; it\'s about United States equality. You cannot enjoy justice anywhere in this country until we make sure there is justice everywhere in this country.

People who think I\'m gay, some part of me thinks it\'s wonderful. Because I want to challenge people on their homophobia. I love seeing on Twitter when someone says I\'m gay, and I say, \'So what does it matter if I am? So be it. I hope you are not voting for me because you are making the presumption that I\'m straight.\'

We started America with the sin of slavery that led right into the post-reconstruction period which was the greatest period of domestic terrorism in our country\'s history. Then after that, we had Jim Crow emerge and just when the Jim Crow laws were ending came the onslaught of the drug war. Well, the drug war has so perniciously effected, insidiously infected communities of color that in some ways it has come full circle, and we now have more African Americans under criminal supervision than all of the slaves in 1865. This is a profoundly unjust war.

If you understand the Black Lives Matter movement, there\'s no central leadership of the movement. This is an organic, grassroots movement all around America.

The first thing we should be concerned about the BLM movement should be the issues that the Black Lives Matter movement is bringing forward. There\'s no fundamental platform being brought by activists in Oakland, Baltimore, or New Jersey. The main issues that you see, the commonality between activists all around the country, are trying to deal with the challenges in the criminal justice system, something that is very much central to my work. So my hope is that people stay focused on the urgency to create justice here at home.

I do not believe that marijuana is a gateway drug, and having been a mayor trying to keep my community safe, if there was any drug that was driving violence, more than marijuana, it was alcohol which is legal. And so I just don\'t think this is a gateway drug. And by the way, if you regulate it you\'re actually going to overcome a lot of problems with people having to go to the streets to buy their drug. You don\'t know how dangerous that is.

The message to both parties should be right now that we need to find ways to work together to speak to the American public.

Here, we have a country that is making its veterans, people who are struggling with post-traumatic stress, people who are struggling with depression, who often they\'re only hope is their access to marijuana to treat these illnesses, and here we are criminalizing them for doing what\'s necessary to stabilize their lives as a result of their service. This is not who we are as a country. We are better than this.

There is a tremendous amount of corporate villainy going on in the US, where corporations are doing things that they know are causing harm, and they wouldn\'t do this where their children live or where their children are growing up. Communities often don\'t have the tools necessary to fight back against grievous harms being caused them. So to give a cause of action for folks who can demonstrate the harm that\'s being caused, it\'s critically important that you allow people to have more tools with which to defend themselves and defend their communities.

We need to be acting responsible as adults, and I don\'t endorse in any way the irresponsible use of marijuana. But I do believe we have come to a point in our society where we need to end prohibition. We need to have taxed, regulated marijuana within American communities.

We now know from a Princeton study that Superfund sites are causing higher rates of birth defects. We now know that there\'s no excusing the lack of moral urgency to do something about this environmental crisis. We see Flint, Michigan, for example, and the attention it\'s gotten, but what most Americans don\'t seem to realize is that this lead problem is not confined to just Flint. There are over 3,000 jurisdictions that have twice the lead levels in people\'s blood than Flint does. We\'re now seeing more people being exposed to the truth about environmental injustice in our country.

The War on Drugs is a war on people, but particularly it\'s been a war on low-income people and a war on minorities. We know in the United States of America there is no difference in drug use between black, white and Latinos. But if you\'re Latino in the United States of America, you\'re about twice as likely to be arrested for drug use than if you\'re white. If you\'re black, you are about four times as likely to be arrested if you\'re African American than if you are white. This drug war has done so much to destroy, undermine, sabotage families, communities, neighborhoods, cities.

I sit in the Senate, and see what Republicans are often advocating, it\'s those kind of tax loopholes for the richest of the rich or, frankly, for corporations and giving incentives for them to move jobs and opportunity overseas.

We want everybody to think about what\'s in their interests. And I believe that our Democratic party platform has a better vision and better actually pathway for white Americans, as well black Americans, Latino Americans, women, and so forth, to be successful.

As you put your sights on your goals - no matter how great and compelling they are - as you look into the distance, don't forget what is right in front of you today. No matter how great your dreams, no matter how great your destiny, the biggest thing you can do in any day is a small act of kindness.

Don\'t speak to me about your religion; first show it to me in how you treat other people. Don\'t tell me how much you love your God; show me in how much you love all God\'s children. Don\'t preach to me your passion for your faith; teach me through your compassion for your neighbors. In the end, I\'m not as interested in what you have to tell or sell as I am in how you choose to live and give.

I caution anyone who in their protest becomes the very thing that they\'re protesting against. Meaning turning to hateful speech, violating principles and ideals that are sacred in America. We need to raise our voices, but we do not need to indulge in hate.