I am troubled by the demonization of immigrants, legal or illegal, in our party. We’ve got a country that was built on immigrants and immigration, and we’ve kind of lost sight of that.

Today is Texas Muslim Capital Day in Austin…I did leave an Israeli flag on the reception desk in my office with instructions to staff to ask representatives from the Muslim community to renounce Islamic terrorist groups and publicly announce allegiance to America and our laws. We will see how long they stay in my office.

We are dealing in lethal firearms. I’m not going to let a Nazi shoot in here, or a Klu Klux Klan member in here, either.

They say that nothing is going to be accomplished here; the division is wider than ever, so gridlock will be even greater. No, this won’t be done in a tidy way. The battle of ideas never ends, and, frankly, never should.

I’m basically a libertarian. I’m a conservative on economic matters, and I’m a social liberal.

We want our country to go in a conservative direction, where the patients have the power; where we have no shame in using American natural resources to create better jobs for working families; where we, the people, have the power and not the federal government.

Scott Walker has given women the back of his hand. I know that is stark. I know that is direct. But that is reality. What Republican tea party extremists like Scott Walker are doing is they are grabbing us by the hair and pulling us back. It is not going to happen on our watch.

The National Rifle Association often claims it is ‘America's longest standing civil rights organization,’ but apparently these minor issues were more important than the murder of an unarmed teen by a policeman, and the subsequent attacks by a militarized force on unarmed Americans in a U.S. city. [That] is the exact nightmare the NRA has been predicting. And yet, the NRA professes no kinship for those being crushed beneath the jackboots. It seems the NRA is only worried about the civil rights of white people.

I think what we have created is a timid and often craven political culture in Washington. And I think the one thing that we haven't really captured is the degree to which money is driving that. I think that Republicans are fearful of primary opponents, so they don't want to move toward the middle - they move toward the extreme.