American values come by helping countries fight corruption to build stability. American values flow through tackling climate change and building energy independence. American values come through humanitarian assistance whereby we try to stop catastrophes from happening.

It can be frustrating that, despite widespread support for common sense gun safety measures, Congress is moving at a snail's pace. But remember that great change takes time.

The more we remove the need for individual members of Congress to raise private election funds, the more our representatives can focus on the things they were elected to do, and the more time they will have to cross party lines and erase the divisions that pollute our national dialogue.

As I'm learning, Republicans seem to only care about deficits when a Democrat is in the White House.

The most powerful force when changing people's hearts and minds is a person-to-person conversation.

Anytime somebody loses a presidential election, there are lots of explanations.

We have a long, proud history of making things here in Connecticut. We're home to large companies like Electric Boat, Pratt & Whitney, and Sikorsky, as well as their thousands of suppliers.

There's no denying that if I were designing a health care system from scratch, I'd build a Medicare for All system.

Rarely do political contributions lead to direct quid pro quo transactions - donations for votes - and those that cross this line normally get caught.

There's zero evidence, empirical or anecdotal, that more guns leads to less gun crime.

I think most of the Washington foreign policy establishment exists in a fantasy world when it comes to Syria. They fundamentally don't understand that Russia and Iran, from the beginning, had much more at stake in Syria than the United States did. Russia and Iran were going to do everything possible in order to keep Bashar al-Assad in power.

Russia's number-one goal is to pull apart the E.U., to pull apart NATO.

ISIL is a terrorist army like we have never seen - they cannot be ignored.

One of the smartest investments we can make in Connecticut is in job training programs.

Our mental health system is broken, and we should fix it.

I arrived in Hartford as a 25-year-old naive state legislator who believed in universal health care. I rose to become the 29-year-old Chairman of the legislature's Health Committee.

In Connecticut, we have passed some of the strongest anti-gun-violence laws in the nation. We don't restrict anybody's Second Amendment rights.

One of my chief criticisms of U.S. international policy is that Congress has largely abdicated its foreign policy-making responsibilities to the executive branch.

Unfortunately, the state of national security under the Trump administration is far from strong.

Health care, whether I like it or not, is at the foundation of my public service.

I served on the committee in the U.S. House that wrote the Affordable Care Act. I defended it back home in endless town halls. I got elected to the Senate, and when no one wanted to stand up for the ACA in its early days, I took up the cause, going to the Senate floor nearly every week to extol its virtues.

There is no doubt Assad deserves every missile we fire at him, but there's one big problem with air strikes - there is absolutely no proof it has any deterrent effect on Assad. To the contrary, history tells us these strikes will most likely quicken the pace of his assault on his own people.

What we do in Connecticut is ban assault weapons. We ban high-capacity magazines. We have true universal background checks, and we require everybody to get a permit from their police department before they can carry a pistol.

In 2013 and 2014, I traveled to Ukraine three times with Senator John McCain.

I worry that there are financial ties between the Trumps and the Saudi royal family.

The world is a mess, and while there is no simple pill America can administer to fix things, what we know is that there is significant room for progressives to articulate a foreign policy vision that is truly our own.

We simply believe that we should lean into the world with something other than the pointed edge of a sword.

From the outside, Qatar and U.A.E. likely look like twins - small, oil-rich Sunni monarchies that are largely friendly to the U.S. But their philosophies on the region are very different - Qatar does not fear Islamism as does the U.A.E.

The American people didn't send us to Congress to post our sympathies on social media. You can do that without going through the trouble of getting elected to Congress. This job is about setting rules that better protect us and our children.

Sympathy is important, but it rings hollow if not followed by action.

I would be a rich man if I had a quarter for every time one of my Republican colleagues on the Foreign Relations Committee utters some variation of the sentence, 'President Obama doesn't have a strategy to defeat ISIS.' It's their calling card on the committee - and on the campaign trail.

America doesn't have the moral authority or weight to tip the scales in this fight between moderate Islam and less tolerant Islam. Muslim communities and Muslim nations need to be leading edge of this fight.

The Saudis helped the U.S. ensure that the Russians never got a meaningful foothold in the Middle East.

The political alliance between the House of Saud and the conservative Wahhabi clerics is as old as the nation, and the alliance has resulted in billions funneled to and through the Wahhabi movement.

Congress should pass legislation that mandates increased information sharing for any country that wants to participate in the Visa Waiver Program.

The European Union needs a comprehensive, continent-wise, transnational counter-terrorism center that has the authority to track threats across borders.

Terrorist groups are working and communicating across E.U. borders - our efforts to track those groups must do so as well.

The United States has the best intelligence-gathering operation in the world. We should provide a greater level of training and assistance to the E.U. to help them develop a more robust counter-terrorism platform.

There are numerous groups across the country, both local and national, that are working to prevent gun violence in our communities.

If we want our laws to change, we need to elect people who are willing to change them.

I can't stand the idea of a veteran risking her or his life for this country, suffering the wounds of battle, and then being kicked to the curb as a result of those wounds. But that is exactly what has happened to tens of thousands of men & women who have fought and bled for our country.

Our veterans made a commitment to our country when they signed up.

Too many families know what it's like to have to choose between providing care for a family member and keeping their job.

Social media is such a key organizing and communication tool, and I've made a major commitment to use it as a way to make the legislative process as transparent as possible.

For far too long, Washington has denied the American citizens of Puerto Rico vital human services and adequate health care funding.

Whenever I travel abroad, I try to visit U.S. troops just to say thanks.

There is just no substitute for seeing a disaster area firsthand and getting the chance to speak in person to victims and responders.

If you want to change our gun laws, the best thing you can do is find a group that speaks to you and get involved.

As lawmakers, our job is to listen to our constituents. If our phones are ringing off the hook with people demanding to know where we stand on an issue, we pay attention.

Creating deep and meaningful change in this country takes time - years and sometimes decades.