The problem with the Democratic Party is, we're like, 'If we just get another presidential candidate in there, everything will be OK.' We should be focusing on school boards, city council races, state legislatures.

I always say, as a leader, you've got to know when to get out of the way.

I look forward to working with the White House in areas like infrastructure, where President Trump says he wants to spend a trillion dollars. Great - we'd love to start right here in Los Angeles.

Withdrawing federal funds to prevent radiological or biological terrorist attack - that doesn't just hurt Los Angeles: that hurts America.

I won't let anybody, even the most powerful person in this country, trample our values or our Constitution. And no matter who's in the White House, I am incredibly vigilant about that and will continue to fight that fight.

It is the responsibility, I think, of anybody in elected office to look for opportunities to help serve their people.

I have to spend my time worrying about poor families at the expense of helping businesses, or vice versa. To me, I really see that's the bridge I need to build.

I want to be high-profile with the average Angeleno. I want to be out there holding office hours on a curb in Boyle Heights.

I think our communication strategy has been very disciplined as being a back-to-basics mayor and about focusing on making City Hall work and jumpstarting our economy.

We need to make sure teachers are in schools and that children have teachers.

I'll never stop listening to police officers over politicians.

The questions that consume me, that keep me up at night, are the people that are sleeping on the streets.

Think about Kennedy. Think about Carter. Think about Clinton. Think about Obama. They've all been in their forties and from outside Washington, or underdogs in one way or another. I just think that Americans are looking everywhere, saying, 'Hey, show me some authenticity. Show me somebody who's practical. Show me people who run things.'

My grandfather was an undocumented immigrant. My great-grandmother, my bisabuela, carried him over the border in her arms.

On things like the minimum wage, where cities as well as states are increasingly looking at income disparity, mayors will have, I think, a very strong voice.

I have a piano in my office, and sometimes during meetings, I'll sit down and goof on the keyboard a little bit.

There are two rules in politics. They say never ever be pictured with a drink in your hand, and never swear.

Campaigns are these moments of suspended animation where people usually learn how to be friends afterward.

What I think the average person wants is not a fight; they want to see something move forward in their own neighborhood.

I don't live life with a ton of regrets.

I won't be a perfect mayor, but I will be the mayor of a great city.

Los Angeles is the strongest defender of immigrants perhaps of any city in this country.

I think poverty is the biggest challenge for Los Angeles and for many of our cities that have come back from the recession.

I think it's really important to talk education, to talk infrastructure, to talk good jobs and the future of work.

I don't think you can lead a nation if you don't have a definition of the nation. We have to define, as Democrats, what a nation is and embrace the entire nation.

People elect me to make sure the chief of police is the right chief of police. They elect me to make sure I have the right person running the airport.

I kind of believe that, whenever possible, you should finish the job that you set out to do.

You see as mayors and local officials our jobs are designed so we have more in common with our constituents than Washington politicians can ever have.

I'm not one of those politicians, to my probably discredit, who thinks very far ahead. It has to feel right to me and not be about a careful plot and plan.

I recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. And I have always recognized Jerusalem as the capital of the independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state that we all want to emerge from negotiations toward a true two-state solution.

The idea of red-washing or blue-washing an entire county because a few more people vote one way or the other does a disservice to the people who live there.

My main job and my overwhelming job starts with my family, my street, my neighborhood, and my city.

I'm an average American. As I joke, I'm the average Mexican American Jewish Italian mayor of the most diverse city in the world.

Resilience is distinct from mere survival, and more than mere endurance. Resilience is often endurance with direction.

Of course fear does not automatically lead to courage. Injury does not necessarily lead to insight. Hardship will not automatically make us better. Pain can break us or make us wiser. Suffering can destroy us or make us stronger. Fear can cripple us, or it can make us more courageous. It is resilience that makes the difference.

Our firefighters, they show up every day to fight fires. If, God forbid, there's a situation where they have to fight cancer, they shouldn't have to fight bureaucrats to get the care they deserve.

Ask yourself, how can I learn from the people around me. Often, your mentors are already in your life; you just haven't yet found a way to learn from them.

As the Obama administration negotiates with the Karzai government and with Pakistan, we may be tempted to make commitments that, in the name of nation-building, restrict our ability to fight terrorists. If we must involve the Afghan government in every night raid, our operations will slow and targets will escape.

Like the plague, opioids kill the young, the old, the healthy, the sick, the virtuous and the sinful.

For too long, Missouri has been run by career politicians, owned by corrupt consultants, high-paid lobbyists and special interests.

I was raised to stand up for the little guy, for working families and the middle class.

In failure, children learn how to struggle with adversity and how to confront fear. By reflecting on failure, children begin to see how to correct themselves and then try again with better results.

God has a way of helping you to move through suffering and actually become stronger.

You don't reduce crime by taking away guns from law-abiding citizens.

When vets come home from war they are going through a tremendous change in identity. Then the VA, and others, encourage them to view themselves as disabled.

Whenever we love or care for anything in our lives we're willing to respond with care and with compassion, but if something that we love or someone we love is threatened, we're also willing to respond with courage.

I think there are a couple of key lessons that come from Judaism that shaped my life. One of them is the idea we have a duty to repair the world, and all of us should play a role in our lives in trying to repair the world and to make the world better for the next generation.

The fact is, Missouri's budget is broken. For decades, insiders, special interests, lobbyists and prior politicians have made a mess of our budget.

After four tours of duty as a Navy SEAL officer, I came home from Iraq and watched the VA - the second-biggest bureaucracy in the country - fail my friends. The VA was broken and my friends were suffering. And yet, time and again, the only 'solution' I heard from liberals was to spend more money. It made me angry.

I actually think it's very important that the Navy SEAL community stay out of politics.