COLLIN C. PETERSON

It appears to me that no one has learned a thing; that Wall Street is still operating as if 2008 never happened.

It's time for us to keep better track of our livestock as they cross borders.

I've tried to maintain my independence in Congress. Sometimes that has meant opposing my own party leaders.

I am personally saddened and stunned by the tragic events that took place in Red Lake.

I think we are starting to get some information that will allow us to get to the bottom of this, and I hope we continue to work on this until we get to the bottom of it.

The use of methamphetamines has become pervasive in our country, and especially in rural areas.

The banks run the place.

I don't know how you change that. There's hardly anybody left like me in the Democratic Party in Congress. These districts have been so gerrymandered that, in most of them, a Democrat can't win. Somebody like me trying to start off today, he'd never get endorsed. Because I'm too conservative.

Some of the people in my caucus, some of the people in the state party in Minnesota have basically said, "We don't want to deal with these guys because they're too conservative," or "We don't agree with them on social issues."

There's no question that [Donald] Trump got elected because of rural America. And our party still is in denial. They don't get it.

[Bernie] Sanders tapped into that [trade issues]; that was part of his support. And then when he didn't make it, some of those Sanders people went to [Donald] Trump.

You can't have a majority party in Minnesota or throughout the country without [support from] the people in these [rural] districts. Given the position [the Democratic Party] has taken, it's very hard to see how you can do that.

The New York Federal Reserve is a tool of the big banks.

[Rural people] have a different lifestyle, and they don't want to change it. They're happy with the way things are. It's causing the party political problems.

[Rural voters] have a different view of the world than people do in these urban centers.

[People] don't like the government telling them what to do or telling them how to live their lives.

Pushing gun control drives people [in my district] crazy, gay marriage, abortion, deficit spending.All of that stuff adds up to be a problem for Democrats.

So [Republicans] packed all the Democrats into districts, very Democratic districts. What that's done is made our party urban, more liberal, and so those people are doing what their constituents want. But that's not what my constituents want.

I heard a lot about the Affordable Care Act, too. About how people in the individual market were getting clobbered with all these increases, which is a legitimate issue.

We [Democrats] have become a party of assembling all these different groups, the women's caucus and the black caucus and the Hispanic caucus and the lesbian-gay-transgender caucus and so forth, and that doesn't relate to people out in rural America.

You know what the economics are like in Red Lake County. There's no way a family can pay $15,000, $20,000 a year for health insurance and make it work. You just can't do it. It's got to change.

I agree with [Donald] Trump: These trade agreements have not been good deals for America, and they need to be fixed.

The [Democratic] party's become an urban party, and they don't get rural America. They don't get agriculture.

It was kind of interesting: [People] didn't really want to talk about it too much. And then after the election, it's kind of like they've been unleashed.

[Trade] was clearly a factor.That was a complete reversal of where things are normally at. Usually Republicans are all for free trade.