I am personally saddened and stunned by the tragic events that took place in Red Lake.
The New York Federal Reserve is a tool of the big banks.
The banks run the place.
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.
I've tried to maintain my independence in Congress. Sometimes that has meant opposing my own party leaders.
It appears to me that no one has learned a thing; that Wall Street is still operating as if 2008 never happened.
The use of methamphetamines has become pervasive in our country, and especially in rural areas.
The [Democratic] party's become an urban party, and they don't get rural America. They don't get agriculture.
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.
[Rural voters] have a different view of the world than people do in these urban centers.
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.
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.
What's happened is the Republicans have been smart.
Republicans have spent a lot of money redistricting and everything, getting control of these governorships and statehouses.
I always run ahead of the ticket [compared to Democratic presidential candidates]. But this time there were a lot of people that just voted party line, a lot more than usual.
[People] don't like the government telling them what to do or telling them how to live their lives.
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 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.
[People] think [the government is] coddling people, like when people's feelings are hurt at the colleges and they send somebody in to make them feel better. Stuff like that drives [voters here] crazy.
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.
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."
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 only thing I can think to do is if the Democratic Party can do what the Republicans have done, which is go in there and take control of these legislatures and governors' areas.
Try to un-gerrymander these districts so that you're not packing all the Democrats into one district, so you've got districts that are competitive, so that you've got a shot at electing Democrats. But that's more a long-term proposition, if it can even be done.
There's no question about it. If you look at the map, there's hardly any [Democrats representing rural districts]. There's me, [Rick] Nolan, [Tim] Walz, [Dave] Loebsack and Cheri Bustos. So that's five. And all the rest of them are in urban cities. That's a problem.
