Top 15 Mike Gravel Quotes

We're making a mountain out of a mole hill. We're creating laws. We're trying to deal with this. Deal with the obvious: We do not seem as a nation to be able to solve this problem the way we've been approaching it.

If we were to chase them out, aren't we playing to the nativists, the crazies, who are opposed to anybody coming in since they got here? And the media plays into this. The Congress plays into this. Just open our doors. When the jobs are there to be filled, they'll come in. If the jobs aren't there, they'll go home. We can deal with all these other problems in trade.

Hasn't it become obvious in this discussion that there has to be a reason why over the last 15 years we haven't solved this problem as a nation? Stop and think. Our unemployment level is about 4.5, and that's about as low as you can get it. So, where is the problem? We have to have people fill these jobs. They come in and fill these jobs. We call them illegal. Are they illegal? They're filling jobs that need to be done.

Because when you have a foreign policy that's beggar thy neighbor, we all become beggars. And so when they talk about the currency of China, what about the — what manipulations we do? What about the American companies that dump things abroad?

The tremendous increase in their defense. They're only 10 percent of American defense. They haven't had a tremendous increase. Ten percent of our defense. And I want to take all of them to task. Clearly, none of them are running for China — president of China — because this amount of demagoguery is shameful. Here, the Chinese people have a problem. And when we continue this rhetoric of beggar thy neighbor, where our interests always come first, there should be the interests of human beings, the interests of human beings.

Iran's not a problem, never has been, never will be. What you're seeing right here is something very unique, very courageous. What the intelligence community has done is drop-kicked the president of the United States. These are people of courage that have watched what the president is doing, onrush to war with Iran. And so by releasing this information, which is diametrically opposed to the estimate that was given in '05 by showing that there is no information to warrant what the White House has been doing, they have now boxed in the president in his ability to go to war. So, my hat is off to these courageous people within the bureaucrats — bureaucracy of the intelligence community.

I've advocated, people, follow the money if you want to find out what's going to happen after any one of these individuals are elected. Follow the money, because it's politics as usual is what you're seeing.

COOPER: How many people here a private jet or a chartered jet to get here tonight? GRAVEL: I took the train…

George Bush's oil war was a mistake. We need to stop killing Americans and Iraqis. Been around since the beginning of time. It's not a war. It should be a police action based on global intelligence. It's the most serious problem facing humanity today.

The Democratic Party used to stand for the ordinary working man. But the Clintons and the DLC sold out the Democratic Party to Wall Street. Look at where all the money is being raised right now, for Hillary, Obama and Edwards. It's the hedge funds, it's Wall Street bankers, it's the people who brought you what you have today. Please wake up. Just look at the New York Times of the 17th of July that analyzes where the money's coming from.

We don't need a minimum wage; we need a living wage. We don't have that in this country because of what they passed.

I am embarrassed at the thought of building a wall on the southern border. (Cheers, applause.) Embarrassed. And I want to tell you, you don't know the fence that's in Canada. You don't -- I just recently went to Canada. I went into Canada, it took me three seconds. Coming out took two hours. Two hours in line to get back into our country. Something is wrong. We need to stop scapegoating people. People come here because they want to feed their families because they're starving in other locations. We need a foreign policy that addresses the entire Western Hemisphere in this regard.

Totally. I think it's abominable that they go out and do these raids, separate families. (Applause.) Stop and think -- all these people want to do is earn enough money to feed their families, whether they send them money back home or they bring their families here. If we made it easier for them to go back and forth on the borders, you wouldn't have this problem.

Well, the first thing that you would do is to realize that terrorism is not a war. Our war on terrorism makes no sense. We've had -- (interrupted by applause) -- we've had terrorism since the beginning of civilization, and we'll have it to the end of civilization.

I'm first-generation American. My parents came here like many of your parents, and I spoke French before I could speak English as a child. And my parents carved out -- my dad was very humble, didn't have a third-grade education, but he was able to work and prosper in this country, and so I honor anybody that comes to this country as an immigrant, because we're all immigrants. There's been nobody else but the Indians in this great land.