Quotes from Richard Ojeda

We're not really a state. We're a colony. Everything we've ever had - timber, coal - it's all been extracted out of our state. Our people have been here and have worked in those industries, and they remained poor, but the people outside of our state that are the ones that come and get the timber, get the coal, have become billionaires.

I have been a Democrat ever since I registered to vote, and I'll stay a Democrat, but that's because of what the Democratic Party was supposed to be.

If I'm stone-cold crazy because I have a hard time going to sleep at night because we have kids that go to bed hungry, then I'll be stone-cold crazy, and I'm OK with that.

We have elected officials who say they're going to run for office to serve the people. But in reality, they legislate themselves into wealth. They go into office, and after one, two terms, they're worth millions upon millions of dollars, and that has to stop.

I'm saying right now that if you're going to serve this nation in a federal position, you need to start proving that you're willing to sacrifice first. I'm saying... that people are sick and tired of the millionaires running the system.

All Americans deserve to see, speak to, and hear from our candidates. No county is insignificant, no community too small, and each person's vote is important.

When I hear Ivanka Trump saying how she looks forward to working side by side with Gen. Kelly - a guy who's got 40 years' worth of experience leading troops all across the world - and she makes handbags, come on.

We got to fight to protect Social Security.

I'm a combat soldier.

If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu.

I come from a family of coal miners.

I'm not scared of the president of the United States. And I'm not scared to stand up against the president of the United States.

Unions have been under attack for quite some time, and I think a lot of the jobs that we need to create in this country need to be union jobs. People want to be able to get a job that they can rely on to feed their family and pay their bills.

I will strengthen our unions and our middle-class families so that no longer will they be pushed around by employers but will finally have a seat at the table.

I lived in a bubble: my whole entire military career where I thought that everything was perfect. And I thought that every time we went overseas and we fought for this country, we were doing it because we were trying to get other people a sliver of the greatness that we have here in the United States of America.

I know coal is dirty, but that's all we got. So as much as I'd love to have clean energy - solar panels everywhere - right now, all we have is coal. The people I love, and the people that I grew up with, that's their livelihood, and I don't want to see them starve.

It's so easy to steal from the bottom 99 percent, but try stealing from the top one percent, and they put you under the jail.

We always keep saying, 'We're the best, we're the best.' Other countries offer healthcare for their people. We don't, so how are we the best there? We've got poverty all over the place, and it's the haves and the have-nots, so how are we the best there?

I'm a stubborn individual.

I spent 24 years in the United States Army.

Stand up for our sick. Stand up for our veterans. Stand up for the elderly. Protect things like Social Security. Stop allowing people to stick their hands in the cookie jar. Create opportunities for people who live in poverty to elevate themselves out of poverty with a hand up, not a hand out. That's what being a Democrat is!

We need to take care of our veterans. If I'm going to send you away and break you, I'm going to fix you when you come home.

Where I come from, Big Pharma's the enemy.

The moment you start asking questions, you become public enemy number one.