Michael Bennet in June Democratic candidates debate in Miami FL

On Foreign Policy: Russian election interference is biggest geopolitical threat

On Government Reform: Overcome structural corruption in voting rights

Bennet: Gridlock will not magically disappear as long as Mitch McConnell is there. That's why it is important for us to win the Senate as well. We need to end gerrymandering. We need to overturn Citizens United. The attack on voting rights in Shelby v. Holder is something we need to deal with. We face structural problems that we have to overcome. We need to expand people's right to get to the polls.

On Government Reform: Change corruption in DC; restore relationships with allies

We've got to restore the relationships that he's destroyed with our allies, not just in Europe. When you've got a president who says something happened and the world doesn't know whether to believe it, that is a huge problem when it comes to national security.

On Health Care: Medicare for 35M; private insurance for the other 295M

Sen. Bernie SANDERS: Every other major country on Earth, including Canada, somehow has figured out a way to provide health care to every man, woman, and child.

Q: Senator Bennet, you want to keep the system that we have in place with ObamaCare [instead of Bernie's single-payer system]. Is that enough to get us to universal coverage?

BENNET: I believe that will get us the quickest way there. There are millions of people in America that do not have health insurance today because they make too much money to be on Medicaid [but] can't afford health insurance. When Senator Sanders says that Canada is single payer, there are 35 million people in Canada. There are 330 million people in the United States, the number of people on a public option could easily be 35 million. And for them, it would be Medicare-for-all. But for others that want to keep it, they should be able to keep it. And I think that will be the fastest way to get where we need to go.

On Immigration: Family separation more like Holocaust than Statue of Liberty

On Principles & Values: Socialist policies are like giving candy to voters

SANDERS: [Trump is trying] to throw 32 million people off their health care 83% of tax benefits go to the top 1%.

Q: [to Bennet]: You have said, "It's possible to write policy proposals that have no basis in reality. You might as well call them candy." Were you referring to any proposal in particular?

facing as a country is, 40 years of no economic growth for 90% of the American people; and we've got the worst income inequality that we've had in 100 years. Where I disagree is on his solution of Medicare for all. Health care is a right. We need to get to universal health care. I believe the way to do that is by finishing the work we started with ObamaCare and creating a public option. Bernie mentioned taxes that we would have to pay. Because of those taxes, Vermont rejected Medicare for all.

On Principles & Values: Improvement with each generation now at risk

On Principles & Values: Jewish mother survived Holocaust in Warsaw Ghetto

Yes, Bennet's mother, Susanne Christine Klejman, was born in the Warsaw Ghetto (where Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany imprisoned Polish Jews during WWII), in 1938. Her parents survived and she emigrated to America in 1950.

Bennet's father, Douglas Bennet, is a Christian. Under Jewish religious law, anyone born to a Jewish mother is automatically Jewish, including those with Christian fathers. Michael Bennet married his wife via an Episcopal priest, and says he believes in God, but observes neither Jewish nor Christian religious rituals.

On Tax Reform: Obama-Biden sequester made Bush tax cuts permanent

V.P. Joe BIDEN: We needed to be able to keep the government from shutting down and going bankrupt. I got Mitch McConnell to raise taxes $600 billion by raising the top rate.

Sen. Michael BENNET: The deal that he talked about with Mitch McConnell was a complete victory for the Tea Party. It extended the Bush tax cuts permanently. The Democratic Party had been running against that for 10 years. We lost that economic argument, because that deal extended almost all those Bush tax cuts permanently and put in place the mindless cuts that we still are dealing with today that are called the sequester. That was a great deal for Mitch McConnell. It was a terrible deal for America.