Mike Gravel in National Public Radio

On Foreign Policy: With policy of "beggar thy neighbor," we all become beggars

A: I want to take you to task at your rhetoric about the tremendous increase in their defense. They're only 10% of American defense. They haven't had a tremendous increase. 10% of our defense. And I want to take all of the other candidates to task--because this amount of demagoguery about China is shameful. 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. 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 manipulations we do? What about the American companies that dump things abroad? What about the tariffs?

On Immigration: We're making a mountain out of a mole hill on immigration

A: 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. But we're making a mountain out of a mole hill.